Functional Areas in Business Organizations

This report explores the functional areas in business organizations and the skills required by employees to work effectively in these areas. The functional areas discussed include marketing, human resource management, customer service, finance, research and development, and sales. The skills needed by employees in each functional area are also described. Get expert study material and solved assignments on Desklib.

BSc (Hons) Business Management
with Foundation
Cohort 1
BMP3004 World of Work
Functional Areas

Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................1
2.0 What is a business?....................................................................................................................1
3.0 What is Functional areas of business.........................................................................................1
4.0 What are the key functional areas of a business?......................................................................1
5.0 Description of the various functional areas in business organizations......................................2
5.1 Marketing:........................................................................................................................2
5.2 Human Resource Management:.......................................................................................2
5.3 Customer Service:............................................................................................................2
5.4 Finance:............................................................................................................................3
5.5 Research and Development:.............................................................................................3
5.6 Sales:.................................................................................................................................3
6.0 Description of the types of skills needed by employees to be able to work effectively in these
functional areas................................................................................................................................4
6.1 Skills needed by Marketing employees............................................................................4
6.2 Skills needed by Human Resource Management employees:..........................................5
6.3 Skills needed by Customer Service employees................................................................5
6.4 Skills needed by Finance employees................................................................................6
6.5 Skills needed by Research and Development employees.................................................6
6.6 Skills needed by Sales employees....................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

1.0 Introduction
The decisions regarding the manner to use the factors of production in the best manner for
provision of products and/or services to customers require a number of individuals to operate in
diverse jobs within a group. As the size and scale of a business increases, it implies a
simultaneous increment in the complexities of its product portfolio (Gray, 2019). This even leads
to the growth of functional areas belonging to a company. Every functional area tends to give its
certain and valuable contribution to the entity as a whole. The following report seeks to explore
the functional areas pertinent to a business along with the skills that are required by the
employees to operate effectively in such functional areas of the company.
2.0 What is a business?
Business can be comprehensibly said to be an economic system whereby services as well as
goods are exchanged for money or money’s equivalent. It is a commercial arrangement which is
mostly aimed at maximising the revenues as well as profits by undertaking strategic course of
action along with competitive moves.
3.0 What is Functional areas of business
Functional areas can be referred to as the group of individuals pertinent to a company who
possess similar set of skills, competencies, knowledge and abilities (Peng, 2016). In this relation,
it has been identified that each and every business is composed of functional areas which work
together in coordination and cooperation with each other to attain fruitful outcomes for the
company.
4.0 What are the key functional areas of a business?
Every company functioning within the confines of an economy is involved in the grouping
of individuals on the basis of functions performed by them. Such grouping is done to give rise to
the concept of functional areas within a business. These are important for the smooth functioning
of any corporation at market place. It has been identified that some of the most common
functional areas within an organisation are marketing, HR, finance, sales and operations. There
are other functional areas also that belong to a company but these are the ones which are the
most crucial for an entity and thus shape the success of a company
1

5.0 Description of the various functional areas in business organizations
5.1 Marketing:
Marketing is a functional area which constitutes activities related to a business in which
exchange or movement of goods occurs. In this regard, it has been acknowledged that marketing
is very important in business because it helps in buying and selling of product or services. It can
be seen that in every business first thing to achieve is profit margins without it a business cannot
perform for long term (Kirova, 2017). It has been analysed that most of the business cannot
survive without good marketing strategies. Marketing practices are the channels that help to
interact with the customers and attract the consumers which ultimately aid to accomplish the goal
of an organization. Marketing team of a company is accountable for promoting the products and
generates sales which help in the growth of organization.
5.2 Human Resource Management:
Human resources management is acknowledged to be a functional area that basically holds
the responsibility for handling the manpower of a company. The main motive of human resource
management is to create a strong relation between employees and the employer so that the
workforce can be committed towards the timely accomplishment of corporate goal. Human
resources team recruit the man power for a company (Muscalu and Ciocan, 2016). They have to
ensure that staff selected for company has right skills, qualification and experience which is
needed by an organization. The team pertinent to HR functional area emphasizes on adopting
several practices which help them out in enhancing their sustainability within the market place.
Some of the common practices followed by human resource management are regarded to be
reward, performance appraisal, training, recruitment, selection, incentives, dismissal, recognition
and many others which directly hold impact over the employees and their ability to improve their
performance and operational capabilities. As result, it is easier for organization or employees to
attain their goal in pre-defined time period.
5.3 Customer Service:
The most important aspect for any company is acknowledged to be the base of customers,
potential and existent. Thus, customer service is the functional area which is created for the sole
purpose of providing support services to the customers (Goodman, 2019). The intent of each and
every business operating within an economy is to derive maximum satisfaction from the
2

