BUSS5000 Critical Thinking in Business
Week 2: Business key concepts (1)
Dr Leanne Piggott Director, Business Programs Unit BUSS5000 UoS Coordinator
THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
BUSINESS SCHOOL
Preview of today’s lecture
› What is Business?
- What do all businesses have in common?
› Sustainable Competitive Advantage: the internal dimension
- Strategy, structure, behaviour
›Next week
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What is business?
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8/08/2012
Wilcannia
› Paul, M. 2012, ‘Wilcannia's only supermarket closes’, ABC Broken Hill, 8 August, viewed 8 August 2012 http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/08/08/3563078.htm
› Wilcannia's only supermarket (AGL) closed suddenly on Monday following the visit of the NSW Fair Trading Minister Anthony Roberts. › Roberts was ‘disturbed and alarmed by high prices at the food store’.
- Lack of competition is small, remote communities
› Impact on the community: feeling ‘vulnerable’ due to fear of town running out of food and other basic supplies; need to drive long distances for alternative store.
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Wilcannia Arts
Wilcannia Arts
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8/08/2012
From micro to global
Small business: somewhere in between
›The importance of small business
-An Australian case study:
- Over 96% of all businesses in Australia
- Almost 2 million in Australia
- Provide some 50% employment
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Value of small vs. large business
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8/08/2012
Applying a critical lens to …
From this week’s reading (Wetherly and Otter 2011, p. 6)
Working towards a definition
›Business is: -‘Any activity that seeks to provide goods and services to others while operating at a profit’
(Nickels, McHugh and McHugh 2010, p. 14).
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Business model
Total returns on assets must exceed cost of capital required to finance assets
RETURNS
Debt
ASSETS
REINVESTMENT
Equity
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8/08/2012
Broadening our definition
›Transformation of inputs into outputs to produce goods and services that meet needs