Identifying & Understanding Core Functions In Your Business

Generally, the purpose of a business is to deliver a product or service that can add value to the customer, which in turn creates profits for the company.

BUSINESS

Dezmon

11/27/20255 min read

Generally, the purpose of a business is to deliver a product or service that can add value to the customer, which in turn creates profits for the company. However, adding value isn’t a simple task and requires a lot of effort, not to mention doing it on a large scale as a company. Therefore, you’ll need to set up definite functions for each of your working teams, so that they can collaboratively and systematically handle every required task for the company.

Business functions, sometimes referred to as business departments, are the categorization of activities executed by an organization. While there are various kinds of business functions, they can be divided into 2 categories: core and support business functions.

Core business functions, the primary activity of the company, involve the process of producing the final product or service with the aim of income generation. Meanwhile, support business functions play an auxiliary role to facilitate the core functions so that they can operate at maximum capacity.

Both core and support functions are interrelated to each other. Like a vehicle with many moving parts, a business is incorporated by various functions. Each function or part of the business brings effectiveness and efficiency to the overall work process.

In this way, if one function is interrupted, the whole company workflow will also be suspended at some point. Therefore, all functions should collaborate with one another through good communication in order to achieve corporation goals as a whole.

Core Business Functions

Although each enterprise has different core business functions according to their nature of business, we can generally group them into 4 core functions:

Operations
Human Resources
Sales and Marketing
Accounting and Finance.

Let’s have a look at an example of how dependent they are on each other. Let’s say the sales & marketing department explores the requirement of a planned product from the customers settled deals. The department will then transfer the information about the quantity and specification of the product to the operations team. Having all required data on hand, the team needs to figure out how the product can be produced as effectively as possible. Once a decision is made, the operations team will submit a procurement request to the accounting and finance department.

From there, the finance team will handle related issues such as the sources of funds, budget allocation, etc. in order to acquire the requested facility for the operation team. From this, you can see that the finance function is not essential only to the operations function, but also to the marketing function.

To illustrate this further, we can add the human resources department into the process where they are responsible for the recruitment and training of the employees in each department. Without them, all functions won’t be able to start working in the first place.

Support Business Functions

Now let’s move our attention to support business functions. They are auxiliary functions that handle activities that aren’t directly related to the revenue generation of the company, but instead, ensure that it does so smoothly. Support business functions may include, but not limited to, the following components:

1. Distribution And Logistics: The function involves warehousing, transportation, as well as order management of a company’s products. It can be divided into inbound and outbound logistics. The former handles the process of receiving and storing goods/materials for sale or distribution. The latter, meanwhile, covers transporting output to customers.

2. Customer Service: The function that manages and retains relationships with customers. Complaints and inquiries are also handled by this department. With good communication skills, this function can keep clients loyal to the enterprise and bring more income as a result.

3. Information And Communication Technology (ICT) Services: This is the department that handles the inflow and outflow of information in the company, including clients and relevant stakeholders. The responsibilities may encompass installing and maintaining information systems, information security, or providing technical advisory and analysis to other functions

4. Administrations: Also known as corporate strategy, this top-management function involves planning and making decisions to achieve the corporational goals and objectives.

5. Research & Development: As the name suggests, product innovation and development or process improvements are included in this function. Under its responsibility, staff working in this function need to possess strong analytical skills and a good understanding of the market, business trends, as well as the skills to research and experiment with new products.

Introducing VisualSMB

For solopreneurs, having all of these business functions in their business sounds impractical. Sometimes, they can only narrowly focus on each function. At other times, they try to strictly separate their businesses according to these business functions, despite the small size of their company. Zooming out from the current viewpoint might be the answer. Luckily enough, there is a tool to help them with the categorization of their businesses. That is VisualSMB.

Created by Dezmon Landers, VisualSMB provides an instant bird’s eye view of a business, categorized by each function. This workflow model not only helps capture the defects in each business function but also increases focus on areas that are critical to the business’s survival or growth.

By using VisualSMB, entrepreneurs will be able to understand the fundamentals, see the workflow process, review business functions, and set their action plans accordingly. This also helps them improve or spend time with functions that may need immediate attention.

References:

‍

Conclusion

Even though the definition and type of business functions vary from company to company, applying VisualSMB can help entrepreneurs from all industries see a clearer picture of their own workflow according to their existing functions. From that point, they will be able to run and grow a business smoothly, spot and solve any defects in time and most importantly, work with less stress and anxiety.

In contrast to the traditional method, VisualSMB group a company’s functions into 4 pillars:

Foundation: The underlying functions that keep a business in existence such as laws, finance, business model, and management.
‍
Acquisition: This pillar includes all business functions used to gain or generate prospects and new customers, for example, marketing, advertisement, sales, and lead generation.
‍
Delivery: Consists of all business functions required to manage the relationship between the company of its customers. For instance, logistics, billing, customer support, and accessibility.
‍‍
Exit: The functions that are used to release a customer from the business smoothly and amicably, for example, customer feedback, satisfaction survey, referral, and service report.