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Business refers to at least three closely related commercial topics. The first is a commercial, professional or industrial organization or enterprise, generally referred to as "a business." The second is commercial, professional, and industrial activity generally, as in "business continues to evolve as markets change." Finally, business can be used to refer to a particular area of economic activity, such as the "record business" or the "computer business" (see Industry). This article is concerned primarily with the first definition of individual businesses, but also contains links to general business and management topics, in the sense of the second definition.
Individual businesses are established in order to perform economic activities. With some exceptions (such as cooperatives, non-profit organizations and generally, institutions of government), businesses exist to produce profit. In other words, the owners and operators of a business have as one of their main objectives the receipt or generation of a financial return in exchange for expending time, effort and capital.
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There are many types of businesses, and, as a result, businesses can be classified in many ways. One of the most common focuses on the primary profit-generating activities of a business, for example:
There are many other divisions and subdivisions of businesses. The authoritative list of business types for North America (although it is widely used around the world) is generally considered to be the NAICS, or North American Industry Classification System. The equivalent European Union list is the NACE.
Within businesses one can often find similar departments, named (and not limited to):
Most legal jurisdictions specify the forms that a business can take, and a body of commercial law has developed for each type. Some common types include partnerships, corporations (also called limited liability companies), and sole proprietorships.
The study of the efficient and effective operation of a business is called management. The main branches of management are financial management, marketing management, human resource management, strategic management, production management, service management, information technology management, and business intelligence.
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This encyclopedia includes over 1600 business and economics articles, so not all appear listed here. This lists some of the main branches of business. For more specific topics, look at the various sublists.
The word economy can refer to any of several things: