Business — A-Level
All 116 specification statements from the official Cambridge International specification, as printed.
1. Enterprise
The nature of business activity:
The role of entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs:
Business plans:
2. Business structure
Economic sectors:
Business ownership:
3. Size of business
Measurements of business size:
Significance of small businesses:
Business growth:
4. Business objectives
Business objectives in the private sector and public sector:
Objectives and business decisions:
5. Stakeholders in a business
Business stakeholders:
The relative importance and influence of stakeholders on business activities:
1. Human resource management (HRM)
Purpose and roles of HRM:
Workforce planning:
Recruitment and selection:
Redundancy and dismissal:
Morale and welfare:
Training and development:
Management and workforce relations:
2. Motivation
Motivation as a tool of management and leadership:
Human needs:
Motivation theories:
Motivation methods in practice: financial motivators, non-financial motivators:
3. Management
Management and managers:
1. The nature of marketing
The role of marketing and its relationship with other business activities:
Demand and supply:
Markets:
Consumer and industrial marketing:
Mass marketing and niche marketing:
Market segmentation:
Customer relationship marketing (CRM):
2. Market research
The purposes of market research:
Primary research and secondary research:
Sampling:
Market research data:
3. The marketing mix
The elements of the marketing mix (the 4Ps):
Product:
Product portfolio analysis:
Pricing methods:
Promotion methods:
Place (channels of distribution):
1. The nature of operations
The transformational process:
Efficiency, effectiveness, productivity and sustainability:
Capital intensive and labour intensive operations:
Operations methods: job, batch, flow, mass customisation:
2. Inventory management
Managing inventory:
Just in Time (JIT):
3. Capacity utilisation and outsourcing
Significance and measurement of capacity utilisation:
Outsourcing:
1. Business finance
The need for business finance:
Working capital:
2. Sources of finance
Business ownership and sources of finance:
Internal and external sources of finance:
Factors affecting the sources of finance:
Selecting the source of finance:
3. Forecasting and managing cash flows
Cash flow forecasts:
4. Costs
Cost information:
Approaches to costing: full, contribution:
Uses of cost information:
Break-even analysis:
5. Budgets
The meaning and purpose of budgets:
Variances:
1. External influences on business activity
Political and legal:
Economic:
Social and demographic:
Technological:
Competitors and suppliers:
International:
Environmental:
2. Business strategy
Developing business strategy:
Corporate planning and implementation:
1. Organisational structure
The relationship between business objectives and organisational structure:
Types of structure: functional, hierarchical (flat and narrow), matrix:
Delegation and accountability:
Control, authority and trust:
Centralisation and decentralisation:
Line and staff:
2. Business communication
Purposes of communication:
Methods of communication:
Channels of communication:
Barriers to communication:
The role of management in facilitating communication:
3. Leadership
Leadership:
Theories of leadership:
Emotional intelligence/emotional quotient (EQ):
4. Human resource management (HRM) strategy
Approaches to human resource management (HRM):
1. Marketing analysis
Elasticity:
Product development:
Sales forecasting:
2. Marketing strategy
Planning the marketing strategy:
Approaches to marketing strategy:
Strategies for international marketing:
1. Location and scale
Location:
Scale of operations:
2. Quality management
Quality control and quality assurance:
Benchmarking:
3. Operations strategy
Operational decisions:
Flexibility and innovation:
Enterprise resource planning (ERP):
Lean production:
Operations planning:
1. Financial statements
Statement of profit or loss:
Statement of financial position:
Inventory valuation:
Depreciation:
2. Analysis of published accounts
Liquidity ratios:
Profitability ratios:
Financial efficiency ratios:
Gearing ratio:
Investment ratios:
3. Investment appraisal
The concept of investment appraisal:
Basic methods: payback, accounting rate of return (ARR):
Discounted cash flow method: net present value (NPV):
Investment appraisal decisions:
4. Finance and accounting strategy
The use of accounting data to enable strategic decision making:
The use of accounting data and ratio analysis in strategic decision-making: