Hashir Khan
Hashir Khan

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Hashir Khan

Hashir Khan

Contents Introduction 3 Information 3 Written information 3 Images 3 Verbal Information 3 Multimedia information 3 Diagrammatical (Flowchart) information 3 Symbolic information 3 Statistical information 3 Data 4 Information VS Data 4 Quantitative Data 4 Qualitative Data 4 Quantitative Data Vs Qualitative Data 4 Primary Data 4 Secondary Data 4 Primary Vs Secondary sources of information 4 Internal Information 4 External Information 4 Internal vs. External Information 4 Purpose of information 5 Operational support 5 Analysis 5 Decision making 5 Marketing and sales 5 Communication 5 Flow 5 Analysis of Information 6 Decision Making 6 Gaining Advantage 6 Sources of Information 7 Sales department 7 Finance 7 Marketing 7 Operational support 7 Production 7 Human resources 7 Research and Development 7 Administration 7 Purchasing 7 Bibliography 8

Introduction
This report is about the different departments within a business and describes what each department’s role is within an organisation. This report also explains the different types of information and shows how each department within an organisation uses information to help with its role for the business.
Information
Information is data that has been processed in a way so that it can be meaningful towards anyone who receives it. Information is usually accurate and specific, because of this; it can lead people into understanding things better and being certain, this will make them sure that whatever they have learnt is true.
Businesses use information in many different ways for e.g. businesses that provide a service or sell products use it to learn what customers want and need. They also use it to efficiently offer more of their products to customers. One example of how a business would use information would be for e.g. if someone sent through a CV about themselves it would be information that they have passed along to the business, to try get a job. Another could be, if a game company was to design a game, they would look on the internet for information to see which type of games people like best, this would help them know what to include in the game to make it successful.
Written information
Written information includes any type of processed data, which you want another person to receive and that makes use of the written word. Examples of written information could be an email; in which you send a message in words to the person who receives it to read. The advantage of written information is that you can save money and time by sending a letter instead of talking over the phone for up to hours. Another advantage is that there is no need for personal contact, so you can just send an email if you wanted someone to know something.
Many Businesses use information on an everyday basis to make sure their business is running well and successfully. An example of how a business uses written information is if a bank would send a letter to their customers including anything like their statement or if they had something new in the bank and they wanted to inform them. Another example would be if a business had an internet website, they would include information for the consumer to know what the business is about and what it contains.
Images
A static image is a visual image that does not move. Many static images communicate by joining visual elements with words. Static images are used in many different things such as posters, greeting cards and Newspapers etc. On the right is an example of a static image.
An animated image is a visual image that can loop endlessly or it can present one or two sequences and then stop. Animated images are mainly found in web ad banners or twirling icons. This type of image is more appealing because of its movement. On the right is an example of an animated image.
Static images are used in businesses such as supermarkets for e.g. Morrisons or Aldi. They use this type of image in posters, banners and logos to promote their business. This is effective because static images are easier to comprehend and therefore customers will be able to understand the intentions of the business. On the other hand, animated images are used on most business websites to make them stand out and keep the audience entertained. However, the audience may lose interest if the image takes too long to get the information across.

Verbal Information
Verbal information involves the sharing of information between individuals by using speech. People who use verbal information employs readily understood spoken words, as well as ensuring that the tone of voice with which the words are expressed is appropriate. Verbal information includes talking face to face, on the phone, hand gestures, lip reading and eye contact etc.
Verbal information can be used in an organisation, for e.g. If a manager needs to speak to an employee about his/her work, then he will talk to them face to face and will also use eye contact, to show that the work is important. Multimedia information
Multimedia information uses a combination of images, words and sounds to present information. Multimedia is increasingly being used in education, advertising and entertainment. Multimedia can be used to deliver information to people effectively, it changes the way people learn, play and find information.
Multimedia information can be used in an organisation for e.g. for someone at a workplace to present a PowerPoint to the workers, he/she would use a PowerPoint presentation, in which would be images, words and maybe sound in a video to convey information properly.
Diagrammatical (Flowchart) information
Diagrammatical information is used in things such as flowchart, bar graphs etc. This type of information is used to represent data and make it easier to visualise, without having to calculate or look through the data to find the information you need.
Diagrammatical information can be used in an organisation for e.g. if a manager was to present certain records to his/her employees he/she would use diagrammatical information such as charts and graphs to display the information to them, and make it easy for them to understand it.
Symbolic information
Symbolic information is information written as sequences of symbols, which is normally text, as opposed to images, sound, etc. symbolic information is when you use symbols to represent data. It helps people understand things better, without having to read about something, which mean this type of information is time beneficent.
Symbolic information can be used in organisation, such as trademarks, which are signs that you can use to distinguish your business' goods or services from those of other traders.
Statistical information
Statistical information is information can be presented in a variety of ways such as graphs, tables or illustrations. It mostly used to present data, which can be easily understandable and visible by the viewer.
Statistical information can be used in an organisation, for e.g. A table could be used to show the employees attendance or salary. Another way it can be used is to have graphs to show whether the business is making profit or not.

