Functional Areas of Business and Skills Required by Employees

This report discusses the various functional areas of business, including marketing, human resource management, customer service, finance, research and development, and sales. It also describes the skills needed by employees to work effectively in each of these areas. The report concludes that companies should focus on providing training to employees according to their needs and selecting those employees who have the proper skills and knowledge about a particular field.

World of Work
1

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
What is a business?..........................................................................................................................3
What is Functional areas of business – Definition..........................................................................3
What are the key functional areas of a business?............................................................................3
Description of the various functional areas in business organizations............................................4
Marketing.....................................................................................................................................4
Human Resource Management....................................................................................................4
Customer Service.........................................................................................................................4
Finance.........................................................................................................................................5
Research and Development.........................................................................................................5
Sales.............................................................................................................................................5
Description of the types of skills needed by employees to be able to work effectively in these
functional areas................................................................................................................................5
Skills needed by Marketing employees.......................................................................................5
Skills needed by Human Resource Management employees......................................................6
Skills needed by Customer Service employees...........................................................................6
Skills needed by Finance employees...........................................................................................6
Skills needed by Research and Development employees............................................................6
Skills needed by Sales employees...............................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8
Books and journals......................................................................................................................8
2

Introduction
Business is a type of organisation which is started for earning profits and revenues. Business
consist of various function areas like finance, human resource, marketing etc. as these areas
helps the organisation in enhancing this growth and communicating their products with the
customers. then employees are the one who is working effectively in the organisation (Ali, and
Anwar, 2021). They should have proper skills and knowledge while using of their function areas.
In this report, the organisation taken is IOM electronics which consist of 200 employees working
there. This consist of various functional areas in which business can operate and skills required
by employees in every department.
What is a business?
Business is defining as the organisation or an enterprise entity which is engaging with the
commercial, professional, industrial activities. Business is the one which can be profit entity or
non-profit entity as well. Because they are being working on charitable basis also. The term
business is referring to the organised and systematic activities of producing and selling goods for
profits. There can be various forms of business in which an organisation can operate that is
limited liability, partnership, sole proprietorship or a company. Business can be range a small
business operating in small scale to big company operating in larger scale. It consists of various
departments in which employee could work effectively.
What is Functional areas of business – Definition
When there is a starting of a business, a manger or an owner should have a proper business plan
in order to conduct all the activities and tasks. As many of the business fail if there is no proper
planning of the resources used in the organisation (Barauskaite, and Streimikiene, 2021). So for
that there are various departments are being made to carried out all the activities in most
effective manner. functional areas are referring to the team of employees or staff members who
are having same skills and knowledge about a particular field. Company’s should effectively
make use of these functional areas by allowing a manager to work done by the employees.
What are the key functional areas of a business?
There are various key functional areas in the organisation. These are mentioned below:
 Human resource department
3

 Finance department
 Research and development department
 Sales department
 Customer service department
 Marketing department
Description of the various functional areas in business organizations
Marketing
Marketing is the department which is having major responsibility to promote the business
products and services in most effective manner. marketing department helps the organisation in
generating revenue and identifying potential customers (Brinch Gunasekaran, and Wamba,
2021). it provides the direction or a communication way of reaching to their targeted customers
in most effective way. This also provides details about the competitive companies existing in the
market. This department provides a design of a product or a service which is provides to the
customers. they identify needs of customers and tell about their preferences to the customers as
well.
Human Resource Management
This is the another most important functional area of an organisation. As this helps the company
in recruiting and managing of the staff members working in the business environment. They
have to identify a candidate which could enhance their productivity and which is having proper
knowledge and skills, education and experience about an organisational and which helps the
organisation in innovation and increasing productivity (De Marco, Laura, and Miloso, 2021).
This department helps the employees in raising their standards and getting motivated through
rewards and recognition etc. the major function performed by this department is training and
development, rewards and recognition, performance management programmes or employees
engagement etc.
Customer Service
This is the another department of an organisation which helps the customers in interacting with
the brand. This department responsibility is to interact with customers and solve their issues and
problems in most effective manner so that customer could not face any difficulty. The main
objectives of this department is to enhance their growth opportunities and satisfy their customer
4

