Business Studies - Unit 1 - investigating people at work

If you ask the 'person in the street', what a business is, you are likely to be given an example; HMV, McDonalds, the sports centre, the local taxi firm etc. the person is most likely to view these businesses from the point of view of a customer - they are where you can get music, food, fitness and transport, he or she may also see them as plaves offering employment. 

Businesses involve a wide range of activities which result in a product. the product of a business might be manufactured goods or it might be a service provided to customers.

products are tangible (touchable) items such as cars and crisps, whereas a service is something that is done for you, e.g. being sold goods in a shop, being transported from London to Birmingham on a train, having your hair styled.

Successful business provide products which customers want - whether they are products for basic needs such as bread and toilet paper, or whether they are products which customers can be pursuaded to buy as the 'must-have' essential fashion accessory.

A business can therefore be definied as;

AN ORGANISATION WHICH PROVIDES GOODS OR SERVICES FOR ITS CUSTOMERS.

The main impression you will get from investigating business is the wide variety that you will find.

range of activitiy - industrial sectors

the activities carried out by business vary greatly. As we have seen, some businesses manufacture goods and others provide servicesm the general trend in the UK being for a decline in the manufacturing industry and growth in the number of service businesses. traditionallym business activity is classified into three interlinking inductrial sectors;

- Primary industrial sector - exctracting natural resources

  this involves the extracting of natural resources - raw materials for use in the manufacturing process, examples are; mining and fishing.

- Secondary industrial sector - manfucturing products

   this is the next stage in the production process; it involves the processing of raw materials into the manufactured product; fruit into pies and jam and wood into paper.

- Tertiary industrial sector - providing services

   this third classification involves a business providing a service rather than a manufactured item; examples include resturants and shops.

these three sectors link together to form a chain of production.