customers in order to retain them within the company for a long period of time in future context.
Thus, customer service is a functional area that keeps customers at its heart and takes every
possible measure or initiative to keep the customers, happy as well as content at all times. It is
often seen that customers tend to raise queries or face issues in relation to a product or service
sold by the company. In this relation, customer service department provides instant response
with the help of which such customer problems can be resolved in a timely manner. This helps in
preserving the loyal base of consumers as well as attracting new ones towards the organisation.
5.4 Finance:
Finance department in every organisation emphasizes on handling money related matter of
the company. The respective department is responsible for developing effective budget that not
only helps company in managing their financial work in rightful manner but at the same time it
supports businesses in making use of available money in right area with the available budget
(Nielsen, 2017). Along with this, every finance manager of the company is also required to
emphasise on developing their understanding towards the core requirement of each and every
functional areas and other events within the same company so that they can effectively develop
budget for the same accordingly. In addition to this, it also helps the company in forecasting their
financial position that whether they are in the profit stage or at loss.
5.5 Research and Development:
Research and Development is a functional area which constitute activities which are
undertaken with the intent of innovating as well as introducing new goods and services. The
personnel pertinent to this functional area within the confines of a business seek to take the new
offerings of the organisation to marketplace and thereby adding them to the bottom line of the
corporation (Homburg and et. al., 2017). Research and Development is a functional area that
plays a crucial role in relation to life cycle of a product or service. The functions performed by
this functional area are often seen to be interrelated to other departments such as production,
marketing, sales, etc.
5.6 Sales:
This is a functional area that is concerned with management of volume of sales along with
the revenue earned by an organisation in the long run. In this relation, it is well known that the
primary aim of almost every company since its incorporation is to maximise the sales and profits.
3

The increment in sales figures automatically inflates the probability of increment in profit
margins (Locander, Weinberg and Locander, 2018). Thus, sales is acknowledged to be that
functional area of a business which intends to create and implement sound and effective
strategies through which the sales of a company can be significantly accelerated. This
department coordinates with the marketing department in order to devise strategies with which
brand awareness can get a sudden boost. As soon as the product is developed, the role of this
functional area arises and continues till the time the total volume of production is converted into
volume of sales. Thus, with the help of this functional area, a company is able to target a specific
set of audience from the market and make sales to them by adopting sound strategies.
6.0 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
Marketing department is mainly responsible for developing their strong image at
marketplace. For this, it is highly important for each marketing employee to develop strong
relationship with the customers and enhance their sales performance. Some of the common skills
that would be required by marketing employees in order to execute their work in rightful manner
are interpersonal skills, analytical and numeracy ability, team working skill, creativity and
imagination, strong negotiation skill, influencing skills, effective communication skill in written
and oral both, IT skills and many others. Here, it can be said that employees belonging to
marketing department must emphasise on having these stated skills as all of them collaboratively
helps them out in the execution o their work in best possible manner (Baker and Hart, 2016). In
this, it has been analysed that strong communication skills, influencing skills and interpersonal
skills supports marketing team head in developing their positive relationship with the customers
and also persuade them to make purchase from the same company in rightful manner. In addition
to this, effective team working skill, creativity and imagination and strong negotiation skill
supports marketing employees in executing their planned activities in the rightful manner that
ultimately helps them out in enhancing their profitability by simply accomplishing their targets
in the quicker manner.
4

6.2 Skills needed by Human Resource Management employees:
Human resources in every company are referred to as the main asset which helps them out
in executing their predefined goals and objectives so that they can succeed within the same
region for longer period of time. Employees working this department are required to have several
set of skills so that they can easily develop strong relations among employer and employee in
order to provide maximum benefits to the both parties. Some of the core skills that are required
to be adopted by HR employees in every company are Negotiation, Problem Solving and
Conflict Management, Communication, Multitasking, Decision-making skills., Training and
developmental Skills, Budgeting skills and many others. Here, it can be said that existence of
these skills simply provides support to influence workforce of the company to stay longer with
the company so that they can easily accomplishing their project aim and objectives (Trullen, J.,
Stirpe, Bonache and Valverde, 2016). Even though ether are range of skills but still it is highly
important for the company to develop their strong relationship with employees which ultimately
motivate the employees to perform the same assigned work with higher potential within the
company. This would definitely help our businesses in attaining their business goals with strong
employees support.
6.3 Skills needed by Customer Service employees
Mainly customer service employees are required to emphasise on resolving queries of
customers with the motive of making customers loyal towards them in effective manner. While
performing the same job responsibility it is highly important for the customer service employees
to have effective command over several skills such as attentiveness, active listening, conflict
resolution, dependability, effective communication, adaptability, creativity, technical knowledge,
patience, and empathy, knowledge of your product or service, reading physical and emotional
cues, friendliness, open-mindedness, responsiveness, quick thinking and timeliness. By having
strong command over this, it become easier for the customer service department to supports the
organization in attaining success by simply resolving employees query in timely manner
(Badran, 2020). Along with this, strong base of customers for a company directly considered as
the performance booster as they gets loyal customers which help the in accomplishing their goals
and objectives at quicker manner.
5

