British Airways and HM Prison Business Activities

British Airways: British Airways is the UK’s largest international scheduled airline, flying to over 550 destinations at convenient times, to the best located airports. BA is in the business of delivering great service to passengers. They are ready for the challenges of today’s marketplace. They own some of the world’s most valuable airports and intend to invest in their growth. BA is in the Private Sector Businesses. It’s a Private Limited Company (LTD) means that BA own assets in their own right. BA is about much more than simply hitting targets and profit margins. They also have certain responsibilities to society.

The purpose of the business is to provide its management with a new mandate to be more than just an airline. British Airways is aiming to set new industry standards in customer service and innovation and deliver the best financial performance and evolve from being an airline to a world travel business with the flexibility to stretch its brand in new business areas.

Their owners are not personally liable for the firm’s debts. They have Limited Liability. Ownership of BA is divided into parts called shares. BA is owned by the shareholders. The shareholders have Limited liability. This means that the assets and liabilities of the shareholders are separate from the assets and liabilities of the company. If BA makes a loss, those to whom it owes money cannot force the shareholders t pay for the loss. BA is an International Business.

The HM Prison Service: HM prison service is in the Public Sector Businesses. It’s a Public Limited Company (PLC) means that it’s owned by the government and their main aim is to provide essential services for the whole population. It’s not a profit making business, and the general public pays for these services through taxation. The public sector Prison Service forms part of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) within the new Ministry of Justice. The purpose of the business is that HM Prison Service serves the public by keeping in custody those committed by the courts. Their duty is to look after them with humanity and help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after release. HM Prison is national Business.

The purpose of the business is to provide end-to-end management of offenders with interventions to reduce offending and to protect the public. The

Owners of the HM prison service are Stakeholders because they have put up the capital by which the business is ran. E.g. The government. The HM Prison service has no more owners other than the government because the government is running business.

Aims:

British Airways:

One of British Airways’ aims is Improve Customer Service with Right NOW. The Right NOW software can adapt and learn from customer feedback so that it can quickly respond to new areas of enquiry. The Purpose of the aim is to functionality provide answers to a wide range of questions that customers ask at BA.

In British Airways they are constantly working towards creating an inclusive culture that understands and respects the individual differences of employees. In addition they seek to deliver a service which reflects and responds to the diverse range of customer needs.

The aim is to drive and integrate diversity into all aspects of services to ensure that they remain competitive.

HM Prison Service:

One of HM Prison ‘aims is to have more effective execution of the sentences of the courts so as to reduce re-offending and protect the public.

The Purpose of the aim is to look after the prisoners with humanity and help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after they release.

Through this aim of Single Staff Diversity and Equality Scheme, HM Prison Service will look to integrate diversity and embed its actions as a business priority across the Service.

The Purpose of the Aim is that the staff become more confident, competent and supported about promoting a positive culture of respect and decency within all aspects of carrying out their duties.

Objectives:

British Airways’ Objective is to reduce waste per passenger.

Their objective is to provide the best entertainment packages to all different ages. The Purpose of the Objective is to have HI-Technology in their planes.

HM Prison Service’s Objective is to protect the public and provide what commissioners want to purchase.

The objectives set for the Prison Service are to protect the public by holding those committed by the courts in a safe, decent and healthy environment and to reduce crime by providing constructive regimes which address offending behavior.

The purpose of the objectives is to improve educational and work skills and promote law abiding behavior in custody and after release.

Stakeholders (P2)

British Airways:

BA wants Customer satisfaction because the opinion of all of the stakeholders is the key to defining their success. British Airways needs to understand its stakeholders (customers, opinion leaders and employees) to better inform business decisions. Therefore, in-depth and thorough measurement and research are in place to provide this important information.

* Customers: They monitor customer’s feedback on key stages of their flights each month, using a sample of passengers seated in particular positions throughout the aircraft. They have focused heavily during the last three years on improving service and interaction with customers who experience service failures.

* Shareholders: They want BA to do well because they own the company and want their investments to increase in value. They want to get paid dividends.

* Employees: They want BA to do well because the company pays their mortgages. BA has standing Instructions for their employees. People want fulfilling and secure jobs, a good working environment, fair reward and personal development. BA wants them to come to work, do the job well and be flexible. The company uses a variety of indicators to benchmark pay and other rewards against the external labour market. This process provides information on market rates and enables them to plan the future in a way that ensures that they retain and attract people. Their aim is to ensure that they attract sufficient numbers of people, at the required standard to meet our external recruitment needs. Because of reductions in management staff, they closely monitor recruitment to ensure that it is only authorised. 1600 IT professionals who work here have the potential to exert an enormous influence on the airline’s performance.

