BMP3004: Functional Areas & Skills for Business Management

This report provides an overview of key functional areas within a business organization, including marketing, human resource management, customer service, finance, research and development, and sales. It details the responsibilities of each department and the essential skills required for employees to perform effectively within those roles. The report emphasizes the importance of communication, analytical abilities, and technical proficiency for marketing professionals; recruitment, HRIS knowledge, and performance management skills for human resource personnel; effective listening, patience, and self-control for customer service representatives; and formal qualifications, problem-solving skills, and analytical capabilities for finance employees. Furthermore, it highlights the significance of research and development in driving innovation and maintaining a competitive edge, as well as the crucial role of the sales department in generating revenue and building brand image. The report concludes by underscoring the interconnectedness of these functional areas and the importance of skilled employees in achieving organizational success.

BSc (Hons) Business Management with
Foundation
BMP3004
World of Work
Functional Areas
Submitted by:
Name:
ID:
1

Contents
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 5-6
5.1 Marketing 5
5.2 Human Resource Management 5
5.3 Customer Service 5
5.4 Finance 6
5.5 Research and Development 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
7-10
6.1 Skills needed by Marketing employees 7
6.2 Skills needed by Human Resource Management employees
7
6.3 Skills needed by Customer Service employees
8
6.4 Skills needed by Finance employees 8
6.5 Skills needed by Research and Development employees
9
2

6.6 Skills needed by Sales employees 9
7.0 Conclusion 10
References 11
3

1.0 Introduction
Business can be defined as the sum total of all activities which are undertaken on daily
basis with the purpose of earning profit. It can be said as the occupation or trade or sell &
purchase of goods and services so that the owner can earn profit. Along with this, business
encompass the people try together in order to achieve the common objectives and goals
(Suppatvech 2019). Business has divided their all tasks in various parts and all make several
functions. All the functions of organization are performed by their specific department. The
purpose of making this report is to discuss about the key business functions and skills sets which
are required for working in these functions.
2.0 What is a business?
A business organization can be defined as it is a trading, industrial and commercial
enterprise and include all those people who form it. Business is a legally accepted
organization as it offers products, services or both to the customers (Sahaf 2019). It is
necessary for business organization to make vision which state that what the business have to
achieve in future. There are various types of business which has been classified on several
basis such as nature, scale, size, number of employees and more but basically all those
activities which are performed in order to gaining profit can be said as business.
3.0 What is Functional areas of business - Definition
The group of employees having same skills and abilities are known as functional
areas. All businesses have several tasks or functions which are necessary to perform on daily
basis. In the large companies, management make several functional areas as employees work
together in various departments. Functional areas are formed in order to completing all the
activities of business in an effective manner.
4.0 What are the key functional areas of a business?
In a human body, there are various organs which perform different functions. Same in
the business, there are lots of tasks which are performed and managed by different parts of
business organization. Dividing business operations into various functional areas leads to
4

operate the function by the employees in which they are expert and perform the task in
effective and efficient manner. Following are the key functional areas of business:
 Marketing
 Human Resource Management
 Finance
 Research and Development
 Customer Care
 Sales
5.0 Description of the various functional areas in business
organizations
5.1 Marketing:
It can be defined as the process analyzing and meeting the needs and requirements of
customers. It can be consider as the most important function of business. The main purpose
of marketing function is to promote the goods and services of organization in order to attract
the audience and convert them into potential customers. All the questions related to the
product, place, price and promotion comes under marketing department.
5.2 Human Resource Management:
This functional area is responsible for performing various tasks related to the
employees or human capital of organization. This function of organization involve various
tasks within the structure of organization (Rowlinson 2020). This function include
recruitment, training and development programs, compensation, safety and health policies,
relationship of employee and labor and many more. The employee of this department are
responsible for studying the complete organization and provide healthy and positive working
environment to employees along with making and developing the various strategies and
policies in order to making the working performance of employees more effective and
efficient.
5.3 Customer Service:
This function of organization is made for the purpose of offering the support to the
customers. It helps the customers to provide enjoyable experience with their organization by
providing before and after purchase services. Offering good service to the customers is an
important aspect as it is very helpful in retaining the employees which leads to the growth
5

