INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS STUDIES BBA - 111

Lecture 1

September 30, 2021

GUIDELINES • Leave all excuses at the door.

• If you did not do your assigned work - Admit it.

• If you did not understand the assignment - Ask.

• If you did not study for the Quiz or Exam accept your grade and resolve to do better in the future.

I am here :

To Teach You,

To Inspire You,

To Help you Grow.

I will do my part, the rest is up to you.

COVID CLASS SOPs

• A Face mask is MANDATORY – NO EXCEPTIONS

• Maintain Social distancing

• Do not share objects

• If you are not feeling well do not come to the class as it becomes risky for others.

CMS for Communication

Course Outline posted on CMS - Review

Textbook:

Boone, Kurtz, David L, (2015) Contemporary Business. 17th Edition, John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

• Lecture Slides; Handouts; Assessments to be posted regularly on CMS.

COURSE CONTENT

1. THE CHANGING FACE OF BUSINESS 2. BUSINESS ETHICS AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 3. ECONOMIC CHALLENGES AND COMPETING 4. BUSINESS FORMS AND OWNERSHIP 5. THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP ALTERNATIVE 6. MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP 7. HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 8. PERFORMANCE TEAMWORK AND COMMUNICATION 9. PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 10. CUSTOMER AND PRODUCT DRIVEN STRATEGIES 11. PROMOTION AND PRICING STRATEGIES 12. FINANCIAL SYSTEM 13. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 14. FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT 15. TECHNOLOGY IN BUSINESS 16. EMERGING TRENDS IN E-COMMERCE 17. RISK MANAGEMENT AND CYBERCRIME

GRADING & EVALUATION

Class Participation: 05%

Assignment(s): 05%

Project: 10%

Class Quiz: 10%

Midterm Examination: 25%

Final Examination: 45%

GRADED COURSE WORK

Three (3) Quizzes + One Bonus Quiz

One (1) Assignment

One (1) Project Report and/or Presentation

Midterm and Final Examination

BUSINESS FRAMEWORK

1. What is a Business?

2. What are some of the Emerging Issues in the context of Businesses?

3. Why is it important to study these issues?

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Distinguish between business and not-for-profit organizations. 2. Identify and describe the factors of production. 3. Describe the private enterprise system, including basic rights and

entrepreneurship. 4. Identify the seven eras of business, and explain how the

relationship era - including alliances, technology, and environmental concerns - influences contemporary business.

5. Explain how today’s business workforce is changing. 6. Describe how the nature of work itself is changing. 7. Identify the skills and attributes managers need to lead

businesses in the 21st century. 8. Outline the characteristics that make a company admired by the

business community.

WHAT IS A BUSINESS?

What comes to mind when you think of a Business?

Business consists of all profit-seeking activities and enterprises that provide goods and services necessary for an economic system.

• Tangible goods and Intangible services.

Adaptable and Efficient,

Resource driven,

Human skills and know-how,

Products and Services,

Technology,

Financial incentive to bring about real innovations.

BUSINESS BASICS

• A buyer recognizes a need for a good or service and trades money with a seller to obtain that product.

• The seller participates in the process in the hope of gaining a profit.

• Profit represent rewards for businesspeople who take the risks involved in blending people, technology, and information to create and market want-satisfying goods and services.

• Social and Ethical responsibilities. To succeed in the long run, companies must deal responsibly with employees, customers, suppliers, competitors, government, and the general public.

• Not-for-profit organizations, business-like establishments that have primary objectives other than returning profits to their owners.

Placing public service above profits

BUSINESS IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT

Businesses operate in an increasingly complex, dynamic, risky and innovative environment. Some of the issues facing businesses include:

o Resource Constraints

o Knowledge and Innovation

o Data and Analytics

o Technological and Digital Transformation

o Cost Containment in a Highly Competitive Environment

o Disruption in supply channels

o Efficient managers with innovative work behavior

o Globalization

o Cyber-security and Regulation

FAILURE TO EVOLVE

• The business environment continues to transform and evolve as physical, virtual and electronic environments blend.

• Companies continue to innovate and there are radical disruptions in the traditional business models.

• The transformation is bringing about new industries, models and technologies into play.

• The result is a rapid pace of development with exciting new opportunities for growth.

FAILURE TO TRANSFORM

1. Nokia refused Android and stuck to Symbios

2. Yahoo refused Google

3. Kodak refused digital cameras

4. Blackberry refused innovation and stuck to its Patent system

Lessons:

1. Take Risks

2. Embrace Change (Disruption / Innovation)

3. Keep your Ego in check

Failure to learn these lessons can lead to elimination.

FACTORS OF PRODUCTION

Technology plays an important role in the success of many businesses. • New product • Product Improvement • Smoother and more efficient operations

FACTORS OF PRODUCTION

Employees - a valued source of ideas and innovation, as well as physical effort. • Can provide a significant competitive edge.

