Автор: Пользователь скрыл имя, 12 Сентября 2013 в 21:58, доклад
Accounting shows a financial picture of a firm. It is the process of measuring and recording economic information about an organization. Accounting principles are applied in the preparation of financial documents. Bookkeeping is the first step of accounting. It deals with the record-keeping aspect. The analysis of these records is the primary function of accounting. Different financial statements prepared by accountants provide managers with the basis for further planning and control.
Accounting shows a financial picture of a firm. It is the process of measuring and recording economic information about an organization. Accounting principles are applied in the preparation of financial documents. Bookkeeping is the first step of accounting. It deals with the record-keeping aspect. The analysis of these records is the primary function of accounting. Different financial statements prepared by accountants provide managers with the basis for further planning and control.
The main three parts of accounting are: 1) systematic recording of financial operations; 2) “posting” – transferring information from different journals to one general ledger; 3) the making up of a balance-sheet.
Personal record-keeping uses a single-entry system. All amounts of money (sums) are recorded in a column form. Record-keeping of an organization is based on a double-entry system. A typical account has two sides – the left side is called debit, the right side is called credit.
The most important financial document is the balance-sheet. It reflects the activity of a company, its assets and liabilities. Assets are economic resources of the organization. The assets may be current and long-lived ones. Current assets include cash, goods, stocks and bonds (short-term investments). Long-lived assets include land, buildings, equipment and intangibles – trademarks and patents. The liabilities are the debts of the company. They may be current and non-current. Current ones include salaries, wages, and taxes. Non-current ones are such debts as mortgages and long-term loans.
Another important accounting document is the income statement, which is often known as a profit-and-loss account. It is prepared for a well-defined period of time - three months or one year. It reflects the inflow (revenues) and outflow (expenses) of a company.
Accounting information can be classified into two main categories: financial accounting or public (open) information, and managerial accounting or private (secret) information. The first is more general and distributed outside the company it is for stockholders, creditors, suppliers, customers. The second is more specific and is distributed inside the company it is for department heads, directors, and supervisors of the firm. There are also three specialized areas of accounting: auditing, taxation and accounting in non-business organizations.
Auditing is the examination of financial data of the firm in order to attest to the accuracy of its financial statements.
Income taxation means preparation of income tax form by collecting information and presenting data in a certain order. Both individuals and firms often hire accountants to determine their taxes.
Accounting for non-business organizations differs from accounting in commercial firms. Such organizations as universities, hospitals, schools, churches, charitable institutions do not have a profit orientation. If they earn any money, their profit is usually reinvested in their organizations. As a result, they have differences in record-keeping and in financial statements.
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Advertising is a kind of message transmission that is designed to promote a product, promote a service, or promote an idea. Advertising influences us in every way from the products that we buy to the way that we think about issue.
Advertising reaches us in many ways. It comes in so many forms, in printed form – in newspapers and magazines; and audiovisual – over the radio, on television. Advertisements bombard us with their messages in all of these media. No one can fully escape their effect.
What are the functions of advertisements? The first one is to inform. Many of the information people have about household devices, cars, building materials, electronic equipment, cosmetics, detergents and food is largely derived from the advertisements they read. Advertisements introduce them to new products or remind them of the existing ones.
The second function is to sell. The products are shown from the best point of view and the potential buyer, on having entered the store, chooses the advertised products. The aim of a good advertisement is to create a consumer demand to buy the advertised product or service.
The third function of advertising is to make mass media cheaper.
The public advertising seen on street hoardings, railway stations and buildings makes peoples life more joyful. Moreover, all those small ads in the press help ordinary people to find a better job or a better employee, to sell or to buy their second-hand things and find services, or learn about educational facilities, social events.
Advertising has to do two things in order to be successful. First, the advertisement must be interesting enough to attract the customer's attention.
