The interdependent nature of business

Businesses are often split into different departments that depend on each other to
achieve success. The more closely the departments work together, the higher the
chance of success.

The roles of the main functions in a business

Business operations

The business operations department deals with all activities that are related to the
day-to-day running of the business. The department’s overall aim is to maximise
efficiency and profit while minimising costs. Operations covers elements of the
business including supply chain management, procurement, logistics, methods of
production, managing stock and costs, and the overall sales process.

Finance

The finance department deals with all of the money that comes into and goes out of
the business. The finance department has a number of roles, including sourcing
finance to pay start-up costs, preparing and creating financial accounts,
maintaining financial records, paying bills and analysing financial performance.
Businesses usually organise their finance departments according to the business’
size, what it sells and the markets it operates in.

Marketing

The marketing department is concerned with identifying, anticipating and

satisfying customers’ needs in the most profitable way possible. Marketing has
many roles, such as market research, developing marketing and promotional
strategies, and the overall implementation of the marketing mix. Marketing is
often seen as the creative department in a business, as it generates content, eg
adverts designed to raise awareness of the business’ products and services.
Human resources

The human resources department is responsible for the recruitment, training,

organisation, retention, development and motivation of employees. Human
resources works within the overall aims and objectives of the business, and it also
influences those aims and objectives. The role of human resources is hugely
dependent on the size of a business and the number of employees it has.

How business functions work together to achieve aims and objectives

Working together

In a business, it is extremely important for departments to work together. For a

business to be successful, its key areas – marketing, business operations, human
resources and finance – cannot work in isolation.

Marketing

The marketing department must work with business operations, human resources
and finance to be successful:

● Human resources must ensure that marketing employees are recruited and
trained properly.
● Operations must ensure that the business can keep up with the demand
created by marketing and that the supply chain runs effectively.
● Marketing relies on the finance department to ensure that it has enough
money to run its marketing campaigns effectively.

Business operations
The operations department must work with human resources, marketing and
finance to be successful:

● Human resources must ensure that operations employees are recruited

and trained properly.
● Marketing must create demand for the products or services that the
operations department is working on.
● Operations relies on the finance department to ensure it can purchase
supplies, transport and store goods, and oversee the general day-to-day
running of the business.

Human resources

The human resources department is extremely important to the rest of the business.
It must make sure that the operations, marketing and finance departments have
enough employees. It must also make sure that those employees are effectively
trained and managed. Finally, it is responsible for dealing with employees’
disciplinary and grievance issues across all departments in a business.

Finance

The finance department must work with human resources, marketing and
operations to be successful:

● Human resources must ensure that finance employees are recruited and
trained properly.
● Finance must provide marketing with an effective budget and enough
financial resources to enable it to create demand for the business’ products
and services.
 ● Finance must also ensure that the operations department has enough
money to purchase supplies, transport and store goods, and oversee the
general day-to-day running of the business.

Glossary

1. adverts
2. Use of posters etc to inform people about the new goods.
3. aims and objectives
4. A business aim is the overall target or goal of the
business, whereas business objectives are the steps a
business needs to take to meet its overall aims.
5. demand
6. A request for something to be sold or supplied.
7. disciplinary
8. An employer could start formal disciplinary action
against a worker if they have concerns about their work,
conduct or absence.
9. grievance
10. When an employee has a real or imagined cause for
complaint, especially unfair treatment.
11. logistics
12. The commercial activity of transporting resources from
their current position to where they are needed.
13. marketing
14. Identifying and satisfying customer needs.
15. marketing mix
16. A description of marketing–product, price, promotion,
place.
17. procurement
 18. Obtaining the correct supplies from the correct supplier.
19. profits
20. The amount of money made after all costs are deducted.
21. retention
22. Retention refers to the amount of employees the
employer is able to keep in the business.
23. start-up costs
24. One-off costs a business needs to pay before it starts
trading.
25. supply chain
26. The end to end process of creating products and
delivering them to the customer.

Functions of Management
Management may be described as all the activities that are concerned with coordinating the
factors of production (land, labour, capital and enterprise) in order to ensure that corporate goals
are attained.

1) Planning:This entails establishing short-term and long term goals and objectives for the
firm, and determining the resources and tasks that are necessary to achieve those goals. The
planning process begins with management’s formulation of a strategic plan for the organization
as a whole, which in turn is often driven by the vision of the leader. Managers often utilize the
acronym SMART ( Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time Base) to help them create
sensible, meaningful goals. These help ensure that the business can measure its performance
accurately. Both long-term and short-term goals set for the business should be specific and clear,
and must answer the six ‘W’ questions: Who? What? When? Where? Which? Why? For
example, a general goal may be ‘to make a profit’. A more specific goal would read: ‘to make a
profit of $10,000 by the end of the first four months of operation in order to become more
competitive’.

2) Organizing: Having established clear goals for the business, management is responsible
for ensuring that all the necessary resources or factors of production are available, and that they
are effectively combined in order to realize the goals of the company. This entails assigning clear
duties and responsibilities to the varied departments, establishing work schedules, allocating the
necessary resources to the respective departments and ensuring that the lines of authority or the
chain of command is very clear and that employees are certain as to what their tasks are and to
whom they are to report.

3) Directing: Directing entails ensuring that the tasks assigned to employees are clear and
achievable, and that these tasks are in line with the overall goals of the organization.

4) Controlling: Controlling involves monitoring employee performance against the

standards of performance that have been set in order to determine whether the organization is on
target to achieve its overall goals and objectives. If actual performance does not measure up to
the desired level of performance, then management is required to use that information to take the
necessary steps to address the problem.

5) Co-ordinating: This entails ensuring that all the factors of production and the
departments of the business function as an integrated or inter-dependent unit – working together
towards the attainment of overall organizational goals. This reduces the risk of departments
functioning independently and competing against each other; pursuing isolated departmental
goals that may not be in the better interest of the organization as a whole.

6) Delegating: This involves distributing or sharing the workload across the organization
from top management down to middle and junior managers, supervisors and floor employees.
Delegating may also be described as the act of assigning some measure of responsibility and
authority to individuals within lower-level positions in the organization.

7) Staffing: Staffing entails ensuring that there is a ‘job fit’ across the organization as it
relates to all employees. To this end the human resource management systems of the
organization should function effectively so that the right people are employed to fill the various
positions within the organization. Also, the right people should be promoted and training
programmes should be offered to continuously develop employees according to the needs of the
organization.

8) Communicating: Communicating involves ensuring that employees are kept abreast of

the current and future plans of the organization, and that they are also fully aware of what their
assigned roles are, or will be, in the execution of those plans.

9) Motivating: This entails creating an environment in which employees feel enthusiastic

about their jobs and therefore accomplish their assigned tasks to the highest standard possible.
Providing employees with good working conditions, attractive salaries or bonuses, recognition
through award schemes and opportunities for promotion and career development are some of the
ways organization can motivate staff.