What is Business?
This topic will incorporate as to why businesses exist, the relationship between mission and objectives, why businesses set objectives/aims, measuring various mathematical calculations such as revenue, fixed, variable and total costs and how the external environment can affect costs and demand. The students will have a quantitative workbook to help practice mathematical calculations and will also have the opportunity to answer an extended written question on a case study of BP and to what extent should they think about cost minimisation/profit maximisation is more important than being environmentally responsible for a multinational business.
Managers, Leadership & Decision Making
Pupils will get to learn about the distinction between management and leadership, influences on differing leadership styles. the value of decision making based on scientific data and intuition and how stakeholders can impact certain decision making processes. Students will have an end of topic series of extended questions to answer from including researching a case study on Hitachi and being given the opportunity to tackle a 25-mark question on whether it is impossible for a business to satisfy all stakeholders when making a major decision.
Marketing Management
Students should consider how developments in technology are affecting marketing decision making and activities, ethical and environmental influences on marketing decisions, understanding the market conditions (7 P’s) and competition, how marketing decisions help improve competitiveness and the interrelationship between marketing decisions and other functions. Students will have the opportunity to answer a series of past exam questions on the topic of marketing management, one of which will be a 16-mark question on whether Sony was right to use the pricing strategy of price skimming on the launch of the PlayStation 5.
Operational Management
Students will be considering how developments in technology affect decision making and activities in operation, the value of setting operational objectives, the importance of efficiency, the benefits and difficulties of lean production, how to manage supply to match demand and the influences on the amount of inventory held. Pupils will have a series of questions to answer on the topic of operational management including a 25-mark question on why the Co-Op became such a large farmer and its effect on competitiveness.
Financial Management
Students will consider the value of setting financial objectives, the distinction between cash flow and profit, how to construct and analyse budgets, profitability and break-even charts whilst also being able to understand the advantages and disadvantages of different sources of finance for both short and long term uses. Students will have to answer a whole range of mathematical questions that will challenge their numerical problem-solving skills whilst also answering a 16-mark question on justifying whether a sports equipment store should open new stores to improve profitability.
Human Resource Management
Pupils will consider the value of setting human resource objectives, calculating and interpreting human resource data, differing models of organisational structure, benefits of motivated employees, learning links between mission, corporate objectives and strategy and the impact of the social and technological environment on strategic and functional decision making. Students will have a series of extended written questions to answer on the topic of human resource management with the 25-mark question focusing on answering whether it is inevitable that all businesses will seek to replace large numbers of employees with technology.