Business and Money Management Skills - Grade 7 Business Studies Revision Notes

• Introduction to Business Studies
  
  • Components of Business Studies
  • Importance Of Business Studies
  • Career Opportunities In The Field Of Business Studies
• Money
  • Uses Of Money In Daily Life
  • Themes And Symbols In The Kenyan Currency
• Personal Goals
  • General Goal Setting Tips
  • Starting to Set Personal Goals
• Talents and Abilities
  • Ways Of Nurturing Talents
  • Personal Talents and Abilities
  • Ethical Issues Related To Use Of Talents And Abilities In Business
  • Importance Of Nurturing Talents And Abilities

Introduction to Business Studies

• Business: Any activity that is carried out by an individual or an organization concerning provision of goods and services with a view to making profit.
• Business studies: Is the study/examination of the business activities in society. These activities are related to the production of goods and provision of services.
  
  • It can also be defined as the study of activities that are carried out in and around production, distribution and consumption of goods and services.

Components of Business Studies

Business studies consist of the following disciplines

1. Commerce
2. Accounting
3. Economics
4. Office practice
5. Entrepreneurship

• Commerce
  This is the study of trade and aids to trade. Trade refers to the exchange of goods and services for other goods and services or money. Aids to trade are human activities (services) that assist trade to take place.
• Economics
  This is the study of how human beings strive to satisfy their endless wants using the available scarce resources.
• Accounting
  This refers to a systematic way of recording business activities which all used for decision making.
• Office practice
  This refers to all activities that are carried out in an office e.g. communication, filling, clerical work, reproduction of documents etc.
• Entrepreneurship
  This is the study of activities involved in the process of identifying a business opportunity and acquiring the necessary resources to start and run a business. The person who carries out these activities is referred to as an entrepreneur.

Importance Of Business Studies

Some of the benefits of learning business studies include:

1. Assists the learners/members of the society to acquire knowledge and awareness of business terminologies which are necessary when discussing business issues such as profit and loss.
2. Assists the individuals in appreciating the role of business in society/in provision of goods and services.
3. It enables the learners to acquire basic knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for the development of self and the nation by starting and operating business.
4. Equips the members of society with knowledge and skills necessary to start and run a business comfortably.
5. Makes the members of society to appreciate the need for good business management practices
6. Assists individual to acquire self-discipline and positive attitude towards work
7. Equips individual with abilities to promote co-operation in society through trade
8. Enables the individual to understand the role of government in business activities
9. Equips individuals with abilities to understand the role of communication and information technology in modern business management
10. Helps the individuals to develop positive attitudes towards the environment
11. Equips the individual with knowledge and skills required to evaluate business performance
12. It helps individual to develop various intellectual abilities such as inquiry, critical thinking, analysis, interpretation, rational judgement, innovation and creativity.
13. It enables learners to acquire skills for wise buying and selling.
14. It creates a firm foundation for further education and training in business and other related fields.
15. It enables one to understand and appreciate the basic economic issues that affect the society such as increase in prices of goods and services.

Career Opportunities In The Field Of Business Studies

• Auditor.
• Logistics analyst.
• Human resources specialist.
• Accountant.
• Operations analyst.
• Marketing manager.
• Financial advisor.
• Financial analyst
• Entrepreneur

Money

• whatever serves society in four functions: as a medium of exchange, a store of value, a unit of account, and a standard of deferred payment.
• Money is power if you utilize it with knowledge. Money is dangerous if you are greedy for money and utilize it without thought. – Vijay Sharma

Uses Of Money In Daily Life

• First, money serves as a medium of exchange, which means that money acts as an intermediary between the buyer and the seller. Instead of exchanging accounting services for shoes, the accountant now exchanges accounting services for money. This money is then used to buy shoes. To serve as a medium of exchange, money must be very widely accepted as a method of payment in the markets for goods, labor, and financial capital.
• Second, money must serve as a store of value. In a barter system, we saw the example of the shoemaker trading shoes for accounting services. But she risks having her shoes go out of style, especially if she keeps them in a warehouse for future use—their value will decrease with each season. Shoes are not a good store of value. Holding money is a much easier way of storing value. You know that you do not need to spend it immediately because it will still hold its value the next day, or the next year. This function of money does not require that money is a perfect store of value. In an economy with inflation, money loses some buying power each year, but it remains money.
• Third, money serves as a unit of account, which means that it is the ruler by which other values are measured.
• Money fulfills your personal and family needs and desires:
  Money has the power to buy goods and services. With money, a person can fulfill his daily living needs and desires. With money, you can buy food, clothes, a home, a car, holiday tour packages, and gifts. With money, you can buy a high-speed internet connection and good quality equipment for work and business.

Key security features of the Kenyan Currency

Themes And Symbols In The Kenyan Currency

Personal Goals

• Goals are defined as the desired states that people seek to obtain, maintain, or avoid. Personal goals are goals related to your work, relationship, finances, and other aspects of life.

