Business Operations

• those wishing to transition into management from backgrounds in retail, technology, sales, or trade
• Those in administrative positions who want to assume greater responsibilities
• For those who have never studied business before, a foundational course

There is some overlap between business studies and starting a small business, so you should pick one of them to pursue rather than combining any of the other two.

Lesson Structure

There are 6 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction
   • Business law
   • types of businesses
   • starting a business
2. Finance
   • Liquidity
   • The money market
   • terminology
   • insurance
3. Financial Records
   • Simple Bookkeeping procedures
   • cash flow
4. Financial Management
   • Taxation
   • costing
   • budgeting
   • investing
5. Business Planning
   • Overview
   • Improving results in business
   • Developing a 12 month business plan.
6. Mistakes to avoid
   • Examples of things to avoid; lack of market research, problems with marketing, cash flow, attitude, etc
   • Profitability
   • Profitability ratios
   • Reasons why businesses fail

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school’s tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

• Describe the business environment, the many sorts of businesses involved, and the interactions that take place between them.
• What distinguishes businesses that are focused on providing goods and services?
• Define a variety of words and phrases used in business.
• By observing business activity, you can investigate and analyse business potential.
• Determine whether a business opportunity is viable before allocating resources to it.
• carry out the fundamental steps involved in keeping and evaluating financial records and statements, such as the profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and cash book.
• Describe liquidity and output
• Determine assets and the profit
• Determine the actual cost of labour for your company.
• Pricing should be determined using the estimated expenses of delivering a certain service or good.
• Create a budget for a straightforward operation.
• Create a basic three-year business plan (real or hypothetical).

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What Do You Need to Run a Business?

 

A business cannot operate itself; it requires daily work. To achieve these aims, decisions must be made and goals must be established. Certain days will test you in running a business, while others will motivate you. But, the majority of them will simply be a routine component of daily corporate operations.

A business’s daily objective is to buy the equipment needed to deliver a good or service and then sell that good or service to a customer.

The three crucial facets of managing a small business are as follows:

 

• Hiring the greatest candidates, providing them with the necessary training, and knowing how to maximise their performance are all part of the management process.
• Your short- and long-term objectives in regard to generating targeted turnover and profit are defined by your business plan.
• Business operations are the means—including resources, tools, business plans, and established procedures—by which you accomplish predetermined goals.

 

Things you will need to do to fulfill your business goals:

 

• Purchase, create, or decide what services to provide.
• Based on your customer’s wants and market research, make the right purchasing selections.
• Set pricing (after determining costs).
• Keep expenses low.
• advertise goods or services (Advertising, marketing).
• Sell.
• Deliver.
• Keep in touch with your clients.
• As the company expands, hire and train new personnel.
• Encourage your staff.
• Compare your efforts to your objectives.
• Maintain the proper records.

 

The daily work of any business operator however can vary in many ways:

 

• Small business owners must take all necessary steps (planning, management, marketing, delivering the service or creating the products etc.).
• Large business owners enjoy the luxury of being able to assign specific tasks to workers, but this luxury is quickly outweighed by the increased difficulty of running a bigger company.
• Some businesses must devote more resources than others to getting their commodity or service. Some might find buying the product simple, but generally speaking, when one component of a business operation is simple, others will be more challenging.
• While some firms may only ever make slight adjustments to what they are offering, others may need to constantly review and update the goods or services they provide.

 

What can you expect from this course?

 

You need to be able to launch or expand a business after completing this course.

Some of the activities you will be doing include the following:

• To assess current trends in small business, read business periodicals.
• assemble management reports for several companies
• Request information about money market investment plans from lending institutions.
• Create a balance sheet, ledger statement, and profit and loss statement for a fictitious company.
• Consult the taxes division about any tax-related business difficulties.
• An established business’s assets and liabilities should be listed.
• Create a budget for a straightforward business operation.