Entrepreneurship – willingness to take risk to create a business. Businesses operate in an economic system - that determines how goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed in a society. Capitalism - Adam Smith is regarded as the father of capitalism.

o Private enterprise system (Capitalism), rewards firms for their ability to

perceive and serve the needs and demands of consumers.

o Regulated by the “invisible hand” of competition, through competitive differentiation - unique combination of organizational abilities, products, and approaches that sets a company apart from competitors.

RIGHTS IN CAPITALISM

ENTREPRENEURSHIP ALTERNATIVE

Entrepreneurship is at the heart of the Private Enterprise System:

o Create jobs and products.

o Provides the benefits of innovation often by utilizing or leveraging technology

o Create or enter new markets, un-crowded with competitors

o Exhibit greater flexibility

o Intrapreneurship (Entrepreneurial thinking within a firm) to benefit from enhanced flexibility, improved innovation, and new market opportunities.

INNOVATION

o Make your competitors your allies by gaining strength

o Reach the top and eliminate the competition

o KEEP INNOVATING

REMEMBER: AGE is just a NUMBER!!

• KFC was founded by Col. Sanders when he was 56 years old.

• Jack Ma was unable to get a job at KFC and founded Alibaba, and retired at 55 years of age.

• Lamborghini was founded by a Tractor owner who was slighted by Enzo Ferarri.

ENTREPRENEURS

SEVEN ERAS IN BUSINESS HISTORY

CURRENT BUSINESS ERA

• Relationship driven - collection of activities that build and maintain ongoing, mutually beneficial ties with customers and other parties.

• Relationship management involves gathering knowledge of customer needs and preferences and applying that understanding to get as close to the customer as possible.

• Technology playing an increasing role through business application of knowledge based on scientific discoveries, inventions, innovation, and analytics.

Think of ways in which existing or new businesses have adopted technology for transformation and improved relationship management?

PARTNERSHIPS

Businesses are increasingly focused on forming partnerships with other organizations to optimize available opportunities.

Partnership - affiliation of two or more companies that help each other achieve common goals.

• Strategic alliance - a partnership formed to create a competitive advantage for the businesses involved.

Amazon, now partners with enough third-party retailers to earn more profit from sales of their products than it does from its traditional inventory of books.

GOING GREEN

Operate responsibly and incorporate issues that customers care about into your business.

o Environmental concerns continue to influence consumers’ choices of everything from yogurt to clothing to cars and light bulbs, many observers say the question about “going green” is no longer whether, but how.

o Need to develop environmentally friendly products and processes is becoming a major new force in business today.

o Companies researching ways to save energy, cut emissions and pollution, reduce waste, and, save money and increase profits as well.

BUSINESS WORKFORCE

A skilled and knowledgeable workforce is an essential resource for keeping pace with the accelerating rate of change in today’s business world.

Trends and challenges for managing and developing human resources:

Young or aging population and an expanding or shrinking labor pool,

Growing diversity of the workforce,

Outsourcing, Offshoring and changing nature of work,

Need for flexibility and mobility,

Use of collaboration to innovate.

Firms recognize the value of a partnership with employees that encourages creative thinking and problem solving and that rewards risk taking and innovation.

PROBLEM

The Pakistani workforce is not trained to ask relevant questions - they get paid because they can engage in mundane data processing and converting data into information used by a handful of decision-makers.

• Inability of education and training to keep pace with technological advancement.

• Lack of critical thinking.

• Emphasis on information gathering.

• Rigid curricula and pressure to get good grades.

• Difference between being a good student and being an intelligent learner.

• Need to learn how to keep learning for the rest of your life.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Most Professionals are perfect products of the Pakistani education system: they are very, very good at taking exams. They have absolutely no ability to understand what they are supposed to be learning in the first place.

The education system paradigm is being questioned:

Should we have a system where students continue to be asked to learn formulas and theories by heart?

OR

Should we be emphasizing the development of the ability to utilize the available information, data and theories for effective decision making?

MANAGER’S TODAY

Vision: the ability to perceive marketplace needs and what an organization must do to satisfy them.

Critical thinking: the ability to analyze and assess information to pinpoint problems or opportunities.

Creativity: the capacity to develop novel solutions to perceived organizational problems.

Ability to lead change: guide their employees and organizations through the changes brought about by technology, marketplace demands, and global competition.

ADMIRED COMPANIES

Who is your hero? Why do you admire that person?

Companies, like individuals, may be admired for different reasons:

• profitability,

• consistent growth,

• safe and challenging work environment,

• high-quality goods and services,

• business ethics and social responsibility.

NEXT SESSION

1. Read Chapter 1 and Review the Assessment Check Questions for Chapter 1.

2. Next Lecture: CHAPTER 2 - BUSINESS ETHICS AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY