Business at work — страница 10

stores to provide a consistently high level of customer service. Tesco products are sent to stores from distribution centres around the country. Tesco runs 13 centres and a further six centres are run for Tesco by contractors. A typical centre covers 300,000 square feet and handles some 50 million units a year. The centres work around the clock, seven days a week, providing 2,500 deliveries daily, amounting to 19 million cases per week. Tesco employs 6,800 people in distribution (excluding the staff at the contractor-run centres), and has about 1,000 tractor units and 2,000 trailers in its national vehicle fleet. The Operations department, directed by David Potts, responsible for operations of Tesco stores in Northen Ireland & the Republic of Ireland. In May 1997, Tesco

completed an agreement with Associated British Foods to purchase all their supermarkets in the north and south of Ireland. The purchase price was £641 million, giving Tesco a further 110 food stores and a leading position as a food retailer on both sides of the Irish border. I have considered each of the major functions of Tesco separately. However, it is the effective interaction of business functions that is essential to the success of an organisation in attaining its objectives. As an example, Tesco has recently introduced a customer-oriented website on the Internet. Company has developed within this service facility a direct order system via E-mail – called “Tesco Direct”. Customers can order their produce/product for home delivery. There are now many thousands of such

deliveries but these all depend upon the successful interaction of the major business functions outlined earlier. In other word, - Marketing - responding to the initial enquiry, receiving and processing an order, distributing the product to customer. Administration – adding the customers details to the IT system, passing on details to other departments within the business. Finance – investigating the financial status of the customer, offering credit terms if appropriate, invoicing for payment. Distribution – receiving details of order and meeting the customer’s demands, liasing with marketing over delivery dates, rescheduling other production as required. Human resources – at a store or warehouse level – ensuring sufficient employees are available to meet the delivery

requirements of the order, arranging overtime payments if necessary. Hence these functions help meet the objectives successfully. All Tesco’s organisation structure works as links of a chain, if one link falls down, all the organisation will experience difficulty. For example, most important department of Tesco, I consider, is Distribution department. If this department fails, products will not be delivered to the store, so customers will go to another store. Tesco’s success is built on the good work of each department. E4 Organisational structure In many small firms, the owner may have a very hands-on approach and may be responsible for getting customers, hiring any extra labour and acquiring other inputs and taking all financial decisions. As organisations grow, however,

their structure takes on a greater significance and those at the top have to pay more attention to its formal structure and presentation. The various business functions will show an increasing degree of specialisation as an organisation expands and people will be employed to manage and take decisions in specialist areas. In general, an organisational structure sets out: Major roles and job titles, showing who is in control of the business as a whole and who manages its major business functions within departments. The level of seniority of people holding different positions and their respective positions in the organisation’s overall hierarchy. The working relationships between individuals, identifying relationships in terms of superiors and their subordinates and indicating who

has authority to take certain kinds of decisions and who are responsible for carrying out the work arising from those decisions. The extent to which decision making is concentrated in the hands of people at or near the top of the organisation or handed down to those at lower levels of management. The broad channels through which information is communicated throughout the organisation, indicating the route by which instructions flow down the hierarchy and how information flows back up the hierarchy. Organisational charts Organisational charts are representations of the job titles and the formal patterns of authority and responsibility in an organisation. Business may produce organisational charts for several reasons. First, it is important that a company reviews its organisational