Analysis Of External Business Environment Of Greyhound: Strategic Management

Overview of the company

The report brings about the discussion on the topic of the assignment, ‘strategic management’, and the related aspects and concepts in the contemporary organisation.  Strategic management is the concept which includes the continuous planning, monitoring, and assessment of the important aspects which are essential to meet organisational goals and objectives. These aspects include environmental scanning, SWOT analysis, Porter’s five forces, and strategy formulation, and implementation, analysis of competitiveness of the firms in the market. Strategic management is an important part of organisation, and leads to support to the growth and success of organisation in the future. The report is an analysis of the company, Greyhound a 100% Irish based family owned company includes the description of the external environmental forces and the competitive environment, leading to the challenges and opportunities in the industry. The assessment of the company in respect to the external environment and the key performance areas will help to determine the sustainability of the firm in the long-run. Thus, it can be stated that through the later part of report the readers will gain an understanding about the advice/recommendations for the organisation to enhance performance and attain competitive edge over other companies in the market.

Greyhound is 100% Irish family owned company, based in Clondalkin, Dublin Ireland the business has been involved in dealing with the waste management sector, and the recycling business for over 40 years in Ireland. The business was started years back with one truck, by their father Bernard Buckley to work with ambition and succeed in future. The company is found to be involved in recycling and waste management practices aiming towards delivering the best services and value to the customers.  The business operations of the company has now expanded between the household and commercial departments, and operating 30 vehicles and providing services to more than 120000 customers within Dublin.

To discuss about the waste management sector, it has been found that waste management deals with the activities handling waste materials and according to the research the rates of recycling has been dramatically increased since the year 1990s. The Irish Waste Management Association (IWMA) has been established as a trade association for the waste management companies in Ireland. The members of the association undertakes the responsibility of collecting 75% of the waste in Ireland and the vast bulk of the commercial and other hazardous wastes that may harm the sustainability of the environment (Dobbs, 2014).

Waste management continues to be a major issue for the policy makers in Ireland and the EU. According to the findings, it has been found that waste management in Ireland has been greatly improved past two decades, and about 92% of the waste has been allocated to landfill few years back, which has been reduced to 42% in 2013. Moreover, the country is still facing challenges despite the progress, in meeting the waste management targets determined by EU policy (Kumar, Holuszko and Espinosa, 2017).

To discuss the general business environment of the company it can be stated that the company has been effective in delivering valuable services to the customers and value for the betterment of the individuals, and society.

Analysis of General Business environment

Business environment in context to any organisation constitutes all the factors, i.e. external and internal that affects the functioning of the business and working of their employees, customers, management, supply and demand of the business. In this part, there is a description of the external business environment which includes the outside factors which impact the operations of any firm operating in the market. It includes two types of environment, macro environment, and micro environment factors. The report discusses about the political, economic, technological, legal, social, and environmental factors (Dinh and Nguyen, 2018).

Political and legal environment – To discuss about the political and legal environment, it has been found that the businesses are closely related to the government. The political philosophy and the aspects of government influence the working of the business firms in the market to a great extent. It mentions that what type of government policies or leadership affects the decision-making of the organisation. Therefore, the political factor of external analysis of business environment consists of all the policies, tax laws, and other trade tariffs prevailing in the country (Gregson et al., 2016).  

Economic factors- It includes all the determinants and factors in the economy which includes inflation rates, exchange rates, monetary or fiscal policies, affecting the imports and exports within the country.

Social factors include those environmental forces which vary from country to country as per the choices and preferences of the individuals and groups. It has been analysed that each country is unique, thus they have different preferences towards the products and services offered to them by businesses, and therefore, it impacts the sales and growth of the companies in a different manner.

Technological factors- In the modern era, it has been found that technology is one of the major factors that influence the businesses and their long-term growth and sustainability. Thus, businesses must organise themselves in a manner to adapt to the new advancements, and changes in the external environment to maintain competitive edge over other firms in the market (Byrne and O’Regan, 2014).

Environmental factors play an important role in determining the growth and sustainability of any organisation in the future. The environmental factors influence the working of the organisation, and their performance as geographic location, climate, and weather are the factors which lead to long-term sustainability of corporations. Thus, the above factors describes about the analysis of external business environment affecting the working of the organisations operating in the market (Scott, 2017).

In the country Ireland, there are several drivers and challenges which have impacted the investment decisions in the economy. Ireland is the net exporter country, thus the economic growth of the company is based upon majorly on their exports to other countries. It states about the political and economic stability of the organisation. Thus, Pestle analysis describes about the factors which influences the waste management businesses like Greyhound, in their working (Finnegan et al., 2017).

