Input: In the 1960s and 70s, __________ mergers produced large combinations of companies in unrelated business, designed to augment a company’s growth and diversify its risk.

Output: conglomerate. Companies joined together in these conglomerate mergers in an attempt to moderate the risks of a volatile economy. Since then, most of the largest conglomerates have been dismantled, or at least streamlined, in order to streamline operations and build up capital.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A situation where an outside party buys enough stock in a corporation to gain control of it against the wishes of existing management is commonly called a _______ ________.

Output: hostile takeover. With approximately 95 percent of business combinations being friendly deals, a hostile takeover is somewhat rare. In the 1980s, however, such takeovers were more common and resulted in corporations developing a number of strategies to help defend themselves.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: __________ can be broadly defined as the process of coordinating resources to meet organizational goals.

Output: management. The four basic functions of management are planning, organizing, leading, and controlling resources.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The primary management function is _________, or establishing objectives and goals for an organization and determining the best way to accomplish them.

Output: planning. All of the other management functions depend on what is decided in planning, which determines the company’s long-term strategies and translates them into day-to-day action plans.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Management often communicates its vision through a _________ statement, a brief document that defines the organization’s purpose, basic goals, and philosophies.

Output: mission. A company uses a mission statement as a guiding principle. It communicates the core values of an organization and helps employees understand how their role is tied to the organization’s greater purpose.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: To establish long-term goals, management must first determine its ____ ________, or the bundle of skills and capabilities that a firm has or does especially well, setting it apart from its competitors.

Output: core competence. A company’s main strength is its core competence, which sets it apart from its competitors and is difficult for competitors to duplicate.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Unlike an objective, a _____ is a broad, long-term accomplishment that an organization wishes to attain in typically five years or more.

Output: goal. While an objective is a specific, short-term target or aim, a goal looks towards further into the future. For either goals or objectives to be effective, they must be specific, measurable, relevant, challenging, attainable, and time-limited.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: An ___________ plan lays out the actions and the resource allocation needed to achieve operational objectives and to support tactical plans. Such plans typically target a specific objective that can usually be accomplished in less than a year.

Output: operational. Middle managers use a company’s strategic objectives and goals to create a tactical plan, which first-line managers then break down into an operational plan. Each stage of the planning process increases in specificity, until strategic goals are finally broken down into the day-to-day actions needed to accomplish them.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: __________ is the function of management that arranges resources (including land, labor, capital, and information) in a manner that will efficiently carry out the organization’s plans.

Output: organizing. During the organizing process, managers not only consider an organization’s overall activities and facilities. They also determine who will have the authority to make decisions, supervise activities, and distribute resources.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Management is commonly divided into a corporate hierarchy called the management __________.

Output: pyramid. The management pyramid is typically split into top managers, middle managers, and first-line managers. A chain of command connects each level of management to the next, making clear who is responsible for each task and who has the authority to make official decisions.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The function of management that influences and motivates people to work effectively and willingly toward company goals is called __________.

Output: Leading. Leading is the process of guiding and motivating people to work towards organizational goals. Although difficult to determine exactly what makes a good leader, traits such as decisiveness, self-confidence, and empathy are usually more evident in effective leaders.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Traditional, hierarchal organizational structures tend to have ___________ leaders, who do not usually involve others in decision making.

Output: autocratic. Most organizations have shifted away from autocratic leadership, since it does little to empower employees or encourage innovation.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Sometimes referred to as free-rein leadership, the _______ _____ style of leading leaves the actual decision making up to the employees, while the leader encourages employees’ ideas, and offers insights or opinions when asked.

Output: laissez faire. As businesses continue to shift towards a teamwork-based environment, more and more companies are adopting either democratic or laissez-faire leadership styles to guide them.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Acting as a _________ means using one’s knowledge and contacts to help guide other employees through the corporate maze, advising them on office politics, business behavior, and how to negotiate the corporate structure.

Output: mentor. Similar to coaching, acting as a mentor is a way of helping less-experienced employees overcome obstacles and reach their full potential.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The management function that measures progress against goals and objectives, and corrects deviations if results are not as expected is called ____________.

Output: controlling. The controlling process means monitoring a company’s progress toward meeting its goals and adjusting its course if necessary.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: __________ are the criteria against which performance is measured.

Output: standards. Control standards are usually set up during the planning function and are used in controlling to measure company progress.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: ___________ is a comprehensive, strategic management approach that builds quality into every organizational process as a way of improving customer satisfaction.

Output: TQM. The four key elements of total quality management (TQM) are employee involvement, customer focus, benchmarking, and continuous improvement. One of the goals of total quality principles is to create a value for all stakeholders involved.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The ____________ structure is the framework that enables managers to divide responsibilities, ensure employee accountability, and distribute decision-making authority.

Output: organization. The four factors to be considered in setting up an organization structure are work specialization, chain of command, vertical organization, and horizontal coordination.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Also called division of labor, _____ _______ is the degree to which organizational tasks are broken down into separate jobs.

Output: work specialization. Management must decide on an optimal level of work specialization. It must be specialized enough to allow the employee to perfect his or her skills and perform them quickly, but not so specialized that the task becomes repetitive and boring.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: In the chain of command, a manager can assign work, along with the authority and responsibility required to complete it, to those beneath him or her – a process called ___________.

Output: delegation. Delegation breaks down managerial goals into the tasks required to complete them and assigns them to various team members or employees.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The number of people under one manager’s control is known as the ____ of management.

Output: span. The span of management, also called the span of control, varies widely from organization to organization. Organizations with few levels in the management hierarchy will have a wide span of management, while organizations with several management levels will have a very narrow span of management.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The delegation of decision-making authority down to lower organizational levels – a process known as ____________ – is a common trend in businesses today.

Output: Detailed Explanation: decentralization. The process of decentralization leaves control over the essential company-wide matters with upper management, while allowing the lower management levels to deal with the day-to-day operations.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: In a vertical organization, companies define jobs and activities by using ________________ – the arrangement of activities into logical groups that are then clustered into larger departments and units that form the total organizatio

Output: Departmentalization. Departmentalization is most often done according to function, division, matrix, or network.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: In a ________ departmentalization, the structure uses functional and divisional patterns simultaneously by assigning employees to both a functional group and a project team.

