Managing Business Responsibly - Coursework Example

Managing Business Responsibly Operation environment In this text, the term operating environment has beenused many times. Despite the fact that the author has tried to explain in some ways what that means, a person who is not conversant with business theory and literature may not be able to understand exactly the meaning. The term environment may bring up a picture of the physical environment that involves objects such as trees, earth, buildings and even people to many people (Cinnamon, 2010). However in this case, the term environment means something totally different. The alternative way in which the author could have used in order to appeal to the average person is by talking about the factors that affect the success of a business. This way, the reader of the text will be able to associate the terms market and industry with business. In other words, if the author talked about the industry in which the business is in, as opposed to talking about the operating environment, the meaning would be more understandable. This would create a better understanding of the intention of the text as well as the ideas presented in the text. Add value (value addition) Although he has tried to explain the discourse, by calling the value addition a process or conversion, there is still not clear way for the average person who is not conversant with these terms to understand or to comprehend the meaning of these terms in this particular context. To the average person, the term value has to do with money (Richard, 2013). Talking about value addition may lead to a different kind of understanding. The idea of value addition may create an impression where the firm takes value and adds onto something. The alternative way to present this idea could have been to talk about processing goods or services. People, including those who are not conversant with business jargon, can understand that businesses are involved in the processing of goods. Despite the fact that it is not apparent to most individuals that the process of processing the goods is actually a process of adding value to the goods, they nonetheless understand that this is what happens, that is, that firms process goods to be sold to the customers (Folsom, 2005). For instance, it is not hard for an average person to understand that steel firms are involved in the processing of steel. However, seeing this process as a value addition, or figuring out that the steel manufacturing firms are actually adding value to the iron ore, can be hard. Value chain Value chain and value addition go together. In the text, these two phrases are used constantly. The author assumes that every person reading the text is familiar with the concept of value addition, and therefore, the concept of a value chain. Again here, the term of conflict would be the word chain. An individual who is not aware of the concept of value chain can get the wrong idea of what a value chain is. He can see the value chain from his understanding of what a chain is. If such a person understands the meaning of the word chain based on other context, this concept will not have any rational meaning to him, given the context of business and production in particular. Instead of talking about the value chain, the author could have talked about the stages of production. From there he could have explained and about how manufacturing or production of goods or even services is not done in one step, but rather a series of steps. He could have then explained that these steps do not have to be done by one organization at once but that this can be done by several organizations who do part of the production and then pass on the unfinished product to another firm that then does the next step of processing until the product is finally finished. This way, he could have managed to make it very clear that the process of production is a chain of process that can either be done within one organization or shared among many organizations that work together towards the end of the finished product. By giving this kind of explanation, the author could have made it clear about what value chain means, even without having to use the term value chain. The term value chain and value addition are just concepts or ideas that are used to describe the activities that go on in the production and processing of goods. To explain this may not need one to necessarily talk about value chain or value addition. There is a better way for doing this even without talking about these terms or phrases. Competitive arena Competitive arena is also another concept that is discussed in relatively deep detail in the text. What he is trying to communicate about is the competition that any firm faces in trying to reach its customers. Ideally, all firms operate in an industry or sector where they have to compete with other similar firms for customers. This is what the author of the text is talking about with regard to as the competitive arena. By talking about the competitive arena, the author may conjure the idea of a situation where the businesses are competing with each other in a stage. An arena is a stage such as where sporting activities go on. While this is a good metaphor to describe the competition between firms, this can cause a misunderstanding of the concept, especially if the reader is not familiar with the concept of busies competition and market strategies. There are alternatives ways in which the author could have talked about the issue. Instead of talking about the competitive arena, he could have talked about the competition between businesses. The author could have talked about competition for customers and how business within the same industry and market share compete for the customers in order to be the ones who cater forth customers. This could h ace been more understandable. In this regard, by talking about completion, the reader would be able to understand ant that the author is talking about how business compete with other, as opposed to the business being in an arena like gladiators fighting each other. Perfect competition The idea or concept of perfect competition also discussed. This also is discussed in a way that the author assumes that the reader is familiar with concept. In fact, unlike the other concept that he has discussed, this particular concept has not been explained even a bit. The author just talks about perfect competition and then goes on to discuss the factors that lead to a perfect completion. Of course, he is talking about perfect competition to first indicate that this kind of competition in business is not achievable because businesses within the same industry will always have different amount of power. Secondly, he is using this to try and explain why not every business in a specific competitive arena will have the same profits or the same market share. While this makes perfect sense to any person who is familiar with business literate and business theory, the use of perfect completion as a theory of concept can be confusing to a reader (Kasperson & Stallen, 1991). A reader may have to look for father definition to understand what this really means. The alternative way that the author could have used to explain this concept is by getting rid of the term effect competition and talk about equality in the industries in which the businesses operate. He could have explained that not all businesses are equal in terms of their power in the industries or even sectors that they operate. Once this is explained, he could now have gone on to explain that this lack of equality makes it hard for the firms within an industry to operate. Immediate operating environment The author also talks about the immediate operating environment. The way he talks about this is in a way that he assumes that the reader already understands this concept. Unfortunately, not all people are likely to understand this concept. He could have used an alternative way to talk about the concept. For instance, since the immediate operating environment is a matter of the stakeholders who affect the way the business is run, he could just have talked about this and also explain the roles of each type of stakeholder such as customers, suppliers and business partners or collaborators. By talking about the immediate operating environment, it is easy for a person to mistake this to mean the physical environment. However, this is not what the author intended. The immediate operating environment is a concept to try and create a different between the overall operating environment which includes not only the immediate stakeholders of the business but also the other categories of stakeholders such as competitors. He could then have gone on and explain why this immediate environment is important for the business and talks about issues that customers and suppliers bring in and that need the business to be able to create a strategy to deal with them. Reference list: Cinnamon, R. (2010). How to Understand Business Finance. New York, NY: Kogan Page Publishers. Folsom, D. (2005). Understanding American Business Jargon: A Dictionary. New Yrok, NY: Greenwood Publishing Group. Kasperson, R., & Stallen, P. (1991). Communicating Risks to the Public: International Perspectives. New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media. Richard, D. (2013). How To Start a Creative Business: The Jargon-free Guide for Creative Entrepreneurs. New York, NY: David & Charles. Read More