BUSINESS STUDIES – 0450 – binhayyan Academy

Content overview
1 Understanding business activity
This section introduces the underlying ideas and concepts of business and includes the purpose and nature of
business activity and how businesses can be classified. Enterprise and entrepreneurs, and why some businesses
grow while others remain small are further important issues. How business size can be measured, types of
business organisation, business objectives and stakeholder objectives are the concluding topics.
2 People in business
The focus is the functional area of human resources and includes the importance and methods of motivating a
workforce. How businesses are organised and managed and the methods of recruitment, selection and training
of employees are also considered. Finally, the section covers the importance and methods of effective internal
and external communication.
3 Marketing
This section includes the role of marketing, the distinctions between niche and mass markets and the
techniques of market segmentation. The methods and importance of market research are covered. The central
role of the marketing mix, i.e. the four Ps, is made clear. Marketing strategies to influence consumer decisions
at home and in new foreign markets are the final topics in this section.
4 Operations management
The focus is the functional area of production and includes the meaning and methods of production and how
productivity can be increased. The different costs of production and break-even analysis are covered. The
section concludes with the importance and methods of achieving quality in the production process and location
decisions of businesses.
5 Financial information and decisions
This finance and accounting section covers the need for and sources of business finance, cash-flow forecasting
and working capital. Simple income statements are covered as well as statements of financial position and the
analysis of accounts including why and how accounts are used.
6 External influences on business activity
This section focuses on different external influences on business activity and how these impact on a business.
It includes government influences on economic, environmental and ethical issues and how they impact on
the functional areas of businesses. In addition, the international economy including globalisation and its
effects on businesses and governments, multinational businesses and exchange rates are important issues.
Legal constraints are an external influence to be considered but these influences are covered in the relevant
functional areas above, as well as in this last section.

Course Content

Understanding business activity

The purpose and nature of business activity: • Concepts of needs, wants, scarcity and opportunity cost • Importance of specialisation • Purpose of business activity • The concept of adding value and how added value can be increased
Economic sectors in terms of primary, secondary and tertiary sectors: • Basis of business classification, using examples to illustrate the classification • Reasons for the changing importance of business classification,
Classify business enterprises between private sector and public sector in a mixed economy
Enterprise and entrepreneurship: • Characteristics of successful entrepreneurs • Contents of a business plan and how business plans assist entrepreneurs • Why and how governments support business start-ups, e.g. grants, training schemes
The methods and problems of measuring business size: • Methods of measuring business size, e.g. number of people employed, value of output, capital employed (profit is not a method of measuring business size) • Limitations of methods
Why some businesses grow and others remain small: • Why the owners of a business may want to expand the business • Different ways in which businesses can grow, e.g. internal/external • Problems linked to business growth and how these might be overcome
Why some (new or established) businesses fail: • Causes of business failure, e.g. lack of management skills, changes in the business environment, liquidity problems • Why new businesses are at a greater risk of failing
The main features of different forms of business organisation: • Sole traders, partnerships, private and public limited companies, franchises and joint ventures • Differences between unincorporated businesses and limited companies
Concepts of risk, ownership and limited liability • Recommend and justify a suitable form of business organisation to owners/management in a given situation • Business organisations in the public sector, e.g. public corporations
Businesses can have several objectives and the importance of them can change: • Need for business objectives and the importance of them • Different business objectives, e.g. survival, growth, profit and market share • Objectives of social enterprises
The role of stakeholder groups involved in business activity: • Main internal and external stakeholder groups • Objectives of different stakeholder groups • How these objectives might conflict with each other, use examples
Differences in the objectives of private sector and public sector enterprises

