Business Environment and Planning Lecture Notes

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the concepts of Business Environment, its dimensions, and the Planning process in management.

Business Environment

Refers to forces, factors, individuals and institutions which are outside the control of business enterprise but these may affect its performance.

Environment scanning

Refers to complete awareness and understanding of business environment to anticipate the effect of environment forces and factors on an enterprise.

Totality of external forces

A feature of business environment that includes all forces, institutions and factors which are external to business organisations and is aggregative in nature.

Specific forces

Forces that affect business enterprises directly and immediately in their day to day working, including supplier, investors, and customers.

General forces

Economic, social, political, legal, and technological conditions that impact all enterprises and affect individual firms only indirectly.

Uncertainty

The difficulty in predicting changes in the business environment because it is changing very fast, such as in the IT and fashion industries.

Dynamic Nature

The highly flexible and ever-changing quality of the business environment regarding technology improvements and shifts in consumer preference.

Relativity

A feature indicating that business environment differs from country to country and region to region due to different political conditions and cultures.

Economic Environment

Refers to all forces that have economic impact on business activities, such as interest rates, inflation rates, and the value of Rupee.

Social Environment

Represents the customs, traditions, values, culture, social trends, beliefs, norms, and ethics of a society in which business enterprises operate.

Political Environment

Includes political conditions such as general stability and peace in the country and the specific attitude of government representatives towards business.

Legal Environment

The requirement for management to obey the law of the land, including legislative acts, administrative orders, and court judgements.

Technological Environment

Includes forces related to scientific improvements and innovations which provide new ways of producing goods and services.

Demonetisation

A tax administration measure where people declare cash holdings to get it exchanged from a bank, aimed at reducing tax evasion and creating a digital economy.

Planning

Defined as thinking in advance what is to be done, when it is to be done, how it is to be done, and by whom it should be done.

Planning Premises

Assumptions regarding the future made in the form of forecasts, serving as the base on which plans are made.

Single use plan

One-time use plans designed to achieve a particular goal that will not reoccur in the future, such as budgets or programmes.

Standing Plans

Also known as Repeat Use Plans, these focus on situations which occur repeatedly and ensure smooth internal operations.

Objectives

The first step of planning that determines the end result of activities or what the organisation wants to achieve.

Strategy

A comprehensive plan to achieve organisational objectives taking business environment into consideration, including allocating resources.

Policies

The organisation's general response or its own way of handling a particular problem or situation.

Procedures

Required steps established in advance in a chronological order to handle future conditions or perform specific work.

Methods

Formalised or systematic ways of doing jobs that help in the standardisation and simplification of tasks.

Rules

Specific instructions that spell out special actions or non-actions of employees which must be followed strictly with no discretion.

Budgets

A statement of expected results expressed in numerical terms, which are always measurable and often financial in nature.

Programmes

A detailed statement about a project that combines objectives, policies, procedures, and rules for systematic working.