Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and exercises for Economics for Vocational training

Understanding the Balance Sheet Structure

The Balance Sheet is a fundamental accounting document that reflects the composition and value of a company's assets, liabilities, and equity at a given time. Its information acts like an economic snapshot of the company's financial position, making it static information related to a specific date. To understand and appreciate the change in equity during the reporting period, it must be compared with data from the previous period.

Legal Requirements for Comparison

The requirement for comparative data is often mandated by law:

Commercial Code Article 35.4: In each of the items in the balance sheet, the profit and loss account, and the financial statement, in addition to the figures for the year closing,

Understanding the Production Plan

A production plan is a set of procedures designed to ensure our product, good, or service meets the objectives defined by the company. Each procedure is a process, and each process should have defined goals to contribute to overall objectives.

Key Objectives of a Production Plan

Some of the basic objectives that should feature in a production plan are:

1. Have the necessary production capacity to meet product sales.
2. Define the methodologies to achieve the objectives.
3. Describe the need for supplies.
4. Achieve the quality expected by customers.
5. Determine the characteristics of the infrastructure required for development activity.
6. Establish personal profiles, define tasks, and account for associated costs.

Estimating Production

Selling Externally

Just as employees must “sell” ideas internally, entrepreneurs with plans based on new business models must sell them to other parties, such as investors or potential collaborators.

Technique Nº 4: Prototyping

It's a methodology for exploring different possibilities until a truly good one emerged. It's a central part of an inquiry process that helps participants gain a better sense of what is missing in the initial understanding of a situation.

Prototyping is a powerful tool for developing new, innovative business models. Like visual thinking, it makes abstract concepts tangible. In recent years, in business discipline, it has gained traction in areas such as process design, service design and even organization and strategy...

What is Marketing?

Marketing is fundamentally about identifying and profitably meeting human and social needs. It encompasses the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that hold value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

Defining Marketing & Management

Marketing management is both an art and a science. It involves choosing target markets and then attracting, retaining, and expanding customer relationships by creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value.

Marketing vs. Selling: A Key Distinction

Managers sometimes mistakenly view marketing as solely “the art of selling products.” However, many are surprised to learn that selling is...

The Five Types of Customer Needs

We can distinguish five types of needs:

• Stated needs: The customer wants an inexpensive car. Example: "I want to buy a cheap car."
• Real needs: The customer wants a car whose operating cost, not initial price, is low. Example: "I want a car that does not consume a lot of fuel."
• Unstated needs: The customer expects good service from the dealer. Example: The customer has not thought about the specific need they have.
• Delight needs: The customer would like the dealer to include an onboard GPS navigation system. Example: Identifying secondary needs that surprise the customer.
• Secret needs: The customer wants friends to see them as a savvy consumer. Example: Needs that the customer is unlikely to voice explicitly.

Target

The Nature of Corporate Entrepreneurship

Why Do We Need Corporate Entrepreneurship?

Businesses are currently faced with:

• Changing dynamic markets
• Globalization
• Shorter product life cycles
• High rates of technological change
• Pressures to reduce costs
• Changes in business organization

A Possible Response

Some large firms have responded to the changing environment by addressing their necessary response to working with a dynamic landscape, involving attitudes toward:

1. Risk
2. Innovation
3. Flexible, rapid response
4. Organizational and managerial changes

Corporate Entrepreneurship (Intrapreneurship)

Corporate Entrepreneurship (i.e., Intrapreneurship) is defined as the “process by which teams within an established company conceive, foster, launch and manage a new business...

Stock Valuation

Purchase price and manufacturing cost: Purchase Price: This is the cost that includes the supplier's price and all additional costs incurred until the merchandise is in the buyer's stock. These expenses are:

• Transportation: the cost of transporting goods to the warehouse. This expenditure is called postage or freight. Also, include the costs of loading and unloading if these are borne by the carrier.
• Insurance: The goods to be transported can be insured to prevent possible incidents: breakage, shortages, accidents, etc. According to the market value, the insurance premium will be higher or lower.
• Packaging: the cost of the goods' packaging.
• Customs duties: when the goods come from a non-EU country, you may have to pay tariffs (taxes)

Business Concept and Purpose

A business concept is an entity that combines the factors of production to obtain goods and services that satisfy needs and obtain benefits.

Purpose

• Social: To satisfy needs.
• Economic: To obtain gain.

Key Elements of a Business

Technical Capital

Technical capital includes all those elements required for the development of business activity. Certain items may last long in the business, such as machinery and computers, while others are often short-lived, such as goods sold.

Human Capital

• Employee: One who serves in exchange for wages.
• Employer: The person or persons who control and direct the business.
• Owner: The individual who creates the company, bringing their capital to achieve profitability.

Core Business Functions

• Commercial:

Classification of the Sources of Financing

Funding is used to obtain financial resources (money) to cope with the expenses and investments that the company needs to develop its activity. While selecting the most appropriate financing instruments, the cost, time, and purpose will be taken into account.

Two Types of Financing

Own Funding (Net)

Own funding sources belong to the company or its owners.

Advantages: No cost to the company.

Disadvantages: No sharing of profits or dividends, or reservations.

• Resources obtained: Profits.
• Grants: Funds received from public agencies and private losses.
• Enrichment of self: The distribution of reserves.
• Autofinancing maintenance: The funding is aimed at maintaining domestic production capacity.

External Funding (Liabilities)