Business Operations: Functions, Decision-Making, and Corporate Identity

Posted on Jan 9, 2025 in Business Administration and Innovation Management

Company Functions and Their Importance

A company is a for-profit entity whose primary purpose is to generate benefits through the sale of goods or services on the market. The core functions of a company include:

  • Planning Function: This involves establishing the goals that the company aims to reach. It represents the ideal that will guide the company’s performance.
  • Organizational Function: The employer must ensure that every human and material resource fulfills its assigned function effectively.
  • Leadership Function: This is the task of control that the employer performs to motivate and guide their staff in achieving the previously planned objectives.
  • Control Function: This function verifies whether everything is proceeding as planned and if the given instructions are being followed.

Departments and Organizational Structure

Departments, also known as areas or functional units, are specialized units within a company that focus on specific tasks to achieve the planned goals or objectives. An organizational chart is a diagram that schematically represents the formal structure of the company, including its departments, functional areas, and their interdependencies.

Decision-Making Process

Decision-making is a rational process where one or more individuals choose between two or more alternatives to solve a problem. The decision-making process typically involves:

  1. Analysis of the Situation: Define the goal, identify the problem, and determine its causes.
  2. Planning and Assessment of Alternatives: Develop and evaluate potential solutions.
  3. Decision and Execution: Select the best alternative and implement it.
  4. Monitoring and Evaluation: Track the results and assess the effectiveness of the decision.

Group Decision-Making

Advantages:

  • Allows for more comprehensive information gathering.
  • Offers diverse viewpoints.
  • Produces more and better solutions.
  • Increases motivation and commitment.
  • Encourages creativity.

Disadvantages:

  • Takes longer.
  • Dilutes individual responsibility.
  • Risk of conformity.
  • Potential for self-censorship among group members.
  • Inequality in participation.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming aims to foster creativity and find innovative solutions. Ideas are written where everyone can see them. To be effective, participants should refrain from judging others’ ideas and avoid self-censorship. The process continues until the group can no longer generate new ideas after the problem has been thoroughly explained.

Philips 66

This technique involves dividing the group into subgroups of six people who discuss a topic for six minutes.

Nominal Group Technique

This method combines individual and group work. It is divided into steps, generates a large number of ideas, and the process is documented in writing.

Corporate Identity and Image

Corporate identity encompasses the enduring traits that define the personality of the company. It is what the company decides will differentiate it from its competitors over the long term.

Corporate image is the public’s perception of the organization. It is not just what an individual or group thinks but the collective perception that emerges.

  • Building corporate image
  • Measuring corporate image

Trademark refers to any sign used to distinguish products, services, and industrial or commercial establishments in the market.

Corporate visual identity refers to the development and application of the trademark across all areas of the company. Elements include:

  • Logo
  • Symbol
  • Corporate colors
  • Fonts
  • Figure-background relationship
  • Monochrome version

Communication in Business

The sender is the one who transmits the message, choosing a transmission system or channel and ensuring its proper use.

The channel is the means through which information circulates, connecting the sender and the receiver.

The code is the set of signs, gestures, sounds, and images used to construct the message.

The context encompasses all parallel elements to the communication that influence it.

Feedback is the information the sender obtains from the effects of the transmitted message on the receiver.

Barriers to Communication

  • Physical: Constraints in the physical environment where communication takes place.
  • Intellectual: Occurs when the knowledge of the sender and receiver do not match, leading to misunderstandings.
  • Psychological: Related to the emotional state and biases of the individuals involved.