Output: matrix. Departmentalization by matrix allows companies to share resources across divisions and functional groups. Thus, large companies can act like smaller ones by devoting their attention to specific projects or customers without permanently reorganizing the company’s structure.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Effective horizontal ____________ facilitates communication and activities across departments without the need to go up and down the vertical chain of command.

Output: coordination. In order to prevent functional departments from becoming isolated from one another, horizontal coordination is necessary. It strengthens communications between departments and keeps them aligned in striving towards company goals.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A _____ is a unit of two or more people who share a mission and collective responsibility as they work together to achieve a goal.

Output: team. The majority of organizations rely upon the team to provide synergetic innovation. The five most common forms of teams are problem-solving teams, self-managed teams, functional teams, cross-functional teams, and virtual teams.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The goal of _______ __________ in organizations is to balance the diverse needs of employees with those of management.

Output: human relations. Balancing organizational and personal goals is what makes human relations such a challenge in organizations. With the staffing and demographic changes taking place in companies today, motivating employees and keeping them satisfied while also remaining competitive and profitable can be quite difficult.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: ___________ is broadly defined as a force that moves someone to take action. In organizational settings, common examples are monetary rewards, personal satisfaction, and a sense of responsibility.

Output: motivation. While fear of losing a job might cause an employee to take action, such negative motivation is much less effective than encouraging an individual’s sense of creativity or pride in doing a good job.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: In the 1960s, Frederick Herzberg defined ________ factors as those aspects of the work environment that are associated with dissatisfaction.

Output: .hygiene. Unlike motivators, which are associated with satisfying work experiences, hygiene factors discourage motivation. Potential sources of dissatisfaction include working conditions, company policies, and job secur

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: More than three quarters of the large companies in the U.S. have developed a written _____ of ethics that sets forth the principles and standards guiding their decisions.

Output: code. A code of ethics is one step businesses have taken to encourage ethical behavior. Some companies have taken even further steps, such as creating an ethics officer position to aid in decision making or establishing hot lines for employees who wish to report unethical practices.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Douglas McGregor explained that managers oriented towards _________ ________ assumptions believe that employees like work and will be motivated by intrinsic rewards that promote growth and self-direction.

Output: Theory Y. The assumptions behind Theory Y emphasize the motivation of employees through goals that promote creativity or social causes. Theory X managers, on the other hand, motivate workers with extrinsic rewards such as money or promotions.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The concept of social _________ argues that a business has obligations to society beyond the pursuit of profits.

Output: responsibility. Since the 1960s, the pressure on companies to have a sense of social responsibility has increased steadily.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: _______ is a term describing the overall environment that results from job and work conditions.

Output: QWL. In recent years, many companies have increased their efforts to improve the quality of work life (QWL) within their organizations. Such improvements allow employees to better balance their lives while improving their work-related skills and abilities.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A company that participates in altruistic actions such as donating money, time, goods, or services to charitable, humanitarian, or educational institutions is said to be ____________.

Output: philanthropic. Being philanthropic is just one of many indicators of a company’s social responsibility. Several companies now undergo an annual social audit to objectively inform its various stakeholders of all its activities and assess their social performance.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: In attempts to accommodate employees’ diverse scheduling needs, many organizations now offer _________, or a scheduling system in which employees are allowed certain options regarding time of arrival and departure.

Output: flextime. Three of the most popular alternative work arrangements being used today are telecommuting, job sharing, and flextime. Such arrangements are necessary, considering today’s staffing and demographic challenges being faced by companies.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The spirit of activism in the 1960s started a movement known as ___________, which pressures businesses to consider consumer needs and interests.

Output: Consumerism. Consumerism prompted President Kennedy to announce a “bill of rights” for consumers, including the right to safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose, and the right to be heard. These rights laid the foundation for consumer-oriented legislation in the decades to come.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The application of moral rules or standards to business situations is called business __________.

Output: ethics. Business ethics governs the way in which a company conducts its business. Because of the number of stakeholders to whom a company is responsible – including employees, customers, governments, and society at large – making business decisions that will be considered ethical by everyone is difficult.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The process of reducing the threat of loss from uncontrollable events and funding potential losses is called _____ management.

Output: risk. The main functions of risk management are to assess risk, control risk, and finance risk by shifting it to an insurance company or by self-insuring to cover possible losses.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A contractual agreement whereby one party agrees to compensate another party for losses is called __________.

Output: insurance. For risks that meet certain predefined criteria, one can purchase insurance to cover potential losses. Such risks are called insurable risks.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Risk managers who try to reduce (but not totally eliminate) the chance of a given loss by removing hazards or taking preventative measures are practicing _____ ________.

Output: loss prevention. Loss prevention techniques, such as hiring additional security guards or posting warning signs, is one of the major risk-control techniques used by companies. Such techniques are used by companies to minimize losses, particularly if the loss is not covered by insurance.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: By compiling statistics of losses, predicting the amount needed to pay claims over a given period, and calculating the amount needed to cover these expenses plus any anticipated operating costs, _________ determine how much income insurance companies need to generate.

Output: actuaries. Those employed by the insurance company to calculate the costs of premiums are called actuaries.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: _________ insurance provides protection against financial losses suffered by firms or individuals held responsible for property damage or for injuries suffered by others.

Output: liability. Medical malpractice and faulty product manufacturing are examples of cases in which losses could be covered by liability insurance.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: For companies that depend upon a crucial employee or executive, they can often purchase ______ ________ insurance that will cover losses in income due to that person’s illness, disability, death, or unplanned retirement.

Output: key person. Following fashion designer Gianni Versace’s death, his company was paid $21 million by his key-person insurance policy.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Rather than buying insurance from another company, an increasing number of businesses are adopting _______ _______ plans, in which they accumulate funds each year to pay for predicted liability losses.

