unit 4 aos 1

• Business change


  The adoption of a new idea or behaviour by a business
• Change


  Any alteration in the internal or external environments
• Competitive advantage


  Occurs when a firm, industry or economy has a lower cost price structure than its rivals. In this situation, goods and services can be sold more cheaply, undercutting competitors, and expanding domestic and foreign sales. The concept can also be extended to product quality range and flexibility in adapting to new trends in the market.
• Driving forces


  Those forces that support a change
• Effectiveness


  The degree to which a business has achieved its stated objectives
• Efficiency


  How well a business uses resources to achieve objectives
• Force Field Analysis


  Outlines the process of determining which forces drive and which forces resist a proposed change
• Globalisation


  The movement across nations of trade, investment, technology, finance and labour brought about by the removal of trade barriers
• Innovation


  A process that occurs when something already established is improved upon
• Key performance indicators


  Specific criteria used to measure the efficiency and/or effectiveness of a business's performance
• Level of wastage


  The amount of unwanted or unusable material created by the production process of a business
• Net profit figures


  The measurement of a company's profit once operating costs, taxes, interest and depreciation have all been subtracted from its total revenues
• Niche market


  A narrowly selected market segment within a larger market
• Number of customer complaints


  The number of customers expressing their dissatisfaction with the business, in either spoken or written form
• Number of sales


  A measure of the amount of goods or services (products) sold
• Number of workplace accidents


  Indicates how safe the workplace is for employees
• Organisational inertia


  An unenthusiastic response from a business to proposed change
• Percentage of market share

  The business's share of the total industry sales for a particular good or service, expressed as a percentage
• Proactive


  Initiating change rather than simply reacting to events
• Product differentiation


  The use of factors such as brand names, delivery methods and advertising to establish differences between substitutable products
• Productivity


  A measure of performance that indicates how many inputs (resources) it takes to produce an output (goods or services)
• Rate of productivity growth


  The change in productivity in one year compared to the previous year
• Rate of staff absenteeism

  The number of workers who do not turn up for work when they are scheduled to do so
• Reactive


  Waiting for a change to occur and then responding to it
• Restraining forces


  Those forces that work against a change
• Staff turnover


  The number, or the rate, of employees who are leaving the business over a specific period of time, and need to be replaced by new employees