unit 1 business
Unit 1; Business at work – Corus Introduction: • To help me to get the relevant information for my assignment, there is a member of the Corus team coming into the college to give a talk; I will also have a chance to ask any questions we feel necessary from the syllabus. ... Here are some of the questions I will be asking; • What are your business objectives? ... • What type of business are you? ... • How is the business organised into different departmental functions? ... • How could the business better meet its objectives? ... To create a public company the directors of the business will have to apply to the stock exchange council. ... Private limited companies tend to be smaller than public ones they are usually family business. There is no maximum to how many share holders a private company can have but they must have at least two to start the business. Private companies are prevented from selling shares on the stock exchange market but are able to sell them to family and friends • Sole trader: this is when a single person owns a company there are no partners in the business, all functions and decisions made within the business are made by the single owner. Being a sole trader will take all the profits that come into the business but also will take full responsibility for any losses the business makes, they will not have to consult any one when making the decisions, reducing any conflict and overall increasing the efficiency and speed of the decision making process. • Franchise: Big name brands often use this method of ownership they help set-up and fund a business along side with the franchisee who will then be able to use the companys well established name, once the franchise has been set up the franchisee will have to give a percentage of the profits back to the company. ... Getting less profit however is often evened out by the amount of profit made with the business already being established. Also the main franchising company will invest some capital into the setting up of the business. • Partnership: A partnership is when two or more people are in equal charge of the business, owners in a partnership will often be able to split the workload and decision making process. With more than one person in charge of a business it is often easier to raise finance, as there are more than one person providing the capital needed; Knowledge can also be shared between the owners, one owner could have a good knowledge of one thing but not another, having a partner can split the knowledge providing a balance. ... However, there are also some disadvantages to being a PLC: • Floating a company on the stock market comes at a very high expense, this makes it’s a lot more cost effective for larger companys with a higher annual turnover such as Corus to float its business. ... Business objectives of Corus: E2) When business’s start up they all plan out objectives or goals for which they hope to achieve throughout the life of the business. Like any business Corus set out objectives applying to their own company, these objectives hopefully aim to improve and better the business as a whole. Business’s like Corus set short and long-term objectives; short term last for around 5 months but long term last through the life of the corporation. Obviously a business objective cannot be achieved easily they require time and hard work thus helping improve the quality of the company. ... To emphasise on this Corus aims to keep in leading positions in the worldwide market sector from which they can improve on the growth of the business. ... • Employment costs – Corus are trying to come up with new innovative ideas on reducing employment costs, one way of doing this is for Corus to retrain their already employee’s, to learn new skills so there is no need to employ and train new staff, retraining staff members have many advantages, the employees will learn a wider range of skills therefore the company will require less staff to do more functions within the business, this will also leave the staff feel more motivated in the way they will feel needed. ... Each function within a business helps it to keep running smoothly and meet its main objectives; hopefully with all the functions combined it will help Corus overall make a profit. ... R as it’s called, is a very important role within any business; it deals with many areas within Corus. ... Human resources play a vital role in any business covering these key areas: • New staff recruitment • Training of new staff • Retraining of old staff • Health and safety issues within the company • Sacking and disciplinary actions • Pay • Equal opportunities. Corus uses human resources to the best of its abilities in aiding it to meet its business objectives, The new staff recruitment helps bring new innovative and fresh ideas to the company; the selection process is looked at very carefully. ... Corus pays competitive rates, this keeps the business running smoothly, the work force is happy because they can work in the knowledge that they are getting paid at the highest possible wage, all the while the company can still aim to make a profit, recently Corus has tried to reduce unnecessary wage bills by making unneeded staff members redundant. ... Production: - The production area plays a key and essential role in any business. ... Like any business Corus aims to maximise its production by minimising wasted time and raw materials, there are many ways of doing this, by changing the way a piece of material is cut out could save Corus millions of pounds per year, therefore increasing the profit. ... The research and development section of Corus is essential in the long-term life of the business, without these improvements it would be impossible for any business to hope to survive in such a rapidly changing, competitive market. ... Finance and accounts: - Finance is basically all of the money going in and out of a business in one form or another, at Corus all financial date has to be closely watched; each time any form of money is exchanged it must be logged for future reference, an error in the financial data could result in a business going bankrupted due to thinking they have more money that they do, this can lead to over spending and other things that would be damaging to a company, especially a company on the same scale as Corus. ... The finance department at Corus also needs to look at raising the finance for the business, finding the different ways to raise some money for various reasons, and what to spend the money on. ... Newsletters are an ideal form of communication for companies as large as Corus, internally Corus can let employee’s know about every day issues and changes happening within the company, externally these news letters will help potential customers know more about the company and already customers know that the business is still meeting the highest of standards. Communication plays a key role in any business it is important in all aspects, communicating with the workforce motivates staff and also lets management know any staff issues. ... To complete objectives it is essential that Corus successfully combine all the above functions, if these are not combined effectively friction can be created within a business, each individual function plays itself of another and relies heavily on the performance of another to succeed. ... Having a manager helps the business to run smoothly; their job entails overseeing the functions within the area they are allocated to and organising staff below them in the hierarchical structure.