Cologne

Cologne (English pronunciation: /kəˈloʊn/; German Köln [kœln], Colognian: Kölle [ˈkœɫə]), Germany's fourth-largest city (after Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich), is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region, one of the major European metropolitan regions and the largest in Germany with more than ten million inhabitants.

Cologne is located on both sides of the Rhine River, less than eighty kilometres from Belgium. The city's famous Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) is the seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Cologne. The University of Cologne (Universität zu Köln) is one of Europe's oldest and largest universities.

Cologne was founded and established in Ubii territory in the first century AD as the Roman Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, from which it gets its name. "Cologne", the French version of the city's name, has become standard in English as well. The city functioned as the capital of the Roman province of Germania Inferior and as the headquarters of the Roman military in the region until occupied by the Franks in 462. During the Middle Ages it flourished on one of the most important major trade routes between east and west in Europe. Cologne was one of the leading members of the Hanseatic League and one of the largest cities north of the Alps in medieval and Renaissance times. Up until World War II the city had undergone several occupations by the French and also by the British (1918-1926). Cologne was one of the most heavily-bombed cities in Germany during World War II, the Royal Air Force (RAF) dropping 34,711 long tons of bombs on the city. The bombing reduced the population by 95%, mainly due to evacuation, and destroyed almost the entire city. With the intention of restoring as many historic buildings as possible, the successful postwar rebuilding has resulted in a very mixed and unique cityscape.

Business

A business, also known as an enterprise, agency or a firm, is an entity involved in the provision of goods and/or services to consumers. Businesses are prevalent in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and provide goods and services to customers in exchange for other goods, services, or money. Businesses may also be social not-for-profit enterprises or state-owned public enterprises targeted for specific social and economic objectives. A business owned by multiple individuals may be formed as an incorporated company or jointly organised as a partnership. Countries have different laws that may ascribe different rights to the various business entities.

Business can refer to a particular organization or to an entire market sector, e.g. "the music business". Compound forms such as agribusiness represent subsets of the word's broader meaning, which encompasses all activity by suppliers of goods and services. The goal is for sales to be more than expenditures resulting in a profit.

German language

German (Deutsch [ˈdɔʏtʃ]) is a West Germanic language that derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. A portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. Languages which are most similar to German include Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, the continental Scandinavian languages and Luxembourgish. A Germanophone is a speaker of the German language either natively or by preference.

German is the most widely spoken (and official) language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Italian province of South Tyrol (Italian: Alto Adige) and Liechtenstein; it is also an official, but not majority language of Belgium and Luxembourg. With slightly different standardized variants (German, Austrian, and Swiss Standard German), German is a pluricentric language. German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. Due to the limited intelligibility between certain varieties and Standard German, as well as the lack of an undisputed, scientific difference between a "dialect" and a "language", some German varieties or dialect groups (e.g. Low German/Plautdietsch) are alternatively referred to as "languages" and "dialects".

Business administration

Business administration is the process of managing a business or non-profit organization, so that it remains stable and continues to grow.

The administration of a business includes the performance or management of business operations and decision making, as well as the efficient organization of people and other resources, to direct activities toward common goals and objectives.

In general, administration refers to the broader management function, including the associated finance, personnel and MIS services.

Management

Management in businesses and organizations is the function that coordinates the efforts of people to accomplish goals and objectives by using available resources efficiently and effectively.

Management includes planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization to accomplish the goal or target. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources. Management is also an academic discipline, a social science whose objective is to study social organization.

Etymology

The English verb "manage" comes from the Italian maneggiare (to handle, especially tools), which derives from the two Latin words manus (hand) and agere (to act).

The French word for housekeeping, ménagerie, derived from ménager ("to keep house"; compare ménage for "household"), also encompasses taking care of domestic animals. The French word mesnagement (or ménagement) influenced the semantic development of the English word management in the 17th and 18th centuries.