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1.0 Introduction Bsc (Hons) Business Management With Foundation Assignment
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The term, business management refers to the administration as well as coordination of all the business tasks and activities, and its resources to manage and achieve a specific objective in a significant manner. This context involves "supervision and training of staff", "overseeing core operations", and "designing company infrastructure to optimize for the future". As per the comments of experts, the key activity of business management is to strike a balance between "managing work" and "talent" substantially. In this case, this assessment is shedding light on the various functional areas of a business organisation and the skills required for the employees to handle various activities of business properly.
2.0 What is a business?
The term "business" can be explained as an "organization" or "enterprising entity" that involves “professional”, “industrial” and various “commercial” activities. In this regard, there can be several types of businesses which are dependent on various major factors. Some are "for-profit", while some are "non-profit". Similarly, their "ownership" also creates them "different" from each other. In this instance, there are "sole proprietorships", "partnerships", "corporations", and many more. The business has also integrated the efforts as well as a bunch of activities of an individual who is responsible for the production of goods or providing services with the "intent to sell them" for profit (Dumas et al., 2018). For example, in the case of a sole proprietorship business, an individual owns as well as operates the whole activities of the business effectively. There are not any types of "legal separation" between the owner and the overall area of business. As a result, the onus of "legal plus tax liability" is on the owner substantially.
3.0 What are functional areas of business - Definition
A "functional area" is a "department" or "group of personnel tasked" with a particular organizational function. In general, various functional departments in the business comprise groups of employees with identical skill sets as well as expertise efficiently (Pettinger, 2020). These departments can allow the organizations in order to integrate key activities and functional tasks with various similar logic as well as protocols effectively.
In recent days, businesses are aggressively structuring their "functional areas" depending on the "size of the organisation" and "the nature of the market". Most organizations have some key functional areas such as "finance and marketing" at the basic level. However, various larger companies or leading organisations have some additional functional areas such as research and development, various legal support teams, information and communication technology and many more substantially (Hutt and Speh, 2021). The initial responsibility of functional areas of a business is to "guarantee efficiency" in all organizational initiatives and activities. Various organisations organize by their functional units to indicate specific resources as well as personnel towards the accomplishment of a provided function, project, and objective substantially. For example, the "human resource department" is a functional area that is solely devoted to "recruiting", "training", "assigning roles and responsibilities", and "developing employees".
4.0 What are the key functional areas of a business?
As discussed earlier, the overall management of functional areas of a business is also able to maintain the overall business dimensions and economic stability in the market effectively (Prasad, 2020). The key functional areas of the business are sales, marketing, human resource management, research and development, Finance and customer service effectively.
Figure 1: Functional Area of the business
![Functional Area of the business]()
5.0 Description of the various functional areas in business organizations
5.1 Marketing
In this case, marketing is closely executed with the sales activity and the sales department of the company in order to make the demand for the product and services of the respective company. Workers within the organisational unit are also responsible for identifying and addressing the consumers' requirements. In other words, the department of marketing conducts research in order to measure what customers want as well as design products that can able to meet their needs of them (Kendra, Agrawal and Kadiwala, 2018). Basically, marketing functions are also included the promotion of the products or services of the company, delivery of products to the end consumer, implementation of proper pricing strategy, implementation and development of strategies that are able to strengthen the competitive advantage of the business, and many more.
5.2 Human Resource Management
The role of “Human Resource Management” practices are in order to manage the individuals within a workplace in order to gain the mission of the organization and reinforce the entire business culture. In this instance, when executed effectively, HR managers help to recruit new professionals based on the necessary skillsets and ability to achieve the goals of the business and aid with the development and training of present workers to meet the business objectives effectively (Widarni and Bawono, 2020). The general functions of Human resource management are recruiting or hiring, selection, providing training and development, termination and many more in order to enhance the employee retention rate and improve the productivity of the company substantially.
5.3 Customer Service
"Customer Service" activities or functional area is actively dedicated in order to ensure a wide range of customer service as well as satisfaction. As a key functional area, "customer service" is able to deal with the inquiries of the customers, concerns and complaints as well (Laguna and Marklund, 2018). As more organizations identify the importance of customer satisfaction, the significance of this department is enhancing. Organizations must take care of the satisfaction of their customers to remain competitive, increase "customer loyalty", maintain the entire market share, improve the experience of the customers, encourage repetitive sales and many more.
5.4 Finance
In the business environment, "finance and accounting departments" are truly responsible for "planning", "procuring", and "managing" finances. This department is able to analyze the capital of the company required to measure how to earn as well as allocate funds (Gianni, 2021). Finance managers can also oversee all "financial decisions", including whether to borrow and sell stocks in order to raise money. In this case, this significant functional area has some key activities such as pertaining to "capita", "budgeting", "assets", and "costs".
5.5 Reserach and development
“Reserach and development (R&D)” includes various activities that today’s companies incorporate to innovate as well as introduce their new products and services initially. It is also the first phase of the whole development process and the objective is typically to undertake new products or services to market as well as integrate into the bottom line of the company as well (Myers, 2019). On the other hand, R&D is also an extensive approach to “exploratory advancement”, while the applied research is “more geared” towards analyzing a narrow scope effectively.
5.6 Sales
In this functional area of business, the main objective of the company is properly regarded. Profit and proper economic stability are the main objectives of any business in this present age. As such, the main goal of the “sales function area” is to manage the company to gain its revenue targets and sales respectively (Pettinger, 2020). Basically, the sales department can exploit market leads implemented by the “marketing department” in order to target various potential customers as well as drive sales.
6. Description of the types of skills needed by employees to be able to work effectively in these functional areas
6.1 Skills needed by marketing employees
In recent times, communication, creativity, problem-solving, leadership, and adaptability are the top marketing skills that can help to execute the marketing operation effectively. For example, communication skills can help marketing employees to execute their marketing operations in terms of customer management, customer acquisition, relationship with the customers and many more.
6.2 Skills needed by human resource management employees
Business management and proper leadership skills, human capital development skills, interpersonal and communication skills, planning and strategic thinking skills and many more major skills that are needed by human resource management employees (Widarni and Bawono, 2020). For example, strategic thinking and planning skills can help to develop a strategic advantage in operating the business in a substantial manner that can able to stretch the financial stability as well.
6.3 Skills needed by customer service employees
“Persuasive Speaking Skills”, “Patience”, “Clear Communication Skills” and many more have the major skills that are needed by customer service employees as well (Laguna and Marklund, 2018). For example, proper communication skills can help employees to maintain communication with the customer that is able to solve challenges perfectly.
6.4 Skills needed by Finance employees
Proper accounting skills, data management skills, cashflow management skills, business intelligence skills and many more are also significant skills that are needed by finance employees (Myers, 2019). For example, proper accounting skills like maintaining a balance sheet, managing the cash flow and many more can help to maintain the economic dimensions of the business as well.
6.5 Skills needed by Reserach and development employees
Time management, critical and analytical thinking, teamwork as well as collaboration skills and many more are important skills that are needed by Reserach and development employees (Gianni, 2021). For example, in the research and development department, it has been observed that proper teamwork and analytical skills help to maintain the proper research and analysis regarding any particular object or topic as well.
6.6 Skills needed by sales employees
Proper communication, prospecting, storytelling, active listening, and many more are also needed by sales employees as well (Prasad, 2020). For example, storytelling skills can help the company stand out in the buyers’ mind, appeal to purchasers’ emotions, and encourage action, and helps the purchaser to see how like consumer have solved identical challenges with the solution as well.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above statements that proper business management can help outline business activity in an effective manner. In this regard, this rapport has discussed the main area, the functional areas of the business which are denoted the importance and how a business can be operated smoothly. In addition, various skills and competencies are also required to maintain these functional areas in an effective manner.
Reference list
Dumas, M., La Rosa, M., Mendling, J. and Reijers, H.A., 2018. Introduction to business process management. In Fundamentals of business process management (pp. 1-33). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Gianni, M.S., 2021. Book Review: Foundations of Sustainable Business: Theory, Function, and Strategy.
Hutt, M.D. and Speh, T.W., 2021. Business marketing management: B2B. South-Western, Cengage Learning.
Kendra, D.D.U.K., Agrawal, M.S. and Kadiwala, M.A., 2018. Business Ethics-Literature Review in the lights of Holy Books.
Laguna, M. and Marklund, J., 2018. Business process modeling, simulation and design. Chapman and Hall/CRC.
Myers, M.D., 2019. Qualitative research in business and management. Sage.
Pettinger, R., 2020. Introduction to management. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Prasad, L.M., 2020. Principles and practice of management. Sultan Chand & Sons.
Widarni, E.L. and Bawono, S., 2020. The Basic Of Human Resource Management Book 1. BookRix.
