A business activity is an action that is carried out in an organization to make a profit.
The Latin term activĭtas derived from activity , a concept that in our language can be used to name an action or a function carried out by a subject or an institution. Business , for its part, is an adjective that refers to what is linked to a company (an organization that carries out commercial or industrial tasks for profit).
Known as business activity , therefore, are the actions that a company develops to obtain profits . Business activities are very diverse and depend on the characteristics of each organization.
What is a business activity
In its broadest sense, business activities are all those activities carried out by a company with the objective of producing and marketing the goods or services that allow it to generate income . In this sense, the tasks carried out internally to manage its capital and to organize material and human resources are also part of business activities.
Let's take the case of a company that sells canned fish . Among its business activities, we can mention the capture of fish, cold storage, processing, packaging and finally its distribution. All these processes are essential for the preserves to reach consumers through markets, stores, etc. If we focus on the economic activity of this company, we could say that it carries out a secondary economic activity (it not only obtains the raw materials , but also processes it). Due to the type of activities it carries out, on the other hand, the company belongs to the fishing industry .
Business activities are very diverse.
The Mexican Income Tax Law
Since there is no rigid definition of this concept, to further explore its scope we will focus on an article of the Mexican Income Tax Law , where business activity is defined as the set of actions that generate income, and It includes agricultural, industrial, forestry ( forestry is the cultivation of mountains or forests) and livestock, in addition to the aforementioned fishing.
In this same article, six examples are listed, where we can understand in more detail what we should understand by business activity:
* commerce , in accordance with the provisions of federal laws, which give it that specific character and distinguish it from the activities mentioned below;
* any industrial activity that focuses on the conservation, transformation or extraction of raw materials, the production and finishing of articles for subsequent marketing;
* the sowing, cultivation and harvesting, as well as the first disposal of all the products obtained in said processes , provided that they are not subjected to any type of industrial alteration;
* all livestock activity, that is, the breeding of animals that humans exploit for food and clothing, for example, such as cows, sheep, goats and poultry. Just as in the case of agriculture, for livestock farming to be considered a business activity, it must include the entire process up to the point at which industrial transformations begin;
* fishing, which also contemplates the control of the reproduction of those species necessary for trade, through various measures;
* forestry activity. At this point we must also include the breeding, restoration and conservation of mountains and forests, as well as any movement that encourages these actions.