Business Functions

IB Business and Management

Recap - Questions

• What is a business and what does a business do?

• What is the difference between a good and a service?

• What are the 4 factors of production?

Business Functions

Think about a small bar and restaurant. At the start it is likely to be owned and managed by the same person, who may have a small number of staff

What sorts of tasks will the manager have to do in order to run the business successfully?The structure at this point is likely to be relatively informal and adhoc, however as the business grows and more staff are employed staff will start to specialise in one area of the business and focus on specific roles

What is the benefit of this to the business?The business is likely to formalise its structure in order to ensure it is clear what everybody’s job isThe business may have to split into departments that deal with different areas of the business. These departments are also known as FUNCTIONS

What FUNCTIONS might a large business have?

Business Functions

Sales and Marketing

Procurement

R&D

Human ResourcesFinance

Operations/Production

Customer Service

Businesses may have some or all of these departments depending on its size and the nature of the businessThey may also have other functions such as Administration or IT which support the other functions

Task – Collective memory

• In groups of 4• Each person from your group is going to take it

in turns to have a 15 second look at a diagram• You must return to your group and fill in as

much detail as you can

Task

• Sort cards

• Sort the cards into the relevant departments:> Human Resources> Production> Finance> Marketing

ON THE BLANK ONES WRITE DOWN OTHER TASKS AND PLACE THEM APPROPRIATELY

You are the Production/Marketing/Finance and Human Resources Department for Kellogg’s

cereals

In the following scenarios what would your department/function

need to do?

The company want to launch a new product in 6 months time

A popular TV channel screens a program which exposes the cereal market for

promoting unhealthy products to children

The company has decided to close down a factory in the USA in order to move production to Brazil where labour is

significantly cheaper

Food for Thought…

How important is it for the functional departments to be communicating

and working together?

One more…

• Are there are functional areas which perhaps work closer with each other than others?