Year 12 & 13 Course Modules - 3.1 What is Business?
- Why businesses exist
- The relationship between mission and objectives
- Common business objectives
- Why businesses set objectives
- The measurement and importance of profit
- Reasons for choosing different forms of business and for changing business form
- The role of shareholders and why they invest
- Influences on share price and the significance of share price changes
- The effects of ownership on mission, objectives, decisions and performance
- How the external environment can affect costs and demand
Year 12 & 13 Course Modules - 3.2 Managers, leadership and decision making
- The value of decision making based on data (scientific decision making) and on intuition
- The use and value of decision trees in decision making
- Influences on decision making
- The need to consider stakeholder needs when making decisions
- Stakeholder needs and the possible overlap and conflict of these needs
- Influences on the relationship with stakeholders
- How to manage the relationship with different stakeholders
Year 12 & 13 Course Modules - 3.3 Decision making to improve marketing performance
- The value of setting marketing objectives
- External and internal influences on marketing objectives and decisions
- The value of primary and secondary marketing research
- The value of sampling
- The interpretation of marketing data
- The value of technology in gathering and analysing data for marketing decision making
- The interpretation of price and income elasticity of demand data
- The value of the concepts of price and income elasticity of demand to marketing decision makers
- The use of data in marketing decision making and planning
- The process and value of segmentation, targeting and positioning
- Influences on choosing a target market and positioning
- The elements of the marketing mix (7Ps)
- The influences on and effects of changes in the elements of the marketing mix
- Product decisions
- Pricing decisions
- Decisions about the promotional mix
- Distribution (place) decisions
- Decisions relating to other elements of the marketing mix: people process and physical environment
- The importance of and influences on an integrated marketing mix
- Understanding the value of digital marketing and e-commerce
Year 12 & 13 Course Modules - 3.4 Decision making to improve operational performance
- The value of setting operational objectives
- External and internal influences on operational objectives and decisions
- Interpretation of operations data
- Calculation of operations data
- The use of data in operational decision making and planning
- The importance of capacity
- The importance of efficiency and labour productivity
- How to increase efficiency and labour productivity
- The benefits and difficulties of lean production
- Difficulties increasing efficiency and labour productivity
- How to choose the optimal mix of resources
- How to utilise capacity efficiently
- How to use technology to improve operational efficiency
- The importance of quality
- Methods of improving quality
- The benefits and difficulties of improving quality
- The consequences of poor quality
- Ways and value of improving flexibility, speed of response and dependability
- How to manage supply to match demand and the value of doing so
- Influences on the amount of inventory held
- Influences on the choice of suppliers
- How to manage the supply chain effectively and efficiently and the value of this
- The value of outsourcing
Year 12 & 13 Course Modules - 3.5 Decision making to improve financial performance
- The value of setting financial objectives
- The distinction between cash flow and profit
- The distinction between gross profit, operating profit and profit for the year
- Revenue, costs and profit objectives
- Cash flow objectives
- Objectives for investment (capital expenditure) levels
- Capital structure objectives
- External and internal influences on financial objectives and decisions
- How to construct and analyse budgets and cash flow forecasts
- The value of budgeting
- How to construct and interpret break-even charts
- How to calculate and illustrate on a break-even chart the effects of changes in price, output and cost
- The value of break-even analysis
- How to analyse profitability
- How to analyse timings of cash inflows and outflows
- The use of data for financial decision making and planning
- Internal and external sources of finance
- Advantages and disadvantages of different sources of finance for short- and long-term uses
- Methods of improving cash flow
- Methods of improving profits and profitability
- Difficulties improving cash flow and profit
Year 12 & 13 Course Modules - 3.6 Decision making to improve human resource performance
- The value of setting human resource objectives
- Internal and external influences on human resource objectives and decisions
- Calculating and interpreting human resource data
- The use of data for human resource decision making and planning
- Influences on job design
- Influences on organisational design
- Influences on delegation, centralisation and decentralisation
- The value of changing job and organisational design
- How managing the human resource flow helps meet human resource objectives
- The benefits of motivated and engaged employees
- How to improve employee engagement and motivation
- The value of theories of motivation
- The use of financial methods of motivation
- The use of non-financial methods of motivating employees
- Influences on the choice and assessment of the effectiveness of financial and non-financial reward systems
- Influences on the extent and methods of employee involvement in decision making
- How to manage and improve employer-employee communications and relations
- Value of good employer-employee relations
Year 12 & 13 Course Modules - 3.7 Analysing the strategic position of a business
- Influences on the mission of a business
- Internal and external influences on corporate objectives and decisions
- The distinction between strategy and tactics
- The links between mission, corporate objectives and strategy
- The impact of strategic decision making on functional decision making
- The value of SWOT analysis
- How to assess the financial performance of a business using balance sheets, income statements and financial ratios
- The value of financial ratios when assessing performance
- How to analyse data other than financial statements to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a business
- The importance of core competences
- Assessing short- and long-term performance
- The value of different measures of assessing business performance
- The impact of changes in the political and legal environment on strategic and functional decision making
- The impact of changes in the UK and the global economic environment on strategic and functional decision making
- Reasons for greater globalisation of business
- The importance of globalisation for business
- The importance of emerging economies for business
- The impact of the social and technological environment on strategic and functional decision making
- The pressures for socially responsible behaviour
- Porter’s five forces, how and why these might change, and the implications of these forces for strategic and functional decision making and profits
- Financial methods of assessing an investment
- Factors influencing investment decisions
- The value of sensitivity analysis
Year 12 & 13 Course Modules - 3.8 Choosing strategic direction
- Factors influencing which markets to compete in and which products to offer
- The reasons for choosing and value of different options for strategic direction
- How to compete in terms of benefits and price
- Influences on the choice of a positioning strategy
- The value of different strategic positioning strategies
- The benefits of having a competitive advantage
- The difficulties of maintaining a competitive advantage
Year 12 & 13 Course Modules - 3.9 Strategic methods: how to pursue strategies
- The reasons why businesses grow or retrench
- The difference between organic and external growth
- How to manage and overcome the problems of growth or retrenchment
- The impact of growth or retrenchment on the functional areas of the business
- Assessing methods and types of growth
- The pressures for innovation
- The value of innovation
- The ways of becoming an innovative organisation
- How to protect innovation and intellectual property
- The impact of an innovation strategy on the functional areas of the business
- Reasons for targeting, operating in and trading with international markets
- Factors influencing the attractiveness of international markets
- Reasons for producing more and sourcing more resources abroad
- Ways of entering international markets and value of different methods
- Influences on buying, selling and producing abroad
- Managing international business including pressures for local responsiveness and pressures for cost reduction
- The impact on internationalisation for the functional areas of the business
- The pressures to adopt digital technology
- The value of digital technology
- The impact of digital technology on the functional areas of the business
Year 12 & 13 Course Modules - 3.10 Managing strategic change
- Causes of and pressures for change
- The value of change
- The value of a flexible organisation
- The value of managing information and knowledge
- Barriers to change
- How to overcome barriers to change
- The importance of organisational culture
- The influences on organisational culture
- The reasons for and problems of changing organisational culture
- How to implement strategy effectively
- The value of leadership in strategic implementation
- The value of communications in strategic implementation
- The importance of organisational structure in strategic implementation
- The value of network analysis in strategic implementation
- Difficulties of strategic decision making and implementing strategy
- Planned vs emergent strategy
- Reasons for strategic drift
- The possible effect of the divorce between ownership and control
- Evaluating strategic performance
- The value of strategic planning
- The value of contingency planning
