AUDITING

Auditing - Introduction, Background & Marketing Strategy of Greggs PLC

Introduction3

Background Research3

Marketing Strategy3

Part C of the Assignment4

Audit Program4

Audit Strategy5

Audit Plan5

References7

Auditing - Introduction, Background & Marketing Strategy of Greggs PLC

Introduction

The company selected for the purpose of conducting an audit is Greggs PLC. The largest United Kingdom's bakery chain, Greggs PLC has an outlet of about 1671 (Annual Report, 2012, pp. 1). The report is written with an aim to conduct an exhaustive audit of the Greggs PLC and for the aforementioned purpose, the report shall cover the research about the background, history , operations and the market in which the business tends to operate. The report shall describe the audit risks identified relative to the client, audit tools and techniques to be used including audit options that shall not be used and the rationale behind it. Lately, the report covers a detail layout plain about the audit programme.

Background Research

The Greggs PLC specialty is in the sausage rolls, pastries, sandwiches and the steak bakes. The Greggs PLC's head quarter is located in the Newcastle upon Tyne and is listed in the LSE with a symbol of GRG. It is a FTSE 250 index constituent too. The Greggs PLC commenced its operations in the 1952 (Annual Report, 2012) and by the end of 1990s it became country's largest bakery chain. The foundation was laid by the John Gregg in 1939.

Marketing Strategy

The Greggs PLC has been marketing its brands aggressively because of the economic downturn in the country. The company has started focusing on the following tenets (Annual Report, 5):

Focusing on customer needs: Retention of the taste, high quality and to meet with the dynamic needs of the customers.

Accessing new markets: Entering into the new markets through the thorough analysis of the market segment.

Attaining competitive advantage: Through the use of special recipes and branding of the products and services offer including supply chain and others, competitive advantage is aimed to be achieved and sustained.

Despite of the economic downturn, the consumer's ability to spend has continuously reduced. The company's sales, because of the above mentioned remedial marketing strategies to fight with the economic recession, have boosted 4.8 percent as compared to the financial performance in the year 2011 (Annual Report, 2012, pp. 8). The pre-tax profit has though reduced by 2.2% in FY'12, as compared to FY'11.

Part C of the Assignment

Part C of the assignment is focused on explaining the overall audit program or plan of the Greggs PLC. Development of this program is essential in assessing and investigating the financial performance of the underlying company. Founding attributes of Greggs PLC audit plan are given below.

Audit Program

Audit program of Greggs PLC describes the objectives that we want to achieve in order to provide relevant and useful information to company's stakeholders. This comprises of introducing computerise packages of ensuring maximum level of reliability in reporting statistics. In addition, it also involves planning of manual work. Such understanding enables us in better allocation of resources (time, money and labour) to the working ...