Glossary
A Examine the business principles and practices that determine business decisions
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Business ideas - Thoughts on how to innovate products, services and processes in a profitable way
Business objectives - The aims or targets that a business works towards.
Internal environment - The processes and culture within an organisation
External environment - The factors outside of an organisation that may have an impact on their activities
Start-up - a newly formed business that is usually small
Entrepreneur - A person who starts up and takes on the risk of a business
Product innovation - a change in the appearance or the performance of a product or a service or the creation of a new one
Gap in the market - an opportunity for a business to sell a product or service not currently being offered
Current trends - The general direction things are developing in such as fashion
Likely demand - A prediction on the sales of particular products and services
Stages of business growth - start-up, growth, expansion, maturity etc
Economic climate - The overall health of the economic systems within which a firm operates.
Social and economic trends - Changes in the way people live their lives and the flow of money in the economy
Intrapreneurship - entrepreneurial activity that takes place within the context of a large corporation
Competition in the market - Rival firms selling the same or similar products and services
Product portfolio - The range of goods sold by a business
New markets - Customers that a business does not yet sell to
Innovations - New or improved products and processes
Changes to processes - Adapting the way in which tasks are completed
Production processes - Actions and steps in creating a product
Business systems - Ways in which tasks are completed in an organisation
Sales systems - The processes involved in selling products to customers and receiving payment
Procurement systems - The processes involved in buying equipment, raw materials etc by a business
Organisational structure - The way staff are arranged in a business to carry out its activities
Management responsibilities - Duties of managers
Organisation of the workforce - A responsibility of managers to allocate tasks to subordinates
Costs and returns - The benefits and drawbacks of a decision
Financial returns - When benefits can be measured by the money received
Non-financial returns - When the benefits cannot be measured using money received
Long-term strategy - The goals of a business that they are aiming to achieve over a number of years
Aims and objectives - The goals of a business
Profit maximisation - An objective to increase the amount of revenue left after costs
Sales maximisation - An objective to increase the number of products customers buy
Market share - An objective to increase sales compared to rival businesses
Brand recognition - An objective to increase the familiarity of the business amongst the population
Product development - An objective to achieve company growth by offering modified or new products to current market segments
Market development - An objective of company growth by identifying and developing new market segments for current company products
Efficiency savings - An objective to reduce costs by reducing waste growth - An objective to increase the size of a business, e.g. by increasing sales
Sole trader - A business owned and operated by one person partnerships - businesses with two or more owners
Limited companies - Firms owned by shareholders who have limited liability.
Change in ownership - A sole trader becomes a partnership or limited company
financing growth - The use of investment from additional owners to increase the size of the business
Competitive pressures - Rivalry from other businesses in the market that can cause a business to change their aims and objectives
Take-over - When a failing company is bought out by another and ownership is transferred
Flat organisational structure - An organisational structure that has a wide span of control, few management levels and a short chain of command.
Matrix organisational structure - A flexible organisational structure in which teams are formed within functional areas and across functional areas
Hierarchical organisational structure - A formal or traditional structure where the organisational chart has many layers of authority.
Business location - The geographical site of a business
Local business - A business that operates in a small area
National business - A business that operates in multiple locations within one country
International business - A business that operates in multiple countries
Operational decisions - Day to day choices made within a business
Human resources - The recruitment process, deciding wage rates, deciding the proportion of full and part time staff, agreeing contracts and planning training
Recruitment process - Efforts to attract the best staff for positions in the organisation
Wage rates - The price of labour full-time staff - Workers who have contracts to work around 35 - 40 hours per week.
Part-time staff - Workers who work shorter hours or fewer days than full time staff
Conditions of employment - The specific details of a job offer, such as working hours, salary or wages, and fringe benefits which are agreed in a contract
Training methods - The ways in which skills are developed in staff
Physical resources - premises, non-current assets, procurement practices business premises - The building where business operations take place. It can be bought or rented
Buy or rent - A choice of whether to purchase an asset or use an asset belonging to another business for a regular fee non-current assets - Items of value that the business will keep in their current state for over a year
Lease - To rent an asset for a period of time for a fee hire purchase - To rent an asset until the final payment where ownership is transferred buy outright - To pay in full for an asset
Procurement practices - To processes to purchase equipment and materials in an organisation
Just-in-time processes - Organising purchasing of goods so that they arrive as and when they are needed in the production process
Just-in-case - A traditional stock management system where buffer stocks are held
Financial resources - money or other items of value that are used to acquire goods and services
Sources of finance - Where or how businesses obtain money for investment or liquidity, such as from working capital, loans or overdrafts
Management information systems - Systems used to support decision making by storing and analysing a variety of information types
Data processing tools - Processing tools used to store large amounts of data relevant to a business organisation
Quality processes - Methods used to ensure high standards in production of goods and services such as testing and inspection
Quality control - Methods to check the standards of goods produced at the end of the production process
Quality assurance - Methods to ensure high standards of produced products by checking all stages of the production process
Total quality management - A philosophy that involves everyone in an organization in a continual effort to improve quality and achieve customer satisfaction.
quality circles - Voluntary groups of people drawn from various production teams who make suggestions about quality.
best practice - An optimal way recognised by industry to achieve a stated goal or objective
benchmarking - a process by which a company compares its performance with that of high-performing organisations
Legislation - Laws or sets of laws to regulate industry regulation - government intervention in a market that affects the production of a good
Health and safety at work - regulations protecting the employees from working in dangerous conditions without proper clothing or equipment
Data protection - Method of ensuring that personal data is correct and is not misused either by those holding it or others who have no right to access it.
Employment rights and protection - Regulations that protect the rights of workers
Consumer rights and protection - Regulations that protect the rights of those buying and using products
Business models - A plan that details how a company creates, delivers, and generates revenues
Porter's Five Forces - threat of entry, threat of substitute, supplier power, buyer power, and competitive rivalry
5Cs analysis - Customers, competitors, company skills, collaborators and context
Ansoff Matrix - An analytical tool to devise various product and market growth strategies, depending on whether businesses want to market new or existing products in either new or existing markets.
Boston Matrix - A model which analyses a product portfolio according market share and market growth. Products are categorised as question marks, stars, cash cows and dogs
Product Life Cycle - The stages through which goods and services move from the time they are introduced on the market until they are taken off the market.
Competitor analysis - The practise of identifying rivals and potential rivals and understanding their strengths and weaknesses
Economic trends - The overall direction of inflation, balance of payments, interest rates and exchange rates
Market trends - The overall direction of buying and selling in a market
Marketing plan - An outline of the strategies to be used to appeal to the target market
7ps - The extended marketing mix - product, price, promotion, place, people, processes and physical evidence
USP - A feature of a product that makes it stand out from its rivals
Target market - The intended buyers of a product
Market segmentation - Dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers who have different needs, characteristics, or behaviours
Demographic segmentation - segmenting markets by age, gender, income, ethnic background, and family life cycle
Geographic segmentation - the grouping of consumers on the basis of where they live
Psychographic segmentation - dividing a market into different segments based on social class, lifestyle, or personality characteristics
Behavioural segmentation - Dividing a market into segments based on their buying habits