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Schools, Universities, Management Development and Training Centres and their Students and Staff throughout the world.
This
is a multidiciplinary Business and Management overview. It
has been created to give students an in-depth understanding
of the 'big picture' of business, what is involved in the Business Studies and what it takes to succeed in further and
higher education. It is not necessary to buy all the books
or read through all workshop material at this stage. You may
wish to return to and review these resource from time to time
as you progress into the more specialised business and management
course included in your programme.
Understanding a business is not simple. Even selling your
product or service on a regular basis to customers is not
so straightforward. This course is not a comprehensive, "how
to do it" guide. It merely introduces the main aspects of
business you'll need to know something about, the sort of
investigation and information that is needed and questions
to be answered, in order to grasp the specific areas of the
rest of your programme and, perhaps maybe more importantly,
to enable you to plan for your own business start-up.
The
resources are designed to support business students undertaking
a Certificate in Business Administration, Advanced Diploma
and, finally the Bachelor of Business Administration degree
course. Those whose entrepreneural spirit is driving them
into a new business venture may also find them useful. The
fact is, of course, that all business functions and operations
need to be planned, hence, whilst you are being introduced
to various aspects of Business Planning, you'll also get to
know something about the business itself.
The
purpose of this programme is to introduce you to the many facets of the enterprise system
and of the businesses that operate within it. Since
it is the first course in business, Business Systems is not
going to teach you "everything you always wanted to know
about business but were too afraid to ask."
It
is anticipated, though, that through your experiences in this
course, you will gain a better understanding of what enterprise
is all about and what is included in each of the several academic
areas of study in business at business school around the world.
It is hoped that this improved understanding will increase
your appreciation of the private enterprise system and will
assist you in planning both your academic programme and the
future career.
A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.
The business goals may be defined for for-profit or for non-profit organizations. For-profit business plans typically focus on financial goals, such as profit or creation of wealth. Non-profit and government agency business plans tend to focus on organizational mission which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively—although non-profits may also focus on optimizing revenue. In non-profit organizations, creative tensions may develop in the effort to balance mission with "margin" (or revenue). Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, tax-payer, or larger community. A business plan having changes in perception and branding as its primary goals is called a marketing plan.
The term Business Model is relatively recent. Though it appeared for the first time in the 1950s it rose to prominence and reached the mainstream only in the 1990s. Thus far, the definitions have mostly come from the popular literature. These authors define business model in terms of what they think it should cover. For example, a definition from Osterwalder, Pigneur and Tucci (2005) is that a business model is:
a conceptualtool that contains a big set of elements and their relationships and allows expressing the business logic of a specific firm. It is a description of the value a company offers to one or several segments of customers and of the architecture of the firm and its network of partners for creating, marketing, and delivering this value and relationship capital, to generate profitable and sustainable revenue streams.
More recently, researchers build definitions based on economic and organizational theories and show that the definitions are econometrically sound. For example, Malone, et al. (2006) at MIT propose an operational definition of business model, based on theories such as those from transaction cost economics. Zott and Amit (2002) from INSEAD and Wharton based their definition on boundary-spanning transactions.
The following
learning outcomes have been set for your learning experience
in this course. After completing the course you will be
acquainted
with the private enterprise system - the foundation upon
which business is built;
acquainted
with the economic system and contrast it to other possibilities;
acquainted
with the aspects involved with starting a business;
acquainted
with the various functional areas of business - accounting,
finance, management, and marketing - and how these areas
are interrelated by means of information systems;
acquainted
with the security markets - a dynamic part of your everyday
life;
understand
how you are affected by the business system and how you
might some day fit into that system;
The etymology of "business" refers to the state of being busy, in the context of the individual as well as the community or society. In other words, to be busy is to be doing commercially viable and profitable work.
The term "business" has at least three usages, depending on the scope — the general usage (above), the singular usage to refer to a particular company or corporation, and the generalized usage to refer to a particular market sector, such as "the record business," "the computer business," or "the business community" -- the community of suppliers of goods and services.
The singular "business" can be a legally-recognized entity within an economically free society, wherein individuals organize based on expertise and skills to bring about social and technological advancement.
In other words, the owners and operators of a business have as one of their main objectives the receipt or generation of a financial return in exchange for their work - that is, the expense of time, energy, and money.
However, the exact definition of business is disputable as is business philosophy; for example, most Marxists use "means of production" as a rough synonym for "business." Socialists advocate either government, public, or worker ownership of most sizable businesses.
Operations Management is an area of business that is concerned with the production of goods and services, and involves the responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient and effective. It is also the management of resources and the distribution of goods and services to customers.
