Chapter 2 - Basic Principles of Business Management

Abstract

This chapter explores the basic principles of business management. The term business is part of the name of the OCEB certification. And as the structure of the certification program already suggests, it is particularly important to the persons behind this idea to establish a common language between experts and IT employees. This is reason enough to cover the basics of business management and get acquainted with some basic terminology and concepts of this economic science, from the business process perspective. The chapter explores business functions, markets, and strategies; marketing, added value, and project management; costs, efforts, and key figures; and analysis methods. Developing strategies in line with market requirements entails some strategic deliberations and careful analyses of the market environment as well as a straightforward consideration of a company's strengths and weaknesses. A common, rather business-related definition is that marketing describes the orientation of an enterprise in the market. Value chain is one of the basic competencies of an OCEB because business process analyses and optimizations are typically handled in projects. The basic knowledge of business management also includes costs, efforts, and key figures. One must be able to distinguish between fixed, variable, and overhead costs. Besides the general distinction of cost types there are numerous financial key figures out of which only a few are significant within the scope of the OCEB certification.