Output: self insurance. Self-insurance plans can save large companies a significant amount of money, since they are not subject to state regulation, mandates, or premium taxes. To fully succeed, however, they require a sizeable financial investment, regular contributions, and a long-term commitment.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: As an alternative to health maintenance organizations (HMOs), some employers choose to join a _______________. While such plans usually save employers money, they also restrict the employees choice of hospitals and doctors.

Output: PPO. A preferred-provider organization (PPO) is a health care provider that contracts with employers, insurance companies, or other third-party payers to deliver health care services to an employee group at a reduced fee. Employees typically are offered incentives to use preferred providers, though they are not required to do so.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: To cover the losses associated with premature death, life insurance policies will pay predetermined amounts to any listed ___________ when the covered individual dies.

Output: beneficiaries. Term insurance, whole life insurance, and variable life insurance are all examples of different types of life insurance that provide proceeds to the beneficiaries upon the insured’s death.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Employees who are laid off for reasons not related to performance can benefit from _______________ insurance programs.

Output: unemployment. Unemployment insurance is a government-sponsored program designed to meet the perils of unemployment caused by the business cycle and other factors which workers cannot control.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The term ___________ describes the planning and executing of the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.

Output: marketing. Because marketing involves an exchange between the buyer and selling organization, it plays a pivotal role in society by helping people satisfy their needs and wants, and helping organizations determine what to produce.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Marketing is not always concerned with selling tangible goods for profit. ________ marketing, for example, tries to attract people and organizations to a particular geographic location.

Output: Place. Place marketing tries to lure tourists, residents, or businesses to a specific geographic location. Cause-related marketing and permission marketing are two other common kinds of marketing that do not focus on the selling of tangible products.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: More specific than needs, _______ are those things that are desirable in light of a person’s experiences, culture, and personality.

Output: wants. While the basic motivation to buy products are created by needs, it is a person’s wants that leads him or her to buy a particular brand or type of product over another. Marketing aims to transform the customer’s basic need for a general product into a want for a specific brand.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The appeal of a product or service is based upon its ________, or the power of a good or service to satisfy a human need.

Output: utility. Organizations can create utility in four different ways – by changing raw materials into finished goods and services (form utility), by making a product available at a convenient time (time utility) or location (place utility), and by facilitating the process of product ownership (possession utility).

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: In a _______ market, the demand for products exceeds supplies, making it easy for the manufacturer to sell all that it produces.

Output: sellers. . A sellers’ market existed in the U.S. until the 1930s, when technological advancements increased production capacity and the market for manufactured goods became more competitive. The resulting overabundance of products then created a buyers’ market that lasted through the 1950s.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: As companies became increasingly customer-centered in the last half of the twentieth century, many began to adopt the ________ concept. This approach to business management stresses customer needs and wants, seeks long-term profitability, and coordinates marketing efforts within the organization.

Output: marketing. Increased competition has led most companies to adopt the marketing concept, allowing them to more fully understand and target their customers’ needs and wants.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: _________ marketing focuses on building and maintaining satisfying relationships with customer, suppliers, and distributors in order to retain their long-term business.

Output: relationship. Sometimes referred to as customer relation ship management (CRM), relationship marketing focuses on learning more about a customer with each transaction and continually changing the product or service so that it more precisely meets the customer’s needs.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: To learn about the needs and wants of their customers, companies collect and analyze information about customers, markets, and related marketing issues – a process called marketing ________.

Output: research. Among other things, companies use marketing research to determine their target market, develop new products according to customer needs, and plan future marketing programs.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Often used in conjunction with relationship marketing, ___________ marketing records and analyzes all customer interactions, preferences, and buying behavior, for the purpose of future contact and transactions with those customers.

Output: database. Analyzing the data collected through database marketing allows companies to determine which customers to target and how to customize marketing efforts for the best response.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The overall plan for marketing a product is called a marketing _________. Its main steps are segmenting the market, choosing what markets to target, deciding how to position the product in those markets, and then developing the right marketing mix to obtain that position.

Output: strategy. In the strategic marketing planning process, a company develops a marketing strategy to help achieve its chosen marketing objectives.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The process of _________ _____________ divides the total market into smaller, rather homogenous groups.

Output: market segmentation. Marketers commonly practice market segmentation by using demographics, psychographics, geographic location, and behavior to divide the market. Each market segment can then be targeted by offering products that are priced, distributed, and promoted differently.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Those companies that sell a variety of different products to several customer groups practice _____________ marketing.

Output: differentiated. Only companies with substantial resources can practice differentiated marketing, since it requires specially tailored products, prices, promotions, and distribution efforts for each customer group.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: ___________ a product means differentiating a good or service from those of competitors through the use of promotion, distribution, product, and price.

Output: positioning. Through positioning, a company creates for its offering a unique and meaningful position in the minds of its target market. Price, performance, quality, design, and customer support are some examples of factors that help differentiate a product from its competitors.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A firm’s ____________ _____ consists of the four key elements of marketing strategy – product, price, distribution, and promotion.

Output: marketing mix. A company’s marketing mix is basically the way in which it goes about achieving its marketing strategy – i.e., how it uses product, price, distribution, and promotion to obtain its desired position in the selected target market.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A ________ is any tangible object or intangible service that is offered for the purpose of satisfying a want or a need in a marketing exchange.

Output: product. Each stage of a product’s life cycle is marked by distinct patterns of supply and demand. After introducing a product (introductory stage) and growing its sales (growth), a company usually gains its maximum market share for the product (maturity), before the increased competition forces sales and profits to diminish (decline).

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A product’s _____ _______ usually consists of four stages – introduction, growth, maturity, and decline.

Output: life cycle. Each stage of a product’s life cycle is marked by distinct patterns of supply and demand. After introducing a product (introductory stage) and growing its sales (growth), a company usually gains its maximum market share for the product (maturity), before the increased competition forces sales and profits to diminish (decline).

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: life cycle. Each stage of a product’s life cycle is marked by distinct patterns of supply and demand. After introducing a product (introductory stage) and growing its sales (growth), a company usually gains its maximum market share for the product (maturity), before the increased competition forces sales and profits to diminish (decline).

