Research and development Essay

The Human resource management department of the business is responsible for the hiring and firing of the staff that work in Boots PLC outlet stores and any other jobs that are related to the company. Their main aim to make sure that there is the right amount of workers in the specified place at the right time in order to contribute to the maximum output that the staffing effort can help towards. The hiring and firing is very important as it makes sure that the right people are hired for the job that are in appropriate situations to fulfill vacancies. On the other hand however the firing is just as important. If staff are not pulling their weight or are incapable of carrying out the jobs they are meant to they may be fired. Also if there is no need for all staff then they may be laid off. This is a way of maximizing profits as less go on output of wages which is a great percentage of the businesses output. The HRM is also responsible for the training of staff. It is their responsibility to make sure that all staff is fully trained for the job they are employed for. These increases the customer reliability and satisfaction as when staff are asked questions they will hopefully know they answers and also that they are capable of approaching customers comfortably and in a good fashion. This adds to customer satisfaction and this is important to Boots it is also one of their objectives listed previously in the report. HRM are responsible for forecasting labour amounts and the amount of man power that will be needed at different times of the day week and year. If manpower is low in rush hours or periods such as Christmas then the company may not reach its maximum out put through mistake of their own. Staff receives appraisals when they work for Boots. This lets them know if the business is happy with them and if they are considered a valued member of the work force. The appraisals are again responsibility of the HRM department and they help to maximize business by insuring workers are reaching their full potential within in the business. Boots recently proposed to train up 7000 people to become more knowledgeable about technology so that the business will benefit from this. Boots PLC also employ a further 45% of their workforce on top of their usual numbers to help in outlet stores over Christmas period with tills, stock rotation and demonstrations. This shows the business has been planning the workforce amounts according to potential times of increases in demand. This area of the business can be very economical and save the business money when it comes to hiring and firing staff. This is however also very beneficial to the staff also. When jobs in the business become available instead of employing new staff they promote current staff. This saves money as described in management styles later on. The HRM area of the business works towards the organization and in turn globalization objective of the business. The statement of â€Å"we aim to develop staff and provide them with the right skills and attitude in order to achieve the organizations goals† suggests that it be aimed at all the objectives of the business, which will reflect on the globalization and expansion conclusively. The fact that more staff was hired acts on the objective of improving customer satisfaction as more staff means that there are more hands to deal with the tasks needed which leaves more staff to be available to help customers and aid them with their shopping needs. The Marketing section of the business is responsible for satisfying customers needs at the right prices and once again as in Boots objective consumer satisfaction. To do this the marketing section of Boots PLC is responsible for researching what the target markets want and interpreting what their future needs would be and how they will change. They persuade the customer to buy products by advertising. They either increase awareness by advertising to all on TV or radio, or advertise specifics. These include in store adverts for particular products, which they make the customer, think they need. Free demos of some products also help to draw in custom and Boots does this in its make-up and its perfume range where there is always trained staff available to recommend and advice. The marketing aspect of the business has lead to the birth of the Boots Advantage Card. Boots customer services is an outstanding department as they have been able to established customer loyalty by the use of this Advantage card. Referring back to Boots objectives the wish to increase customer loyalty is proven as the Advantage Card is used by more than 70% of all key customers. Boots objectives on marketing were to increase promotion and stature by globalization. This has been attempted by opening several firms in Taiwan. A strategy that separated them from their competitors and attracted thousands of consumers over the Christmas period was the three for two-mix and match strategy which was introduced after a market research poll into marketing strategies return the mix and match as a popular suggestion. This was reflected by the feedback it returned. It is very important to be able to forecast and predict what will happen to the market. In order for a company to success in the long term it must have an idea of where it is going. One of the best ways to do this, which also show the success of the business, is to look at its accounts. This will show if there is a gradual increase or decrease in profit and it will show what products sell, how they sell and in what quantity are they likely to still be required as the majority of tangible inessential goods reach saturation point and are no longer needed. The finance section of the business is the area that looks after the accounts and the money flow forecasting. The Financial area of the business makes sure all the finances of a business are properly recorded. This involves keeping detailed accounts either manually or on a computer of all the money that comes in, and how it comes in to the business and how and where it goes out. The financial information is used by Boots and published in