There are three types of goals- process, performance, and outcome goals.

• Process goals are specific actions or ‘processes’ of performing. For example, aiming to study for 2 hours after dinner every day. Process goals are 100% controllable by the individual.
• Performance goals are based on personal standard. For example, aiming to achieve a 3.5 GPA. Personal goals are mostly controllable.
• Outcome goals are based on winning. For a college student, this could look like landing a job in your field or landing job at a particular place of employment you wanted. Outcome goals are very difficult to control because of other outside influences.

Process, performance, and outcome goals have a linear relationship. This is important because if you achieve your process goals, you give yourself a good chance to achieve your performance goals. Similarly, when you achieve your performance goals, you have a better chance of achieving your outcome goal.

General Goal Setting Tips

• set both short- and long-term goals
• set SMART goals
• set goals that motivate you
• write your goals down and put them in a place you can see
• adjust your goals as necessary
• Recognize and reward yourself when you meet a goal

Set all three types of goals- process, performance, and outcome – but focus on executing your smaller process goals to give you the best chance for success!

• specific – highly detailed statement on what you want to accomplish (use who, what, where, how etc.)
• Measurable- how will you demonstrate and evaluate how your goal has been met?
• Attainable- they can be achieved by your own hard work and dedication- make sure your goals are within your ability to achieve
• Relevant- how do your goals align with your objectives?
• Time based- set 1 or more target dates- these are the “by whens” to guide your goal to successful and timely completion (include deadlines, frequency and dates)

Be Clear About Your Purpose in Life

First, be clear about your purpose in life. Having a clear vision in life gives you direction. You know where you are coming from and where you are going. The destination is definite, and this gives you a foundation for your goal setting.

Why These Goals?

Having a foundation for goal setting gives you a destination. The next step is to look at the goals you have in mind and ask yourself why these goals in specific. Let’s say you want to get from Nairobi to Mombasa. You can walk, run, hire a taxi, take a bus, take a train or take a flight.
In the end, you will have to choose one means of transport to get you to Mombasa. If you take a bus, ask yourself why the bus? Why not walk or take a flight? If you can answer the why in your goals. And hopefully, your answer will not be because everyone is doing it, then you are on the right path.

Do The Goals Motivate You?

Do you get motivated when you look at your goals? Remember your why. If the answer to your why is because everyone is doing it, the motivation is going to low. When challenges set in and everyone gives up, you will give up with them or give up when others are still on the move.
Set goals that motivate you. Motivation has to come from the heart. Remember, this is a journey. It is not a destination in itself. Your inner drive will keep you moving when the going gets tough.

You Goals Must Be Specific To You

Your goals have to be specific to you. Do not set random goals just because that is what is expected from you. Let’s say you have a target to meet at the end of the month set by your company. The targets are not specific to you. In most cases, they are distinct to your department but general to you and your colleagues.
A successful person will take the targets set and personalize them. What is it you want to achieve at the end of the month as far as the goals set for your team are concerned? Do you want to meet the exceptions, or do you want to exceed them? Set your weekly and daily goals to reflect what you want to achieve as an individual.

Goals Have To Be Relevant To Your Higher Purpose In Life

Your goals must be relevant to your higher purpose in life. If not, you will deviate from your purpose or vision. Set goals to reflect, and feed your cause. The danger in working on plans that don’t align with your purpose or mission, you end up working for other people.

Proverbs 16:3 New International Version (NIV)

Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.

Starting to Set Personal Goals

You set your goals on a number of levels:

• First you create your "big picture" of what you want to do with your life (or over, say, the next 10 years), and identify the large-scale goals that you want to achieve.
• Then, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets that you must hit to reach your lifetime goals.
• Finally, once you have your plan, you start working on it to achieve these goals.

This is why we start the process of setting goals by looking at your lifetime goals. Then, we work down to the things that you can do in, say, the next five years, then next year, next month, next week, and today, to start moving towards them.

Step 1: Setting Lifetime Goals

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or at least, by a significant and distant age in the future). Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.
To give a broad, balanced coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in some of the following categories (or in other categories of your own, where these are important to you):

• Career – What level do you want to reach in your career, or what do you want to achieve?
• Financial – How much do you want to earn, by what stage? How is this related to your career goals?
• Education – Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to have in order to achieve other goals?
• Family – Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family?
• Artistic – Do you want to achieve any artistic goals?
• Attitude – Is any part of your mindset holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? (If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.)
• Physical – Are there any athletic goals that you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?
• Pleasure – How do you want to enjoy yourself? (You should ensure that some of your life is for you!)
• Public Service – Do you want to make the world a better place? If so, how?

Spend some time brainstorming these things, and then select one or more goals in each category that best reflect what you want to do. Then consider trimming again so that you have a small number of really significant goals that you can focus on.

Talents and Abilities

For many people, the words “talent” and “ability” are interchangeable. Understanding the difference between them can make all the difference in how we live and work. Here at Pro/spur, one of the first lessons we share with our players is recognizing their talent vs. their ability. So what is the difference?

