ACTIVITY 1

Activity 1

Activity 1

Activity 1.3 - What is a business?

A business (company, enterprise or firm) is a legally recognized organization designed to provide goods and/or services to consumers, businesses and governmental entities. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies. Most businesses are privately owned. A business is typically formed to earn profit that will increase the wealth of its owners and grow the business itself. The owners and operators of a business have as one of their main objectives the receipt or generation of a financial return in exchange for work and acceptance of risk. Notable exceptions include cooperative enterprises and state-owned enterprises. Businesses can also be formed not-for-profit or be state-owned.

Five keywords

Goods and services to consumers

State-owned enterprises

Financial return in exchange for work

Organization providing goods

Market sector

Activity 1.4 - Private, public and third sector

Private Sector (Retail)

Kingfisher plc

Public sector(local)

KPMG

Third sector organization

NAVCA

Activity 1.5 - Private, public and third sector key website

Kingfisher plc

Kingfisher plc (LSE: KGF) is a UK-based international retailer, which has owned a wide variety of retail chains in its history but is now focused on the DIY business. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

As one of the world's leading home improvement retailers, Kingfisher is in a unique position to help consumers make their homes more sustainable at lower cost. At the same time, we aim to make our own business more sustainable by reducing our environmental and social impacts.( Buckley, 1995 24)

This is what Kingfisher's Future Homes strategy is all about: helping customers, employees and suppliers make the homes of the future more sustainable and affordable.

Based in London, Kingfisher plc is a major European retailing and property group. Its U.K. retail chains include Woolworths, a variety chain of 781 shops; B&Q, a chain of 280 do-it-yourself (DIY) centers; Superdrug, a chain of 705 drug stores; and Comet, a chain of 224 electrical stores. Foreign chains owned by Kingfisher include three retailers of electrical goods: 150-unit Darty, France's leading electrical retailer; New Vanden Borre, with 19 units in Belgium; and BCC, with 17 stores in the Netherlands. Kingfisher also holds a 60 percent stake in Promarkt, an electrical retailer in Germany, and a 26 percent stake in BUT, the fourth largest electrical retailer in France. Two smaller U.K. businesses round out the company's retailing operations: Music and Video Club (MVC), a 34-unit chain selling music CDs and cassettes, pre-recorded videos, and multimedia items; and Entertainment UK, a leading distributor of music CDs and cassettes, pre-recorded videos, video games, CD-ROM computer software, and books. Kingfisher's Chartwell Land plc unit is a property company that started by redeveloping the Woolworth properties and has diversified into redeveloping properties of other companies both in and outside of the group and also manages an investment portfolio.

Kingfisher originated as a subsidiary of F.W. Woolworth & Co. of the United States. The American company was founded in 1879. The company's founder, Frank Winfield Woolworth, identified the potential for a walk-around open display type of shop in ...