Table of Contents

Chapter 1, Page 3: Unit 1

Chapter 2, Page 8: Unit 2

Chapter 3, Page 13: Unit 3

Chapter 4, Page 18: Unit 4

Chapter 5, Page 23: Unit 5

Chapter 6, Page 28: Unit 6

Chapter 7, Page 33: Unit 7

Chapter 1

Unit 1

Communication Skills and Customer Relations

In this first unit, I learned about communication and customer service. Effective communication skills and good customer service can very positively impact a business by bringing back repeat customers, bringing new ones, and customer satisfaction. Communication is extremely important, not only in the business world but in everyday life. Having good communication with customers is what will make them likely to return or bring new customers with them. For most customers, the customer service/relations of your company is the most important thing, and they will leave if their needs aren’t met. There are many different types, attitudes, and ways to communicate. They are all different, and they all have a different impact on you or your business.

Summary

Reflection

I can reflect on this unit in many different ways. Communication is a part of life and we are communicating with each other constantly. Learning how to communicate and what form of communication is necessary for interactions with other people, and it is extremely important in the business world, along with customer service. Customer service has impacted my life in many ways, whether it has been good or bad. Good customer service can make a simple business transaction extremely easy and pleasant if the employee is friendly and helpful. It can also make any business interaction unpleasant, take longer, and all around annoying. Communication shapes everyone’s life, and the way you communicate with others shapes their perspective on you.

Application

You can apply all of this information to almost any business situation. Employers and bosses need to communicate with their subordinates, and employees need to communicate with each other. Knowing how to communicate certain information and in what way you should communicate it is very important. For example, you wouldn’t fire somebody over an email, you would do it verbally in person. Customer service and relations is applied every day when anyone comes into a business. The way you talk to customers and the way they respond can shape their whole experience and make them decide whether they want to come back or not. Communication is one of the most important aspects in business and life in general. It changes how people see us and how we see them, and can drastically raise or lower your chances of getting hired, getting a promotion, or even just being able to talk to someone.

Chapter 2

Unit 2

Information Management

Summary

In this unit, I learned about information management. Information management is the collection, planning, organizing, coordinating, and monitoring of information. You can take this information from one or more sources, and then distribute that information to one or more audiences. Information management helps businesses with accessing their data and other business’s data easier and more efficiently. It is very important in the business world and there are many steps and processes to it. Using many different software programs and databases, they can run their businesses more efficiently and manage their information. Being able to manage your information is crucial for your business’s employees, clients, and customers.

Reflection

Looking back on this unit, I can find better ways to manage my own information and make it more accessible. Managing my own information for school is important, because it is similar to the business environment where you have deadlines and assignments that you need to get done. This is all heavily connected to the real world and my own life. I also learned a lot about how to organize my information, both personally and educationally. Learning how to manage information can help me greatly and make my work more accessible, efficient, and productive in my own life, which could help me in many ways.

Application

Everything I learned in this unit can be applied to the real world, from managing information, finding more efficient ways to get my tasks completed, and being more productive in the workplace. This information can help me now in school, and later in life when I work for a business. Being able to manage your information is an important thing for all businesses, and for the people who work in them. Being able to organize your information helps you daily with scheduling and personal time management, but it also helps you at your job. Every job requires information management, but not all of them need it as much as others. For example, a small restaurant still needs to manage their information, but not as much as a large technology company would. They both need it, but depending on your career, it varies on how much you need to focus on that information management.

Chapter 3

Unit 3

Professional Development

Summary

Professional development is a formal process involving a wide variety of specialized training, formal education, or advanced professional learning intended to help employees improve their professional knowledge, competence, skill, and effectiveness. The goal of professional development is to help build and maintain the morale of staff members and to help professionally improve the staff members individually and collectively. Professional development examples and opportunities are things like workshops, conferences, seminars, or simple discussions and learning among colleagues. Many companies participate in professional development to give their employees new knowledge and skills that they can apply to their job to improve performance, both their performance and the company’s overall performance.

Reflection

Reflecting on this unit, I now understand more about professional development, its purpose, how it works, why it exists, and some examples of it. My main takeaways from this unit are that professional development is any of the processes, mostly formal, that companies use to improve their employee’s productivity. They do this by improving professional knowledge, skill, and effectiveness. This process helps many companies by helping employees understand how to use their knowledge to improve their work. I knew the overall idea of professional development, but after this unit, I now understand more of what it actually is and how it is implemented. 

Application

I can apply this to many things in my life. Firstly, later in my life, I will have a job at some kind of company, and that company might involve its employees in things like conferences, workshops, and seminars to improve our knowledge. Both of my parents work in the human resources department of a company, and every year they are required to go to a conference to learn more about professional development and be a part of it themselves. Also, Mrs. McDonald went to a teacher workshop on Friday for professional development, and some of my other teachers have gone to those workshops before.

Chapter 4

Unit 4

Business Operations Management

Summary

This unit was all about business operations and business operations management. Business operations is the process of managing the inner workings of your business to make it run as efficiently as possible. Business operations management is simply managing your business operations so that they can increase the efficiency of certain processes, especially production and delivery. There are many different goals of business operations, but the main idea of all of them is to increase workplace efficiency and productivity, and to improve as many aspects of the business as you can. Being able to effectively operate your business can extremely help by making everything run faster and smoother.

Reflection

Reflecting on this unit, there were many things that I didn’t know at first, but once they were explained I understood how it works in the real world. I could connect to this because even in the classroom teachers are managing the operation by trying to help students learn the material they need quickly and successfully. Knowing what business operations is and being able to use the process of business operations management is very useful and can improve many aspects of your business, or even your personal life. Having a plan that you can effectively use and spread across different people is extremely useful, and can help your workplace greatly.

Application

Business operations management is constantly used in the real world, and it helps many businesses maximize efficiency and profits. For example, instead of spending the whole class teaching one thing, many teachers will spend part of the class lecturing students, and then letting them work at their own pace on an assignment. This helps students learn what they need to learn, and then get the task done on their own time and at their own speed. Business operations management is very important, and if more businesses knew how to effectively manage their operations, they could improve greatly. Being able to improve your business helps your employees operate at a faster and more productive pace.

Chapter 5

Unit 5

Economics