the yearly reports to show how the business is getting on. Boots PLC uses computer technology to record all the information and trained staff regularly analyzes it to spot correlation in output or product relationships. This is done to try and find out where Boots could benefit from altering the market and changing product ranges or increasing product base. This section of the business is also capable of raising finance when the business needs to raise capital for an investment or expansion. There is only a small aspect of the objective system that it appears the financial function touches on. This is the objective to act towards modernization. Boots keeps its financial records in the form of computer files as apposed to storing them manually. This shows that Boots keeps up with the development of technology, which was a specific objective. This shows that an objective has been worked towards and met which has been beneficial as now the financial function is a lot less time consuming in storing data and retrieving it. Although there is always more problems with modern technology it is likely that in the long run it is less time consuming. Production is another one of the functional areas but as there is little that Boots actually produce due to the fact that they are in the tertiary sector this function does not really affect them. The only way it does affect them is that Boots must keep in touch with the production (secondary industry) business to ensure that they can meet the demands that they need in order to increase customer satisfaction. Coinciding with this the staff at Boots must check produce that is received from the production companies to make sure it is correct. This section does not really affect any objectives that the business has directly. However indirectly it does regard the objective of wishing to increase the proportion of their own brand. There is little evidence I can provide of this objective been carried out but they do have their own cosmetic range that goes by the name of No7. This appears to have been doing very well. The main cogs of the business are the Administration section. This keeps the day to day workings of the business going. Again these are skilled staff trained in their field and Boots pride them selves on the level of training and standards that their staff operates to. The administration maintains the business premises and equipment and if anything goes wrong they are responsible for fixing it of finding someone to do so. Anyone who works for Boots doing photocopying, printing (stationary jobs) catering, computer services, data storage, all these types of jobs come under the job description of Administration. As boots is expanding it is relying less on its own workers to carry out some of these tasks and it calls in people from out side the business, this is called ‘outscoring’, these people are usually found by the administration team. The administrative function as it is a necessity in the business and keeps it flowing hardly relates as a contribution to any objective at all. The only objective I can see that the administrative function applies to id the modernization of the company. This is due to the fact that in order for the administration staff to act efficiently they need to be modernizing as technology such as computers develops. This will benefit all areas of the business. As the target markets demands are forever changing and new fashions are coming in and the months of the years come in and out the products that Boots supply are always changing. It is hard to keep on top of the supply for goods, as there are so many aspects that alter the product demands it is hard to be aware of where they will go next. The research and development of the business is responsible for trying to find out where to go next. They keep the other parts of the business informed about changes as much as they can. This is a main part of the marketing for the business. The research and development sector look at sales figures, accounts, customer trends and spending and try and deduct where the majority of the money goes and also where it doesn’t. They do not look to replace products all the time but also to look for new products that would be beneficial to bring into the product range to increase sales or attract new business. It was the idea of the research and development of Boots to open the optician section of the business, as this was an area that they had not yet spread into and would be beneficial. The people in the research and development part of boots also look at other businesses and see how they operate, what they sell and how much they charge. All this contributes to the smooth running of the business. As Boots main objective is to produce a well-established firm that caters for the consumers needs research and development is a major part of decision making. Diversification is also reliant on this department as in order to diversify research needs to be carried out to find out which areas it would be beneficial to divert into in respects of the customers and the company as a whole. Boots has got a large research and development department. The paragraph below shown what affects the research and development has had on the company’s expansion. â€Å"The first Health and Beauty Experience store opened in Kensington High Street in September this year. It moves Boots into new areas of the expanding health and beauty market. Services include physiotherapy, osteopathy, homeopathy, herbalism, aromatherapy, reflexology and nutrition. These sit alongside beauty services including facials massage, false tan, ear piercing, pedicure, manicure, nail bars, and make-overs, plus lifestyle advice on weight management, smoking, sleep management, relaxation and stress management. All combine to offer a total wellbeing offer. † This paragraph gives list of some of the new products and services that have been introduced. These expansions in the business would not have been the result if research and development had not taken place. This shows that research and development has also contributed to the firm expanding, which was another objective of Boots.