BMP3004 World of Work: Functional Areas in IOM Electronics Ltd

This report provides an analysis of the key functional areas within IOM Electronics Ltd., a local company with 200 employees in Manchester and Liverpool, recently acquired by a young entrepreneur. The report defines business and functional areas, then details the roles and responsibilities of various functional areas within IOM Electronics, including Marketing, Human Resource Management, Customer Service, Finance, Research and Development, and Sales. For each functional area, the report describes the specific skills needed by employees to perform effectively, such as teamwork and leadership in marketing, recruitment and staffing in HR, active listening and problem-solving in customer service, accounting and budgeting in finance, research and analytical skills in R&D, and communication and negotiation in sales. The report emphasizes the importance of communication skills across all functional areas for systematic operation and timely completion of activities.

Business Management -
Functional Areas

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Define business.......................................................................................................................1
Define functional areas...........................................................................................................1
List key functional areas.........................................................................................................1
Description of the various functional areas in IOM electronics.............................................1
Description of the types of skills needed by employees.........................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
Books and Journals.................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
In a business several operations are conducted for which the organizational structure is divided
into different functional areas. The functional areas are the department divided as per their roles
and responsibilities towards the organizational goals (Valcik, Sabharwal and Benavides, 2021).
The present report is based on the IOM electronics limited. John a 21 year old boy is the owner
of the firm, the firm is a local company and is located at two locations Manchester and
Liverpool, and it has 200 employees. The present report will highlight key functional areas of the
business and skills needed in employees to effectively work in those functional areas.
MAIN BODY
Define business
A business is a commercial enterprise that has an aim of gaining massive profitability and
earning in return of the products and services they offer to the customers in the market. The IOM
electronics is business that operates in electronic supplies.
Define functional areas
The functional areas are teams of the employees that contain same skills and knowledge. They
are created for the particular purpose as this ease the working of the company and divide the
whole task into small unit making t easy for the company to attain its organizational goals with
efficiency and effectiveness (Hutt and Speh, 2021).
List key functional areas
The IOM is the local company and is comprised of several functional areas that work
individually but has common aim of achieving the organizations objectives in effective manner.
Some of the key functional areas in IOM electronics are: Marketing, Human resource, Customer
Service, Finance, Research and development and sales.
Description of the various functional areas in IOM electronics
Marketing
In the competitive business environment to stay competitive effective marketing of product
and services is essential for which the company like IOM contain marketing department. The
roles and responsibility of this functional area are:
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 The marketing department conducts market research in order to analyze the external
business environment, market trends to exploit the market opportunities timely. This is
useful to company in identifying the needs and wants of the customer.
 The marketing department is useful in promoting and advertising the product and service
of company among right target customer segment. Also this department is useful in
promoting the brand thereby creating brand recognition.
Human Resource Management
The Human resource an organisation are the most essential part as they have power to make
and break the business. The human resource department has several roles and responsibilities
such as:
 The primary role of the department of IOM electronics ltd. is to manage the workforce
and all the activities related to the them. The primary aim is to recruit and hire the talent
employees for the company (Crawshaw, Budhwar and Davis, 2020).
 The human resource department also has role of training and developing the current
employee’s skills and providing the orientation to new employees.
 This functional area has responsibility of managing the payrolls, promotions, appraisals,
bonuses of the employees in order to motivate them and keep them satisfied with the job.
Customer Service
This functional area is part of organisation in order to provide the good and satisfactory
customer service to the customers of the IOM electronics ltd. the key roles and responsibilities of
this department are:
 They are required to interact with customers in order to collect feedback regarding their
experience of using the company product in order to improve them in future is there is
any flaw or suggestion.
 The customer service functional area listen to the complaints of customers and resolve
their issue in polite and effective manner in order to convert their dissatisfaction into
satisfaction for future sales.
Finance
The money is the life blood of the organisation therefore for continuous flow of cash to keep
the company’s operates at flow the finance department is necessity of every firm. The key role
and responsibilities of this functional area is:
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 The finance department of the IOM electronics manages all the financial resources under
the principle of GAAP and also manages the daily transactions of the firm.
 This functional area also develops the financial statements and report of the firm by
recording the financial transactions of the organisation (Opute, 2020).
 The finance department also creates the budget for the other functional areas as this is