Output: test. Test marketing a product usually gives the marketer experience with how to best market the product before going through the expense of a full introduction.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A ________ _____ is a series of related products owned by one company that is similar in terms of use or characteristics.

Output: product line. Most large companies will have at least one product line. This allows the company to continually add and drop products, so that the sales of new products can replace the lost revenue of declining items.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Those organizations that have several different product lines have what is called a __________ ____, a collection of various goods or services offered for sale.

Output: product mix. A company’s product mix can be described in terms of width (the number of product lines), length (the number of items in each product line), and depth (the number of varieties of each individual product).

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A company differentiates its products from its competitors through a distinct _______ identity – the name, term, sign, symbol, design, or combination of these elements that enables consumers to recognize the product as belonging to a particular company.

Output: brand. Marketers use a variety of different methods to create a recognizable brand. A brand usually consists of a brand name – the portion of a brand that can be expressed orally – and a brand symbol – a symbol that can not be expressed verbally.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Many retailers offer ________ products, which are alternatives to branded products and typically cost significantly less because of the uneven quality, plain packaging, and lack of promotion.

Output: generic. Generic products have no brand name or advertising, and usually have just plain labeling. The success of such products in the grocery industry illustrates that a niche market for them definitely exists among cost-conscious consumers.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The loyalty of customers to a particular brand is called ________ __________.

Output: brand loyalty. The three different degrees of brand loyalty are brand awareness, brand preference, and brand insistence. Marketers strive to have customers at the brand insistence stage, since it means they are unwilling to try alternatives and insist on buying products by their preferred brand.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: ______ _____ analysis is used by companies to determine the minimum volume of sales of a product are needed at a given price to cover all costs.

Output: break even. In order to avoid losing money, a company must reach what is known as its break-even point, which is the minimum sales volume necessary to cover all of the company’s manufacturing and selling costs.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: In determining the break-even point, companies must not only consider the variable costs associated with production, but also certain _______ costs, such as rent payments, insurance premiums, and real estate taxes.

Output: fixed. While variable costs change with the level of production, fixed costs are those expenses that remain stable regardless of the number of products produced.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: While demand usually helps determine the price of a product, companies also need to consider how responsive the demand for a product is relative to its price – a concept known as price ____________.

Output: elasticity. Since the demand for some products is more sensitive to changes in price than others, a company must consider a product’s price elasticity when setting its market price.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: During a product’s introductory phase, companies often try to recoup their manufacturing costs quickly by charging a high initial price and then lowering it later – a practice known as __________.

Output: skimming. Skimming works best for high-quality products in markets that competitors cannot easily enter with competing products. Skimming is a common practice with technological products, which will often have inflated prices until enough competitors enter the market to successfully bring them down.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Auction pricing, group buying, and name-your-price selling are three popular examples of __________ pricing.

Output: dynamic. The opposite of fixed pricing, dynamic pricing charges different prices depending on the individual customer and situation. Many companies have switched to dynamic pricing in recent years, using the Internet to electronically reprice items based upon current supply and demand levels.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: ________ __________ are systems of firms organized to facilitate the moving of goods and services from producers to customers.

Output: distribution channels. Also called marketing channels, distribution channels are responsible for moving products to the end users. How they are moved through these channels can play a major role in a product’s success or failure.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Any individual or firm found in a distribution channel between the producer and end user is called a ___________ ______________. They are also commonly called “middlemen.”

Output: marketing intermediary. A marketing intermediary provides an efficient process for transferring products from the producer to consumer and helps add place utility, time utility, and possession utility to the product.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Inexpensive convenience goods or organizational supplies are goods that sell best with an ___________ distribution strategy, which tries to place a product in as many outlets as possible.

Output: intensive. Unlike selective and exclusive distribution strategies, an intensive distribution marketing strategy does not require specialized sales and service support. Thus, it does not limit the number of outlets through which it sells.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A _________ is a planned distribution channel in which the producer, wholesaler, and retailer coordinate their efforts to optimize distribution activities.

Output: vms. In a vertical marketing system (VMS), one channel member tends to control the channel, influencing the actions of all other members. The single firm might own the others (corporate VMS), have contracts with them (contractual VMS), or wield so much power that the others must cooperate (administered VMS).

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A _________ is a intermediary that sells products to other firms for resale or for organizational use.

Output: wholesaler. Unlike a retailer, a wholesaler seldom deals directly with individual consumers but rather sells to retailers or to organizational buyers.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: All the activities required to move finished products from the producer to the consumer – including inventory control, order processing, warehousing, materials handling, and outbound transportation – is known collectively as __________ distribution.

Output: physical. In addition to selecting effective distribution channels, a company must also efficiently move its product through physical distribution, an area concerned primarily with the logistics of the supply chain.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: ___________ is the use of persuasive techniques by a company to communicate with its target market

Output: promotion. Of the four ingredients in the marketing mix, promotion is the one most often associated with marketing. Advertising, public relations, personal selling, direct marketing, and sales promotion are all components of an effective promotional mix.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Person-to-person communication between a seller and one or more potential buyers is called _________ selling

Output: personal. Personal selling allows for immediate interaction between the buyer and seller, and also enables the seller to adjust the message to the specific needs, interests, and reactions of the individual customer.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Sponsored communication to a target market through mass communications channels is called ___________

Output: advertising. By economically bringing a consistent message to a large target consumer group, advertising helps create product awareness and stimulate demand.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Recent advances in technology has led to an increase in __________ advertising, a two-way communication in which the customer controls the amount and type of information received.

Output: interactive. The Internet, interactive TV, and kiosks in retail outlets have allowed companies to increase their amount of interactive advertising.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: _________ marketing can be defined as any direct communication other than personal sales contacts designed to generate either a response in the form of an order, a request for further information, or a visit to a place of business for purchase of a specific product or service.

Output: direct. Advertising on the Internet is the most rapidly growing form of direct marketing. Other examples include telemarketing, infomercials, and direct mail.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: One of the two basic categories of sales promotion, __________ promotion is aimed at the final users of the product.

