1. IGCSE Business Studies
Measuring the size of a
Firm
Unit 1.1.3

2. Typical Measures
• Revenue
• Market Share
• Profits
• Capital Employed
• Employees
• Stock market value

3. Defining Size
Difficult in practice to use just one measure,
eg highly automated production plant may
have:
• Capital employed = 5 million (medium)
• Turnover = 12 million (large)
• Employees = 35 (small)
Equally a firm’s share value may fall but that
doesn’t mean it is a smaller company.

4. Who are the largest firms?
Often “market capitalisation is
used to answer this question.
Look at this link but before you
do have a guess to what is the
largest firm in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_by_market_capitalization