WH Smith

Walton Smith and his wife Anna in Little Grosvenor Street, London. WH Smith currently operates over 1200 stores, primarily in I-JK. It sells a wide range of products, which are divided into four categories: stationary, books and impulse as well as small range of entertainment products. Mission Statement: “WH Smith aim is to be Britain’s most popular book seller, stationer and newsagent”. Getting into more details of this statement it seems clear that WH Smith reached their purpose and they are improving products and popularity in the society is oving forward.

They have the target audience and customers who visit one of 1200 stores almost every day. Social and ecological responsibility. WH Smith responsibly commits to manage the environmental impact on their operations and products they sell. WH Smith ensures that they use resources efficiently and reducing their carbon footprint helps to reduce costs. They also use DEFRA conversion factors to calculate C02 emissions from transport, business travel and so on.

The newest evidence says that WH Smith reduced their energy consumption, reduced packaging, carrier bags, conserved water resources and mproved transport efficiency from 2007 to 20012.

WH Smith also takes care of reducing waste within their business. They operate recycling and waste reduction for several years so that to avoid significant costs because of rising landfill taxes. Non- governmental organisations expect WH Smith to contribute their role in reducing carbon emissions, support sustainable forest sourcing and ethical trading. Political and economic environment. “WH Smith’s operational costs are affected by underlying cost inflation and legislative and fiscal changes in relation to paper, packing fuel, utilities rates and salaries”.

Every time the government changes the taxes or employment law for a better control of country, it always affects WH Smith. The company have to follow the law once is changed, what means they have to change the policy or system of the company related to the law. Such changes cost time and money. Inflation which is economical factor is one of the issues for WH Smith. Company has to look for other sources which supply paper packing, utilities etc. or spend more on it what means the inputs of WH Smith is going up. Socio-cultural environment. As one article says, around 500 post offices in Greater Manchester and South West

Wales organized the strike against franchising post office services to WH Smith. Many of the post office workers were not happy with continuing downgrading of the service and partnership between post office ltd and WH Smith. It happens because WH Smith does not have an image of providing good services that the post offices do. If it happens in the future it might be loss of over 124. 000 highly trained post office staff. This is not fair with those who worked for a long time in post offices and lose their jobs. This example is socio-cultural factor which may affect many workers and partly

WH Smith. Moreover WH Smith is committed to equality and diversity through its policies and activities. All employees are given equal opportunity to be recruited and selected, promoted, trained, developed and access to benefits. Ensuring that WH ith tultill their commitment they nave diversity systems to make all t e statt equal including age, gender, ethical origin, full or part time workers and experience factors. Technological environment. WH Smith uses and relies on considerable number of IT systems. Any system problem could seriously affect WH Smith ability to trade.

WH Smith also has to follow the news and try to improve their products, offer good deals and so on. Nowadays there are lots of online shops for example amazon. com which has ability to put the new products in the market immediately cheaper and attract a lot of customers. Such technological facilities and competitors can reduce sales in WH Smith stores. This is why they have to improve the quality of their products and services, offering good deals, vouchers or loyalty cards so that people prefer and trust to buy in WH Smith for the better quality instead of online shops.

WH Smith also use technologies so that to keep their staff informed and ensured that everyone are engaged in their business strategy providing internet sites and regular e-newspapers. WH Smith also reaches their customers online via www. whsmith. co. uk , they provide greeting cards and gifts, so that to attract as many customers as they can. Demographic environment. Demographic factors can also have an impact on reducing number of customers. Epidemic diseases such as flu caused by changeable I-JK climate or even acts of terrorism can distract WH Smith target audience for long time.

If it happens WH Smith profits and incomes decrease. Corporate values. WH Smith plays an important role in many communities across I-JK. They contribute and continue to focus on literacy. Their School Giveaway project helps numbers of schools to boost their library resources and also hospitals programme which provides reading material for patients. Highly valued resources by medical staff are provided to hospitals for fewer prices because very often many hospitals are out of budget to get them. Moreover WH Smith works with numerous charities and tries to nderstand their cause and support their effort.

In 2012 WH Smith invest a lot in developing their staff providing training programmes as accessible as possible to a wide range of staff to build their knowledge and improve career opportunities. A commitment of corporate responsibility is at the heart of WH Smith, their purpose is to be ranked as highly as possible in their business and corporate responsibility index to improve their performance in the society. Conclusion. Based on my research I can state that WH Smith company factors are unstable some f them changing slowly some of them rapidly depending on different environment.

In my opinion the biggest influence of rapid changes has technological and political environments WH Smith is the business which has to follow trends and up-to-date their products and services very fast. As far as political environment is concerned, the new laws, tax changes can be unexpected but once it happens WH Smith has to act fast and change their company’s policies and adapt in the new environment as soon as possible. Other environments do not have such rapid changes in WH Smith ctivities.

The main aim of WH Smith is to act responsibly in corporate values and social and ecological environment so that to create good image between all the stakeholders. They improve it slowly following changes in the society and other sectors. My overall assessment about WH Smith company is that they are well organized big company, trying not only to make benefit out of business but also taking care of communities, nature, staff members and their customers.

http://www.whsmithplc.co.uk/corporate_responsibility

http://www.whsmithplc.co.uk/investors/company_reports/corporate_responsibility_reports

http://www.whsmithplc.co.uk/corporate_responsibility/wh_smith_plc_corporate_responsibility_reports/

http://www.whsmithplc.co.uk/corporate_responsibility/community/

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