Political	The political factors which affect waste management businesses, in Ireland includes Political stability and importance of waste management sector in the economy, bureaucracy, trade and tariffs, anti-trust laws, industrial safety guidelines, pricing regulations, intellectual property protection, employee benefits and several others. In context to Greyhound, it has been analysed that there is significantly less impact of the political or governmental forces on the working of the company. In Ireland, waste management policies have been established over years that focus on reducing the waste and the impact on the people living in community (Davies, 2016). Waste management strategy: Changing our ways, has been introduced and implemented in Ireland, which outlines a clear commitment towards reducing the dependency on the landfill as the route of primary waste disposal (Tencati et al., 2016). With the introduction of this policy in Greyhound, several small and well-designed landfills have been developed to manage the landfills for the receipt of residual waste. In Ireland the standard VAT is 30%, which impacts the importers and customers of the greyhound, making them liable to bear the custom duties, which create a high burden on their economic life (De Bercegol et al., 2017).
Economic	The macro environment factors such as inflation rate, savings rate, exchange rate, economic cycles determines the aggregate demand and supply of the aggregate investment in the economy. Ireland follows the mixed economy system (da Cruz et al., 2014). The company Greyhound, has well-trained and skilled workforce in the industry, but analysing about the packaging cost, it has been found that packaging does not provide protection at the lowest cost per unit. In addition, there is a little imbalance between purpose packaging and the presentation of the product. This affects the demand and supply investment of the company in the market of Ireland (Josefy et al., 2015).
Social	Analysing about the social environment, of the company Greyhound, it has been analysed that Irish business culture is very flexible, and people are focused towards making improvements in their strategies as per the changes in the external environment.
Technological	The technological factors are important, in the waste management businesses like Greyhound; these include factors such as impact on cost structures in waste management industry, impact on value chain structure, and others. Greyhound implemented an effective active system that demonstrates the commitment for the continuous evaluation and improvement of the vehicles.
Legal	The legal framework and institutions define about the legal business environment of any country, to protect the intellectual rights of an organisation. Greyhound adheres to all the laws, and other practices such as discrimination law, employment law, and considers them in their working.
Environmental	Different countries have different norms or environmental standards that impact the performance and profitability of the organisation. These environmental factors such as weather conditions, risk to soil, water, air, temperature, and others. Greyhound and other waste management businesses in Ireland states that the soils in Ireland are in good condition, and the company follows a global environmental policy which will protect and foster the practices of management of waste carried out by the company (Mukhtar, Williams and Shaw, 2018).

Thus, the major key drivers analysed from the above discussion for change in this aspect may include the political stability, freedom of speech, better environmental conditions, innovations and impact of new technology and other advancements (Rosca, Arnold and Bendul, 2017).

PESTLE Analysis

To discuss about the competitive environment of greyhound it can be stated that the company enjoys a competitive sustainable position in the Irish market. The performance of the company Greyhound, will be analysed and measured against the Porter’s five forces analysis, which includes five forces which shape the strategy includes Threat of new entrants, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat from substitute products, rivalry among the existing players. Porter’s five forces analysis is a strategy which defines about the competitiveness of the firm, as the new firms entering the industry affect the operations of the business (Bell, Bryman and Harley, 2018).

The buyers or ultimate consumers in the waste management industry are the recycling factories, who require the best quality waste which is available to them. To obtain the high quality waste, it is essential that the whole chain must function efficiently. As each chain is the buyer and at every stage, it has been discovered that the quality of the recovered recyclable waste improves and if the process does not function effectively, then the buyer’s demands for the superior quality waste will reduce. The reduced buyer’s demands will hamper the process chain of the company Greyhound, in the long-run. Thus, greyhound and other such recycling businesses has a moderate buyer bargaining power, which states about the increasing demand as they want to buy the best services offered to them (Iaquinto, 2015).

Rivalry amongst the existing competitor’s increase and become intense when the prices of the products decreases and it ultimately leads to the reduction of profitability of the industry. Waste management companies operate in a very competitive industry, which requires effective business strategies to succeed in the future.  Bargaining power of suppliers in Greyhound states that the suppliers are aware of the higher demands and the changing preferences of the customers and accordingly they make changes in the prices of the products (Mathooko and Ogutu, 2015).

Suppliers in the waste management companies like Greyhound refer to those people who are engaged in segregating, recovering, improving and making supplies of the recyclable items. Greyhound suppliers use their negotiating power to extract higher prices from the different firms in the Waste management field. It has been found that there are many firms in this industry which depicts about the low bargaining power of suppliers in Ireland have led to lower the overall profitability of the firm in the longer period (Singlitico, Goggins and Monaghan, 2018).

To discuss about the threat of substitute products and services, it has been analysed that the company requires dry recyclable waste that typically consists of plastic, paper, glass, and metal. In the future the individuals and the organisations may switch and change their lifestyle and other practices to greener lifestyle that may minimise the occurrence of overall waste and thus, it will further reduce the dry recyclable waste. It has been analysed that Greyhound enjoys a competitive edge over other firms in the industry; however, it has the scope to improve practices and enhance performance in the future years. Hence, the above forces of porter relates to the waste management and recycling businesses like greyhound and other in the Ireland, discussing about their position in the market (Charter, 2017).

Analysis of Competitive environment

From the above analysis of the report which discussed the forces of external business environment and the competitiveness of the company, Greyhound it has been understood that there are some of the issues in the management of waste and recycling in the country which may affect their long-term sustainability and competitiveness amongst other firms in the market. Thus, certain advices or recommendations are mentioned in this respect are primarily for the customers and the organisation. Customers must gain awareness about not purchasing heavily packaged goods and they must follow practice of ‘pre-cycling’ before making the purchase from the stores. It states that customers of Greyhound must check the product before purchasing, and the products can be easily re-used. As it has been found that Ireland is contributing around 33% of the waste or rubbish which has impacted the management of waste, and affecting the community. Thus, it could be stated that the company must revise their policies for environmental sustainability, focusing on improving packaging of the products, leading to effective management of waste, and recycling in the country leading to the long-term sustainability in the future years.

Conclusion 

To conclude the above discussion it has been analysed that waste management and recycling are the essential activities which leads to better management of waste from the inception to the final   disposal. The activities of waste management includes the collection, transport, treatment and disposing of the waste which leads to effective regulation of waste management process. The report above mentioned about Greyhound and their practices for recycling, or waste management describing about the general business environment, i.e. pestle analysis and the competitive environment of the company in the market  of Ireland. Thus, it can be stated from the above analysis that Greyhound has although attained competitive sustainable position and it can improve their performance leading to bigger success in future.

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