A Business Guide for Beginners

by Des O'Keeffe

Overview

Many, whether completing their education or looking for a change of career, will have started to consider entering the business world, whether taking up a career in industry, starting up their own business or studying business. In either case, the first barrier to overcome may be complete or partial lack of knowledge of what business is actually all about; its basic concepts and terminology.

A Business Guide for Beginners addresses the needs of readers seeking to develop their practical knowledge of business: how it is organised and functions. This business primer also sets out to give those who decide to give business a go with ideas and, hopefully, motivations for approaching their ventures into the business world with recipes for success.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781907461217
Publisher:	Legend Press
Publication date:	08/28/2010
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x (d)

About the Author

Des O'Keeffe has a BA in Classics from The University of Durham and an MBA from The University of Bradford. During a 30 year financial career he worked in a variety of well-known companies in the UK before moving to Central Europe with the Calor Group. He helped to set up Tesco's Hungarian operation as their Financial Director. He also undertook a financial directorship, within a large telecommunications group, in Poland. Des has been teaching since 2003. He teaches business English at a major language school in Portsmouth and has also taught finance on the MBA course at the Technical University in Riga, Latvia.

Table of Contents

A Few Words to Start 9

Part 1 Introduction to Business 11

What is Business? 11

Business and the Economy 13

Some Key Success Concepts 21

Part 2 The Main Functional Areas of a Company 25

People Management 25

Marketing 35

Finance 51

Operations 81

Quality 95

Part 3 Practical Aspects of Business 103

Starting a Business 103

Business Strategies 109

Business Ethics 125

Part 4 The Success Recipe 131

Some Conclusions about Business Success 131

How to get noticed in an Organisation 133

References 147

A-Z of Key Terms 151