Operations also refers to the production of goods and services, the set of value-added activities that transform inputs into many outputs. Fundamentally, these value-adding creative activities should be aligned with market opportunity (see Marketing) for optimal enterprise performance.
Large ambitious goals usually require that people work together, so teamwork has become an important concept in organizations. Effective teams are an intermediary goal towards getting good, sustainable results. Industry has seen increasing efforts through training and cross-training to help people to work together more effectively and to accomplish shared goals, whether colleagues are present or absent.
“The old structures are being reformed. As organizations seek to become more flexible in the face of rapid environmental change and more responsive to the needs of customers, they are experimenting with new, team-based structures.” (Jackson & Ruderman, 1996).
Business English is English especially related to international trade. It is a part of English for Specific Purposes and can be considered a specialism within English language learning and teaching; for example, the teachers' organisation IATEFL has a special interest group called BESIG [1]. Many non-native English speakers study the subject with the goal of doing business with English-speaking countries, or with companies located outside the Anglosphere but which nonetheless use English as a shared language or lingua franca. Much of the English communication that takes place within business circles all over the world occurs between non-native speakers. In cases such as these the object of the exercise is efficient and effective communication. The strict rules of grammar are in such cases sometimes ignored, when, for example, a stressed negotiator's only goal is to reach an agreement as quickly as possible. (See linguist Braj Kachru's theory of the "expanding circle".)
It is possible to study Business English at college and university; institutes around the world have on offer courses (modules) in BE, which can even lead to a degree in the subject[1].
Finance studies and addresses the ways in which individuals, businesses, and organizations raise, allocate, and use monetary resources over time, taking into account the risks entailed in their projects. The term finance may thus incorporate any of the following:
Commercial law or business law is the body of law which
governs business and commerce and is often considered to be a branch of civil law and deals both with issues of private law and public law. Commercial law regulates corporatecontracts, hiring practices, and the manufacture and sales of consumergoods. Many countries have adopted civil codes which contain comprehensive statements of their commercial law. In the United States, commercial law is the province of both the Congress under its power to regulate interstate commerce, and the states under their police power. Efforts have been made to create a unified body of commercial law in the US: the most successful of these attempts has resulted in the general adoption of the Uniform Commercial Code.
Various regulatory schemes control how commerce is conducted, privacy laws, safety laws (i.e. OSHA in the United States) food and drug laws are some examples.
Marketing
Management is
a business discipline focused on the practical application
of marketing
techniques and the management of
a firm's marketing resources and activities. Marketing
managers are often responsible for influencing the
level, timing, and composition of customer demand in
a manner that will achieve the company's objectives.
A supply chain, logistics network, or supply network is a coordinated system of organizations, people, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service in physical or virtual manner from supplier to customer. Supply chain activities (aka value chains or life cycle processes) transform raw materials and components into a finished product that is delivered to the end customer. Supply chains link value chains.
There are a variety of supply chain models, which address both the upstream and downstream sides.
The primary objective of supply chain management is to fulfill customer demands through the most efficient use of resources, including distribution capacity, inventory and labor.
Most recently researchers have focused on other aspect of optimization as well as Blendin Problem, location/allocation, Vehicle Routing and even Dynamic programming besides traditional logistics optimization.
Information management (IM) is the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information. Management means the organization of and control over the structure, processing and delivery of information.
Throughout the 1970s this was largely limited to files, file maintenance, and the life cycle management of paper-based files, other media and records. With the proliferation of information technology starting in the 1970s, the job of information management took on a new light, and also began to include the field of Data maintenance. No longer was information management a simple job that could be performed by almost anyone. An understanding of the technology involved, and the theory behind it became necessary. As information storage shifted to electronic means, this became more and more difficult. By the late 1990s when information was regularly disseminated across computer networks and by other electronic means, network managers, in a sense, became information managers. Those individuals found themselves tasked with increasingly complex tasks, hardware and software. With the latest tools available, information management has become a powerful resource and a large expense for many organizations.
In short, information management entails organizing, retrieving, acquiring and maintaining information. It is closely related to and overlapping with the practice of Data Management.
Management Information Systems is a general name for the academic discipline covering the application of people, technologies, and procedures—collectively, the information system—to business problems.
This field is directly linked to Management by objectives and to the monitoring of Key performance indicators. It can also help in processing specific information for decision making (for example analyse customer behavior).
The Dynamic model of strategy is a way of understanding how strategic actions occur. It recognizes that strategic planning is dynamic, that is, strategy involves a complex pattern of actions and reactions. It is partially planned and partially unplanned.
The
Sixth Edition builds upon previous success and highlights
some of the best features ever for a new edition.
Not only will students be encouraged to study the
traditional elements of business, but they will also
see the influence modern technology is having on the
business world.
