Business Skills for Engineers and Technologists

Harry Cather, Richard Douglas Morris, Joe Wilkinson

• Publisher: Newnes
• Year: 2001
• Print ISBN:
  9780750652100
• eBook ISBN:
  9780080494173
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Operations
• Index: Business

The scope of Business Skills for Engineers and Technologists is wider than many traditional business texts, including hot topics such as e-commerce, business ethics and law, as well as fully up-to-date coverage of management issues and finance. The interactive style of the book is ideally suited for the study of business and management topics. Rather than focussing solely on management theory, the subjects are explored within real-world engineering contexts through numerous case studies and activities, which bring the content to life and create a highly accessible text for the student reader.The IIE Textbook Series from Butterworth-Heinemann - Student-focused textbooks with numerous examples, activities, problems and knowledge-check questions - Designed for a wide range of undergraduate courses - Real-world engineering examples at the heart of each book - Core texts suitable for students with no previous background studying engineering "I am very proud to be able to introduce this series as the fruition of a joint publishing venture between Butterworth-Heinemann and the Institution of Incorporated Engineers. Mechanical Engineering Systems is one of the first three titles in a series of core texts designed to cover the essential modules of a broad cross-section of undergraduate programmes in engineering and technology. These books are designed with today's students firmly in mind, and real-world engineering contexts to the fore - students who are increasingly opting for the growing number of courses that provide the foundation for Incorporated Engineer registration." --Peter F Wason BSc(Eng) CEng FIEE FIIE FIMechE FIMgt. Secretary and Chief Executive,IIE This essential text is part of the IIE accredited textbook series from Newnes - textbooks to form the strong practical, business and academic foundations for the professional development of tomorrow's incorporated engineers. - Content matched to requirements of IIE and other BSc Engineering and Technology courses - An essential textbook, providing all the information for student engineers preparing to work in a business environment, including hot topics such as e-commerce and business ethics - Student-centred text featuring worked examples, case studies, assignments and knowledge-check questions throughout

1

Organizations and organizing

Summary

Organizations exist in an intricate, continually changing world, with many pressures on it that influence its behaviour. The organization structures itself to survive and prosper by planning and forming links with other organizations. At the same time, it must present an acceptable persona by working within society’s constraints.

Objectives

By the end of this chapter, the reader should:

• appreciate the complexity of the business world and the forces acting on it and be aware of the different forms of ownership and the processes involved in starting a company (Section 1.1);

• understand why organization structures arise and the links made internally and externally in the supply chain (Section 1.2);

• understand the application of organizational analysis using methodology such as the EFQM model and the Balanced Scorecard (Section 1.3);

• understand the need for ethics in organizations expressed through codes of conduct especially where applied to environmental management (Section 1.4).

1.1 The business world

This section examines the business world by starting with a look at the influencing on a business through the PEST analysis. It then describes the different types of organizations, including the different legal forms that can be taken. It goes through the business plan essentials for a startup situation and then concludes by looking at the external money transactions that are made.

The business world is a complex situation. Each organization exists in a world of opportunities and constraints. The best way to describe this environment is to carry out a PEST analysis, to consider the ways that outside forces impinge on an organization. PEST stands for Political, Economic, Social and Technological factors. There are a few similar acronyms such as STEP, STEEP, LE PEST C, which cover similar factors.

PEST analysis

This analysis looks at a variety of present factors which presently affect the business world and gauges the probability of changes arising. The areas examined include:

Political factors

• Legislative structures of the EC, national and local government and how they are changing.

• Monopoly restrictions such as the Office of Fair Trading and the Monopolies Commission in the UK and similar structures in the EC commission and other countries and how they are interpreting events in a worldwide context as well as domestically.

• Political and government stability – not only extreme cases such as armed insurrection, but even in the UK a change of government may herald changes in legislation such as deregulation and privatization of state controlled industries, which affect businesses – as happened in Western Europe in the later decades of the twentieth century.

• Political orientations of governments’ attitude towards business, trade unions and the environment often drive tax and other economic policies.

• Pressure groups such as Friends of the Earth and the various consumer groups can influence not only buyers’ and investors’ attitudes, but also government policy. This affects matters such as the environment legislation and delays in the construction and other industries by public enquiries. Other examples include the fuel price escalator in the UK during the 1990s.

• Taxation and grant policies can change over a period. For example, the various UK and EC grant schemes and changes in policy on capital allowances for factory construction in areas of high unemployment.

• Employment legislation in areas such as equal opportunities, working time directive, etc.

• Foreign trade regulations both at home and in a country targeted for exports, for example many countries, have restrictions on the importation of certain goods to protect indigenous industries. This happens not just in the developing countries, but also in the developed countries, as can be seen from the regular meetings of GATT (General Agreement on Ta...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Inside Front Matter
• Copyright
• Series Preface
• Chapter 1: Organizations and organizing
• Chapter 2: Human resource management
• Chapter 3: Law
• Chapter 4: Project management
• Chapter 5: Money in the organization
• Chapter 6: Meeting customer needs
• Chapter 7: Information technology and electronic commerce
• Index