What is a ‘Function’?
The actions and activities assigned to or required or
expected of a person or group
Functions within Organisations
• Accounts or finance
• Sales
• Distribution
• Marketing
• Design
• Production
(or service provision)
• ICT services
• Research and development • Administration
• Human resources
Accounts or Finance
Carries out all tasks relating to money that comes into the
organisation and money that it pays out.
• Recording payments received for goods/services
• Banking payments made using cash/cheques
• Arrange payment to suppliers for stock, raw materials or
services (.e.g water, gas, electric, telephone, rent, mortgage
repayments, loan payments)
• Arrange payment of staff wages
• Record/account keeping of transactions (For
TAX/VAT/Shareholders to see and calculate)
Sales
•Responsible for selling an organisation’s products or
services to its customers.
•Tasks carried out vary widely depending on nature of
organisation.
EXAMPLE - Shop
• Sales staff
o Help customers find products, take customer
payments, wrap purchases.
o Ensure goods on display.
o Taking orders and reordering stock.
Distribution
Responsible for moving goods from factory, farm or other
source, to warehouse, and then to shops/customers.
Most likely found in organisations that make/sell goods
(rather than provide service).
• Ensuring packages correctly addressed.
• Arranging collection/delivery (postal or courier service)
•Sending by rail/air freight/road hauliers
•Running own fleet of vans/trucks/deliver goods (Supermarket
chains fleets of lorries)
Marketing
Responsible for planning future sales and monitor
organisation’s relationship with customers / potential
customers.
• Advertise organisations products/services
• Designing advertisements/buying advert space
• Designing flyers/arranging for distribution
• Arranging stand for organisation at trade fairs
• Updating organisation’s website
• Gather customer opinion
(Market research e.g. Questionnaires)
Research and development
• Most likely to exist in organisations that manufacture
products.
•Responsible for carrying out research into new
techniques, technologies and materials to see if they can
be applied to products/services supplied by organisation.
• Development function then develops new
product/service. This may involve creating prototypes of
new product/service
Human resources
Responsible for dealing with organisation’s employees.
When more staff needed, they…
• Organise placing of adverts / notifying local employment
agencies
• Sending out application forms/receiving completed
applications forms, CVs, application letters
• Short-listing applications, organising interviews, sending
letters to successful/unsuccessful interview applicants.
Design
Responsible for taking over where research and
development function finishes.
• Takes ideas/prototypes developed by R & D and turns
them into designs for products/services to be supplied to
customers
• May design some products from scratch based on
customer needs identified by market research
• They communicate extensively with R&D, production and
marketing departments
Production (or service provision)
Manufacturing
Occurs only in organisations that manufacture products. It
takes raw materials, parts and facilities and uses them to
make products.
This may be run using;
• Production line: members of production carry out a
particular task as product moves along line
•Machines running tasks: production function involved in
overseeing/maintaining machines and checking quality of
products
Production (or service provision)
Service Organisations
In service organisations, this function called a ‘Provision’.
Function responsible to provide service to customer.
Tasks of function in service differ widely depending on
service provided.
(e.g. Airline – Pilot and flight crew fly the plane, Cabin crew
look after passengers by serving food/drinks, looking after
safety during flight)
ICT services
Responsible for the provision of all computer facilities
within the organisation.
• Obtaining, installing and maintaining hardware
•Managing local area/wide area networks services
(LAN/WAN)
•Obtaining, installing and maintaining software
•Providing hardware/software support to ICT users
•Internal/external data communications (Maintaining
organisation’s Intranet/Website)
Administration
Responsible for the day-to-day running of an Organisation
•Looks after things such as:
•Buildings and facilities
•General maintenance and cleaning
•Fleet management
•Utilities
Often used though to describe other functions that do not
naturally fit into any other functions.
Rewrite the following table so the correct functional area is correct
with the task description
Functional Areas
Task
Finance
Recruiting people to fill a job vacancy
Production
Buying raw materials
Purchasing
Recording how much money the business
earned yesterday
Sales
Turning raw materials into a finished
product
Marketing
Explaining to a potential customer the
benefits of buying the firm’s products
Human Resources
Giving advice to a customer who thinks
the product they have just bought is
faculty
Customer Services
Writing a questionnaire to find out how
much people would be prepared to pay
for a new product.
Functional Areas
Task
Finance
Recording how much money the business
earned yesterday
Production
Turning raw materials into a finished
product
Purchasing
Buying raw materials
Sales
Explaining to a potential customer the
benefits of buying the firm’s products
Marketing
Writing a questionnaire to find out how
much people would be prepared to pay
for a new product.
Human Resources
Recruiting people to fill a job vacancy
Customer Services
Giving advice to a customer who thinks
the product they have just bought is
faculty
Task 2
• Complete the “Functions Quiz” found on
Learn Coombe Dean.
• Print off the quiz and place in your exercise
book.
Organisational Structures
All businesses need some type of structure to
work productively.
• Firms need specific job roles for the staff
to make sure they know what they are doing
and do not get in each other’s way
• The number of groups and how they are
organised often varies according to size and
main activities
Hierarchical Structures
Some organisations
have many levels of
staff
There may be a
managing director at
the top, then various
levels of managers
and supervisors,
down to staff at the
bottom.
You might find this type
of structure in a
large retail or
manufacturing
business
Store Manager
Area Manager
Checkout Operator
Chief Executive
Team Leader
Director
Task 3
• Read the “Logos R Us” scenario from Learn
Coombe Dean and list all the job junctions and
roles.
• Build an “organisation” structure chart to
show the hierarchy of the company.