* Community: They work closely with overseas country managers, employees, relevant community and non-government organisations to enable them to manage programmes locally to bring sustainable benefits for the communities concerned. British Airways is committed to being a good neighbour, concerned for the community and environment. They continually strive to improve the social and environmental performance, with the objective of ensuring that the activities contribute to the sustainable development of the communities in which they operate. But I think becoming more socially responsible could increase costs and reduce the profits of the business.

* The government: Her Majesty’s Prison Service (‘the Service’) is part of the wider Home Office. Since 1993, the Service has been an Executive Agency of the Home Office and that remains the case. Since June 2004, the Service has also been part of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). NOMS is a huge enterprise spanning several organizations and around 70,000 staff.

(M1)

It is important for British Airways to understand what customers think about our products and services in different markets and customer segments, on different routes, at different airports, and even at different times of the day, in order to make informed decisions about efficient, targeted and cost-effective product development and resource allocation.

BA adopting a socially responsible approach means taking the needs of stakeholders into account when making business decision. In practice, it often means giving less importance to other stakeholders than the typical business. The benefits to the HM Prison of adopting this approach tend to be measured in terms of their impact on profits, sales, revenues and accounting costs. Effective customer care policies should lead to higher sales and hence higher profits.

All employees have an important role to play in achieving this goal.

The shareholders are a very important stakeholder, but so are employees, customers and suppliers. If BA doesn’t make a profit then they have not created enough value to compensate for the resources.

Being environment friendly could lead to lower overall costs. For example, cost money for buying new equipment, but quickly save money because of the lower fuel usage. This might help BA with sales of the products and thus increase profits.

HM Prison Service:

* Owners: They have up the money to run the business and if owners were not able to get any rewards fro from the business through investing they would definitely influence the business by not investing in the business again.

* Employees: They have a stake in the business for which they work. For Example, HM Prison pays them Wages/Salaries on which they have to live. HM also give their employees fringe benefits. Job Security is very important for the employees. If the employees do not feel safe, happy and comfortable means they are not motivated then it could be hard for HM Prison to achieve its objectives therefore the aims would be unfulfilled. Staffs expect a visible and active commitment from their managers to ensuring that all staff is treated fairly and equitably. Managers should be approachable, willing to listen to grievances and to act on them sensitively.

* Local Community: HM Prison Service has a social responsibilities to the community in which they operate.

* Suppliers: They rely upon on customers that are businesses to buy their products. HM Prison has a social responsibility to act fairly to their suppliers, paying reasonable prices for their food products for the prisoners, for example. They should also respect contract which they have made. If HM Prison does not do that then it could really have an impact on the business because suppliers might not supply the products to them again and they could also have bad reputation in the market.

* Government: The government is keen to make HM Prison Service to take more care of the stakeholders.

(M1)

Having a good employment policy attracts better applicants for posts and helps motivate and retain existing staff. This helps with improved motivated staff and retention should lead to achieve the objectives.

Working well with suppliers should enable the HM Prison to get value for money. It would be much easier to sort out problems such as late deliveries or defective work with suppliers with whom there is a good relation ship.

Putting something to the community, such as giving to local charities, taking on workers bring HM Prison Service a good Public relationship with the local community. This might help with attracting good applicants for jobs.

Government have introduced legislation to force HM Prison Service to become more socially responsible.

Functional Areas (P4)

British Airways:

Customer Contact – The customer sees only a fraction of what goes on in order to make each flight a success.

* Cabin Services –

* Passenger Service –

Commercial – All the ideas and figures of the business are in this Functional area and when a new flight is available or they want to increase the number of passenger because they have been contacted by the Customer Contact so their marketing department under this area thinks of advertising to promote to get more passengers.

* Marketing

* Sales

* Alliances

* Strategy

E-Business & IT – Without IT, the airline would not operate, whether it’s tracking a bag or ordering a spare part for an aircraft on the other side of the world. This area relates to the other because with IT they mostly contact with each and other department.

* E-commerce

* E-procurement

* E-working

* I.T.

Technical and Operations – It relates to the corporate services area because when there is new plane or repairing is needed then they contact Finance department inside the functional area of corporate service to get finance for repairing or buying new equipments.

* Pilots

* Flight Trainings

* Engineering

* Airport Operations

* World Cargo

Corporate services – This department relates all the other functional areas because Human Resource department is inside this area and whenever a person is required for a particular job they contact this area to get a person recruited for the job.

* Human Resources

* Health Services

* Safety, Security Community and Environment

* PR & Communication

* Procurement

* Finance

British is a very big company and its offices are all around the world and this why I think that the Chain of Command is more horizontally because its Directors and Managers are all over the places. They might have a Chief Executive from whom the orders are passed to directors. The number of workers in a chain of command id important to the efficiency of the business. But too long can make it difficult to communicate.