Data
Data is distinct pieces of information, usually formatted in a special way. Data can exist in a variety of forms, such as numbers or text on pieces of paper, as bits and bytes stored in electronic memory, or as facts stored in a person's mind.
In computing, data is information that has been translated into a form that is more convenient to move or process. Relative to today's computers and transmission media, data is information converted into binary digital form.
Information VS Data
There is a subtle difference between data and information. information is derived from data, which are the facts or details. Individual pieces of data are rarely useful alone. For data to turn into information, it needs to be put into context. Data is raw, unorganized facts that need to be processed. Data can be something simple and really random and useless until it is organized. However, when data is processed, organized, structured or presented in a given context so as to make it useful, it is called information.
An example of how data can be converted into information in an organisation is that if students did a test at school, then each student's test score is one piece of data. But, the average score of a class or of the entire school is information that can be resulting from the given data.

Quantitative Data
Quantitative data is information that can be measured and written down with numbers and can also be proven as a fact. Examples of quantitative data would be someone’s height, shoe size or even the length of their fingernails.
Businesses can use quantitative data for various things like ranking employees and using it to justify the reason of letting go of employees due to poor performances at work. For example, in a manufacturing company, you may track the details of the number of units that each works produces over a particular period of time.

Qualitative Data
Qualitative data is typically descriptive data, which approximates but does not measure the results, it is also harder to analyse than quantitative data.
An example of how qualitative data can be used in an organisation is for e.g. a teacher is being observed by another more qualified teacher, then this teacher will be recording information about his/her work habits and how he/s he deals with the obstacles that the students create for him/her.

Quantitative Data Vs Qualitative Data
Quantitative data deals with numbers; it is data which can be measured for e.g. length, height, area, volume etc. However, qualitative data deals with descriptions and is data that can be observed but not measured, for e.g. this could colour, textures, smell, taste etc. An example of how quantitative and qualitative data could be used in the same thing would be, if there was an oil painting, then if you used quantitative data, then you would say the picture is 10” by 14” or it weighs 8.5 pounds or you would also say it cost £300. However, if you used qualitative data, you would say the painting is mainly a blue/green colour or its smelly old and rusty.
Primary Data
Primary data is data observed or collected directly from first-hand experience. It is information that you collect specifically for the purpose of your research project. The source of your primary data is the population sample from which you collect the data. Primary data can be used in different steps in a business, the first step is determining your target population, for e.g. if you are researching the marketability of a new fridge, then your target population would be newlyweds, who have maybe moved into a new home within the last 90 days. The next step would be for you to decide how you’re going to represent this population in your study; it is obvious that you won’t be able to collect data from every newlywed that has moved into new home, so you would determine a sample size and type of sample. Primary data can be collected in many ways such as surveys, interviews etc.
Secondary Data
Secondary data is data that is collected by someone other than the user of the data. It is information that has been collected for a purpose other than your current research project, but can still be relevant for your research. Sources of secondary data can be broken into internal and external sources. Internal sources include data that already exists in your organisation and external data is data that collected from other people or organisations. Internal sources of data could include profit and loss statements, sales figures, inventory records etc. External sources of data could include media, universities, internet etc.