Output: consumer. Coupons and rebates are the most popular forms of consumer promotion. The other category of promotion, trade promotion, targets distributors and retailers in an effort to get them to push a producer’s product.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: _______ _________ encompasses all the non-sales communications that business have with their various audiences in order to foster positive relations with them and build a favorable corporate image.

Output: public relations. Two common public relations tools are the news release and the news conference, both of which are used when company news is of widespread interest, when products need to be demonstrated, or when company officials want to be available to answer questions from the media.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The strategy of coordinating and integrating all communications and promotions efforts with customers to provide the greatest efficiency and effectiveness is called __________.

Output: IMC. Developing all the elements of promotion for a company to result in one consistent message is called integrated marketing communications (IMC).

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: When a producer uses a ____ strategy to promote a product, it appeals to consumers to help stimulate demand, which subsequently exerts pressure on wholesalers and retailers to carry a product.

Output: pull. A pull strategy uses a combination of promotional tools to appeal directly to the consumer. A push strategy, on the other hand, focuses on persuading intermediaries to carry an item.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: __________ ___________ is the planning for a company’s current and future money needs through the effective acquisition and use of money.

Output: financial management. The goal of financial management is to maximize a company’s value through implementing a company’s financial plan, budgeting its expenditure, and developing a plan to fund future growth.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Most financial managers use a _________ ______ to forecast the financial requirements of a company, as well as the financing sources to be used.

Output: financial plan. . Financial managers usually work form a financial plan, a document showing the funds a company will need for a period of time, as well as the sources and uses of those funds.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: One of the primary objectives of a financial manager is to create a positive _____ _____, or a ready supply of money needed to purchase the assets and supplies a company needs to operate and pay dividends to shareholders.

Output: cash flow. Most financial managers can improve cash flow through monitoring and improving the company’s working capital accounts – i.e., cash, inventory, accounts receivable, and accounts payable.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Marketable __________ are those short-term investments that can be turned into cash quickly.

Output: securities. In order to earn as much interest as possible, financial managers invest any excess cash in interest-bearing or dividend-paying marketable securities.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: One of the main responsibilities of financial managers is the development of a ________, a planning and control tool that reflects estimated revenues, expenses, and cash flows over a given period (often one year).

Output: budget. Companies compare the actual results of operating to those proposed in the budget. If variances are discovered, corrective action is then recommended – a process known as financial control.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Major expenditures in buildings or equipments are examples of ___________ ___________, major investments for the purpose of acquiring something of permanent value in a business.

Output: capital investments. In order to decide which capital investments a company can afford, the financial manager will go through a financial evaluation called capital budgeting to determine the investments that will return the greatest revenue.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Any financing typically repaid in a period of a year or more is called ____ ______ financing. Such financing is usually for the purpose of acquiring assets such as buildings or equipment, or to fund company expansion via other growth options.

Output: long term. Long-term financing is generally needed for a company’s long-term plans for growth, whereas a company uses short-term financing to maintain its ability to meet day-to-day operating costs.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Rather than relying solely on its own cash to finance its growth, a company might choose to use __________ to increase the rate of return on an investment by financing it with borrowed funds.

Output: leverage. If a company uses leverage effectively, then it can use borrowed money to increase profits to such an extent that it can cover additional interest rates and also generate a greater return.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Commonly referred to as a loan, _____ financing is when a creditor agrees to lend money to a debtor in exchanged for repayment, with accumulated interest, at some future date.

Output: debt. Specific kinds of debt financing are trade credit, commercial paper, and secured and unsecured loans.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Known as ________ __________, this category of U.S. financial institutions accepts deposits from customers or members, and offers checking and savings accounts, loans, and other banking services.

Output: deposit institutions. Commercial banks, thrifts, and credit unions are the most popular forms of deposit institution

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: ___________ banks are smaller banks that concentrate on serving the needs of local consumers and businesses.

Output: community. As an alternative to the larger banks, community banks are becoming increasingly popular. Because these smaller banks know their clients better, they might go out of their way to make a loan or other decision possible for a small business owner.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Created in 1913, the _________ _________ system manages the U.S. money supply so that the country avoids both recession and inflation. It also supervises and regulates banks and serves as a clearinghouse for checks.

Output: Federal Reserve. Serving as the central bank, the Federal Reserve System is the most powerful financial institution in the United States. It is commonly referred to simply as the Fed.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: __________ is the term for anything generally accepted as a means of paying for goods and services.

Output: money. The U.S. money supply consists of currency, demand deposit, and time deposits. In some societies, the bartering system still exists, though it is becoming increasingly obsolete in the global economy.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Coins, bills, traveler’s checks, cashier’s checks, and money orders are forms of __________.

Output: currency. The bills and coins that make up the cash supply of a society is its currency.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Any accounts that pay interest and require advance notice before withdrawals can be made are called ______ _________.

Output: time deposits. Savings accounts, certificates of deposit, and money-market deposit accounts are all examples of time deposits.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: ____, the Fed’s broadest measure of the money supply, includes all M2 plus time deposits of $100,000 and higher and other restricted deposits.

Output: M3. The M3 measure is the broadest of the three measures used by the Fed to get a rough idea of the size of the money supply.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: One way in which the Fed influences the money supply is by changing the _________ ___________ of U.S. banks. This technique modifies the percentage of a bank’s deposit that must be set aside.

Output: reserve requirement. Adjusting the reserve requirement can have a drastic effect on the economy. A small increase in the reserve requirement decreases the amount of money banks can lend and thus slows down the economy. The opposite occurs when a decrease in the requirement greatly increases the bank’s lending ability.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The most common tool used by the Fed to influence the money supply is known as ____ _______ operations, in which it uses its power to buy and sell U.S. government bonds.

Output: open market. The Fed can increase or decrease the money supply through its open-market operations. For example, it put cash into circulation and increase the money supply by buying back previously issued government bonds.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Stocks, bonds, options, futures, and commodities are instruments known as __________.

Output: securities. Securities are traded in organized markets where individual and institutional investors can buy and sell them to meet their investment goals.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: When stock certificates are issued to shareholders, they include a ____ ________, a dollar value assigned to the stock primarily for bookkeeping purposes and, in the case of some stocks, for use in calculating dividends.

Output: par value. A stock’s par value differs from both its market value, the price at which a share currently sells, and its book value, the amount of a corporation’s net assets represented by one share of common stock.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The per share value of a stock will decrease when a company announces a _______ ________, increasing the number of shares that each stock certificate represents.

Output: stock split. A company will announce a stock split whenever it wants to make a share price more affordable.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Investing in _____ _____ stocks means purchasing equity from large, well-established companies with consistent records of stock price increases and dividend payments.

Output: blue chip. Conservative investors minimize risk by investing in blue-chip corporations that have a long record of solid earnings and dividends.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: With a bond, the amount borrowed from an investor is known as the __________.

Output: principal. The purchaser of a bond will receive a certificate listing the issuer’s name, the principal, the date this principal amount will be repaid with any due interest, and the annual interest rate investors receive.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Unsecured bonds backed only by the corporation’s reputation are known as ___________.

Output: debentures. Because of the greater risk involved with investing in debentures, investors generally can expect higher interest rates than they would receive with secured bonds.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: When government agencies need to raise money for public services, they often will issue ___________ bonds. The interest on such bonds is exempt from federal income tax and from taxes in the issuing jurisdiction.

Output: Detailed Explanation: municipal. The two types of municipal bonds are general obligation bonds, which are backed by the government’s taxing power, and revenue bonds, which are backed by the money to be generated by the project being financed.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Any difference between the price at which a financial asset is sold and its original cost is called a _________ ______.

Output: capital gain. As in the case with government bonds, generally tax-exempt securities might nevertheless be taxable on any capital gain earned by the investors.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Speculating in ___________ is an extremely risky investment strategy where one invests in raw materials and agricultural products, such as petroleum, gold, coffee beans, pork bellies, beef, and coconut oil.

Output: commodities. Investors sometimes hedge the risk of trading in commodities by investing in trading commodities futures, which guarantee the price of a commodity and protect against violent price swings.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: ___________ investors are companies that invest money entrusted to them by others, such as pension funds, insurance companies, banks, and colleges and universities.

Output: institutional. The U.S. securities market is dominated by institutional investors. Such investors often buy blocks of 10,000 shares or more per transaction, and their investment decisions thus have a major impact on the overall behavior of the securities market.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: For both institutions and individuals, a common strategy to manage their investment portfolio is to shift their investments to adapt them to the current investment environment – a method known as _______ _________.

Output: Asset allocation. Asset allocation balances a portfolio in such a way as to gain the highest rates of return while reducing risks as much as possible.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Besides asset allocation, another way investors reduce the risk of their investment portfolio is through ____________, which invests funds in several different securities in such a way that a loss in one investment will not hurt the entire portfolio.

Output: diversification. Common methods of diversification include investing in securities from unrelated industries or from different countries, or by allocating assets to different investment types (i.e., bonds, stocks, and money-markets).

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Pools of money that are raised from many investors in order to buy a diversified mix of stocks, bonds, or other securities are known as ________ ______.

Output: mutual funds. For investors who want to spread a fixed amount of money over a variety of investments but do not have the time or experience to search out and manage investment opportunities, mutual funds are good investment opportunities.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Whereas newly issued shares are sold to initial investors in the primary market, subsequent investors buy and sell shares in organized secondary markets, known as _____ exchanges.

Output: stock. The stock exchanges, also sometimes called securities exchanges, are those locations where traders buy and sell stocks and bonds. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is the world’s largest and most famous stock exchan

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The New York Stock Exchange is an example of an ________ exchange, a centralized marketplace where securities are traded by specialists on behalf of investors.

Output: auction. Whereas an auction exchange has all trading take place physically on an auction floor, other types of exchanges, known as dealer exchanges, have no central marketplace but rely rather on executing sales through computers. The NASDAQ is a well known example of a dealer exchange.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: In recent years, the ____________ has become an increasingly popular method to invest in stock, using the Internet to link buyers and sellers without using a middleman.

Output: ECN. Sometimes refereed to as virtual stock markets or cybermarkets, electronic communications networks (ECNs) now control approximately a third of all security trades, and that number is growing.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A _________ order gives authorization to a broker to buy or sell securities at the best price that can be negotiated at the moment.

Output: market. A specific type of market order is the limit order, which stipulates the highest or lowest price at which the customer is willing to trade.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Borrowing money from stockbrokers in order to buy stock, paying interest on the borrowed money, and leaving the stock with the broker as collateral is a practice called _________ _________.

Output: margin trading. Although margin trading allows one to purchase stock without paying for it in full, it also increases the risk. If the price of stock purchased on margin falls, the investor must pay the broker even more money, or else the broker will sell the stock.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A _____ ________ is a term to describe a stock market in which stock prices have been rising over a long period.

Output: bull market. A bull market is a rising stock market, as opposed to a bear market. Looking at the timing of such markets is important, since if a certain type of market has lasted for an overly extended period, a reversal of fortunes is likely imminent.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A common method of determining the current strength of a market is to look at indicators called _________ ________, which are based upon the prices of a selection of securities.

Output: market indexes. The two best known U.S. market indexes are the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Average (S&P 500).

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A stock’s _____________ _________ ratio is its current market price divided by issuer’s annual earnings per share.

Output: price earnings. One indicator of a stock’s present status is to compare its price-earnings ratio (p/e ratio) to the industry average. If it is low, than either the company is in trouble or it is a newly emerging company with a relatively low stock price.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A ____________ is any activity or enterprise that provides goods or services to satisfy a society’s needs.

Output: business. Whether a business is for profit or some other motive, it must use the same basic principles of efficiency in order to reach its goals.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Service businesses typically are _______________ intensive, since the investment in labor is usually greater than the costs of capital.

Output: labor. Labor-intensive businesses rely predominantly upon human resources to prosper. Capital-intensive businesses, on the other hand, require large amounts of money or equipment.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Most of the jobs created in the U.S. over the past two decades have been in the ___________ sector.

Output: service. Changing demographics, increasingly technological needs, and the rise of e-commerce are just a few of the factors attributing to the rise of service sector jobs.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: ___________ is the study of how society uses scare resources to produce and distribute goods and services.

Output: economics. Free-market systems and planned systems are the two basic structures most commonly found in economics.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The basic inputs that a society uses to produce goods and services are called ________ of production.

Output: factors. Natural resources, human resources, capital, entrepreneurs, and knowledge are what economists call the five factors of production.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Individuals in a ______ ________ system are free to decide what products to produce and in what quantities.

Output: free market. The lack of government intervention in a free-market system leaves the success or failure of a business up to the individual.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The most common free-market system is called __________, a system based upon eighteenth-century philosophical theories of economic freedom and competition.

Output: capitalism. Philosophers such as Adam Smith developed the theory of capitalism, in which the market’s buyers and sellers determine what is to be produced without any regulations from the government. In modern practice, however, limited intervention from the government is usually necessary in capitalism.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The government controls most of the factors of production and regulates their allocation in a ________ economic system.

Output: planned. One of the main goals of a planned system is social equality.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The planned system that allows individuals the least amount of economic freedom is called ___________. It is a system in which all productive resources are owned and operated by the government.

Output: communism. Communism exists today in such countries as Cuba and North Korea. In such a system, private ownership is limited primarily to personal and household goods.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Though considered a planned system, ___________ actually lies somewhere in between capitalism and communism. In this system, key industries are owned and operated by the government, while less vital industries are privately owned.

Output: socialism. Because government absorbs the costs of medical care, education and other social services in socialism, taxes tend to be high.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Many socialists and communist economies are ______________ some of their government-owned enterprises – a process that is moving them increasingly towards free-market systems.

Output: privatizing. The privatizing process converts public ownership to private ownership. Many countries are attracted to the financial benefits that can come from private ownership, but are not adequately preparing themselves for the transformation to a free-market economy.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: ________ is the buyer’s willingness and ability to purchase products.

Output: demand. In a free-market system, supply and demand regulates the market, determining the the quantity of goods produced and at what price they are sold.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: When graphing a market’s supply and demand for a certain product, the point at which the quantity of goods supplied equals the quantity demanded is called the __________ _______.

Output: equilibrium price. On a graph, supply and demand curves meet at the equilibrium price. It is at this point that the intentions of buyers and sellers interact.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The free-market ideal of _____ __________ is characterized by so many buyers and sellers of a single product existing at once that no single buyer or seller can individually influence market prices.

Output: Pure competition. Pure competition ensures that it is the market interests that regulate supply and demand – not an individual buyer or seller.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: When only one producer of a given product exists in a given market, it is called a ____________.

Output: monopoly. A monopoly enables a producer to determine the price of a product and the quantity it will supply. In most capitalist societies, the governments enact legislation to forbid monopolies.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Most competition in today’s free-market economies is defined as __________ competition, in which many sellers offer products that can be distinguished from competing products in at least some small way.

Output: monopolistic. Pure competition can be rare in free markets. More common is monopolistic competition, where many sellers offer very similar products that are just different enough to distinguish themselves from the competition.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: When the market becomes filled with competitors and products begin to look too similar, companies look for a way to gain a ____________ ____________ over their competitors by performing in one or more ways that competitors cannot match.

Output: competitive advantage. Companies might use price, speed, quality, service, or innovation to gain a competitive advantage over the rest of the market. Although price is one way to compete with others, ensuing price wars can do serious harm to an entire industry. Thus many companies will try to find other ways to gain an advantage instead.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The process of ____________ removes or relaxes government rules and restrictions affecting businesses.

Output: deregulation. Airlines, banks, and telecommunications have all undergone significant deregulation in the past, in hopes that the increased competition will provide consumers with lower prices and improved products or services.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Producing large quantities of similar products allows businesses to achieve economies of _______ – savings gained from manufacturing, marketing, or buying in sizeable quantities.

Output: scale. At the beginning of the twentieth century, growing American businesses achieved economies of scale. As these business increased in size, some of them also grew more powerful and gained control of their industries, thus leading to an increase in government’s antitrust legislation.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A period when national income, employment, and production all fall is called a __________.

Output: recession. A recession usually occurs in response to a variety of factors – including changes in investment patterns, world events, and basic economic forces. The opposite of a recession is a recovery.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The recurrent swings between recession and recovery are known as the __________ _______.

Output: business cycle. The fluctuations of the business cycle are to be expected and are to a degree predictable. Nonetheless, government tries to avoid the hardships caused by such swings through adjusting its fiscal and monetary policy.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The government’s ___________ policy involves the actions taken by the Federal Reserve Board to regulate the nation’s money supply, such as the raising or lowering of interest rates to help control inflation.

Output: monetary. The government’s monetary policy works in conjunction with its fiscal policy (adjustments to government revenue collection and spending) to help minimize the damage done by business cycle fluctuations.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The broadest measure of an economy’s health is a nation’s ______ , which measures a country’s output by computing the sum of all the final goods and services produced by businesses located within a nation’s borders.

Output: GDP. So long as goods are produced within a nation’s boundaries, they are included within a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). This differs from a nation’s gross national product (GNP), which excludes the value of production from any foreign-owned businesses and includes receipts from any domestic company’s overseas operations.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: _________ is the economic condition in which the general price level for goods and services falls steadily throughout the economy.

Output: deflation. Purchasing power increases during deflation, since the falling price level means more can be purchased per dollar than would have been possible before.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: An economic indicator often used to measure the rate of inflation is the _______, which measures changes in the prices of about 400 representative goods and services that consumers buy.

Output: CPI. Measured monthly, the consumer price index (CPI) is often used by businesses to adjust rent increases and to keep employees’ wages aligned with the current cost-of-living rate.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The increasing tendency of the world’s economies to act as a single interdependent system is known as ________________.

Output: globalization. One of the major challenges facing business today is globalization. With financial and product markets being more interconnected than ever before, U.S. businesses now face increased competition in a marketplace that is increasingly unpredictable.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: One of the reasons for the resurgence of the U.S. economy in the late 1990s was the rise in __________, or the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet.

Output: e-commerce. E-commerce utilizes the reach and convenience of the Internet to collapse boundaries and reach new markets around the world. In the e-commerce era, businesses are rapidly redefining their business structures and exploring new ways in which the Internet can maximize customer value.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The faster growth, lower inflation, and technology-driven expansion of the past decade has led to such drastic changes in the economy that it is now being referred to as the ____ ________.

Output: new economy. A decreased concern with physical goods, the loosening of geographic boundaries, and an increased ease of entry into the market are all characteristics of what is being called the new economy.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: ____________ is a system a business uses to measure, interpret, and communicate financial information to support internal and external decision-making.

Output: Accounting. Accounting is used both internally to help management and owners make informed business decisions (management accounting) and also externally to communicate relevant financial information to lenders, investors, and government agencies (financial accounting).

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: All companies with publicly-traded stock are required to undergo regular ________, which evaluate the fairness and reliability of their financial statements.

Output: audits. Only certified public accountants (CPAs) have the authority to conduct audits, during which they determine whether or not a company’s financial statements fairly present the financial position and operating results of the firm.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The _________ principle is a basic accounting principle requiring that expenses incurred in producing revenue be deducted from the revenues they generated during the same accounting period.

Output: matching. The matching principle is a necessary tool in presenting an accurate picture of the profitability of a business. To match revenue to expenses accurately, accountants use the accrual basis – recording revenue at the time the sale is made or the service provided, not when payment is received.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A ________ ________ is a statement of a firm’s financial position on a particular date, freezing all business actions and providing a baseline from which a company can measure change.

Output: balance sheet. Such a statement is called a balance sheet because it shows the balance between assets on one side and liabilities and owners’ equity on the other. Though businesses are ever changing, a balance sheet freezes a business’s financial position as if it were static.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The profitability of an organization over time is revealed in its _________ _________, which records a company’s revenue, expenses, and profits over a specific time period.

Output: income statement. While a balance sheet gives a static picture of a company’s financial position. an income statement records net income or loss over time. Such statements are helpful in evaluating past performance and predicting future behavior.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: In addition to preparing a balance sheet and an income statement, most companies also prepare a statement of _____ _______ to report how much cash the company generated over time and where it went.

Output: cash flow. By looking at its statement of cash flows, a company can determine a sense of its ability to pay its short-term obligations when they become due. Cash flows also help a company analyze how liquid its assets are and what proportion of its assets are fixed.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: Accountants determine a company’s debt to _______________ ratio in order to measure the extent to which it is financed by debt as opposed to invested capital.

Output: equity. The debt-to-equity ratio is calculated by dividing the company’s total liabilities by the total equity. From a lender’s standpoint, a lower ratio is better, since it means the company has very little existing debt.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: The process of ______ ____________ builds an organized central database out of files and databases gathered from various functional areas. It then uses this central database to sort and analyze the information, so that informed recommendations can be made.

Output: data warehousing. . With the increasing complexity of today’s organizations, data warehousing makes it possible to cross-reference vast amounts of data and use the findings to answer intricate, multi-departmental queries.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: More and more organizations are hiring a _______ to oversee and manage the company’s information and information systems.

Output: CIO. The intricacies of turning data into useful information in today’s business world have caused several companies to hire a chief information officer (CIO). It is the CIO’s responsibility to assess a company’s information needs and develop efficient ways to meet them.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: A computer system that provides structured, routine information for managerial decision making is called a ____________ ____________ system.

Output: management information. A variety of management information systems (MISs) exist today that supply information and support to managers for making effective routine decisions. Such systems structure data into useful reports such as monthly sales figures, daily inventory levels, product manufacturing schedules, etc.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: One of the most important issues in business computing today is _____ _______________, or the process of connecting multiple computers and allowing them to send data back and forth.

Output: Data communications. Data communications uses networks to transmit information between users both inside and outside the organization, as well as to connect users to expensive, powerful resources such as supercomputers.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: When a company’s data communications needs encompasses only a small geographic area (such as an office or college campus), then a ________ will likely link the hardware, software, and communications media.

Output: LAN. An intranet is an example of a local area network (LAN). For networks that cover a larger geographic area, a wide area network (WAN) links computers in different places through one of several transmission media.

DSST Intro to Business Flashcards - Cram.com

Exporting. Exporting permits a company to enter a foreign market gradually, with only limited marketing, research, and distribution costs.


Input: [chemoreceptors] medulla oblongata of the brain stem, and also in the carotid bodies (in the neck and aortic bodies in the aorta)

Output: Where are the 2 sets of chemoreceptors that are sensitive to pH?

Respiratory System #1 Flashcards - Cram.com

What are sensory receptors in the body that are sensitive to chemical composition of body fluids?


Input: [chemoreceptors] Because of plasma acidity directly caused by carbon dioxide

Output: Why do you inhale?

Respiratory System #1 Flashcards - Cram.com

What are sensory receptors in the body that are sensitive to chemical composition of body fluids?


Input: [chemoreceptors] When the carbon dioxide entering the blood is sufficient to change blood pH.

Output: What are the chemoreceptors stimulated by?

Respiratory System #1 Flashcards - Cram.com

What are sensory receptors in the body that are sensitive to chemical composition of body fluids?


Input: [chemoreceptors] its ability to from free hydrogen ion when acted upon by carbonic anhydrase

Output: What is increased carbon dioxide due to?

Respiratory System #1 Flashcards - Cram.com

What are sensory receptors in the body that are sensitive to chemical composition of body fluids?


Input: [chemoreceptors] relatively weak

Output: Reduced oxygen levels can cause increased respiration, but how strong is its stimulus?

Respiratory System #1 Flashcards - Cram.com

What are sensory receptors in the body that are sensitive to chemical composition of body fluids?