Grade 9 Economic and Management Sciences

Grade 9 Economic and Management Sciences Presentation

• This presentation covers the eight main functions of a business.
• The presentation was originally by the textbook publishers, but edited by WGHS.
• The presentation includes the characteristics of the business functions.

Functions of a Business

• A business needs eight main functions to produce and sell a product (e.g., a bookshelf).
• These functions are performed by different departments in the business.

Example Business Function

• Designing and manufacturing furniture.
• Requires buying raw materials, employing skilled workers, ensuring sufficient funds for running the business.
• Having a system for manufacturing.
• Having an administration system to track orders and maintain the office.
• Promoting goods and communication with clients.
• Managing all business aspects.

Eight Business Functions

• Administration: Performing tasks like answering calls, processing information, paying bills, scheduling, record-keeping, organization, meticulous detail. Efficient systems and liaising with other departments. Managing the administration budget.
• Purchasing: Acquiring raw materials at the best price, ensuring timely orders to avoid production delays, staying within budget, maintaining accurate records, ensuring sufficient raw materials.
• Marketing: Determining products to produce, branding for better customer impact, choosing distribution channels, advertising/promoting, providing publicity for the business and its goods, standardising production processes, determining the best pricing, identifying a target market, managing the marketing budget.
• Finance: Managing cash flow of the business, managing budgets, keeping records of income and expenses, paying taxes (e.g., corporation tax, VAT), managing investments, raising capital, protecting against financial mismanagement, ethical guidelines on using funds, ensuring business assets security, making safe and sensible financial decisions.
• Public Relations: Finding out about public perception of the business, advising management to improve public opinion, communicating with the public, and running promotional events. Social responsibility through environmental and community concerns is related to this function.
• Human Resources: Recruiting/hiring staff, defining job descriptions, administration of staff leave, retaining staff, keeping staff happy, training staff, dismissing/retrenching staff, maintaining a healthy and safe workplace, maintaining good labor relations, keeping the business compliant with labor laws (e.g., Employment Equity Act, Labour Relations Act, Basic Conditions of Employment Act, Skills Development Act).
• Production: Managing all production aspects, including getting resources, choosing methods, managing efficiency and quality, scheduling production, managing production budgets, managing production costs, staying updated with latest technology, improving the production process.
• General Management: High-level planning and strategizing, overseeing other functions, managing other managers, planning, organizing, leading, and controlling resources, ensuring effective cooperation between functions.

Risks of Business Functions

• Administration: System failures, legal issues related to info, risks of fire/theft compromising data, hacking compromising electronic data.
• Purchasing: Changes in exchange rates influencing costs, delays in material deliveries impacting production, poor quality materials affecting the final product quality.
• Marketing: Under-spending on promotion affecting customer awareness, over-spending on promotion with no profit increases.
• Finance: Fraud, theft and bad debts, changes in interest rates and exchange rates.
• Public Relations: Negative publicity harming public perception, issues like social media posts of negative experience, controversies or scandals.
• Human Resources: Dissatisfied employees potentially going on strike, labor law issues potentially favoring employees over employers, hiring the wrong individual with difficult dismissal.
• Production: Running out of raw materials, electricity or water shortages impacting production, and production of poor quality goods.
• General Management: Risk management important; monitoring other functions identifying performance issues to avoid potential risks.

Levels of Management (Grade 8 Reminder)

• Top management: Includes CEO, CFO, Managing Director, and General Manager.
• Middle management: Manage branches and departments.
• Lower management: Supervisors, Foremen, and Team Leaders.
• All managers: Planning, organizing, leading, and controlling are responsibilities for top, middle, and lower management.

Explore the eight essential functions of a business with this informative presentation. It covers areas such as administration, manufacturing, and marketing, detailing how each function contributes to product production and sales. Gain insights into how departments collaborate to achieve business success.