Functional Areas of Business: Key Departments and Required Skills

This report discusses the importance of business and the different functional areas of a business, including marketing, human resource management, customer service, finance, research and development, and sales. It also covers the skills required by employees to work effectively in each department. The report is relevant to students studying BSc (Hons) Business Management with Foundation and the course code BMP3004.

BSc (Hons) Business Management with
Foundation
BMP3004
World of Work
Functional Areas
Submitted by:
Name:
ID:
Contents
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1.0 Introduction 4
2.0 What is a business? 4
3.0 What is Functional areas of business – Definition
4
4.0 What are the key functional areas of a business?
4
5.0 Description of the various functional areas in business
organizations p-p
5.1 Marketing 4-5
5.2 Human Resource Management 5
5.3 Customer Service 5
5.4 Finance 5
5.5 Research and Development 5-6
5.6 Sales 6
6.0 Description of the types of skills needed by employees
to be able to work effectively in these functional areas
p-p
6.1 Skills needed by Marketing employees 6
6.2 Skills needed by Human Resource Management employees
6
6.3 Skills needed by Customer Service employees
p
6.4 Skills needed by Finance employees 7
6.5 Skills needed by Research and Development employees
7
6.6 Skills needed by Sales employees 7
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7.0 Conclusion 8
References 8
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1.0 Introduction
Business is a significant human activity as it support the nation in their economic
development and uplift people's living standard. A business is concerned mainly with the
production, distributions and exchange of the product and services with a goals to earn profit
and satisfied humans by fulfill their unlimited wants. In this report, a person has purchased a
local business for which he require some workers with different skills. Therefore, this report
will cover the meaning of business, different functional areas of a business, and different skill
that are required by all the function (Beausoleil, 2022).
2.0 What is a business?
A business is refers to trade or an occupation and sales or purchase of products and
services to earn profit. Business help in creating innovation and also make essential
technological advancement. A business scan be non profit organization and non profit
entities. An example of a business is farming.
3.0 What is Functional areas of business - Definition
Business functions are considered as a set of practice which are performed by
organizational different departments and initiated by events, business commitments,
procedure e an output and transform information. Main intention of the functional ares is to
make sure that all essential business activities are carried out in a efficient manner (Cavique
and et. al., 2022).
4.0 What are the key functional areas of a business?
In organization, an enterprise perform various function such as operation, sales,
production, HRM, marketing and many more. So, all business enterprise need to focus on
mainly researching and understand all areas as they are related to an individual business.
These key functional area are very essential for any business as they perform to attain the
organizational common goals.
5.0 Description of the various functional areas in business
organizations
5.1 Marketing:
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It consist of all that a company does in order to identify the customer's requirement or
necessity and then design product or services that can fulfill those needs. Function of
marketing also include the promotion of company's goods and services, developing pricing
strategy so that an enterprise can capture the market share during remaining competitive
(Frajzyngier, 2022). The marketing is responsible to build and oversee the organizational
internet presence such as social media campaigns, company's web site and other etc.
5.2 Human Resource Management:
It is a well known function of a business. This department is responsible for the
recruitment of new employees and it also ensure that all vacancy are filled by bets workers
for the job. It is essential because process of the recruitment is very time consuming and
expensive. This function facilitate the development programs for workforce so that they can
become able to learn new things to improve their efficiency. It help the company to become
successful.
5.3 Customer Service:
Mostly business have a customer service staff where their trained and skilled staff
handles complaints and inquiries professionally and positively. They clear customer's doubts
by providing them details about company's products. This department collect and analyses
the customer's feedback and follow the buyers to find out that how solution worked for them.
This department respond to the customer's reviews and track customers service Key
Performance Indicator and metrics is responsibility of the customers service team(Jiang and
et. al., 2022).
5.4 Finance:
This function is related to the accounting, it involve planing to obtain and manage
company's fund. The finance managers make plan for both the long term and short term
financial capital requirements and analyze impact which borrowing will have on
organizational financial well being. Finance department of a company see about that how
much fund should be raised and implications of the financing decision for long term health of
a business.
5.5 Research and Development:
This function is primarily solicitous with the development of any new product as well
as existing product's improvement . It also involve the design of a product as well. New
products and service may be matured because of the scientific and technological scientific
advance such as new drugs, satellite navigation system and mobile phones. Technological
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advance through the research and development not only impact out lives bit it has also impact
how a business operate (Leone, Pietronudo and Dezi, 2022).
5.6 Sales:
It is a crucial function for all the business organizations. This function organize the
sales promotion and respond to the customer's inquiries. It provide technical advice to the
company regarding their sales activities and keep a customers record in order to remain up to
date. This function prepare a quotations for customers and negotiate discount for
company's customers. All the sales staff should aware about different laws to
protect customer and understand that what kind of the sales activities are legal or
illegal.
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:
 Communication skill- This skill is core marketing skill as marketing all about to
communication with audience. Therefore, it is very essential and it is top skill that
require in marketing field. Being able to express ideas and convey concept to
customers and other in a clear way is very significant.
 Interpersonal skill- A business need to train their marketers about how to collaborate
and communicate with other workers. Otherwise, due to lack of a proper interpersonal
relationship at workplace, business may lead to a poor employees experience. They
also need to understand that how to related to their leads.
6.2 Skills needed by Human Resource Management employees:
 Managing prioritizes- To ensure that company's project and other initiative are a
success, HR need more than just HR skills and organizational knowledge.
 Advising- It is key of HR skills is being a trustworthy and credible adviser to various
stakeholders. They nee to be able to advice employees, senior management and lines
manager on personal issues effectively.
6.3 Skills needed by Customer Service employees:
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 Ability to use a positive language- When customer contact with this department,
then it may become irritate able because of customers annoying question. In this
situation, customer service employees should converse with a positive language for
positive outcome.
 Taking responsibility- key is to take the responsibility customer's care. This
department should be responsible for solution and handle customer's request without
escalations id most essential skill for these representative.
6.4 Skills needed by Finance employees:
 Analysis- Employees of finance department demonstrate logical thinking and able to
look at all available option to present a understandable and comprehensive analysis.
They need to use their analytical skill during creating budget, writing contacts and
forecasting a profit and loss.
 Problem solving- When it is about analyzing budget and calculating risk of an
investment, them fiance function adept at taking action and finding solution. They
have deep knowledge and understanding about company's financial goal and also find
effective ways in order to meet those goals (Wasserbaur, Sakao, and Milios, 2022).
6.5 Skills needed by Research and Development employees:
 Critical thinking- This skill is essential in this department as it permit them to gather
and evaluate necessary data and also establish significance. Their critical thinking
skill include the interpretation, observation, evaluation, open mindedness and many
more.
 Detail orientation- It is vital during research process. When researching , the detail
orientation always ensure that they do not miss any important detail and make
connection between the thing that would otherwise appear unrelated.
6.6 Skills needed by Sales employees:
 Collaborative skills- As a part of team and efficaciously collaborate with the other
sales representatives is highly useful in this role. They should be enable to work with
the sales executive on a larger client base.
 Information gathering skills- As a sales representative, they need to be good
researcher and has has the ability to gather correct information about, market trends,
competitors, customer and other potential clients.
Conclusion
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From the preceding report it is analyzed that business is very important activity for an
economy and society. It play a significant role to in making a country's financial condition
better. To perform the business activities, there are different department in an organization
which perform different functions and role. All these functions are interconnect with other
and work for a common goal of the organization. These function include marketing,
technology, HRM, sales, finance and many other. To perform all these function efficiently,
employees need some skill set based on their job role. Hence it is suggest to all business
organization they they should hire employees with different skills to perform their business
function efficiently.
References
Beausoleil, A.M., 2022. Business Design Method Step 1: Start. In Business Design Thinking
and Doing (pp. 29-47). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Cavique, L. and et. al.,2022. Improving information system design: Using UML and
axiomatic design. Computers in Industry, 135, p.103569.
Frajzyngier, Z., 2022. Toward a functional typology of adpositions: theoretical
implications. Folia Linguistica.
Jiang, J. and et. al., 2022. Pathway to encapsulate the surface water quality model and its
applications as cloud computing services and integration with EDSS for managing
urban water environments. Environmental Modelling & Software, 148, p.105280.
Leone, D., Pietronudo, M.C. and Dezi, L., 2022. Improving business models through
augmented reality applications: evidence from history, theory, and
practice. International Journal of Quality and Innovation, 6(1), pp.28-42.
Wasserbaur, R., Sakao, T. and Milios, L., 2022. Circular business models and governmental
policies: A systematic literature review. Journal of Cleaner Production, p.130329.
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