Introduction to Business - Managing a business

Managing a business

The Management Process

1. Plan 
2. Organize
3. Lead
4. Control

Plan

Planning is an act of:

• Creating a goal
• Writing a blueprint for that goal. 

Process of planning

1. Set a goal
2. Develop strategies
3. Determine tactics

Class activity

We are told to form a group and discuss about our plans and the ways to achieve it. We started by planning to collect Rm 100 within a month, The strategy will be saving money and the tactics will be spending less than Rm10 a day.

Introduction to Business- Topic 1 & 2

Introduction to business


Definition of business

• A legally-recognized organization which have profit making motive.

• “Non-profit organizations” are businesses without a profit making motive.

Capitalism/Free Market

• Consumers have freedom of choice.

• Constantly competing with others to gain more customers and profits.

• A planned economy relies on the government to produce the goods and services for its citizens.

• Businesses provide some vital contributions or functions to the society.

1. Goods and services
2. Employment
3. Pays tax to the government
4. Provide opportunities for other businesses to serve as its suppliers.

• Goods-producing businesses 

• Service business

• Consumer products

• Mining

• Construction

• Manufacturing

• Agriculture

Examples of service business:

• Banking & insurance
• Transportation
• Utilities  
• Wholesale and retail trade
• Entertainment, healthcare, education.

External environment of business

• Domestic Business Environment

• Global Biz Environment

• Technology 

• Economic Environment

• Sociocultural Environment

• Politic and Legal Environment

The Small Business & Its Characteristics

• Business owned by one to several persons.

• Operates on a small amount of capital and serves a limited number of customers

• Most  of them are in the service industry because it requires less capital.

• They serve as distributors of products for the big businesses

•  Provide innovations and/or serve niche markets.

• Limited growth potential.

How to start a business?

• Start from scratch

• Buy an existing business

• Franchising

Types of Legal ownership:

• Sole traders

• Partnership

• Corporation

Since we missed the first two lecture, I compiled the things I learned through the slides in one post. I learned that there are two categories for business which is goods-producing business and service business. Besides that, there are also business which are not earning profit such as WWF. I also learned that although all companies are businesses, not all businesses are companies. To be a sucessful business owner, To become a successful business owner, you must have strong reasons and the right qualities to tackle the problems you face in business effectively.

Intro to Business - Business Ethics and Social Responsibilities.

Lecture 3: Business Ethics and Social Responsibilities

Ethics are beliefs or ideas about what is :

• Right vs Wrong
• Good vs Evil
• Fair vs Unfair

Different people may have different perception about what is ethical and what is unethical.

However, ethical does'nt means that it is legal. Legal is following the law while ethical is doing something morally right.

Areas of Business Ethics and Social responsibilities:

• Environment
• Customers
• Employees
• Investors

Common steps to discourage unethical and illegal activity:

• Adopting writing codes - Set of rules
• Instituting ethics program

Approaches to Social Responsibilities:

• Obstructionist
• Defensive
• Accomodative
• Proactive

Class Activity - Case Study

Discussion 
1) What is advertising? What is its purpose?

• The activity or profession of producing advertisements for commercial products or services to persuade consumers to spend money on the products or service.

2) What is false advertising? Why do some companies engage in false advertising?

•  The use of false or misleading statements in advertising, and misrepresentation of the product at hand, which may negatively affect many stakeholders, especially consumers. As advertising has the potential to persuade people into commercial transactions, they use it to earn money.

3) Provide a 1 or 2-minute video example of false advertising (you may use YouTube for this section).

4) What can we do about it? Suggest 2 solutions.

• Laws and Regulations
• Federal Trade Comission

Due to the technical problem and the lack of time, our group didn't get a chance to present our case study in the class.

 I learned about the difference between ethical and legally right. There are always things that are morally right but illegal and vice versa even though most of the times things which are legal are morally right. Besides that I understands that different culture will have different perception on what is ethical and different countries will have different laws.

2D Design - Expanding The Square ( Progress)

After the trial cut, I changed the problem with my design and start to cut it.

Assymetrical

Since there are a lot of small pieces in this paper cut. I paste and cut at the same time to prevent losing any part of the paper cut. I skipped a beat when one of my feathers was missing. Luckily I found it under the cutting mat.

Symmetrical

Different from the way I did the assymetrical paper cut, I cut every part that needs to be cut first and spray a layer of spray mount on the back of the paper. After that i pasted the owl on the mounting board and start to lift up the other part of the paper cut leaving the small pieces on the mounting board with neat and tidy shape.  I found out that it is easier to do it this way as the chance of losing any part of the paper cut is reduced. After that i sticked the other parts on th other side and started to build up the feathers by scratching it. 

2D Design - Expanding The Square ( Progress )

After miss Lisa approve my ideation, I work on devoloding my finalize design which is an owl and a normal dreamcather.

Below will be the process of developing the owl dreamcather design:

After I finish the design for the paper cut, I scan it into my laptop and photoshopped it to have two symmetrical dream catcher.

Below will be the process of developing the assymetrical dream catcher design:

After finalizing the design, I printed the design on plain paper and continue on a trial cut.

After finishing the trial cut, I realized that the loop strings were too hard to cut as it will broke off as I am cutting.

2D Design - Assignment 2 (Expandind the Square)

We started our first class for semester 2 with Miss Lisa. We were given a short brief on the subject overview. After that, Miss Lisa gave us our second assignment " A square, is a square, is a square..". She explained that she will be away for approximately a month. Therefore, she gave us our second assignment first so that she will have time to check our ideation and process on time.

Assignment 2 is a paper cutting assignment which we had done during the last semester. Different from semester 1, this time, we were told to cut a square paper with the measurement of 4 inch by 4 inch. The hardest part of this assignment is that we cannot throw or lose any part of the square paper and it must be a complete square when the art work is counted even by a mathematician. Another requirement for this assignment is to produce an asymmetry and a symmetry paper cut.

Later on, Miss Lisa showed us some of the senior's work. It is amazing to see that a square can be expand to different kind of objects which it became bigger than a normal square. It triggers me to think out of the box when I saw the possibilities to change a form of an object. 

Before we end the class, we were told to think of some possible ideas for our paper cut and show it to Miss Lisa. 

Below will be my ideation for this assignment:

1. Peacock

2. Dream Catcher

3. Chinese Traditional Wedding

After I showed Miss Lisa my ideation. She chose the dream catcher theme which is also my first choice.