HM Prison Service:

Security – The department’s duty is to secure the prison so the other employee feels safer when they are working in this department and the other department.

Finance – Finance Department relates to every other department because every department has employee working in and they have to be paid by the Finance Department.

Operations – This Department relates because when an operation is going to happen they pass the information to the other departments.

Personnel – This department relates to other departments because whenever a person is required for the Job for any department. The person is recruited by the personnel department.

Prison Health – This department relates to other departments because when an employee or a prisoner is injured or not feeling well, it means that they have to be taken to the Health Department.

Operational Policy – This department relates to operations department because when an operation is about to happen they have to pass the policies to the Operations Department.

They have to be well organised to make all their aims and objectives possible and to make it an even easier place to work so that it can be more productive. There are different teams of people who are split into different functional areas so they are able to make the business operate more efficiently. All of the functional areas aren’t dependent on each other but have to work closely together to operate. There are six different functional areas of a business.

I think because the organisation is not very large which means it has a very small and vertical Chain of Command. The more workers you have in the chain of command, the more specialised it becomes.

Segregation Unit – The purpose of the segregation is to maintain safety, its necessary to help prisoners address negative aspect of their behaviour and return to normal location as soon as possible. Example if someone is found breaking the rule, so they will lose privileges.

Chaplaincy- The Chaplaincy provides spiritual care for all prison and all the staff, the team normally by an Anglican chaplain who will be responsible for the whole team including all the religions.

Education and Training – Educational and trainer services are available for all prisoners, assessing their skills and teaching basic and key skills. Some prisoners are offered further education.

Housing Block/Accommodation – Prisoners live in housing blocks or residential accommodation.

Recreation Area – This area is responsible for the health and welfare of all of the prisoners. Some prisons have health care units where 24 hour nursing care is provided, whilst other prisons only provide primary care.

Workshop/Gymnasium – Workshop vary, and include contract cleaning, sewing, brick laying, car maintenance and light engineering work. Some prisons have craft workshops where anything that made by the prisoners may be sold for local charity.

Health Care – This responsible for the health and welfare of all of the prisoners. Some prisons have health care units where 24 hour nursing care is provide, whilst other prisons only provide primary care.

Reception – Usually within housing blocks and has facilities such as TV rooms, pool tables and general open areas where prisoners can freely mix with each other.

Visitors Centre – This varies from prison to prison, but usually provides an area where drinks and snacks can be bought. It’s usually where pre-visit checks take place, i.e. the name of the prison being visited and whether they are entitled to a visit. In the case of convicted prisoners, the visitor must be in possession of a valid visiting order which will show the name and number of the prisoner and the name and address of the person’s visiting.

The Gate-House – Responsible for checking the ID of all staff, prisoners, visitors and contractors who are going into or out of the prison. This is noted to maintain in the correct roll of the prison. This usually confirmed with reception at any time.

(M2)

British Airways

Internal Factors:

Size – The larger organisation is the more formal the structure tends to become, in order to coordinate larger numbers of workers, departments and diversity of products. Because the BA organisation is a huge company and therefore the organisational structure is very long which makes it hard for BA to communicate with each others. This is where Technical and Operations area is most important because if that is not there they would not be able to communicate.

Strategic plans – The type of structure depends on the strategic aims and plans of the business. For example, BA seeks to become more market oriented which will develop structures that place an emphasis on marketing and customers focus.

External factors:

Environment – BA has many competitors such as Ryan Air. Ryan Air are continually changing, what they have to offer. They may lower prices, bring out new products; engage in exciting new advertising campaigns, and a range of other activities. This is effect BA because they will loose their customers because they are getting better deals from Ryan Air.

Political – Example of Political factors for BA is that the government has put up taxations for BA which makes BA to increase the price of their flight which would affect BA to loose customers.

Economic – The economy consists of businesses, individuals working in the functional areas and the government. Because it’s an international airline and BAA is getting the passengers from every corner of the world. This makes BA to pay for its resources such as labour and raw materials. Businesses are continually affected by changes in the economy.

Technological Factors – These factors result from the development of new techniques. Example, New types of products. For example in recent few there I massive change in IT which has transformed the way we run our lives.

HM Prison Service

Internal Factors:

Size – HM Prison Service have a very large structure in which the responsibility for managing functional is shared. Individuals may have more than one specialism. This can affect the HM Prison because that could mean a lack of clarity about who is responsible for what task.

Strategic Plans – They affect the functional activities because they might be working on an activity and they already got the next one which could me interruption with finishing the tasks. This could lead to failure of achieving the goals of HM Prison.

External Factors:

Political – Government creates law that affect HM prison. There are many laws of (referred to as legislation) that affect a business.

Social Factors – Society is made up for all the people in a given area. It is important to be able to find out what the main trends are that are happening in society because these facts affect HM Prison Service.