Primary Vs Secondary sources of information
Primary sources of information are tailored to your needs. It also lets you investigate an issue of specific interest for the reason you need it. It also delivers more specific results, which would be very important if you wanted to succeed in something like launching a new product in a business. However, this source of information can be expensive. On the other hand, secondary research is easy to find and much of it is mostly free or low-cost, as you can find this source of information online or at a local library or even in magazines and newspapers. However, this source of information is not customised to your needs, so it may not be as useful as primary sources of information.
Internal Information
Internal information is information that is created from the normal business activities of an organisation. This type of information is only available to the business. It will be private and accurate. Internal information could be sales figures, personnel records, customer records and also financial documents such as trading, profit and loss accounts. Businesses can use internal information to make sure they know that the business is running well by looking at sales figures and profit that is being made. They could also use this type of information to keep records of customers, such as email addresses and contact numbers, so they could advertise new products to them.
External Information
External information is information which comes from outside the business. This type of information can mainly be gathered using secondary information methods such as newspapers and magazines, the internet etc. Businesses can use external information to find out things such as prices of other businesses products online or looking at how other businesses advertise on newspapers or magazines.

Internal vs. External Information
Internal information is free and very easy to get hold of as it is within your business and you won’t need to do research to find the information you need. This type of information is also very useful, when you want to save customer records or financial documents of the business. On the other hand, external information would need to be researched and would cost to get hold of, as you will need to use the internet or buy different newspapers and magazines.
Purpose of information
The purpose is using information to make operational, tactical and strategic business decisions and also gaining advantage over competitors by using information correctly. Businesses use information to support their operations and day to day activities. Information is also used by businesses to help them make decisions, such as manager making a decision in whether or not to sack an employee from the information he/she has gathered about the employees work rate. Another purpose of information is to help a business in gaining commercial over a competitor. This means if a company with two competitors found out that one of the competitors was going out of business, then the business would use this information and contact the competitor and try to buy all the businesses stock at a cheap rate.

The following headings and relate each heading to a real life business. You might want to start each paragraph in the following style:
The purpose of operational support in a business…

Operational support
The purpose of operation supports in a business such as barkerend fisheries would be to make sure that the business had support with its daily activities; these could be how much stock of each product they would sell for e.g. the amount of cheese burgers or chicken burgers they are selling per day. Another purpose for the operational support would be to make sure what deliveries needed to be made, so if barkerend fisheries was selling a lot of cheese burgers, but not much chicken burgers, then the operational support would make sure that more cheese burgers would be ordered and less chicken burgers.

Analysis
The purpose of analysis in a business such as barkerend fisheries would be, that the manager at the business must understand their own data. For example, he would look at tables and charts of performance data and be able to point out and explain the times where the business doing very poor than normal and he would also give some reasons of how this could occur. One of these reasons could be that the pizza machine wasn’t working, so they couldn’t offer pizza to their customers for a period of time.

Decision making
The purpose of decision making in a business such as barkerend fisheries would be help the business make decisions which would affect the business, hopefully in a positive way. Decision making is mostly done by manager at a business such as barkerend fisheries, some decisions that would need to be made would come up within this business would be things like; an employee has called in sick today, who should take his job role? Another decision that would need to be made would be; if the electric wasn’t working, then if the business should close for the day and sort it out or stay open and try to sort it out as soon as possible.

Marketing and sales
The purpose of marketing and sales in a business such as barkerend fisheries would be to devise a strategy to make customers aware of new products and sales, so if barkerend fisheries had a new type of pizza or new dips, then they would put posters outside the shop to inform customers of this change, and then hopefully push them into buying the products. Another purpose of the marketing at barkerend fisheries will be to get change the way the burgers are made from the information that is gathered about which is being bought by customers.

Communication
The purpose of communication in a business such as barkerend fisheries would be to make sure that each employee knew their job roles by the manager communicating with them. Also employees communicating with each other and asking questions about things they don’t know how to do, like turn the temperature of the pizza machine higher, they would communicate and ask questions, to make sure they don’t do anything wrong.

Flow
The purpose of flow in a business such as barkerend fisheries would be to make sure the tasks in a business takes place. It helps the business process from start to finish; ensuring objectives and targets are met by the business. Business flow also helps show all major components of the business process.