Second advertising must be convincing: it must give clear reasons for the customer to buy the advertising product. This is achieved by using a variety of techniques. The first technique is the use of slogans. A slogan is a short phrase that an advertiser uses over and over in its ads. Slogans are usually short and easy to remember. The second technique is testimonial. Testimonials are advertisements that have people sometimes famous, sometimes no to tell us that they use and like a certain product. Most people are influenced by what others say. And the last technique is repetition that is running an ad again and again. Repetition is important for ensuring that an ad will be remembered.
Advertising is a serious business, and that certain techniques in advertising are used to convince people to buy certain products, services, and ideas.
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3. Business Ethics
What Is Ethics?
Ethics is a set of rules that define right and wrong conduct. These ethical rules tell us when our behavior is acceptable and when it is disapproved. Ethics deals with fundamental human relationships. Ethical rules are guides to moral behavior. For example, all societies have ethical rules forbidding lying, stealing, deceiving, and harming others. They also have ethical rules that approve of honesty, keeping promises, helping others, and respecting the rights of others. Such basic rules of behavior are thought to be essential for the preservation and continuation of organized life.
What Is Business Ethics?
Business ethics is not a special set of ethical rules different from ethics in general and applicable only to business. Business ethics is the application of general ethical rules to business behavior. If protecting others from harm is considered to be ethical, then a business firm that recalls a defective and dangerous product is acting in an ethical way.
For example, the banks that allowed laundered money to flow through their accounts not only broke the law but protected criminals who harmed society. When business firms or people in business violate the rules that define right and wrong behavior, they are acting unethically, and they also may be acting illegally.
Why Is Business Ethics Important?
Why should business pay attention at all to ethics? In most cases, the general public expects business to exhibit high levels of ethical performance and social responsibility. For example, Parker Brothers spent $10 million in recalling the toy that caused the death of two children because company executives knew that its customers would approve its attempts to protect children's lives.
A second factor encouraging business firms to act ethically is to prevent harm to society. One of the strongest ethical principles is very simple: "Do no harm." Many ethical rules operate to protect society against various types of harm, and business is expected to observe this main principle. A third reason for promoting ethical behavior is to protect business firms from unethical employees or unethical competitors. High ethical performance also protects the individuals who work in business.
Ethics and Etiquette. There is some difference between business ethics and etiquette. Etiquette means rules for formal relations or polite social behavior among people in a society or a profession. Being a manager you should stick to the following rules in your everyday activities.
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4. Forms of Business Ownership
Business is a commercial enterprise performing all those functions that govern the production, distribution, and sale of goods and services for the benefit of the buyer and the profit of the seller. Since the beginning of the era of economic progress old ways of running business have been modified, and new forms of business organization have been introduced. This has enabled various branches of Industry to adapt to changing conditions and to function more easily, efficiently and profitably, sole proprietorship, partnership, and corporation being the main three forms of business ownership.
A sole proprietorship is a business owned by one person, in which all the profits belong to the owner, the latter being fully responsible for the success and the failure of the business. Unless an activity is specifically prohibited by law, no field of business is closed to an owner. Although advantages for the small business exist in this form, certain drawbacks make it undesirable for larger concerns. In the first place, the single owner is seldom able to invest as much capital as can be obtained by a partnership or a corporation. If single owners are able to invest large amounts of capital, they run great risk of losing it all because they are personally liable for all the debts of their businesses. It is due to unlimited liability that all the personal assets of the owner, including his home and car, can be sold to settle the debts of the business. Unless the owner has much personal wealth, the business may have difficulty borrowing money in critical times. A sole proprietorship may also have difficulty hiring and keeping good employees, because the business will dissolve when the owner retires or dies.
A partnership is an association of two or more persons to carry on a business for profit. When the owners of the partnership have unlimited liability they are called general partners. If partners have limited liability they are "limited partners". There may be a silent partner as well - a person who is known to the public as a member of the firm but without authority in management. The reverse of the silent partner is the secret partner - a person who takes part in management but who is not known to the public.
Any business may have the form of the partnership, for example, in such professional fields as medicine, law, accounting, insurance and stockbrokerage. Limited partnerships are a common form of ownership in real estate, oil prospecting, quarrying industries, etc.
