Business Functional Areas and Skills: IOM Electronics Ltd Report

This report provides a detailed overview of various functional areas within a business, using IOM Electronics Ltd as a case study. It explores key departments such as customer service, finance, HR, marketing, production, IT, and legal, highlighting their respective roles and interdependencies. The report emphasizes the importance of each functional area in contributing to the overall success of the business. Furthermore, it delves into the specific skills required for effective performance within each department, covering administrative skills, communication, analytical abilities, and technical expertise. The conclusion emphasizes the need for well-defined departments and skilled workforce for smooth business operations, regardless of company size, and highlights the interconnectedness of these areas. The report references several books and journals to support its analysis.

Business Functional
Areas

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................3
Q.1. Give description of various functional areas that are present in the business organisation?
.....................................................................................................................................................3
Q.2. Explain the types of skills needed by workforce to be able for effective working in the
respective functional area?..........................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Business functional areas focus mostly on six regions as these are financing, marketing,
HR, operations, technology and development. Every business planner make concentration on
research and try to understand these areas thoroughly as relate to the business of individuals.
Each department has different activities to perform. These areas are team of workforce who
posses same expertise and skills. Functional areas are interlinked and interdependent on each
other as better integration leads to make improvement in workflow, communication and success
of the organisation. It includes various departments as the work of these units are differ from
each other in every enterprise. The company that was selected for this assignment is IOM
Electronics Ltd. It deals in serving various electronic items. It has around two hundred
employees as it is a famous regional firm based over two sites in Liverpool & Manchester. The
topics cover in this report are explanation of different functional areas that exist in the concern.
Also describe the types of skills that every employees must posses so that they can perform the
task effectively in the respective core areas (Dwyer, 2019)
TASK
Q.1. Give description of various functional areas that are present in the business
organisation?
The different functional areas where every business must need to focus on are
explain as follows:
 Customer service: The one who deals to interact with audience is the example of
customer service department. It covers activities related to follow ups, answering
inquiries, perform processing of order, addressing complaints. The respective
representatives are the first line of contact with the public for many business.
 finance accounts : Human resource is consider as the heart of the corporate and
accounting and finance can be considered their lifeblood. As all the money tractions are
handle by this department. Thus it is not possible for the firm to run their business
without cash even the organisation starts the business without any capital. Making
records of transaction related to cash inflow and outflows. Talented managers of this
department is responsible to prepare Payroll and making sure that workforce are paid
appropriate salary & wages on time. Preparing as well reporting of financial statement is

done by members of this unit as these statements are used for the purpose to prepare
budget, perform forecasting and also other process of decision making are handled by
managers in this branch (Glaister, 2018)

 research &development: It includes the activity related to innovation, creativity etc. for
making development in the organisation every manages of this department perform some
research.
 marking and advertising: Every business require customers to grow and expand. For
this various effective tools and strategies of marketing & advertising are used in the
organisation. This department plays an important role not only to promote business but
also in accomplishing the objectives of mission & vision. It includes various function
such as monitoring & management of social media, serving media liaison, creating
content for website.
 human resource: Recruiting individual into the organisation is the most important task
of this department. HR manger have to make sure that candidate they recruit should have
right qualification, experience and right skills. Aside from staffing & recruiting, Human
resource is in-charge of core areas like labour & employee relation, compensation and
benefits, organisation development, training as well as learning. And the success of
company is depends on human assets., workforce is considered as the precious assets of
the organisation. Human Resource includes people who are engaged to perform task in
the company and they also supports ton achieve the objectives of the organisation. All the
human resource who are engaged to perform the activity in the company requires
different skills as well as knowledge that put together for business growth and success.
Strategic human resource management is the wider concept in which various smart
strategies are used in such a manner that leads to achievement of company success in
such a manner that it fulfills the requirement of workforce also(Hirschmeier, 2018)
 Production operations : It is the business functional area as the main role of this unit is
to convert raw material into finished product for that purpose process is to be followed.
The items that are manufacture must need to be of good quality and do not involve and
defects. Both quality as well as quantity will coming from manufacturing line and should
monitored by production department.

 Purchasing : It is the role of respective department to procure equipment, raw material,
machinery etc. and handle all the activities related to supply. On the basis of business
type, their task varies. In manufacturing industry, purchasing department will take care of
getting material for the purpose of production. It is the responsibility of production
manager that they buy raw material in appropriate quantity, in right price and must be
available at right time (Ayios, 2018)

 Information Technology: Now a days almost all the business use information system 7
computers. This department is responsible for hardware, software and networking of
computer. In the company it helps to provide support service so that workforce can use
the IT related resources most effectively that are important to the business. It also helps to
protect the corporate data from cyber crimes and viruses, It also help to serve website
maintenance (Kimsey-House, 2018)
 Legal Department: They are responsible to provide legal services & advice to the
organisation, its employees as well as its department. The officers in this act on behalf of
the company as formal representative. It also engaged with legal matters concerning the
organisation including litigation, employment law, business development, contract
management, employment law etc. (Akerkar, 2019)
Q.2. Explain the types of skills needed by workforce to be able for effective working in the
respective functional area?
Skills needed by Human resource department
 The members of this unit must be expert in administrative work
 Should have good knowledge and familiar with computer
 Must have excellent communication and writing skills.
 They must have good convincing power
 Must have patience
Skills needed by Legal Departments
 Should have excellent skills of drafting
 Must be good representatives

 They must posses deep knowledge of law and regulations and become updated to study
amendments (Knoke, 20180)
 Should have good verbal as well as written communication .
Skills needed by Research and development departments
 They should have creativity
 Must have innovative ideas.
 They should have deep knowledge about their subject.
Skills needed by production departments
 Good negotiation power so that they can purchase their resources at best prices.
 Critical thinking feature they must posses
 should have effective skills of communication.
 Must have excellent knowledge of delegation and must know to know the authority is
delegate
Skills needed by finance department
 Must have excellent knowledge about accounting, cost accounting, financial statements
 Skills of recording the transaction accurately.
 Must have good knowledge of computer
 Have ability to analyse the important financial information & data
 must have critical thinking talent
Skills needed by customer service department
 Must have skills of soft spoken
 having good level of patience
 should have skills of problem solving(Mariani, 2018)
 should have good command over technical skills
 Empathy must be present in the person.
Skills needed by Information technology department
 Must have skills of project management
 Having Analytical abilities
 should have the quality of perseverance
 have goods skills of solving problems
 have feature of adapting challenges

 must have ability to adapt changes in the technology
CONCLUSION
On the basis of deep study and analysis it is conclude that to run the business with easy
flow there is need to set various departments in the enterprise. As some businesses are too small
so that all organisation function as well as decision making can be perform by one or maximum
three people. On the other hand if the business is big, than all the work will have to be shared so
that it can control easily as it is not possible for single person to handle all the activity of the
company. It is also conclude that all businesses must carry out many functions in the company
so that business runs smoothly. In large concern workforce are arranged into departments
specializing in respective tasks. These are known as functional areas of the organisation. Work
are delegated form one department to another because activities are interlinked and
interdependent with each other.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Akerkar, R., 2019. Artificial intelligence for business. Springer.
Ayios, A., 2018. Trust and Western-Russian business relationships. Routledge.
Dwyer, J. and Hopwood, N., 2019. The business communication handbook. Cengage AU.
Glaister, A. J., Karacay, G., Demirbag, M. and Tatoglu, E., 2018. HRM and performance—The
role of talent management as a transmission mechanism in an emerging market context.
Human Resource Management Journal, 28(1), pp.148-166.
Hirschmeier, J. and Yui, T., 2018. The development of Japanese business, 1600-1980 (Vol. 8).
Routledge.
Kimsey-House, H., Kimsey-House, K., Sandahl, P. and Whitworth, L., 2018. Co-active
coaching: Changing business, transforming lives. Hachette UK.
Knoke, D., 2018. Changing organizations: Business networks in the new political economy.
Routledge.
Mariani, M., Baggio, R., Fuchs, M. and Höepken, W., 2018. Business intelligence and big data
in hospitality and tourism: a systematic literature review. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management.