8000-270 Enterprise Awareness

8000-270 Enterprise Awareness is a critical unit within the ILM Level 2 Module. The unit is one of the main units that takes a large part of the course syllabus. 8000-270 Enterprise Awareness focuses on creating a sense of awareness of the environment of the business, including its provisions within the market and actual size within the market setting. The unit is important in helping the team leaders to understand both the internal and external environments of the business as well as how these factors influence the activities of a team leader in pushing the performance of the teams.

The unit also helps the team leaders to understand the financial issues within the organisation, including cash flow. Teams are influenced by factors other than cash flow. Both the physical and human resources affect the ability of the team to perform effectively within the organisation. Team leaders are also guided to understand the relationship between the organisation and the customers hence creating a customer focus in its practice.

The aim purpose of the unit is to ensure that the practising or potential team leaders are guided to understand the context of the enterprise by creating awareness of the world of enterprise. The unit is taught in 18 guided learning hours and covers 3 credit values within the ILM Level 2 module.

Suitability of the Unit

The unit is significant in understanding the context of the business. Stakeholders need to understand the organisations within their enterprise context to ensure they are able to effectively play their roles in improving the performance of the organisation. The unit is, therefore, suitable for different stakeholders tasked with the duty or role of fulfilling organisational obligations to the customers.

The unit focuses on improving the knowledge base of the practising or potential team leaders who are responsible for accomplishing different projects.They are made to understand the organisation in the global context and its obligation to the market. However, other leaders within the organisation can pursue the course to acquire basic information to create an understanding of other organisations within their specific context.

These leaders set effective strategic plans hence ensure that they meet the current and future obligations of the organisation while providing the necessary resources for organisational activities.Team members can also learn the unit to gain knowledge on their contribution to improving the business performance within the market context and preparing them for future leadership obligations.

Learning Outcomes

Upon the completion of the unit, the learner should be able to:

• Show understanding of the type of organisation they work within, its size within the market and its activities

• Identify external business environment that influences the performance of the organisations and specify this on their chosen enterprise

• Understand the significance of finance within an enterprise

• Identify various sources of finance available for an enterprise and mechanisms to acquire these finances

• Understand the concept of cash flow, including its importance within an enterprise and the strategies for controlling cash flow

• Identify the significance of physical and human resources to enterprises and how they impact their ability to achieve goals and objectives

• Outline different physical and human resources that are essential to their chosen enterprise

• Relate the physical and human resources to the different organisational activities and processes

• Show understanding of the offerings of the organisation to the market in terms of the products/ services offered to the market

• Identify the main target audience or market for the offerings of the organisation

• Show knowledge of the main competitors within the market offering either close substitutes or similar offerings to the market

• Understand the strategies that an organisation can use to promote its products and services within the market

Key Learning Areas

8000-270 Enterprise Awareness is one of the main units that the potential or practising team leaders are put through in the ILM Level 2 module. The unit covers the context of the organisation or enterprise as well as the ability of the organisation to meet its obligation within the market. Some of the main subjects learned include:

Enterprise Environment

This area of learning focuses on understanding the setting of the business. The team leaders should understand what the organisation does, how big it is and the type of organisation. This area of learning focuses on these basic principles that influence the ability of leaders to understand their organisations.

The area further improves the understanding of both the internal and external business environment and how they affect the performance of the business within the market. This is a critical area in understanding the stakeholders and structures of the organisation hence helping to create strategies to meet organisational obligations.

Finance and Enterprise

This area of learning helps the team leaders to understand the critical financial sources and obligations of the company. The learners are guided to understanding the aspects of income and expenditure as the main aspects influencing cash flow.

It also helps to understand means of payment, including cash and credit, and their impacts on organisational performance and accomplishment of goals and objectives. The learners are taught various aspects of financial management, including credit control and record-keeping within the organisation.

Enterprise Resources

The organisation has different resources that it utilises to achieve its goals and objectives. The team leaders are guided to understanding these physical and human resources that, together with the financial resources, contribute to achieving organisational goals and objectives. Concepts taught within this area include acquisition, maintenance and equipment influencing performance. They are also guided in understanding the legal obligations of the enterprise to the employees.

Customer Focus

In this area, the learners are guided into understanding the value propositions that the organisation makes to the customers. They are guided in approaches that can be used to evaluate the nature of their market and ensure that they improve services through customer service, market research and quality management.

The learners are also introduced to basic strategies and concepts of promoting products and services to improve sales as well as cost calculation and price determination, which are important in creating a customer focus.

Evaluation

At the end of the unit, the learners are assessed using both a written assessment and supervised practice. The written assessment is used to determine the mastery of the concepts that are taught within the unit. During the supervised practice or simulation exercises, the assessor determines the ability of the learner to implement the learned concepts in practical settings.