BUSINESS OPERATIONS VBS006

Forge Ahead in Your Career by Developing the Skills to Assist in Business Expansion or Establishment

This is a great foundation course to develop skills and knowledge in various aspects of business operation and planning and become a valuable resource in the event of new business development or business expansion.

The business world is like a complicated machine where there are lots of different parts, all interacting with each other and all dependent upon those parts they are interconnected to. To be successful in business requires an ability to see the broad picture as well as a more precise view, and to foresee the implications of developments in the broader marketplace. The efficient running of resources within a business can dramatically improve the profit margins of a business, no matter what the desired business outcome is - goods or services. A good operations manager will see the business in broad terms also: Changes in political leadership in one part of the world can eventually have repercussions on the other side of the globe. A downturn in the economy in one place, can eventually affect the marketplace somewhere else. Everything is interconnected in the business world, and the first step towards success is to begin to develop an awareness of the broader marketplace and an ability to foresee changes in your business before they occur.

Businesses are setup by individuals or other businesses for generating a return on equity (ROE). Normally, ROE is generated by running business operations which utilize economic resources like land, labour, money and time and generate a return in terms of profit or other economic value addition. Before starting a business it is essential that you review and read the laws that govern business in your area to make sure that you don’t waste resources if the business will not be able to legally run.

Note: this course does overlap with Business Studies and Starting a Small Business, so you should choose to do one or another, not all of these. Enrol today, and study from home, so you can earn while you learn.

Learn to understand Business Operations

Start or expand a Business or Enterprise
Build your skills in business networking, problem solving and communications, etc
Increase the skillset you can offer your current employer

There are many facets involved in operating a business. If you want to increase your value in the company and have the skills to become involved in the start up, expansion or management of a business or an organisational department, you need a solid understanding of business operations. This course will give you the foundation you need to learn or improve your operational skills.

Duration: 100 Hours (Nominal Duration).

COURSE STRUCTURE

There are 6 lessons as follows:

Introduction -
- Business law
- types of businesses
- starting a business
Finance -
- Liquidity
- The money market
- terminology
- insurance
Financial Records -
- Simple Bookkeeping procedures
- cash flow
Financial Management -
- Taxation
- costing
- budgeting
- investing
Business Planning -

Developing a 12 month business plan.

6. Mistakes to avoid -

Reasons for business failures
profitability
improving productivity

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Summary of Competencies in this Course

On successful completion of the course you should be able to do the following:

Define the business community, the types of businesses involved and the interaction which occurs between different businesses.
Explain the difference between goods and services based businesses.
Define a range of commonly used business terms.
Research and analyse business opportunities by studying activities in the business world.
Assess the feasibility of a business opportunity and allocate resources to this business.
Carry out the basic procedures of recording and interpreting financial records and statements including the cash book, balance sheet, profit and loss statement.
Explain liquidity and productivity
Calculate profit and determine assets
Calculate the real cost of labour in a business.
Determine pricing based on costs calculated for providing a particular service or product.
Develop a budget for a simple business operation.
Develop a simple 3 year business plan (real or hypothetical).

What Does the Course Cover?

Here are just some of the things you will be doing:

Research business publications to evaluate current trends in small business
Prepare management reports for several businesses
Contact lending institutions to enquire about money market investment schemes
Prepare a profit and loss statement, a ledger statement and a balance sheet for a hypothetical business
Speak with the taxation department about business related tax issues
List the assets and liabilities in an existing business
Develop a budget for a simple business operation

HOW CAN YOU IMPROVE YOUR PROFITABILITY?

Above all else. stop, get a clear focus on what you are doing; develop a business plan; and make sure it's a business plan that will work. If you don't know how to develop and implement a business plan; you may need to do a course or at the very least, engage a consultant before you can move forward.

In the area of production of goods, the following standards need to be established and monitored:

Direct Labour Cost Per Unit of Production - Determining labour cost for each unit of production is important unit for achieving planned efficiency of your business. This unit of production will depend of your business (eg. it may be the cost of labour of coffee served at a coffee shop, or the cost of contacting a client called from a call centre. These things are essential to determining costs and planned profitability.
Number of Man Hours Needed Per Unit of Work - Beside the labour cost, you should determine the number of man hours needed per unit of work. These units of work might relate to each client served. This can be an indicator of the planned performance of your business, allowing you track areas where you could improve the productivity.
Set up time for each operation
Amount of materials used per item produced - For each item you will need to estimate the amount of materials used. That will give you an estimate of the cost in raw material and an indicator of the efficiency of your production line.
Amount of electricity/fuel/power used per unit produced.
Number of items produced per day - You need to determine the number of items produced per day, in relation to your sales estimate. This will provide an indication of how over or under utilised a production facility will be. You need to be able to produce a much as you can sales but having an industrial overcapacity can be costly.

To improve in a wholesaling or retailing situation, you must....

Buy better - You should buy at the best price or with financial arrangements that allow your business to keep a healthy cash flow.
Sell better - By using a market research and questioning your customers you should be able to provide a better service that will allow you to sell your products with a premium.
Improve internal operations - By implementing some key performance indicators, like those above, amount of materials used per item produced or labour cost per unit of production, you will be able to determine if there are rooms for improvement. Improving the efficiency of your business by 2% can have a tremendous effect on your profitability (10%-20%). Note that this course does overlap with Business Studies and Starting a Small Business, so you should choose to do one or another, not all of these.