What Is the Purpose of Business? Discuss.
What is the purpose of business? Discuss. INTRODUCTION
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At a dinner party a doctor, a lawyer and a businessman are sitting around the table chatting and talking about their life and work. At one point another man approaches the table and asks the three men what the purpose of their jobs is. The doctor immediately responds that he wants to help people and save life. The lawyer takes over and says he fights for justice and equality but when it comes to the businessman to answer the question - he remains silent. Would a normal businessman have been able to give readily a precise answer as to the purpose of business? Would he have said is it all about money and making profit? Or would he have answered like Peter Drucker that the customer should have the highest priority in business life and everything should be done to satisfy him1. Or would he have responded like Dave Packard once said: “I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company’s existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being...” 2 These quotes describe very well the difficulty in answering the question what the purpose of business is and the need for detailed analysis. As everybody is affected and surrounded by business every day, and since one can hardly imagine a world without business, it is crucial to know its purpose. Therefore it is the objective of this paper to examine in greater detail the nature and purpose of business and to demonstrate its importance to the whole world. “A business is any enterprise which makes, distributes or provides any article or service which the other members of the community need and are able and willing to pay for. “ 3
This is one of an abundant number of definitions of business. The following study will consider reasons for many different descriptions and objectives of business. It will also examine why and how business has developed throughout the course of
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At a dinner party a doctor, a lawyer and a businessman are sitting around the table chatting and talking about their life and work. At one point another man approaches the table and asks the three men what the purpose of their jobs is. The doctor immediately responds that he wants to help people and save life. The lawyer takes over and says he fights for justice and equality but when it comes to the businessman to answer the question - he remains silent. Would a normal businessman have been able to give readily a precise answer as to the purpose of business? Would he have said is it all about money and making profit? Or would he have answered like Peter Drucker that the customer should have the highest priority in business life and everything should be done to satisfy him1. Or would he have responded like Dave Packard once said: “I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company’s existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being...” 2 These quotes describe very well the difficulty in answering the question what the purpose of business is and the need for detailed analysis. As everybody is affected and surrounded by business every day, and since one can hardly imagine a world without business, it is crucial to know its purpose. Therefore it is the objective of this paper to examine in greater detail the nature and purpose of business and to demonstrate its importance to the whole world. “A business is any enterprise which makes, distributes or provides any article or service which the other members of the community need and are able and willing to pay for. “ 3
This is one of an abundant number of definitions of business. The following study will consider reasons for many different descriptions and objectives of business. It will also examine why and how business has developed throughout the course of