Physical resources are what the business needs to maintain in order to carry out its activities. They include things like the buildings, facilities, plant and machinery. Management of physical resources involves planning maintenance and refurbishment, this includes organising insurance to keep those resources safe.
Buildings and Facilities
Barclays will need to have premises from where it can operate, this can be anywhere ranging from a persons home to tower block offices over the world. The buildings play an important role in the image of the business and can make potential customers want to work with the business even more. An example of this being the building that Lloyds use is now so famous that it has become a tourist attraction around London. Barclays and many other financial institutions still have their head offices in central London close to the stock exchange so that they maintain links with clients in other leading companies.
The layout of the facility is also key, when a customer enters a building the facilities must be arranged, such as a meeting room or front desk of the building. Banks often have desks or rooms where clients can talk to an advisor about financial products such as mortgage loans as well as a screened area where cash is exchanged.
For some businesses the attractiveness of the building itself is not half as important as the on goings on the inside. For a company such as Amazon they will use large industrial warehouses using a lot of machinery. The public do not visit these buildings so they are designed to be as efficient as possible and may not necessarily look attractive. Other business such as Barclays may use the building facility to market the type of product or service that they are offering.
Materials and Waste
Materials that are needed by a business will very much depend on the type of operation that it is running and the people that are working within the organisation. Barclays will need lots of computing equipment, phones, printers and paper for the employees to use. Some of the materials used within Barclays will be recyclable material such as paper, while other companies uses non recyclable materials such as oil. Every business needs to be wary of how much materials they use and try to avoid wasting materials, this will also keep the costs lower within the company.
The waste that is produced by the business has to be taken away by another agency such as the council or a private company. It makes good business sense to reduce the amount of waste as this cuts waste disposal costs, which should help lead to higher profits for the business. The government sees mass reduction as important for the environment and has funded the envirowise campaign, this is giving tips on ways to do this.
Plant and Machinery
Just like materials and buildings, each business has specific requirements for the type of plant and machinery that it may need. A business may spend thousands and thousands of pounds on its factory machinery and buying everything that is needed in order to make the business a success. For other businesses it may be easier and more cost effective to lease what is needed.
Emergency provision
The health and safety at work act 1974 requires organisations to drag up policies and provisions for what should happen in the event of an emergency within the building. This means that each employee must be given evacuation training, in the event of an emergency the employee with have clear instructions provided about what to do in the event of a fire. The organization must also provide equipment for the safety of the