Lesson 10ª

 

 

 

 

 

   

The Enterprise. Basics

What is an enterprise?

It is an economical entity of a public or private character, which is integrated by human, financial, material and technical-administrative resources. It is dedicated to the production of goods and/or services to satisfy human needs, and may or may not seek to be lucrative.

What is the relationship between the enterprise and the consumer?

The market is a group of potential consumers and satisfaction providers. It is where needs and products meet. As a result, an enterprise must be oriented towards the needs; for example:

Such relationship product-necessity or enterprise-consumer, indicates that the coherence between the product and the market is one of the main factors that influence the success of an enterprise.

What is the main goal of an enterprise?

There are many angles to define the objectives of an enterprise according to the owner, manager, partner, client, community, or advisor.

· Satisfying clients.
· Obtaining maximum profit.
· Obtaining short-term results.
· Benefiting the community.
· Giving services to clients.
· Benefiting employees.
· Giving a personal image.


However, if we analyze each one of the above mentioned proposals, we will find that centering on the majority of them might lead to failure. The main objective of an enterprise is the generation of exceeding that make enterprise reproduction in a long term possible. This implicates that satisfying the customer or benefiting others are necessary conditions for it to be able to reproduce, without complying these conditions it would obviously lead to failure.

Given that the coherence product-market is dynamic, a dynamic interpretation of internal and environmental environment is required. This means monitoring and making decisions to change, adapt, grow, improve, defend, retreat, attack, everything which is oriented to keeping and improving an enterprise.

What are the basic resources of the enterprise?

· Materials: formed by all tangible goods, such as buildings, machinery, supplies, etc.
· Financial: it is the monetary resource with which the enterprise will function.
· Human: formed by all personnel working in the enterprise. This is the most important factor inside the organization.
· Technical-Administrative: formed by the group of applicable procedures and systems in an enterprise. For example; the accounting system, induction techniques, performance evaluation techniques, etc.

What are the basic functions of every enterprise?

· Human Resources: this is where you recruit, select, hire and induce the personnel to be placed into the enterprise.
· Production: this is where you carry out the transformation of supplies in finished goods, ready for their consumption.
· Marketing: this is where you carry out the function of product promotion and sale.
· Finance: this is where you carry out the acquiring and administration of the financial resources of the enterprise.
· Administration: this is where you carry out the functions of foresight, planning, organization, integration, management and control of every general activity of the enterprise.

How are enterprises classified?

There are various types of classification for enterprises, among the main ones we have:

For their size:

· Small: it counts with assets less than $100,000.00 dollars, with less than 20 employees working in the enterprise and it covers a part of the local or regional market.
· Medium size: it is that enterprise which has assets less than $250,000.00 dollars, with less than 100 employees working and its product only reaches a national market.
· Large: it is that enterprise which has assets greater than $250,000.00 dollars, it has over 100 employees, and its product spreads throughout the international market.

For its economical activity:

· Extractive: These are the enterprises which supplies raw material to other industries. For example, fishing, agriculture, hunting, forest and mining exploitation, etc.
· Industrial or manufacturing: they dedicate to the production of goods, through the transformation of raw material using the processes of manufacturing, for example, electricity, water, manufacturing, etc.
· Commercial: enterprises which focus on purchasing and selling finished products, such as department stores, book shops, drugstores, supermarkets, etc.
· Financial: Enterprises of the financial system that grant loans to people and organizations. Banks are an example of these.
· Service enterprises: they dedicate to the rendering of non-tangible services, such as transport, cleaning, etc.

For its legacy constitution:

· Public: such as Government Institutions, Autonomous Institutions, City Halls, etc.
· Private: those which work in the production of goods and/or services and at the same time seek to be lucrative, and their capital is formed by contributions from particular people.