Business administration

Business administration is the day-to-day management of a business, including business operations, decision-making, the organisation of people and resources. This is particularly important for businesses in the construction industry, which are subject to the boom and bust cycle of the economy, can involve large numbers of projects, significant financial risk and cash flow problems. It is common for businesses in the construction industry to become insolvent because of poor business administration.

There are many different roles that are related to business administration at different levels of company hierarchy. This can range from business administrators and business support officers who may work as part of an office; the officer manager who oversees the entire office; assistant managers who may oversee several different offices, branches or projects; and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who is the head of overall operations in business administration.

Depending on the size of the company, the CEO may have several directors or deputies, each of whom will be responsible for one area of company operations, such as construction, infrastructure, innovation, and so on.

In its widest sense, business administration can be considered to cover the following:

• Business analysis, strategy and decision making.
• Financial planning, including raising purchase orders and invoices.
• Marketing and communications.
• Operations and logistics.
• Programming and planning.
• Supply chain management.
• Research, development and innovation.
• Customer relations and industry out-reach.
• Diary management.
• Record keeping.
• Health and safety and sustainability.
• Human resources (HR).
• General office administration.
• Legal issues.

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings

• Budget.
• Business model.
• Business process outsourcing (BPO).
• Capital costs for construction projects.
• Cash flow in construction.
• Commercial manager.
• Compliance.
• Construction manager.
• Construction organisation design.
• Construction organisations and strategy.
• Construction recruitment agency.
• Corporate finance.
• Design management.
• Escrow.
• Human resource management in construction.
• Industry work placement.
• Insourcing.
• Joint venture.
• Office manual.
• Practice management.
• Project manager.
• Site administrator.
• Solvency.
• Subcontractor.
• Succession planning.
• Types of construction organisation.
• Vested outsourcing.