A business corporation is an organization created by law that allows people to associate together for the purpose of making profit. Corporations are also known as joint-stock companies because they are jointly owned by different persons who receive shares of stocks in exchange for an investment of money in the company.
Though corporation is more difficult and expensive to organize than other business forms, it has a number of advantages. First, investors can limit their personal liability to the amount of money they have invested, thus, if the corporation goes bankrupt, they can lose no more than they have put in.
Second, money to operate the business is obtained by the sale of stocks to the general public and this enables the corporation to exist independently of its owners.
But there is one great drawback of corporative form – it is double taxation of profits. However, in terms of size and influence it is the corporation that has become the dominant business form existing in most countries with free market economies.
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5. Management
According to the economists management is the process of making decisions, setting objectives, directing and controlling. The large scale and complexity of most business organizations has forced a division of managerial functions. On the one hand these functions are marked out according to the functional nature of decision – that is, production, personnel, marketing or sales, and finance.
An important responsibility of production manager is planning for the efficient use of raw materials as well as supervising the work of the production personnel in order to reach the company's objectives.
Personnel manager is in charge of the organization's human resources programs. People are the most valuable asset of any business. So, finding qualified people, hiring them, making the best use of their skills and abilities, and making them to stay on the job is the responsibility of the personnel manager
Marketing manager is responsible for the exchange of products between the organization and its customers. Specific areas within marketing management are marketing research, advertising, promotion, sales and distribution.
Financial manager is responsible for the organization's financial resources. In order to maximize the market price of the owners' equity the financial manager is involved in financial planning, managing assets, and raising funds. He can also specialize in accounting and investment.
On the other hand, managers undertake such functions as planning, directing and controlling.
Planning means setting objectives in the project so that every one will know when and what part of their work is to be accomplished. Manager's role in directing means serving as an effective leader in coordinating all important aspects of the project. This function includes supervising and motivating people to do their best. Controlling is often the most difficult function of management. Having set the objectives, managers have to measure the performance of the organization in relation to those objectives. In order to do it manager has to maintain a record of planned and actual work accomplished. He keeps records of meetings, telephone conversations and agreements. He keeps everyone informed, ensuring that no one gets "surprises" and has solutions to problems.
So, despite the fact that managers undertake different functions and are responsible for different areas of decision-making, their main aim is to maximize the output of the organization.
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6. Marketing
In recent years marketing has become a driving force in most companies. Marketing includes all the business activities connected with the movement of goods and services from producer to consumer. On the one hand, marketing consists of transporting, storing and selling goods and services and on the other hand, a series of decisions you make during the process of moving goods from manufacturer to user. Marketing operations include product planning, buying, storage, pricing, promotion, selling, credit, traffic and market research.
The right marketing mix is made up of four main elements – "The Four P's" – the right Product at the right Price, available through the right channels of distribution (Place) and presented in the right way (Promotion).
Product means the goods or service that you are marketing. Products have a life-cycle. Forward-thinking companies develop new products to replace the one whose sales are declining and coming to the end of their lives. A "total product" includes the image of the product, its features and benefits.
Price is the sum of money, which the consumers should pay to get the goods. The firm offers retail and wholesale prices, reduced prices and discount, sale and credit. The quoted price should meet the value of the goods. There are three pricing options the company may take: above, with and below the prices that its competitors are charging.
Place means getting the product to the customer. Decisions have to be made about the channels of distribution and delivery arrangements. A common channel of distribution is: “Manufacturer – wholesaler – retailer – customer”.
Wholesalers usually sell large quantities of a product to retailers, and retailers sell smaller quantities to customer. Each stage usually adds "value" to the product to justify the costs.
Promotion is presenting the product to the customer. It involves the packaging and presentation of the product, its image, the product name and advertising. Price-lists, after-sales service, public relations and personal selling are also the elements of promotion. Each product has features that differ it from other products on the market.
Marketing operations are very expensive. They take more than half of the consumer's dollar. The Four P's work together to make marketing successful.
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