For student

1. INTRODUCTION
Business
Studies

2. Syllabus
1. Business and its environment • Business structure
• Size of business
• Business objectives
• Stakeholdersin a business
2. People in organisations • Management and leadership
• Motivation
• Human resource management
3. Marketing • What is marketing?
• Market research
• The marketing mix
4. Operations and project management • The nature of operations
• Operations planning
• Inventory management
5. Finance and accounting • The need for business finance
• Sourcesof finance
• Costs
• Accounting fundamentals
• Forecasting cash flows and managing working capital
6. Strategic management • [No topics at AS Level]

3. Assessments

4. Purpose of business activity
 Identify and satisfy the needs and wants of people
 Need –essential for survival; want- desires (Luxuries)
 Make use of resources/fop- inputs required by a business
 Overall aim of earning profit (revenue-cost)
 Produce goods/services
 Consumer goods and capital goods? (tangible- you can
touch)
 Types of consumer goods? Durable (last over a period of
time) and non durable (intangible) (don’t last.
Perishable)
 Consumer services?

5. Resources/ FOP
 Land: land itself and its resources both (sea and
land)
 Labour: Manual and skilled workforce
 Capital: not just finance but all the man-made
resources example? Machinery, tools and equipment
 Enterprise: combines other fop into one unit.
Managing, decision making, coordination & risk
taking

6. Nature of economic activity
 Business activity involves concept of creating
value/adding value
 Involves selling goods/services at a higher price than the
cost of materials
 To add extra features to a product or process it further
 The customer is willing to pay more after the “value
addition”
 Value added= selling price – cost of raw material (not all
the costs)
 Native communities would exist otherwise (hunters and
gatherers)

7. What a business needs to succeed
 Factors of production including Finance (capital)
 Planning
 Contacts
 Customers
 Suppliers

8. Economic problem
 Needs and wants difference
 Limited resources  unlimited wants
 Scarcity  wants are unlimited but the resources
rrequired to satisfy the wants are limited
 Applies to rich and poor both
 Cant satisfy all needs and wants therfore choices
are required
 How to make a choice? prioritize
 Including government, businesses, workers
 Opportunity cost- next best alternative foregone

9. Entrepreneur
Qualities?
• Innovation
• Good planner and organizer
• Commitment and self motivation
• Multi-skilled –make, promote, sell and keep accounts
• Leadership skills and motivate workforce
• Self confidence
• Risk taking
• Optimist
• Charismatic
• Ability to bounce back

10. Entrepreneur: Challenges?
• Identification of successful business opportunities
Where does the idea come from?
-own skills/hobbies
-previous employment
-conferences and exhibitions
-market research
• Finance
-lack of own finance
-unaware of grants and financial support
-no trading record for banks, higher ir
-business plan that does not convince a potential investor
• Location
-work from home
-Not close to potential market
-cause family tension
• Competition and building customer base
-already existing consumers
-personal customer care
-pre/after sales service

11. Why business fails?
 Lack of record keeping/ planning
accurate and up to date records
soft and hard copy back up should be done
 Lack of funds :cash and working capital (day to day transactions)
cash flow forecast (inflows and outflows of cash)
inject sufficient cash
establish good relations with the banks
 Lack of expertise/skills
leadership, management, planning, decision making, coordinating,
marketing, sales
 Changes in business environment as Business environment is dynamic
: Everything is changing ( demand doesn't stay the same . Fashions
changes)
 Economic changes e.g inflation ( demand decreases and purchasing
power of people decreases)
 Production/technical (techniques might be outdated)
 Competition’s behavior (try to drive you out of biz)
 Employees’ demands ( demanding higher wages)
 Legal changes (rules, regulations and law)

12. 3 sectors in business activity
 Primary sector: extraction of resources or involves changing
natural resources into primary products
Examples: Fishing, Mining, Farming, Forestry
 Secondary sector: converts the primary goods into manufactured
goods
Examples: Construction, Textile production, Processing
 Tertiary sector is the service industry.
Examples: Banking, Hair cutting, Teaching
Industrialization – moving from primarysecondary sector. Takes
place in the developing world
De-industrialization- moving from secondarytertiary sector.
Developed world

13. 4 imp roles of the govt
 Economic growth measured by an increase in GDP
(gross domestic product) output produced by a country
in a given year in a given time period
 Employment generation. Will give them income and
increase consumption/ demand in the economy. Govt
will not have to spend on unemployment benefits
 BOP(balance of Payments)+ve- (X>M) & -ve(M>X). +ve
will attract foreign exchange inwards and vice versa
 Control inflation- sustained and persistent increase in
general price level in the economy

14. Role of businesses in the development of a
country
 provide employment
 Economic growth/ increase the GDP/output of the
country
 Improved standard of living
 Increase consumption by satisfying the needs and wants
of the people
 Increased taxes for the government revenue
 Innovation and technological change
 Exports
 bring foreign currency if the products are sold outside
the country
 Personal development and Social cohesion

15. Social enterprises
 They operate for the well being of the society
 Not charities
 Making profit is not the main aim
 Main aim is to solve social problems faced by people
 Profit is kept to provide more services
 They normally provide education and health
 Common features;
-directly produce goods/service
-social aims and achieve them via ethical (moral) ways
-profit making for survival as they cant run on donations/charities
 Measure the aims of a business via Triple bottom line
-Economically: profit for reinvestment
-Socially: support for local and disadvantaged communities
-Environmentally: protect env and mange business that way