Analysis of Information

The purpose of analysis in a business such as barkerend fisheries would be, that the manager at the business must understand their own data. For example, he would look at tables and charts of performance data and be able to point out and explain the times where the business doing very poor than normal and he would also give some reasons of how this could occur. One of these reasons could be that the pizza machine wasn’t working, so they couldn’t offer pizza to their customers for a period of time.

Decision Making The purpose of decision making in a business such as barkerend fisheries would be help the business make decisions which would affect the business, hopefully in a positive way. Decision making is mostly done by manager at a business such as barkerend fisheries, some decisions that would need to be made would come up within this business would be things like; an employee has called in sick today, who should take his job role? Another decision that would need to be made would be; if the electric wasn’t working, then if the business should close for the day and sort it out or stay open and try to sort it out as soon as possible.
Gaining Advantage

Gaining advantage is when a business wants to start a successful business or stay in business; you’ve got to have some degree of advantage over your competitors. So for a business such as barkerend fisheries to gain advantage of its competitors, which could be park fisheries or Rajas, then they would need to make sure the business has advantage over Price, service and quality of products.

Sources of Information

For the following headings explain why each department would need information and also provide examples of what type of information the department requires.
Sales department
The sales department in a supermarket should access data concerning the product sales associated with a number of objects. The sales department will also need the finance department to demonstrate, to know what people are buying the most. This will also guide the sales department into reducing the amount of merchandise that is not being sold and also contacting the advertising department and giving them information of what products to put in when they advertise the products, so people can get aware of them.
Finance
The finance team in a supermarket has the records of the profit and sales within the business. The finance team gathers information of the accounting department, which is responsible for recording activities such as purchase invoices and sales invoices; they also monitor debtors, which are the people, whom the business owes money to, or the people who owe money to the business. The payroll functional area within the finance team in a supermarket is responsible for administrating the salaries, which are money which is usually paid monthly and wages, which is usually paid weekly.
Marketing
The marketing department within a supermarket is responsible for creating a strategy to make customers aware of new products or services or other products and services. They do this by gathering information about customers and what they mostly buy and for which reasons, they use this to plan how and when to advertise. The marketing department will also get involved with the product design and take information about the main features that customers would want from the products. Internal information in marketing includes market research information, which could be other supermarkets promotions and prices for products and services
Operational support
The operational support in a supermarket is responsible for communications service provider monitor, control, analyse and manage a telephone or computer network. For e.g. if the self-service till within the supermarket requires network connectivity, then it will be up to the operational support to sort this out. The operational support gathers information from all the other departments to be able to operate the business efficiently and effective as possible
Production
The production department within a supermarket is responsible for setting the monthly/annual targets and also keeping record of when stock was made. The Production department also gathers information from the suppliers, such as prices of products and the amount of products that are going to be bought. This department will also take information from the finance department to see the cost of production and what is being sold more or less, to know what quantity of stock, the department should get.

Human resources
The human resources department in a supermarket is responsible for many people related issues. This department is involved in things such as recruiting suitable staff for the business and also identifying and meeting the training needs for the staff working at the business. The human resources department gives information to the other departments to raise awareness and inform them about functional areas on changes in policy. Research and Development
The research and develop department is responsible for developing new products and find ways to make the existing products better. The staff in this department works with customer feedback, to try estimating what consumers will want to buy in the future. This department gives information to the production department to help them make the product designs better, to meet consumers’ needs. This department also share information with most of the other departments to support the activities of the business.
Administration
The administrating department in a supermarket is responsible for enhancing the office staff’s ability to manage and organize office effectively and professionally. This department is also responsible for the car park arrangement and security etc. This department gathers information from the finance department and stores it. The administrating department is also responsible for the management of human resources, budgets and records.
Purchasing
The purchasing department in a supermarket is responsible for buying or services for the whole business. The staffs in this department finds the best deals on raw materials used in production, they will also start contracts with distributors, so they can buy products at the best price. The purchasing department will gather information from the production department such as prices of products and the amount of products that are being sold, so they can buy the right amount.

Bibliography