Business study guides

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Business guide to section 3.1 What is business. Covers the nature and purpose of business, adding value, forms of ownership from sole trader to plc, limited and unlimited liability, mission and objectives, stakeholders and stakeholder conflict, and analysing the external environment with PESTLE.

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Business guide to section 3.2 Managers, leadership and decision-making. Covers the difference between management and leadership, the main leadership styles and the Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum, scientific and intuitive decision-making, decision trees and expected values, opportunity cost, and managing stakeholder needs and influence.

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Business guide to section 3.3 Decision-making to improve marketing performance. Covers setting marketing objectives, primary and secondary research and big data, segmentation, targeting and positioning, and the marketing mix of 7Ps including the product life cycle, the Boston Matrix and pricing strategies.

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Business guide to section 3.4 Decision-making to improve operational performance. Covers operational objectives, analysing performance with labour productivity, unit costs and capacity utilisation, improving efficiency and capacity through lean production, quality control, assurance and TQM, and managing supply chains and inventory with JIT and stock graphs.

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Business guide to section 3.5 Decision-making to improve financial performance. Covers financial objectives and the profit-versus-cash-flow distinction, contribution and break-even analysis, sources of finance, ratio analysis (current ratio, ROCE and gearing), and investment appraisal using payback, average rate of return and net present value.

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Business guide to section 3.6 Decision-making to improve human resource performance. Covers human resource objectives and hard versus soft HRM, organisational design, the motivation theories of Taylor, Mayo, Maslow and Herzberg, recruitment, training and development, and employer-employee relations and collective bargaining.

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Business guide to sections 3.7 to 3.10 Strategic position and direction. Covers analysing the strategic position with core competences and Porter's five forces, SWOT analysis, choosing strategic direction with Porter's generic strategies, the Ansoff matrix, strategic methods and growth including economies of scale and globalisation, and managing strategic change.