Business Functional Areas

One of the reasons for separating business operations into functional areas is to allow each to operate within its area of expertise, thus building efficiency and effectiveness across the business as a whole.

• True

• False

Functional areas in a business vary according to the nature of the market and the size of the business.

• True

• False

In day’s technology-driven business environment, ______________ is also responsible for building and overseeing a company’s Internet presence (e.g., the company Web site, blogs, social media campaigns, etc.).

• sales functional area

• ICT functional area

• marketing functional area

• customer service functional area

The ________________ involves planning for, obtaining, and managing a company’s funds.

• finance functional area

• administration functional area

• human resource functional area

• R&D functional area

This area is ultimately responsible for accurately representing the financial transactions of a business to internal and external parties, government agencies, and owners/investors.

• Administration functional area

• Finance functional area

• Production functional area

• Sales functional area

_____ is led by the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and is staffed with scientists, thought-leaders, subject-matter experts and industry analysts striving to provide the organization with knowledge and ideas to keep up and ahead of the competition.

• Administration functional area

• Human resource functional area

• R&D functional area

• Production functional area

Sea-Worthy is an ocean-shipping company. The company decided to develop their own internal ERP (Enterprise Resource Management) system since none of the existing commercial packages met the specific needs of their unique business segment. Halfway into development by their IT department, the company came to the realization that this system could be licensed to their competitors to offset their development cost and fund future enhancements. Which functional area of the company would be responsible for creating revenue from this internal system?

• Finance

• Marketing

• R&D

• Distribution

Why would a company organize by functional area?

• It is considered more efficient to have staff with similar skills grouped together.

• It allows a manager with similar skills and expertise to review the work done by the members of the function.

• It makes training and knowledge sharing easier, since employees working on similar functions work together.

• All of the above are correct.