Core and Secondary Functions of an Organisation
Understanding how a business works begins with knowing its purpose. Every company has core and secondary functions—and whether you’re in office administration, learning how to start a business, knowing the difference is essential for success.
What Are Core Functions of an Organisation?
Core functions are the essential activities that a business must perform to deliver its products or services. These are the functions that directly contribute to revenue and customer satisfaction.
Examples of core functions include:
Product or service development
Marketing and sales
Operations or service delivery
Customer service
These are the heart of the organisation—without them, the business cannot survive or grow.
Why Understanding These Functions Matters for Future Business Owners
If you’re learning how to start a business, you’ll need to juggle both core and secondary functions. Understanding them helps you:
Focus on what’s essential when resources are limited
Decide what to handle in-house and what to outsource
Build a balanced team with the right roles
Communicate your structure clearly to partners and funders
Knowing how each function contributes to success helps you manage better and scale faster.
What You’ll Learn in This Course
This course is designed for young professionals, entrepreneurs, and future office leaders. You’ll walk away with the ability to:
Define and distinguish between core and secondary functions
Identify key departments and their responsibilities
Apply this knowledge to real-world admin and business settings
Use your communication skills to explain business structures clearly
Meet learning outcomes in alignment with FASSET’s training goal
Overview
This unit standard provides an understanding of the core and support functions of an organisation.
Description
This unit standard provides an understanding of the core and support functions of an organisation. This unit standard is intended for junior managers of organisations. The qualifying learner is capable of explaining the various core functions of an organisation, explaining the support functions of an organisation, explaining the role of a selected work unit in an organisation, in relation to the core business, investigating, explaining the difference between line and support functions in an organisation.
- The concept of core business is explained, with examples
- The relationships between the different core activities of an organization are described, with examples
- A value-adding process within an organization is explained, with examples
- The various activities of an organization are identified, with examples
- The work done in three different activities is explained, with examples
- The function of the selected work unit within an organization is explained, in relation to the core business
- The value-adding contribution that the work unit adds to the organization is identified, with examples
- The inter-relationship between work units in achieving organizational objectives is explained
- The concept of line and support functions is explained with examples
- The relationship between a line and support function is explained, with reference to own work unit
- Non-accredited: Short course only
- Duration: 1h 30m
- Delivery: Classroom/Online/Blended
- Access Period: 12 Months
