8. Ethics

I think that the purpose of a business is getting as more profit as only possible.

Business ethics are moral rules or principles of behavior that should guide members of an organization and make them deal honestly and fairly with each other and with their customers. A code of a good practice is a written document laying down ethical ways of working for the personnel of the company. A mission statement is a document in which a company sets out its general approach to doing business and/or its targets. Not all companies have mission statements and they can vary from a single sentence /Microsoft is a computer on every desk and every home/ to several pages.

There are a lot of activities which are considered unethical in the civilized business, such as avoiding paying tax, claiming extra expenses, using work facilities for private purposes, accepting praise for someone else’s ideas or work, selling a defective product. In my country those activities are common, even if you use your influence to get jobs for relatives or employing people illegally you’ll hardly be named unethical man.

The most corrupt countries are Nigeria, Bolivia, Colombia, Russia and Pakistan. The least corrupt countries are Denmark, Finland, Sweden and New Zealand.

9. Change

Why do companies need a change? I think that the first reason is the fact that there is nothing permanent in our world. We can see that the speed of innovations is improbable. The time does not go ahead, it runs. So if a company does not want to fall behind it should change with the modern world.

34% of Russians consider the risk of unemployment as the main threat for their future. That is why the question of employees’ attitude to change in a company is very important. A lot of people think that they’ll lose the job after a change (a merger), some of them suppose that they’ll keep the job, but get a less powerful position, third are worried about the salary, a relocation of the business is a big problem for forth.

SWOT being the acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It is a simple, much-used technique which can help to prepare or amend plans, in problem solving and decision making. Do’s and don’ts for SWOT analysis. Do: be analytical and specific, be selective in the final evaluation, choose the right people for the exercise, choose a suitable SWOT leader or facilitator. Don't: try to disguise weaknesses, merely list errors and mistakes, lose sight of external influences and trends, allow the SWOT to become a blame-laying exercise, ignore the outcomes at later stages of the planning process.

Opportunities and risks result from changes in a company's industry conditions, such as a threat from substitute products or services, changes in the bargaining power of customers or suppliers, including employees, and changes in the nature of competition with competitors. Opportunities and risks also result from concentrations on a company's assets, customers, or suppliers.

10. Strategy

Business strategy is a company’s aims in a particular market, and the way it hopes to achieve them. Marketing group, senior managers, boards of directors, shareholders.

Designing competitive marketing strategies begins with thorough analysis of com­petitors. The company constantly compares its products, prices, channels, and promotion with those of its close competitors. In this way it can discern areas of potential advantage and disadvantage. Which competitive marketing strategy a company adopts depends on its industry position. A firm that dominates a market can adopt one or more of several market leader strategies. General Motors is the automobile industry leader. Leaders can try to expand the total market by looking for new users and more use from current customers. Because the leader has the largest market share, it gains the most when the total market is expanded. Or the leader might try to increase its market share by investing heavily to attract customers away from competitors. The dominant company can also design strategic: to defend its current business against competitor attacks. Market challengers are runner-up companies that aggressively attack competitor to get more market share. Ford and Toyota are among the challengers in the automobile industry. The challenger might attack the market leader, other firms its own size, о smaller local and regional competitors. Challengers can choose from several market challenger strategies. If the challenger is strong enough, it can pit its resources directly against those of competitors. A weaker challenger can concentrate its strengths against the competitor's weaknesses. Or the challenger can bypass the competitor and develop new products, new markets, or new technologies. Some runner-up firms will choose to follow rather than challenge the market leader. Firms using market-follower strategies seek stable market shares and profits by following competitor's product offers, prices, and marketing programs. They may follow closely or at a distance, or they may follow closely in some ways and sometimes go their own ways. The market follower's goal is to keep current customers and to attract a fair share of new ones without drawing retaliation from the market leader or other competitor.

Causes: competitors, customers, money, investigation. Problems: raise, staff, customers, business partners.