and development of business. Now a days, customer service function is performed by
telephone support agent. It can be done through social media, text message, web or email.
Some of responsibilities of Customer Services include: solving simple customer concern,
develop the FAQ, tracking customer behavior, customer outreach, ecxcotinguish fires, collect
customer feedback, pass on customer praise, breaking up with the wrong customers and many
more.
5.4 Finance:
It can be consider as a part of finance management. The major task of this function is
to manage all the activities related to the finance. It is the responsibility of finance department
to properly acquire and utilize the funds in an effective and efficient manner. Finance can be
said as the lifeblood of business because it is not possible to perform any action with finance
at work place. It is responsible for making various decisions such as investment decision,
financing decision, dividend decision, liquidity decisions. It is important for every business to
make financial department as it helps in establishing and running the business organization
along with expanding modernize and diversifying the business operations.
5.5 Research and Development:
This department has a vital role in the organization. It is different from sales,
production and any other function but collaboration among these functions is an essential
portion. If the organization is planning to develop any new product or service or wants to do
improvement in their existing product, by performing this function, the management get to
know all details regarding the same (Ngo 2019). In order to maximizing the profit and
beating the competition, the organization have to launch new product or have to do some
modification in the existing products and for the same purpose they have to do research
whether the product will fulfill the needs and requirements of customers or not.
5.6 Sales:
Sales means to sale the product to the customers in order to generating the revenue.
The position of an organization is always measured on the basis of their sales and annual
turnover. Higher sales implies higher revenue along with creating brand image in the market
and beating competition. This function of organization is very useful as it helps in managing
the sales of product and services and result in generation of revenue. This task has been done
through team and the major function of sales team is to make the plans and set targets. In
order to giving the best result to the organization, they make sure the efficiency of process of
6

sales. The functions of sales department include market research, advertising for sales, sales,
sales correspondence, services, packing and warehousing.
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: Marketing can be considered as the form of professional
communication because communicating with the public is the important part.
Marketing can also be done in written form as well which include crafting and
creating script along with multimedia campaign and understanding the designing
(Wiesböck 2020). Verbal communication is also important as the marketers have to
speak directly with the customers and team members. This skill is useful in preparing
reports, executive summaries, selecting and training brand ambassadors and many
more. Analytical Skills: The need of research based analysis is the another skill of marketers
as it is necessary in order to determining the needs and requirements of customers.
For the same purpose, marketers are required to design creative strategy. They have to
develop their thinking as per the information provided to them. They are responsible
for presenting the logical data as conclusion to the management.
 Technology: In order to tracking the progress of key campaign, project management
software is required which helps in measuring the success of social media campaigns.
Marketers are required to have technological skills for the purpose of analyzing the
keywords for search engine optimization along with developing the social media
strategy.
6.2 Skills needed by Human Resource Management employees: Recruitment and Selection: It is a huge challenge in front of Human Resource
Management to hire employees for the organization. They should have skills of hiring
the right person with right skills and experience at right place so that they can perform
the task in an effective and efficient manner (Morris 2021). Conducting interviews is
the significant part of recruitment and selection.
7

