Introduction
Businesses have been faced with different challenges and opportunities, and Mark & Spencer is one of the renowned MNCs in London, having the specialisation of selling different attire, luxury food items, and home appliances. It made its mark through a long-term relationship with British manufacturers. At that time, a brand name was used to sell clothes and food products. The products that were not accepted by the customers were refunded, and complete cash was given back by the owners. Almost all types of products, i.e., lingerie, girls' uniforms, and women's attire, were sold out at that time. The main focus of the company was on the quality of goods that were sold. Below are the opportunities and challenges that are faced by the workforce in an international market.
LO 1: Role of Culture in International Business
Skilled team leaders derive approachable employees, which helps them to understand the business thoughts and proceedings (Rees and Smith, 2017). Access to Related Workforce Data through Manager. Huge data and "data deluge" were the terms depicted by the economists, which relate to the abundance and collection of a high amount of data, which proved to be a challenge and was considered as Gartner's Top Technology Trends in 2012. The managers of the organisation should have the talent to manage the extra data and spread data. Smart options are provided by the talent managers for the assessment of the extra data and to avoid the overload of the burden of information. The data has to be timely updated, perfect, and meaningful for the business. Complete information has to be relevant, which makes the business persuasive. Instead of providing a huge amount of data that contains some irrelevant data, some meaningful information is provided that differs between useful and "deluge" data for the managers in the organisation.
This quality is unique, which the business Mark&Spencer takes into account to maintain their information relevant and in demand. Overloading is rejected by the leaders to analyse the data. And to make business more progressive and advanced, irrelevant data is avoided by the managers. So they always differentiate between the desirable data, which is the real data, and the data useful for Mark & Spencer and the data all over, which is the surrounding data in Mark & Spencer.
Then there are processes to strengthen the leadership baselines. Mark & Spencer not only focuses on the top entities of the organisation but also shows interest in the solutions provided by the people for its establishment. This approach tightens up their business strategies, and people can also show their skills and talent, which helps the organisation grow more rapidly. Professional solutions help in the interaction between the leaders and the team members, and more ideas are created and generated. This process motivates their self-confidence and also visualises their growth in career development. It covers all self-intentioned employees whose actions and ambitions are being focused on and considered. HR provides art staff training and engages their employees in quality-wise work. It follows four types of models, such as change agent, employee champion, administrative partner, and strategic partner.
These models perform proactive roles and ensure a fantastic distribution of skills, training, and core competencies for the success of the company. These models focus on the fact that they should listen to employees and provide sufficient resources so that the company's targets can be achieved. In international markets like in Africa, there is a requirement for effective cross-cultural communication skills and cultural awareness. Personal trust should be built up.
Here five cultural tips are followed, such as the cult of precision; there is no mixture of culture with structure; courtesy is always there; sentiments matter the most; and CSR is not there. Companies reinforce culture to achieve success. While European culture is advanced and they are proud of their language. They understand their issues, like making face-to-face contact in business contracts. In corporate life, they make use of extensive titles.
LO 2: Knowledge of Organisational and National Cultural Characteristics.
These employees can be described as 'latent talents' of the organisation whose views were not submitted in the strategic talent management. These talents prove their presence by giving useful and ambitious solutions. Their career preferences are also being considered. Alignment of Human Capital Management (HCM) by the commitment of organisational leaders to business strategy is also very important (Al Maini et al., 2015). Maintaining HR strategies and talent management strategies is also a crucial part of business strategy, which helps in building the economy of Mark & Spencer very strongly. The economic scale of Mark & Spencer strongly depends on the HCM strategy to form an outstanding workforce. The talent management team is part of HR administration, which analyses the potential and real ambition of employees. For leaders, it is important to make strong business strategies with a commendable workforce, and this desirable workforce is a challenge to business administration. They have their own built-in skills and are more in demand. A strong business strategy raises demand for talented people, who ultimately form the result-orientated team by the organisational leaders. Aligning human capital management is very important to build up a winning and successful workforce. In the organisation, people of high age groups sometimes make the workforce, and they want to get their views and values to be considered at the workstation. But the young employees have their advanced and fresh box of principles. This creates differences in the Mark & Spencer. The baby boomers are preceding; they are leaving behind a gap of 30 years, which can be counted as a gap of 100 years (Jiang and Men, 2017). This is a type of disadvantage to Mark & Spencer. But all old-age workers are not required on the board as far as their health and mental power are concerned. New and talented youth are being scouted to fill the gap, yet the knowledge that they take with them can't be covered. International business opportunities include many of these, like export-import, outsourcing, global marketing, and logistics. Many companies in the US depend on domestic revenue. However, after globalisation, companies are competing with the international market and generating income and not just relying on the nation