Conclusion

Through this free course, Commercial awareness, you have considered the internal environment of your organisation, thinking of that organisation as a complex entity full of interrelationships and interactions. You have built on – and in part critiqued – the idea of a ‘value chain’ running through the organisation, because although ‘value’ is a concept of central importance to becoming commercially aware, it is a connected network of agents (not a simple chain) who together create the ‘added value’ an organisation generates. In developing maps of your organisation and your communication network, you have located yourself within a complex picture. Such complexity can throw up challenges and barriers to developing commercial awareness but in generating a richer idea of what your organisation is, this course has put you in a more commercially aware state: you have a better appreciation of the value your business generates and the contributions you make to that value.