Functional Areas

Businesses are commonly organised around the functional areas which are ;

Human resources
Marketing
Finance
Operations
Administration

Marketing-

It is the responsibly of the marketing department to firstly identify what consumers want. This is done using market research.
The department then decides upon the correct marketing mix for the organisation. The marketing mix is made up of the ‘Four Ps’

Human resources

The human resource department manages the staffing of the business. It organises recruitment, staff training and appraisal, and is concerned with staff welfare.
Staff have to be experts in employment law, making sure that the business meets all the legal requirements they have for there employees.

Finance
The finance department is responsible for keeping all the financial records of the business; control of money flowing in and out of the organisation; and making sure that the business can pay its debts to keep on trading.
The department provides senior management with the information needed to make decisions, by forecasting the financial outcome of different courses of action, and preparing budgets.

Operations
Operations is concerned with the purchase and storage of raw materials; the actual production of the end product and the storage and distribution of the finished goods.

Administration
Administration is responsible for the flow of information around the business. The department is also concerned with keeping records of what the business does.

Research and development
The size of this department really depends on the type of business. The department is constantly looking for ways to produce new products or improve existing products.
If the business is producing pencils, then there would not be much need for research and development. On the other hand ; if it was a business that produces medicine, a lot of time and effort would be spent on research and development.