RESOURCES OF A COMPANY: TYPES AND REAL EXAMPLES - DUDAS - 2025

The resources of a company are all those factors that provide an organization with the necessary means to carry out its activity. These factors can be of any type: people, machinery, money, a specific technology, among others.

These are all items that are used at some point in the production process. Its functions are varied: to be transformed into goods and / or services for the end users, to participate in the previous transformation process and to distribute the goods and / or end services to the end user.

In addition, the resources of a company are used to acquire new resources, to coordinate the rest of the resources and to increase the productivity of the organization.

This type of resources is divided into five groups: human, material, financial, technological and intangible.

Types of business resources

- Human Resources

The most important resource in any organization are people, since they are in charge of controlling the rest of the resources to make the production process work.

For this reason, the skills of the workers and the relationships they have between them are especially significant factors in achieving the success of any business; It does not matter what type of employee they are, since they all participate in some phase of the process. The main characteristics of human resources are the following:

They are not owned by the company

The organization can have control over its materials, its machines, its infrastructures, among others; however, it has no ownership over people. They offer their skills in exchange for financial remuneration.

Your skills are intangible resources

The qualities of each person cannot be measured or weighed. They are only manifested in the development of their functions within the organization, as we will see later.

They coordinate the rest of the resources

Thanks to people, the whole business can be started; without them it would be impossible.

The more knowledge, the better paid

Some human resources are very scarce. Therefore, the more complex the knowledge, the better it must be paid.

Examples

A human resource is any worker in an organization. Human resources encompass the entire staff of the company: from the president to the intern just out of college.

- Financial resources of the company

Simply put, the financial resources of a company are the economic capacity it possesses in all its forms: cash, income, expenses, credits, investments, among others.

Thanks to these resources, the organization will be able to guarantee the implementation of the rest of the resources. Its main features include the following:

They have different shapes

They can be presented as cash, credits, bonds, stocks, among others.

They start up the rest of the resources

They do this through their acquisition or payment: purchase of fixed and variable assets (material resources), payment of salaries (human resources), pay credits (financial resources), develop new technologies (technological resources) or improve the work environment (resources intangibles).

They come from various sources

Financial resources can come from the partners themselves (social capital), from state subsidies, from the sale of products or services, from investor participation or from loans, among other ways.

Its correct management is essential

This is so to be able to correct the expenses of the company. For this, there are systems such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), a technological resource in charge of managing these types of resources in the best possible way.

Examples

Some real examples could be money in the box, in the bank, a loan lent by the bank to finance the purchase of a vehicle, or the shares of the company.

- Material resources

Material resources are made up of all those tangible assets available to the organization, such as machinery, real estate, vehicles, office supplies, computer equipment, raw materials or the warehouse stock. Its most outstanding features are broken down below:

Tangible

This means that they can be seen, touched or measured.

They can be part of the process of creating other resources

This can be done directly (machines, computer equipment, etc.) or indirectly (land, vehicles, etc.).

They support the production process

They can help the production process to be generated in the best possible way (such as the role of stationery or fuel), or they can even be an essential part of the final product (such as raw materials).

Examples

If we take the example of a clothing factory, its physical resources could be the factory itself (property), the machine for making T-shirts (machinery), the delivery van (vehicle) and all the garments available in the warehouse (stock).

- Technological resources

Technology is a very important part of a company's resources. Here are the systems and processes that are part of the activity and that serve to store intangible resources.

These could be IT management systems, the development of proprietary technologies, telephone services, data servers or technology patents, among others. The most relevant characteristics are the following:

- Technological resources store and manage intangible resources.

- Increase the effectiveness of the organization.

- They are usually managed by IT departments (Information Technology).

- Its implementation has a decisive influence on the use of other resources.

Examples

Among the most relevant examples are the famous CRM or CMS (computer management systems), proprietary software created by the company (development of proprietary technologies), or a database management system (RDBMS).

- Intangible resources

While these resources are sometimes left out of the rankings, they are increasingly being taken into account; This is because they are the resources that make the difference between a mediocre company and an effective and successful one.

As their name suggests, these cannot be perceived through the senses; that is, they cannot be touched, seen or measured, which sometimes makes it difficult to manage.

Some of these resources are staff knowledge, trust between employees, brand image, routines that are carried out in the workplace and teamwork. Its main characteristics are:

- They cannot be perceived by the senses.

- Difficult to measure and quantify

- They make the difference between success and failure.

- They can be developed and improved.

- Generally, they have to be combined with other factors to work.

Examples

- Have a multidisciplinary and cohesive team (knowledge, teamwork).

- The existence of full trust among workers, facilitating communication (trust).

- That you have established a flexible and comfortable routine (routines).

- That the brand is seen with good eyes by consumers (brand image).

References

1. LosRcursosHumanos.com (2017). LosRcursosHumanos.com. Obtained from losrecursoshumanos.com
2. Oliveras, E.-F. (sf). group-pya.com. Obtained from blog.grupo-pya.com
3. Miller, GT and S. Spoolman (2011). Living in the Environment: Principles, Connections, and Solutions. Belmont: Brooks, Cole, 17th ed
4. The Balance (2017). Beyond Hiring and Firing: What is HR Management?
5. Mathis, RL; Jackson, JH (2003). Human Resource Management. Thomson.