by their product and services. Maintaining better customer services in the organisation helps
them in developing better customer relationships.
Finance
Finance is the department which is called as a backbone of a company. As finance department
provides funds and finances to the organisation for carrying various activities and task. This
helps in providing finance to every other department (Lindgreen, Di Benedetto, and Jaakkola,
2021). The major role of this department is make a control on flow of money within a
department and provides changes in payroll and rewards to the employees as well. The next
responsibility is to manage the sources and forecast for effective decision making process. They
should have to provide funds and finance for production of goods and services, marketing
activities and appraising employees etc. they are the major who creates opportunities for
business.
Research and Development
This department is related to make sure about the demands and needs of customers as what
customer wants from their organisation. The major responsibility of this department is to analyse
the preferences of customers which helps them in selling of the products and services. This helps
them in generating revenue.
Sales
After research and development department, the next comes sales. As this department sells only
that which is being liked by customers on a reasonable price (Margherita, and Braccini, 2021).
Sales department is the one who is most important for the organisation as their responsibility is
to sell their products and services to the customers in most effective manner. they create growth
opportunities to the company and also mange other departments as well. This includes planning,
executing and controlling of the activities.
Description of the types of skills needed by employees to be able to work
effectively in these functional areas
Skills needed by Marketing employees
The major skills which could be need in marketing employees who are working in a marketing
field is communication skills. As this helps them in communicating better with the customers.
5

also they need certain creativity in implementing of any marketing strategy and problem solving
skills to solve certain problems faced by the employees working in field.
Skills needed by Human Resource Management employees
The most important skills need by a HR employee is communication skills. And also they should
be flexible in nature. Because they have to recruit new candidates for their organisation and
provides training effectively (Novak, Wu, and Dooley, 2021). They should be having adoptive in
nature and have knowledge about certain acts coming in the market related to employees.
Skills needed by Customer Service employees
The employee who are having proper communication skills and have to talk in different
languages can be better in this field (Halisah, Jayasingam, and Popa, 2021). They should have to
be self-control and take responsibilities regarding customer complaints. Then they should have to
be a problem solver to the customers.
Skills needed by Finance employees
Being in a finance department, the employees should be having the knowledge of financial
reporting, knowledge of IT sectors, problem solving skills, calculation skills etc. as they have to
maintain a financial report of their organisation. And this results in analysing funds and making
cash flow statements properly.
Skills needed by Research and Development employees
Research and development department employees should have proper skills of conducting a
research in a particular manner. then skills like communication skills and decision making skills
are most important in this field (Szostak and Sułkowski, 2021). This department should have
certain training about collecting data and information about a topic or a brand.
Skills needed by Sales employees
Skills which are to be needed by a sales employee is communication skills and manipulating
skills. As they have to face customers either directly or indirectly, so communication skills help
them in making effective communication with the customers and manipulate them towards their
products and services. They should have listening skills so that they could listen to the customer
what they are asking. They have to manage different activities and task, and handling customers,
social selling could help them in selling their products effectively. This overall results in cresting
development opportunities for the organisation.
6

Conclusion
From the above it can be concluded that while introducing a new business in the market,
company should have to focus on all their functional areas and provide training to the employees
according to their needs. Company should have to select those employees who are having proper
skills and knowledge about a particular field. While analysing all these, company should able to
work effectively and enhance their productivity as well. For analysing various forms of business,
the organisation should have to provide proper training to their employees and this results in
increasing productivity of the employees and organisation both.
7

References
Books and journals
Ali, B.J. and Anwar, G., 2021. Measuring competitive intelligence Network and its role on
Business Performance. International Journal of English Literature and Social
Sciences, 6(2).
Barauskaite, G. and Streimikiene, D., 2021. Corporate social responsibility and financial
performance of companies: The puzzle of concepts, definitions and assessment
methods. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 28(1),
pp.278-287.
Brinch, M., Gunasekaran, A. and Wamba, S.F., 2021. Firm-level capabilities towards big data
value creation. Journal of Business Research, 131, pp.539-548.
De Marco, M., Fantozzi, P., Fornaro, C., Laura, L. and Miloso, A., 2021. Cognitive analytics
management of the customer lifetime value: an artificial neural network
approach. Journal of Enterprise Information Management.
Lindgreen, A., Di Benedetto, C.A., Brodie, R.J. and Jaakkola, E., 2021. How to develop great
conceptual frameworks for business-to-business marketing.
Margherita, E.G. and Braccini, A.M., 2021. Managing the fourth industrial revolution: A
competence framework for smart factory. Recent Advances in Computational
Optimization; Springer: Cham, Germany, pp.389-402.
Novak, D.C., Wu, Z. and Dooley, K.J., 2021. Whose resilience matters? Addressing issues of
scale in supply chain resilience. Journal of Business Logistics.
Szostak, M. and Sułkowski, Ł., 2021. Identity crisis of artists during the Covid-19 pandemic and
shift towards entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial Business and Economics
Review, 9(3).
Halisah, A., Jayasingam, S., Ramayah, T. and Popa, S., 2021. Social dilemmas in knowledge
sharing: an examination of the interplay between knowledge sharing culture and
performance climate. Journal of Knowledge Management.
8