very important for the company in order to manage the flow of cash.
Research and Development
The research and development (R&D) team is area that is responsible for conducting the
research related to new innovation and development of the organisation.
 The main role of this functional area is to conduct research on new technological trends
in the market that can provide growth and development for the organisation.
 This functional area is useful in gaining competitiveness by analysing the new methods
and practices in the market which help the firm in innovating new products and services.
Sales
This department of the IOM electronics has the main focus on selling the products of the
company in order to earn higher sales and profit.
 The main role of this functional department is to develop the strategy that can help the
company in increasing their sales rate (Shonk and Weiner, 2021).
 The members of this department directly interact with the customers in order to pursue
them to buy the products and services of the IOM electronics limited.
Description of the types of skills needed by employees
Skills needed by marketing employees:
 Team working skills: in the marketing there are many employees and for the effective
promotions, marketing campaigns the work as a team for which it is very important for
the employees to have team working abilities. With active team working skills the
employees will be able to work in a team peacefully and with harmony thereby leading to
productivity.
 Leadership: for the marketing teams each team requires a leader for which leadership
skills are highly important. The leadership skills are the skills that help in supervising,
guiding and directing the employees to align their efforts towards the organisational goals
and objectives.
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Skills needed by Human Resource Management employees:
 Recruitment skills: for the active hiring and selection of the employees that have skills,
knowledge and talent and can become a competitive edge for the firm the recruitment
skills are very crucial. These skills will help the firm in planning their recruitment
process thereby cutting extra cost recruitment (Xiang, 2020).
 Staffing skills: the HR has a key role in staffing the employees in order to assign every
employee a right role in right department the staffing skills are essential for the HR
employees. the staffing skills helps the company in aligning the skills and capabilities of
the employees at right place on right time which also helps in easy evaluation of
employees skills.
Skills needed by Customer Service employees:
 Active listening skills: the customer service employees have to listen to the complaints
of the customers for which this skill is needed. This helps the employees to properly
listen to their complaints and issues and also to make them feel that there voice is listened
in the company.
 Problem solving skills: in order to resolve the customer’s complaints and issues rapidly
the customer service employees must has outstanding problem solving skills because this
will assist the employees in immediate solutions.
Skills needed by Finance employees:
 Accounting skills: for the accountant and finance employee there is necessity of having
the excellent accounting skills to record all the accounts properly in the company’s
financial records. The accounting skills also includes the key knowledge of accounting
software’s like tally, Account management system etc.
 Budgeting skills: for the finance employees of the IOM electronics the budgeting skills
are very important because for the company budget preparation is key activity in order to
maintain flow of cash and to avoid extra cost within the organisation (Akan and Tevfik,
2020).
Skills needed by Research and Development employees:
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 Research skills: in order conduct the appropriate research the research skills are
mandatory for the R&D employees for which they must have knowledge regarding
different methods of research.
 Critical analytical skills: for the researcher there are the times where the employee has
to analyse the different things and in order to choose best one for the organisation they
must contain the critical analytical skills.
Skills needed by Sales employees:
 Communication skills: for the sales employee this skill is very important as they
directly interact with customers. It very important for them to know, how to interact with
customers in order to influence their buying behaviour.
 Negotiation skills: these are skills that help a person to bargain or barter with another
person. For the sales employees is very important to posses this skill in order to negotiate
with the customers and come to conclusion where the customer decides the buy
company’s product (Akan and Tevfik, 2020).
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that for every business to operate systematically in an
order the company must divide all its employees and operations into different functional areas.
Every functional area is unique in its role and helps the firm in finishing all its activities on time.
In order to work in each functional area the most important skills that every employee must have
is the effective communication skills.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Akan, M. and Tevfik, A.T., 2020. Fundamentals of finance. In Fundamentals of Finance. De
Gruyter.
Crawshaw, J., Budhwar, P. and Davis, A. eds., 2020. Human resource management: Strategic
and international perspectives. Sage.
Hutt, M.D. and Speh, T.W., 2021. Business marketing management: B2B. South-Western,
Cengage Learning.
Opute, A.P., 2020. Teamwork and customer service. In Customer Service Management in
Africa (pp. 177-190). Productivity Press.
Shonk, D.J. and Weiner, J.F., 2021. Sales and Revenue Generation in Sport Business. Human
Kinetics.
Valcik, N.A., Sabharwal, M. and Benavides, T.J., 2021. The Functional Areas Utilizing HRIS in
a Public Organization. In Human Resources Information Systems (pp. 115-124). Springer,
Cham.
Xiang, Q., 2020, March. Functional Areas Layout in Logistics Park Combining Traffic
Organization by Genetic Algorithm and Fuzzy Clustering. In Green, Smart and
Connected Transportation Systems: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on
Green Intelligent Transportation Systems and Safety (Vol. 617, p. 257). Springer Nature.
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