A business administrator is responsible for overseeing the daily operations of an organization, no matter what kind of business it is. Business administrators may work in various roles, from managing a single department to taking on executive responsibilities for the entire company.
This position is required in many organizations, including businesses, non-profits, government entities, healthcare organizations and educational institutions.
Business administrators are familiar with many different aspects related to managing a business, such as economics, marketing, finances, human resource management and management.
What is a business administrator?
Business administrators are responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of a company. Depending on the organization, these duties may include developing and implementing strategies and policies, supervising staff and budgeting, among other tasks.
You could be working in a management role such as corporate executive, general manager, operations manager or financial manager. As a business administrator, you actively manage the business, carrying out tasks such as analyzing operations to discover opportunities for improvement.
Additionally, you will formulate development plans, create and implement optimized processes, negotiate business contracts and agreements and find ways to cut costs.
Where can a business administrator work?
Business administrators work in a variety of fields, from retail and hospitality to finance, health care, logistics, supply chain management, marketing, sales and information technology. As a business administrator, you may specialize in human resources, project management, accounting or operations.
There are plenty of job vacancies for highly qualified business administrators — ranging from small and medium-sized companies to large corporations and international businesses. As business administration opens up such a wide variety of career opportunities, narrow your search for a career by exploring jobs that match your interests and passions.
Skills of business administrators
Financial management
Business administrators must possess excellent financial management abilities to effectively manage the business’s finances and promote sales growth. They also assess profit-and-loss statements and devise budgetary plans.
Strong financial management knowledge can aid business administrators in carrying out their responsibilities and better comprehending what the business needs to do to thrive.
Communication skills
Excellent written and oral communication skills are required in this role. Business administrators communicate daily with various stakeholders, such as colleagues, executive personnel and clients. They often need to speak over the phone and have face-to-face meetings to discuss business matters or gauge customers’ needs.
Business administrators may also use email or reports to share information about different aspects of the business with others.
Organizational skills
Business administrators must have strong organizational abilities as they frequently juggle numerous duties. To improve this skill, you can make a to-do list ranked according to priority or block out time in your calendar to ensure you have time to complete your tasks.
Organizing yourself can make it simpler to make it to meetings punctually and locate paperwork and documents quickly.
To improve your organizational skills, online MBA programs such as those offered by a reputable institution, like St. Bonaventure University, will help you gain proficiency in essential business competencies to stay competitive. The curriculum at SBU resembles the world where business activities interact, enabling you to gain cross-disciplinary knowledge.
Offered 100% online, this flexible program enables students to gain essential business skills before focusing on business analytics, finance or marketing. Alternatively, students can select the general MBA track, which involves classes from all three disciplines.
Problem-solving skills
Issues are frequently encountered during the course of running a business. With solid problem-solving abilities, business administrators can develop creative solutions that help reduce the disruption to normal business activities.
It is essential that these professionals determine the source of the issue, evaluate potential solutions and set up processes to keep the problem from recurring.
What does a business administrator do?
Maintaining records and reports
Maintaining records and reports entails collecting data from internal and external sources and organizing and tracking information in databases and records systems. The administrator will analyze this information to determine trends, identify areas of improvement and measure progress.
They will also use the records to help make strategic decisions and inform stakeholders such as customers, suppliers and executive leadership. Keeping meticulous records and reports is essential for a business to remain compliant with regulations, understand its financials and ensure successful operations.
Managing human resources
Managing human resources includes overseeing the recruitment, training and development of employees. It may consist of writing job descriptions and posting job openings, interviewing potential candidates, onboarding new employees and helping structure positive and thriving work environments based on company values.
Additionally, business administrators in human resources are responsible for managing payroll, benefits, employee discipline and employee complaints and concerns. They are responsible for overseeing the organization’s performance management program, setting goals for the department and creating compensation and incentive plans.
Handling customer service
As a business administrator, customer service is one of the most critical aspects of the job. It involves understanding customers’ needs and dealing with any requests, complaints or queries they may have.
Business administrators may manage customer service inquiries, respond to customer complaints and ensure the customer’s experience is pleasant and satisfactory. It may include contacting customers through emails, telephone calls and other communication platforms.
The administrator may also provide technical support to customers and must be able to resolve any issues quickly and effectively. Good customer service skills are fundamental to any business, and a thriving business administrator must be knowledgeable and have excellent communication skills.
Implementing strategies and systems
Business administrators help implement strategies and systems to help an organization achieve its goals. This includes setting up, coordinating and managing systems to ensure they function correctly and work towards the organization’s success.
Systems may include organizational structures, decision-making processes and communication methods. Additionally, business administrators develop and implement strategies for improvement, such as investments, cost savings initiatives, innovation and efficiency.
They analyze data, identify improvement areas and develop plans and processes that support the organization’s strategic objectives. These activities are necessary for businesses to function and achieve their goals successfully.
Facilitating meetings
A business administrator facilitates meetings by setting up an environment and structure within which the participants can successfully and productively communicate. This may include ensuring the meeting room has all the necessary facilities and resources, such as a whiteboard, pens, paper and audio-visual capabilities.