 HRIS Knowledge: The digital part of HRM is Human Resource Information System.
This software is helpful in hiring, evaluating the performance, payroll, rewards and
benefits of employees. This technology is useful for HRM as it saves cost and time of
organization and make all the above evaluation easy. The training of HR should
involve the guidance on HRIS navigation and interpreting the data within the
organization.
 Performance Management: It refers to the process followed by the organization
which leads to the improvement in the effectiveness in the performance of employees
so that they can easily achieve the goals and objectives of organization. The U.S.
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) include the list of tasks of performance
management which involve expectations of employees, monitoring performance
along with developing thee capacity of employees to work and rating the
performance.
6.3 Skills needed by Customer Service employees: Effective Listening: In order to helping the customer, the customer service agent is
required to listen the problem carefully and understand them in a better way. Most of
customers are confused and frustrated, they are not able to communicate the complete
problem. Effective listening all the aspects of customers implies to understand the
problem and then gives any solution so that the same problem should not arise again
& again (Moineau 2021). The unavailability of this skill implies in the breakdown of
effective communication which cause in the dissatisfaction of customers. Patience: Customers which are facing any issue want to talk. It is the another skill
which make the customers comfortable in while discussing the problem. A good
customer service agent wait with patience to let the customers finished first. This rise
a good feeling in the customers that they are being heard properly which leads to the
long way towards making the situation better.
 Self Control: All the customers have different nature and behavior. Some of them are
in low voice, staying calm, and communicating in rational way but some of them are
going to get emotional which may provide some harsh words. There may be various
situations. Hence it is necessary for customer service agent to do strong self control.
By staying calm, they can deal with the various situations by creating a situation of
antagonistic which may leads to the lots of argues.
6.4 Skills needed by Finance employees:
8

 Formal Qualifications: There are lots of industries in which sparkling talent can
combine with real world experience which is enough for any candidate in order to
gaining any dream job. Employee of finance department should have formal
qualification from a verified industry so that they should be aware about the various
theoretical knowledge regarding the funds and financial reports. Problem Solving Skills: It is well known that all the days are not same. It is necessary
to have ample proficiency of processes and systems. When any problem in finance
has arises, it is the responsibility of employees of finance department to solve them.
Finding any solution to the problem as soon as possible is the best skill required in the
employees of finance department.
 Accounting Skills: It can be defined as the capabilities and techniques which allow
the employees to make a record of financial transactions in an effective and efficient
manner. Better understanding of accounting skills help the employees in gaining the
effective skills which are required in a finance professional.
6.5 Skills needed by Research and Development employees: Project Management: It is necessary for an individual to have degree of project
management. The employees of research and development department should make
high quality planning. They should have skills of making step by step plan which ends
at the achievement of final objective. As a researcher, they have to complete the
research which is necessary to receive external funding. Handling Budgets: The employees of Research and development department have to
manage the budget in an effective manner (Moh’d Anwer 2019). This skill is required
to the employees as they have to complete research with in the given budget by
finance department. They have to manage their budget in such a way so that they get
to know about the expansion of budget and perform all the activities under their
budget.
 Handling Data: It is also the responsibility to handle and manage the huge data which
are collected by performing research and development. For the same purpose, the
employees of R & D should have proper skills and experience so that they can handle
such data and save them with privacy.
6.6 Skills needed by Sales employees: Understanding the needs: The employees of sales department should have skills so
that they can know about the needs and demand of customers and provide them the
9

same product. By applying this skill, they can easily sell the products and services to
their potential customers. It is possible only when the employees have the skills of
effective listening. After listening the views of customers, they can offer them best
product and services. Positive Thinking: It directly implies goal setting. Physical and Psychological health
is depend on the positive thinking (Beretta 2019). Achieving sales goal is really a
challenging. Positive thinking develop a mindset to move ahead and try to sale the
products and services by achieving the goals.
 Product Knowledge: Effective sales pitch can be achieve only in the case of having
proper knowledge of product. Sales person should have the complete knowledge of
product which they are going to sell to the customers. They also have to answer the
query of customers which are related to the product. If the sales person know about all
the aspects of product, it will result in high sales.
Conclusion
From the above report, it is concluded that the business organization has been divided
all the activities in several functions so that they can perform all the tasks in an effective and
efficient manner. It also leads to the achievement of goals and objectives of business
organization easily. The description of all the functions has been given in the above report.
Along with this, it is also analyses that it is necessary to have proper skills and knowledge of
specific functions to their employees. The skills required in all these functions may be
different from each other. Skills required by the employees of these department help them in
performing well and ensuring the proper utilization of resources has been done.
10

References
Books and Journal
11