Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Resource Planning
Fourth Edition
Chapter One
Business Functions, Processes, and Data Requirements
Objectives
Taking sales orders Receiving goods and Cost allocation and Training
raw materials control
Figure 1-1 Examples of functional areas of operation and their business functions
Sales and SCM o Sales must know production schedules and agree on delivery dates of orders with
Production so customers are not promised dates that cannot be met.
o Production must tell Sales about production problems which will affect customers.
Sales and Finance o Finance must know about customer inquiries to check their credit rating before
sales are made.
o Finance will be involved when discounts are agreed upon or when there are
problems with customer payments.
Finance and all o Finance monitors departmental spending and the achievement of financial
other departments targets.
Human Resources o Will liaise over salary increases and bonuses.
and Finance
Human resources o HR handles job vacancies, promotion opportunities, training courses, and
and other functional continuing professional development (CPD) for all areas/staff.
areas
Business processes
involve more than one
functional area
Functional area
Input Process Output
responsible for input
Request to purchase Marketing and Sales Sales order Order is generated
smartphone
Financial help for Accounting and Finance Arranging financing Customer finances through
purchase in-house the smartphone company
Fulfilment of order Supply Chain Management Shipping and delivery Customer receives
smartphone
Technical support Marketing and Sales 24-hours help line Customer’s technical query
available is resolved
Figure 1-2 Sample business processes related to the sale of a personal smartphone
• Sharing data effectively and efficiently between and within functional areas
leads to more efficient business processes.
• The customer may be the traditional external customer who buys the
product or service, or an internal customer (a colleague in another department).
• We will examine the business processes of the coffee shop and see why
coordination of the functional areas helps achieve efficient and effective
business processes.
• Even though just a few people can run a small coffee shop, the operation of the
business requires a number of processes. Coordinating the activities within different
functional areas requires accurate and timely information.
Promoting products to
customers • Deciding whether to sell a product also
Business depends on how much it costs to produce
functions Taking customers’ orders
the product.
Helping create a sales
forecast
Advertising
Functional area Accounting and • Raw data of financial transactions are recorded
of operation Finance and then summarized in meaningful ways to
controlling accounts
determine the profitability of the coffee shop
and to support decision making.
Cost allocation and
control • Records from accounts receivable are used to
Business
functions Planning and determine whether to grant credit to a
budgeting particular customer during sales process.
Cash-flow
management • You need to be sure you have enough cash on
hand to purchase raw materials, as well as to
finance the purchase of new equipment, such
as an additional coffee machine for the
decaffeinated coffee.
Conclusion
• The coffee shop, while a relatively simple business, has many of the
processes needed in larger organizations, and these processes involve
activities in more than one functional area.
• Systems that are integrated using ERP software provide the data sharing
that is necessary between functional areas.
Inputs
Customer data
Order data
Sales trend data
Per unit cost
Company travel expense
policy
Outputs
Sales strategies
Product pricing
Employment needs
Inputs
Product sales data
Production plans
Inventory levels
Layoff and recall company
policy
Outputs
Raw material orders
Packaging orders
Resource expenditure data
Production and inventory
reports
Hiring information
Inputs
Payments from customers
Accounts receivable data
Accounts payable data
Sales data
Production and inventory
data
Payroll and expense data
Outputs
Payments to suppliers
Financial reports
Customer credit data
Inputs
Personnel forecasts
Skills data
Outputs
Regulation compliance
Employee training and
certification
Skills database
Employee evaluation
and compensation
1.Marketing and Sales: develops products, sets product prices, promotes products
through advertising and marketing, takes customer orders, supports customers, and
creates sales forecasts.
2.Supply Chain Management: develops production plans, orders raw materials from
suppliers, receives the raw material into the facility, manufactures products, maintains
facilities, and ships products to customers.
• Employees working in one functional area need data from other functional
areas. Functional area information systems should be integrated, so
shared data are accurate and readily available.