As the facilitator, the business administrator also prepares the agenda and determines the overall goals and objectives of the meeting. The administrator may also help guide the meeting flow, ensure everyone is on track, maintain positive communication and resolve potential conflicts. In addition, the business administrator is typically responsible for creating and distributing meeting minutes to all attendees.
Monitoring financials
Monitoring financials involves regularly reviewing financial statements, such as income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements, to identify company financial position changes.
It also involves monitoring and analyzing trends in sales, overhead costs and profitability to ensure that the firm runs efficiently. In addition, the business administrator will review internal and external financial audits, provide economic forecasts and projections and assess financial risk.
The business administrator will meet with management regularly to discuss the business’s financial health, including any necessary adjustments to the budget or strategies.
How do business administrators contribute to a company’s success?
Streamlining operations
Streamlining operations allows business administrators to help a company improve its efficiency and effectiveness. This involves analyzing current processes and identifying ways to increase their speed, accuracy and cost-effectiveness.
Streamlined operations lead to better customer service, improved employee morale and increased revenue. The processes often involve reducing the steps required to complete a task, creating “best practices” to ensure consistency and utilizing technology.
Business administrators can reduce costs, improve customer service and increase productivity by introducing streamlined operations.
Improving communication
Improved communication is one way that business administrators are beneficial as they can help ensure that information is accurately conveyed throughout the organization. Communication ensures that everyone is up-to-date and aware of any changes in the business.
It helps ensure that resources are efficiently used and can prevent potential misunderstandings or problems before they arise. Additionally, improved communication can help business administrators obtain staff feedback to identify any changes needed to improve operations and enhance productivity.
It also benefits the organization in the long run as it helps develop an effective and productive team that can work together more efficiently.
Optimizing efficiency
Business administrators ensure that organizational resources are wisely used to maximize effectiveness and profitability. They oversee planning, budgeting, staffing and resource allocation to ensure processes run smoothly and efficiently.
Administrators work to identify potential waste and inefficiency areas, making changes and improvements when necessary. They provide guidance and training to staff to improve their skills and optimize operations.
Ultimately, business administrators help organizations to save money and time while still delivering high-quality results.
Enhancing skillsets
Business administrators’ responsibilities range from managing finances and personnel to overseeing customer service and marketing activities. Enhancing their skillsets can lead to several benefits in the workplace, such as improved decision-making, increased collaboration and enhanced customer service.
With the proper training, business administrators can help improve the business’s profitability and productivity. For example, they can be trained to identify and rectify customer service, financial management and public relations issues.
They can also be trained to evaluate personnel performance and develop strategies to streamline operations. With enhanced skills, business administrators can help ensure that the organization meets its goals and objectives effectively and on time.
Bridging gaps
Bridging gaps is a concept used in business to identify and bridge the differences between desired outcomes and current results, performance and goals. Business administrators help to bridge gaps as they are able to recognize the underlying causes and identify opportunities to fill in the gaps between current results and desired outcomes.
This helps businesses to improve their performance and to avoid costly mistakes. By increasing collaboration and engagement with stakeholders, business administrators can facilitate the development of new strategies, approaches and processes.
In addition, they can monitor progress and provide a platform for communication and feedback to support improvements. Business administrators are also essential in developing and implementing policy and procedure changes to ensure that operations and performance continue to meet the desired goals.
Maximizing resources
Business administrators can efficiently and effectively utilize the resources at their disposal, leading to greater productivity and success for the business. A business administrator’s knowledge about allocating resources, developing strategies and maximizing resources is a powerful tool.
By maximizing resources, they can help to improve efficiencies and save money, allowing for the reallocation of these resources to other areas of the business and initiatives. Additionally, a business administrator can help identify gaps in resources or operations and recommend new tactics and strategies to close them.
An effective business administrator is a great asset to the business as their ability to maximize resources helps increase the overall productivity and success of the company.
Improving customer satisfaction
Business administrators have the skills, knowledge and experience to help improve customer satisfaction. They analyze customer data to identify pain points, develop customer service strategies to address those issues and measure customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Business administrators can use customer data to uncover customer behavior trends to inform better customer service practices. They can also use customer feedback to improve quality control and customer experiences.
Administrators may also help to identify opportunities to increase customer retention and loyalty. Finally, they can monitor customer interactions with the company and its products to help maintain customer satisfaction.
Enhancing staff morale
Enhancing staff morale and productivity is another way that business administrators contribute to a company’s success through their efforts. They can create an environment of mutual respect, trust and collaboration by managing the day-to-day operations and meeting staff needs.
This will help create a positive working atmosphere where employees feel supported and appreciated. By setting realistic goals and providing proper feedback and recognition when goals are met, business administrators can incentivize staff to put in their best effort and stay motivated. This contributes to staff morale and helps employees feel valued and encouraged.
Final thoughts
Business administrators help coordinate and manage businesses to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. They are also responsible for managing budgets, developing organizational policies and resolving any issues between departments.
There is no doubt that business administrators are an integral part of the success of any business. Business administrators can be valuable to any organization due to their extensive business knowledge, ability to analyze data and trends and excellent organizational and communication skills.