Introduction
Adaptation of proper marketing strategies has a great impact on the successful running of a company (Aaker and Moorman, 2023). In this discussion, the significance of the analysis of the internal environment of any company will be demonstrated, aligning with theories on management and leadership. John Lewis and Next Plc will be selected here to understand the impacts of the operations and structure on these entities. Along with this, the discussion will also consist of the effect of the macro and micro economy on the national economy and organisational behaviour of the selected companies. How these organisations address the global challenges will also be included in this discussion.
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Task 1
Identification of two different types of organisations, their stakeholders, and structures
John Lewis PLC
John Lewis PLC, is a British departmental retail chain, founded in the year 1864 by John Lewis. The company operates its business in the entire UK and is present in nearly 52 locations. As per the financial report of the year 2024-2025, the revenue of this company was 11.1 billion GBP, which is an increase of 3% from the previous year (Johnlewispartnership.co.uk, 2025). John Lewis PLC is a private company that operates through a partnership strategy. The foundation of this company is its employee trust. The purpose of the operations of this company is to maintain a sustainable and successful retail business and promote a force for good commitment. Its mission is to build customer trust and create an environment to respect the diversity, whereas the vision of this company is to develop as the most inclusive entity in the entire UK. Wastages and climate change put pressure on this organisation, and the closing of 16 outlets, resulting in more than 500 million GBP financial loss, was borne by this entity after the COVID-19 situation (Reuters, 2021). Key stakeholders of this company are such as customers, employees or partners, and the local community, who have different needs that influence most to this entity to improve its performance.
Next Plc
As per the legal structure, this entity belongs to a public limited company and is listed on the LSE or London Stock Exchange. The company operates in both online and its 500 retail outlets in the UK and another 70 countries, and its purpose is to develop the most profitable ways for its partners (Londonstockexchange, 2025). To deliver exceptional services to the people is the vision of this company, whereas making it an attractive choice for the audience is its mission. Online growth, profitability, shareholders’ values, responsible sourcing, and customer services are the objectives of this company. Waste management, carbon footprint, and sourcing of raw materials are some of these give environmental challenges for this company.
Volatility in the supply chain management and their activities, increase in the operational costs, decrease in the footfall in the physical outlets, and shifting of the business channels are the inefficiencies, that this entity has encountered in the post-pandemic situation. The influence of one of its key stakeholders' employees is observed in the context of the inclusion of the Equality Act 2010, in the company activities (Legislation.gov.uk, 2025). On the other hand, to fulfil the needs of other stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, inventors, and the government, it improves its services as well as incorporates some legal infrastructure.
Digitisation and its outcome on the organisations
John Lewis PLC
In the current situation, the digital environment poses significant impacts on the operations, structure, decision-making power, workforce management, and other aspects through its IoT, e-commerce, networking, collaboration, and similar other strategies. With the inclusion of these advanced technologies, this entity focuses on the adaptation of the cross-functional organisational structure, combining with IT, customer services, operations, and marketing. It makes decisions with the help of the data-driven strategies, which enables to analysis of the previous information and patterns and makes a decision based on this.
The e-commerce strategies give advantages to this selected company to streamline the operations in an agile form. This helps in the reduction of the manual errors, make high values, as well as sustain faster responsive strategies (Plathottam et al., 2023). Additionally, in the context of the improvement in the work force activities and working style adaptation of these digitalised strategies provides significant benefits. The collaborative working style enables the staff to cope up with the environment and co-operate with the team members to deliver a successful outcome. To help the employees adapt to this digital strategy or provide training to them, which develops their skills and encourages the marketing strategies.
Next Plc
The impacts of IoT, networking, collaboration, e-commerce, and other digital strategies help Next Plc, to transform its business structure, with the intention for the development of the customer services as well as the operational efficiency. Furthermore, it also includes a real-time visualisation strategy to strengthen the supply chain activities as well as transfer the business operations to an automated mode. In the organisational structure, the impact of these digitalised platforms is observed in the promotion of the business activities through the Omni-channel process, to provide a seamless customer journey (Lehrer and Trenz, 2022). It also develops its team work through the agile format to attain a rapid responsive strategy and make the organisation through the data-centric format.
E-commerce, big data analytics, and IoT help to initiate real-time tracking in the supply chain operations, track the items, and reduce costs and any risks. The automation activities in this company lead to 24/7 customer services as per their preferences and improve the ware house activities as well. In the decision-making process, an AI tool, a data-driven strategy, helps to input the real-time information to forecast the risks and the customer preferences and develop strategic decisions for the company. Remote and flexible working style, cyber security, and collaboration techniques are included in the development of the working style in this company through these digital strategies.
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Explanation of management and leadership theory, and the challenges in the chosen companies
Behavioural Management Theory
This is also recognised as the Human Relations Theory, which focuses on the contributions and aspects of the human involved in the company activities (Chelladurai and Kim, 2022). These are such as the working style, motivation, behaviours, requirements, dynamics in the team work, and others. Furthermore, the psychological and social aspects are also incorporated in this aspect, like in the improvement of the productivity of a company, employee satisfaction plays a key role. The principles of this theory are such as emphasise on the people, group dynamics, motivation, psychological and social factors, behaviours, management style, and others.
Contingency Leadership Theory
According to this theory, there is no single leadership strategy, that is effective in every situation. It provides the idea that, to get effectiveness, the leaders have to adopt proper strategies as per the situational demand. This provides the idea that the leaders play a flexible strategy to adapt to any situation, which helps to assess the situational demand and adjust their leadership style accordingly. There are some factors that influence the adaptation of a proper leadership style are such as the structure of the organisation, tasks, relations with their followers, and others (Jaroliya and Gyanchandani, 2022). These leadership approaches help to deliver creative works, address the crisis situation, and others.
Leadership challenges for John Lewis PLC
To align the leadership with the contemporary business framework, this entity faces some issues such as management of the employee-owned business, adapt to the competitive and rapid changing business environment, and others. However, to address the disruption in the international market, it can follow a situational leadership style, for the development of the economic structure. It can include contemporary approaches and others. Being a renowned company, it also includes strategic management approaches in its activities and gets benefits from this. For example, in the adaptation of the e-commerce first strategy, the entity incorporates digital platforms in the purchasing or in the payment systems to deliver a seamless customer experience and shopping habits.
Leadership challenges for Next Plc
Next Plc faces a significant leadership challenge, in the running of the business in the economic changes, and technological changes. Along with manage a diversified work force, engage the employees, as well as adaptation of the complex organisational structure, are also included in this (Holbeche, 2023). To address the situation and align the activities as per the modern theoretical approaches, the company can follow the VUCA approaches, such as volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. It helps to incorporate flexibility in the strategic management activities and gain competitive advantages. Next pay in the financial techniques, Next to assess the requirements of the customers, is effective in the strategic management process for this company to develop its brand significance.
Global issues and impact on the chosen entities
In this context, global issues two global issues have been selected, such as ethical decision-making and cultural diversity, which present significant challenges for the chosen company. In the working environment of John Lewis Plc, a deficiency in the management of diversity has been observed among the leaders. However, with the help of a democratic structure, this company can attain success in addressing these issues and make efficient decisions (Butler and Wood, 2025). Additionally, in the areas of ethical decision making, the company faces the issues in the compliance with climate change, animal rights, human rights, and others. To resolve these challenges, it started a code of practices, reporting on human rights, animal welfare, along with sustainability guidelines.
It faces challenges in the cultural diversity, which impacts its operations, work place activities, and international presence, and others. Management of gender equity in the workplace also leads to the global challenges for this company, along with raising the customer base, and attracting the global workforces. In order to address this issue, it develops initiatives such as the promotion of an inclusive environment and sustain cultural diversity. In the ethical decision-making process, it also faces criticism, such as sustain moral awareness, which impacts its logistics operations as well. With the help of strategies like acting responsibly and trading ethically structure, the company gets advantages to address these issues.
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Task 2
Macroeconomics and Microeconomics and their impacts
Microeconomics
In the analysis of the internal environment of any company, swot analysis is used, whereas in the assessment of the competitive environment, Porter’s five forces is applied. Based on the strengths and weaknesses of the company, it develops strategies to grab the opportunities as well as address threats. In Porter's five forces, through these five factors, the strength of those of the company is assessed and helps to develop proper techniques. These two frameworks influence both of the companies towards understanding their internal environment as well as their competitive environment, which fosters them to make or pursue marketing strategies to gain competitive advantages.
Macroeconomics
Both of the two chosen companies are influenced by the macro-economic factors, and their impacts are observed in market structure, supply and demand, monetary policies, circular flow of income, economic framework, and others. In this context, it is observed that it follows an oligopoly organisational structure, where circular flow of income is observed (Webster, 2021). On the other hand, it is observed that Next Plc operates in a monopolistic competitive environment, and corporation tax and income tax are included in the monetary and fiscal policy. To resolve the scarcity, of the economic problems, it can introduce a third-party or label business and consider suitable decisions.
Conclusion
This discussion has focused on analysing the implications of different factors on the successful operations of any company. These factors are such as internal environment as well as external factors, which also give competitive edges in the business. Next Plc and John Lewis plc have been selected in this discussion to analyse the aforementioned factors. The impacts of the organisational structure, stakeholder involvement in these companies, digitalised instruments and strategies, have been included here. Furthermore, this discussion has also been conducted on behavioural management and contingency leadership theory, along with the leadership challenges in these companies and their removal strategies. The macro and micro environments of these companies, global challenges, and their overcoming strategies have been developed in this discussion.
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