Paper 2 Unit 5 Flashcards
What is a product?
A physical object like food. The quality of a product can be established by examining it. If it is faulty, it can be returned and replaced and payment can be refunded.
What is a service?
Promises to do or provide something for example support. The quality of a service can’t be judged until it’s provided. If it is a time-based service, once it is gone it is no longer available. It is far more difficult to refund or replace a service.
What are the differences between products and services?
Products are made from raw materials and are tangible whereas services are intangible and hard to define accurately. Sometimes products and services can be combined such as in a mobile phone- the phone is a product but it works through a contract service.
Define the Primary sector.
Provides raw materials through activities like farming, fishing and mining.
Define the Secondary sector.
The manufacturing sector that takes raw materials and turns them into new products.
Define the Tertiary sector.
The service sector that includes supermarkets and financial services. It is the largest sector in the UK.
Define the Public sector.
Any organisation run by the government to provide a service to the people.
What are human resources?
The people of the workforce of a business. The HR department recruits, administers and trains staff members. They have to keep up with the latest legislation, deal with salaries and benefits and solve employee issues.
What is the Research and Development department?
They help to maintain a competitive edge to the business by conducting product research, investigating the need for the product and designing and developing the product where they take the client requirements and turn them into a design of the product which can be developed into the full product.
What are logistics?
Having things in the right place at the right time. They have to keep track of resources and are in charge of storage and materials handling, packaging, inventory, transport of products, product information and control of data.
What is marketing?
Promoting the business and generating the sales.
What is finance?
The department responsible for tracking the money coming in and out of the business which includes accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll and profit and loss reserves.
What is management?
The process of planning and organising the resources and activities of a business to achieve the desired goals in the most efficient and effective way.
What are the 5 functions of good management?
Planning, organising, leading, staffing and controlling the situation
How does the HR department use IT?
communicating with employees, maintaining data on employees, advertising jobs, dealing with job applications, liaising with other department, providing online support and training for staff
How does the R&D department use IT?
collect and process data from research, create suitable designs, prepare presentations, test designs using software, produce detailed costings and time plans for development
How does the logistics department use IT?
automated warehousing and packaging robots, automated stock control to manage inventory, modelling product sales to predict future requirements, route planning and GPS tracking for efficient transportation, data collection and processing to provide management information
How does the marketing department use IT?
online research can provide insight into marketing, analyse research data to identify market trends to inform decisions, email/text message promotions, digital signage, analysis of point of sale data and loyalty schemes
How does the finance department use IT?
keep track of bank balances, produce financial reports, produce payroll statements for staff, calculate tax, staff deals and reward payments, calculate VAT returns, calculate corporate tax.
How does the management department use IT?
they promote the use of technology where it is appropriate throughout the business. they should have a good overview of what is used and be up-to-date with new developments which could help improve the business.
How can automated stock inventory control impact a business?
Using a well-maintained stock level will result in fluctuations in demand can being resolved quickly so more/less of certain products are ordered according to customer needs, buying in bulk with less time pressure leads to more stable costs (lowers price for customers as well), better customer service as there is the right level of stock available. Using a just in time method will reduce warehouse space costs as stock does not have to be stored as long, but it will prevent the business taking advantage of last minute orders and costs of raw materials will fluctuate as they cannot be bought in bulk.
What are the advantages of using servers to store data?
The business has a good level of security because they have full control over hardware and software used. The staff can be supported by the technical support team and security is well managed through anti-malware updates.
What are the disadvantages of using servers?
Need to hire many technical support staff members, relies on these people to function, needs hardware to function properly, business must manage all security and updates, organisation must plan and install hardware.