Talent is what you’ve been given.

Ability is how you grow the talent you’ve been given.

Right now, there are more than 8,000 pro players in Minor League baseball. Do you know how many of those players have enough talent alone to make it to the Big Leagues and stay there? The answer: not that many.

Ways Of Nurturing Talents

Create an Open Culture

Firms are a product of multiple people’s contributions. Each worker should feel like their words have weight and that their input is valued.
Everything starts with the workplace culture, which gives new starters the confidence to stick around and keeps more experienced personnel grounded and loyal. Encourage employees to speak up if they have any concerns or thoughtful ideas.

Develop Mentoring Schemes

Mentoring is an enormous part of nurturing talent. However, finesse is required in how your company approaches it. Vague instances of encouragement aren’t enough to keep workers motivated and performing well.

Introduce Automation

Workers with many responsibilities can soon become overwhelmed. The most overworked staff members may find little time to focus on their own professional development.
Automation can ease these burdens somewhat. These technologies can assume many of the admin tasks a worker needs to do. Signing paperwork, scheduling updates, responses to routine emails – these are all tasks automation can oversee instead of the employee. Work-related stress can be reduced as a result.

Offer Flexibility

Nurturing talent can’t be done under overly rigid work practices. Employees need to grow both personally and professionally and to do so effectively, they need a level of control.

Keep Innovating

Your business needs to aspire to be greater constantly. Only then can you expect your workers to adopt a similar attitude.
Of course, your business may be more concerned about surviving rather than thriving these days. Irrespective of your circumstances or the economic conditions you’re facing, your company must keep pushing to innovate and excel within its industry.

Personal Talents and Abilities

• Communication.
• Interpersonal skills.
• Leadership.
• Problem-solving.
• Time management.
• Adaptability.
• Critical thinking.
• Organization.

Five kinds of talent categories:

• Self-conceptual talents – like self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, and self-confidence.
• Social talents – like social awareness, communication, relationship management, collaboration, and influence.
• General talents – like language skills, mathematical abilities, reasoning, visual-spatial processing, and learning abilities.
• Specific expertise – like strategic thinking, arts, writing, research, sports, design, storytelling, and kinesthetic abilities.
• Fun talents – any cool talents such as exceptional taste, ventriloquism (ability to make your voice appear from somewhere else or with delay), and hypermobility, to name a few.

Ethical Issues Related To Use Of Talents And Abilities In Business

Ethical issues in business occur when a decision, activity or scenario conflicts with the organization’s or society's ethical standards. Both organizations and individuals can become involved in ethical issues since others may question their actions from a moral viewpoint.

1. Discrimination and harassment
   Two of the most significant ethical issues that HR professionals and managers face are discrimination and harassment. The consequences of discrimination and harassment in the workplace can negatively impact the finances and reputation of the organization. Many countries have anti-discrimination laws to protect employees from unfair treatment. Some anti-discrimination areas include:
   
   • Age: Organizations and internal policies cannot discriminate against employees who are older.
   • Disability: To prevent disability discrimination, it's important to accommodate and provide equal treatment for employees with mental or physical disabilities.
   • Equal pay: Equal pay focuses on ensuring that all employees receive equal compensation for similar work, regardless of religion, gender or race.
   • Pregnancy: Pregnant employees have a right not to be discriminated against on account of their pregnancy.
   • Race: Employees should receive equal treatment, regardless of ethnicity or race.
   • Religion: Employees' religious beliefs should not affect how anyone within the organization treats them.
   • Sex and gender: An employee's sex and gender identity should not influence their treatment while working at an organization.
2. Ethics in accounting practices
   Laws require organizations to maintain accurate bookkeeping practices. Unethical accounting practices are a serious issue, especially for publicly traded companies. The legislation specifies financial report requirements aimed at protecting shareholders and consumers. All organizations have to keep accurate financial records and pay taxes to attract investment and business partners regardless of the size of the company.
3. Nepotism or favoritism
   As a hiring manager or HR professional, you may want to employ an acquaintance or family member because of your connection to them. Even if you adhere to recruitment policies to ensure a fair process, some employees may still consider this as nepotism or favoritism. Favoritism occurs when managers treat some employees better than others for no professional reason. This can reduce productivity and job satisfaction in other employees, which may negatively impact the entire organization.
4. Workplace health and safety
   All employees have a right to a safe working environment and work conditions.

Importance Of Nurturing Talents And Abilities

Nurturing internal talent can benefit your business in many ways:

Facilitate success. Nurturing the talent you already have allows you to facilitate opportunities for cross-training, career development and networking.

Create a culture of innovation and empowerment. Nurturing your existing talent creates a culture of innovation and empowerment, in which employees know they are valued and they are motivated to strive for excellence

Open leadership opportunities. Nurturing the talent of your teams enables you to foster a culture in which leadership opportunities abound.