6.4 Skills needed by Finance employees
Work of finance department is quite complicated plus these people require huge
concentration so that they does not get confused in the work or might place false entry by
mistakenly. Some of the common skills as well as knowledge that is required to have by finance
department as well as whole team mates working within this team are interpersonal skills,
financial reporting, problem-solving skills, management experience, a formal accounting
qualification, ability to communicate, analytical ability, knowledge of it software, management
experience, capacity for innovation, commercial acumen etc. Here, it can be said that the
respective individual working in this department is to have effective command over these skills
so that they can accomplish respective goals and objectives of their department (Crawford,
2020). Also, strong finance work associated skills as well as knowledge helps employees in
contributing in the success of the company in lucrative form.
6.5 Skills needed by Research and Development employees
In order to conduct detailed research for the company about the industry, customers,
rivalry and other areas related to the company, employees of research and development are
required to have strong research and development associated skills which ultimately helps them
out in find out best knowledge that supports them in brining innovation or the required
modification (Ardito and et. al., 2018). The main skills and knowledge that is required to have by
employees of research and development are excellent verbal communication skills, to be
thorough and pay attention to detail, the ability to use your initiative, thinking and
reasoning skills, maths knowledge, the ability to read English, analytical thinking skills, active
listening skills, to be able to carry out basic tasks on a computer or hand-held device and others.
With the inclusion of maximum of these skills employees will be able to conduct effective
research and improvise their business performance.
6.6 Skills needed by Sales employees
Sales employees of each company are require to have effective command other several skills
such as effective communication, a great memory, active listening, rapport building, the art of
persuasion, resilience, public speaking, adaptability, collaboration, objection handling and many
6

others. All of these skills would definitely supports sales employees in meeting their sales targets
within the provided time frame (Koosawad and et. al., 2018). This would definitely help them
out in maximising organizational profitability with the increase in sales performance within the
same market with the effective support of skilled employees.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above specified report, it has been analysed that there are several functional
areas within every organisation which have their roles and responsibilities. The goals and
objectives of these functional areas are decided by their head which ultimately supports them in
attaining success in the quicker manner. It has also been analysed that employees of each
functional area requires certain set of skills that ultimately helps each functional area head in
accomplishing their business goals in quicker manner that ultimately contributes in enhancing
overall organisational success as well as growth.
7

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Gray, D.E., 2019. Doing research in the business world. Sage Publications Limited.
Peng, M.W., 2016. Global business. Cengage learning.
Kirova, V., 2017. Exploring the role of strategic marketing department. Journal of Marketing
Development and Competitiveness, 11(2).
Baker, M.J. and Hart, S. eds., 2016. The marketing book. Routledge.
Nielsen, H., 2017. The Roles of Finance functions, Management Accounting, and Lean (Doctoral
dissertation, Aalborg Universitetsforlag).
Crawford, R., 2020. ‘But nobody talks to accountants’: the growing influence of the finance
department in the advertising agency. Accounting History Review, 30(1), pp.89-111.
Muscalu, E. and Ciocan, F., 2016. Attracting and motivating employees during changes in
organization. The role of the human resources department. Journal of Defense Resources
Management, 7(2), p.153.
Trullen, J., Stirpe, L., Bonache, J. and Valverde, M., 2016. The HR department's contribution to
line managers' effective implementation of HR practices. Human Resource Management
Journal, 26(4), pp.449-470.
Goodman, J., 2019. Strategic customer service: Managing the customer experience to increase
positive word of mouth, build loyalty, and maximize profits. Amacom.
Badran, O.R.A., 2020. The Role of Governance Interaction with Customer Service in Improving
Banking Financial Performance. International Journal of Business and
Management, 15(2).
Homburg, C., Alavi, S., Rajab, T. and Wieseke, J., 2017. The contingent roles of R&D–sales
versus R&D–marketing cooperation in new-product development of business-to-business
firms. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 34(1), pp.212-230.
Ardito, L., Natalicchio, A., Messeni Petruzzelli, A. and Garavelli, A.C., 2018. Organizing for
continuous technology acquisition: The role of R&D geographic dispersion. R&D
Management, 48(2), pp.165-176.
Locander, D.A., Weinberg, F.J. and Locander, W.B., 2018. The Mediating Role of Sales
Department Innovation Orientation on Creative Selling. Journal of Managerial
Issues, 30(4), pp.463-403.
Koosawad, K., Saguansakdiyotin, N., Palangsantikul, P., Porouhan, P. and Premchaiswadi, W.,
2018, November. Improving Sales Process of an Automotive Company with Fuzzy Miner
Techniques. In 2018 16th International Conference on ICT and Knowledge Engineering
(ICT&KE) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
8