Analysis Of Business & Financial Performance Sample

1.2 Reasons for selecting Morrisons PLC

After selecting the topic for research analysis project the thing which was left was to select an organization for researching. For that purpose I had to analyze firstly which of the industry in UK generates revenues for the economy. On getting the findings it was discovered that retailing sector in UK is the dynamic sector and has a major contribution towards the economy. It is a source of employment, livelihood, and satisfaction for the people. Hence I decided to select the company from the retailing industry for the project. I want to work on a organization which is surrounded with high level of completion with other firms. After careful evaluation I decided to choose Next PLC for the research. Currently the organization is surviving with the changing market conditions hence it will be exciting to go with the company.

Marks and Spencer

Marks and Spencer (M&S) is a key British retailer Multinational which has its own headquarter in City of Westminster, London. The company specializes in the selling of home products, clothing, and luxury products of food. M&S was founded by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in 1884 at Leeds. The company became the first retailer of Britain to make a pre-tax profit over £ 1 billion in 1998. Subsequently the company went into slump which took its shareholders, including hundreds of thousands of small investors of the company and nearly all analysts of retail and journalists of business, by surprise. But the company came up quickly and steadily due its value driven business operations and activities that took company towards success (MARKS AND SPENCER Annual report 2013). Marks and Spencer is committed to delivering standards of quality excellently as well as consistently with a value aiming to be delivered exceptionally to its customers. Mission of company is to provide new quality products in clothing, food, home as well as financial services' areas and delivering of high quality goods. It offers affordable prices and this is also its aim in order to provide customers with good value for their money.

1.3 Aims & Objectives

The major aim of the study is to analyze the business and financial performance of the Morrisons PLC. It can be source of useful information for the potential and existing shareholders and stakeholders of the organization. For that following objectives are been laid down:

• To offer the shareholders of Morrisons an overview of the financial and business performance for making effective investment decisions
• To compare Morrison with the competitor Marks & Spencer plc. to evaluate performance, both financially and from business strategy perspective
• To recommend actions for improvements in business of the Morrisons.
• Hence for the achievement of the above objectives I applied the technique of ratio analysis to figure out the financial performance. I also used the financial and economics assignment information of the competitor so that effective comparison can be made between the two companies. On the other side for the purpose of the business analysis techniques of SWOT, PESTEL and PORTER were used. Hence it can be said that these methods and techniques will definitely help in analyzing the performance of the company efficiently.

PART 2 INFORMATION GATHERING AND ACCOUNTING/BUSINESS TECHNIQUES

There is no problem in obtaining the financial information and data for the project as Morrisons is a listed company in FTSE. For this study information is collected from the secondary sources.

2.1 Sources of Information

Financial statements
Audited financial statements are the great source of financial information through which the data can be used for the evaluation. Income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement were used to determine the financial ratios. These documents were compiled from corporate websites of both the organizations. Along with the statements of directors were also used to examine the business strategy with the results derived by the entity.

2.2 METHOD USED TO COLLECT INFORMATION

Databases

Databases such as FAME 2, ONESOURCE and RDS have been used in British Library.

Library

Acquiring information and facts from the online sources is not enough completely. To fulfil that it is essential to visit the library. There I used the company research journal, business and strategic analysis books. Libraries in college and residential areas and British library was visited frequently to gain the learning.

Miscellaneous research

It is important that to perform the research one should make use of authentic and reliable information sources. Online search engines were used to derive the financial information and business data for the related organizations and also I faced the difficulties in filtering out the valuable information from the data set. Some people believed that online source have the negative reputation because of the absence of reliability and validness. Keeping this into mind I tried to maintain the ethical framework throughout the study and data is gathered from trustable sources. Hence in order to fulfill this information is taken from the official websites of the company. Meaningful outcomes have been made from the facts provided by the directors. Information through the internet is the most common technique of grasping the knowledge in the research analysis project.

Reflective statement

The project was about the analysis of business and financial performance of the Morrisons. The learning from the project was the assessing the criteria for the selection of the organization. The objective of the project was to provide the overview on the financial performance of the Morrisons and the comparative analysis of the organization. From the comparison of the skill of the analysis has been enhanced for providing the qualitative information to the shareholder of the organization. For the determination of the purpose of the business the techniques are applied of SWOT, PESTEL and PORTER for efficiency in the analysis and making it more purposeful. The information of the research of the selected entity in the project is done from the published audited financial statement of the organization, printed and online articles about the organization and the books are referred. For the qualitative research the primary data is utilized and limited secondary data is utilized. The limitation of the secondary is because the data is modified according to the user, so data is relatively less authentic comparative to the primary data. For the financial analysis of the organization and for the better presentation the figures and the trends are represented through the graphs. The comparison for the financial information is done with organization M & S simultaneously with the data of the previous years. The simultaneous comparison makes it easy for the user especially the share holders to take decision about the investment whether to hold or to take out the fund from the organization. Evaluation of the market position is done to determine the growth and the market share captured by the firm. It includes the description of the strategies adopted by the Morrisons for the expansion of the business and the success by the adoption of those policies.

References

• Ahrendsen, B.L. and Katchova, A.L. 2012. Financial ratio analysis using ARMS data. Agricultural Finance Review. 72(2). pp.262-272.
• Argouslidis, C. P., 2008. Determinants of the speed of elimination decision making in financial services. Journal of Services Marketing. 22(3). pp.237 - 254.
• Arnold, G., 2005. Corporate Financial Management. 3rd ed. Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
• Atrill, P. and McLaney, E., 2008. Accounting and Finance for Non-Specialists. 6th ed. Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
• Bragg, M. S., 2010. Accounting Best Practices. 6th ed. John Wiley & Sons.
• Brigham, F. E. and Ehrhardt, C. M., 2011. Financial Management: Theory and Practice. 8th ed. Cengage Learning.

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