Revision Notes

The Business Departments

Clearly this is important as the departments make up 'the business' and often questions ask about the impact of "###" on a business.
The departments are: Production; personnel; Finance; Marketing
Production: produces goods; stock control; quality control.
Personnel: recruits; trains; welfare; dismissal; motivation; deals with Trade Unions.
Finance: sources of finance; produces accounts; financial analysis; capital purchasing (buying machinery); budgeting.
Marketing: definition: management process for identifying and anticipating and satisfying customers' needs and wants profitably.
Marketing therefore involves: pricing; packaging; advertising; promotion; market research; new product development; after sales service; distribution. This group of variables is known as the marketing mix.
The key is knowing how these interact as well as knowing how the external environment (SLEPT) impacts on them.
Production and marketing must liase over price (based on cost); packaging (safety and marketability); advertising/stock levels; design and market research; after sales service and guarantees and product quality.
Finance must liase with all through budgets and pricing/costing. (These are just examples) Thus how the external environment affects a business you must think in terms of how it affects Marketing, Finance, Personnel and Production.