Term | Definition |
Business | All profit-seeking activities and enterprises that provide goods and services necessary to an econmic system. |
Profits | Rewards for businesspeople who take the risks involved to offer goods and services to customers. |
Not-for profit organizations | Organization that has primary objectivies such as public service rather than returning a profit to its owners. |
Factors of production | Four basic inputs for effective operation; natural resources, capital, human resources, and entrepreneurship. |
Capital | Production inputs consisting of technology, tools, information, and physical facilities. |
Human resources | Production inputs consisting of anyone who works, including both the physical labor and the intellectual inputs contributed by workers. |
Enterpreneurship | Willingness to take risks to create and operate a business. |
Private enterprise system | Economic system that rewards firms for their ability to identify and serve the needs and demands of customers |
Capitalism | Economic system that rewards firms for their abilitity to perceive and serve the needs and demands of consumers; also called the private enterprise system. |
Competition | Battle among businesses for consumer acceptance. |
Competitive differentiation | Unique combination of organizational abilities, products, and approcaches that sets a company apart from competitors in the minds of customers. |
Private property | Most basic freedom under the private enterprise system; the right to own, use, buy, sell, and bequeath land, buildings, machinery, equipment, patents, individual possessions, and various intagible kinds of property. |
Entrepreneur | Person who seeks a profitable opportunity and takes the necessary risks to set up and operate a business. |
Consumer orientation | Business philosophy that focuses first on determining unmet consumer wants and needs and then designing products to satisfy those needs. |
Branding | Process of creating an identity in consumers' minds for a good, service, or company; a major marketing tool in contemporary business. |
Transaction management | Building and promoting products in the hope that enough customers will buy them to cover costs and earn profits. |
Relationship era | The business era in which firms seeks ways to activively nuture customer loyalty by carefully managing every interaction. |
Relationship management | Collection of activities that build and maintain ongoing, mutually beneficial ties with customers and other parties. |
Technology | Business application of knowledge based on scientific discoveries, inventions, and innovations. |
Strategic alliance | Partnership formed to create a competitive advantage for the businesses involved; in international business, a business strategy in which a company finds a partner in the country where it wants to do business. |
Diversity | Blending individuals of different genders, ethnic backgrounds, cultures, religions, ages, and physical and mental abilities to enchance a firm's chances of success. |
Outsourcing | Using outside vendors to produce goods or fulfill services and functions that were previously handled in-house or in-country. |
Offshoring | Relocation of business processes to lower-cost locations overseas. |
Nearshoring | Outsourcing production or services to locations near a firm's home base. |
Vision | The ability to perceive marketplace needs what an organizaiton must do to satisfy them. |
Critical thinking | Ability to analyze and assess information to pinpoint problems or opportunities. |
Creativity | Capacity to develop novel solutions to perceived organizational problems. |