What is business activity?

The focus of this first unit and pretty much the entire first semester of the course is going
to be looking at what business activity actually is.

We're going to look at it from three different perspectives ( to start. The first way to define
business activity is probably the simplest way and thats just looking at business activity as a way to
add value to the inputs that factors the production of land,
labour, capital and enterprise and then turn them into outputs
, goods or services that people need or want.

The second way to look at business activity is by it's functions or departments

. Incidentally this is the way the content of the course is divided by the
IB. These are departmentsand functionsbeing things like Marketing
, Human Resource Management, Financeand
Operations Management. We're going to be looking into all these
departments or business functions in more details over the next two years.

The third way to look at business activity is by looking at the six overarching business
concepts that we will cover in this course. We will briefly look
at them here in this video.

Globalizationis the first one, the idea that the business world operates
in an interconnected world and that certainly carries over
into the idea of culture, the second business concept.

Not only cultures of different countries, regions, continents

but also within the organizations themselves and the idea that the
organizations have their own individual unique culture.
Innovation is an exciting one because that is a chance for businesses to creatively
come up with ways to meet the needs and demands of it's
consumers.

Change is the fourth one. So the idea that businesses operate in a dynamic
environmentnot in a vacuum but a dynamic environment
thats ever changing and businesses have to adapt their strategy
which is the fifth business concept.
Strategy being the what, when, why, where and how a business operates and plans it's decisions and
activity.

The last one is perhaps the most important and that is ethics. That businesses
consider all of it's internal and external stakeholders but also the environment in which it operates
and makes it's decisions.

What is the main purpose of business?

Another big question for you to consider throughout this unit and throughout the entire course is
'What is the main purpose of business?'

Is it all about making money and maximizing profit? Well certainly that is a big part of business.
You're gonna find that this subject is much more fascinating and complex than that. For example,
we are going to be looking into the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility and investigate all the
different activities and objectives that businesses are trying to achieve.

Just think about all of the business activity required to create the products around you right now. . .
your computer, your desk, your school, your shoes, this course!
As you can imagine, each business involved in the final product goes through a large number of
decisions in order to satisfy the needs and wants of their customer.
Due to the ever-present nature of business, all of us most likely have some prior understanding of
business activity and what business organizations actually do.
The following lesson will launch us into a much more in-depth look at the role of business, the
functions of business and the nature of business activity.
Specifically, the content from the IB subject guide that we will cover in the coming few
lessons includes -
Businesses role in combining human, physical and financial resources to create
goods and services
The main business functions and their roles -
human resources
finance and accounts
marketing
operations
The role of the different business departments in overall business activity
Primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sectors
The nature of business activity in each sector and the impact of sectoral change on
business activity.