People in business

The importance of a well-motivated workforce: • Why people work and what motivation means • The benefits of a well-motivated workforce: labour productivity, reduced absenteeism and labour turnover • The concept of human needs, e.g. Maslow’s hierarchy
Methods of motivation: • Financial rewards, e.g. wage, salary, bonus, commission and profit sharing • Non-financial methods, e.g. job enrichment, job rotation, teamworking, training, opportunities for promotion
Draw, interpret and understand simple organisational charts: • Simple hierarchical structures: levels of hierarchy, span of control, chain of command e.g. tall/short • Roles and responsibilities of directors, managers, supervisors,
The role of management: • Functions of management, e.g. planning, organising, coordinating, commanding and controlling • Importance of delegation; trust versus control
Leadership styles: • Features of the main leadership styles, e.g. autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire • Recommend and justify an appropriate leadership style in given circumstances
Trade unions: • What a trade union is and the effects of employees being union members
Recruitment and selecting employees: • Recruitment and selection methods • Difference between internal recruitment and external recruitment • Main stages in recruitment and selection of employees
Recommend and justify who to employ in given circumstances • Benefits and limitations of part-time employees and full-time employees
The importance of training and the methods of training: • Importance of training to a business and to employees • Benefits and limitations of induction training, on-the-job training and off-the-job training
Why reducing the size of the workforce might be necessary: • Difference between dismissal and redundancy with examples • Understand situations in which downsizing the workforce might be necessary, e.g. automation or reduced demand for products
Legal controls over employment issues and their impact on employers and employees: • Legal controls over employment contracts, unfair dismissal, discrimination, health and safety, legal minimum wage
Why effective communication is important and the methods used to achieve it: • Effective communication and its importance to business • Benefits and limitations of different communication methods including those based on information technology (IT)
2 Demonstrate an awareness of communication barriers: • How communication barriers arise and problems of ineffective communication; how communication barriers can be reduced or removed

Marketing

The role of marketing: • Identifying customer needs • Satisfying customer needs • Maintaining customer loyalty • Building customer relationships
Market changes: • Why customer/consumer spending patterns may change • The importance of changing customer needs • Why some markets have become more competitive • How businesses can respond to changing spending patterns and increased competition
Concepts of niche marketing and mass marketing: • Benefits and limitations of both approaches to marketing
How and why market segmentation is undertaken: • How markets can be segmented, e.g. according to age, socio-economic grouping, location, gender • Potential benefits of segmentation to business
The role of market research and methods used: • Market-orientated businesses (uses of market research information to a business) • Primary research and secondary research (benefits and limitations of each)
Methods of primary research, e.g. postal questionnaire, online survey, interviews, focus groups • The need for sampling • Methods of secondary research, e.g. online, accessing government sources, paying for commercial market research reports
Presentation and use of market research results: • Analyse market research data shown in the form of graphs, charts and diagrams; draw simple conclusions from such data
Product: • The limitations and benefits of developing new products • Brand image; impact on sales and customer loyalty • The role of packaging • The product life cycle: main stages and extension strategies; draw and interpret a product life cycle diagram
Price: • Pricing methods (benefits and limitations of different methods), e.g. cost plus, competitive, penetration, skimming, and promotional • Recommend and justify an appropriate pricing method in given circumstances
Place – distribution channels: • Advantages and disadvantages of different channels, e.g. use of wholesalers, retailers or direct to consumers • Recommend and justify an appropriate distribution channel in given circumstances
Promotion: • The aims of promotion • Different forms of promotion and how they influence sales, e.g. advertising, sales promotion • The need for cost-effectiveness in spending the marketing budget on promotion
Technology and the marketing mix: • Define and explain the concept of e-commerce • The opportunities and threats of e-commerce to business and consumers • Use of the internet and social media networks for promotion
Justify marketing strategies appropriate to a given situation: • Importance of different elements of the marketing mix in influencing consumer decisions in given circumstances • Recommend and justify an appropriate marketing strategy
The nature and impact of legal controls related to marketing: • Impact of legal controls on marketing strategy, e.g. misleading promotion, faulty and dangerous goods
The opportunities and problems of entering new foreign markets: • Growth potential of new markets in other countries • Problems of entering foreign markets, e.g. cultural differences and lack of knowledge

Operations management

The meaning of production: • Managing resources effectively to produce goods and services • Difference between production and productivity • Benefits of increasing efficiency and how to increase it
Why businesses hold inventories • The concept of lean production: how to achieve it, e.g. just-in-time inventory control and Kaizen; benefits of lean production
The main methods of production: • Features, benefits and limitations of job, batch and flow production • Recommend and justify an appropriate production method for a given situation
How technology has changed and is changing production methods, e.g. using computers in design and manufacturing
Identify and classify costs: • Classifying costs using examples, e.g. fixed, variable, average, total • Use cost data to help make simple cost-based decisions, e.g. to stop production or continue
Economies and diseconomies of scale: • The concept of economies of scale with examples, e.g. purchasing, marketing, financial, managerial, technical • The concept of diseconomies of scale with examples,
Break-even analysis: • The concept of break-even • Construct, complete or amend a simple break-even chart • Interpret a given chart and use it to analyse a situation
Calculate break-even output from given data • Define, calculate and interpret the margin of safety • Use break-even analysis to help make simple decisions, e.g. impact of higher price • Understand the limitations of break-even analysis
Why quality is important and how quality production might be achieved: • What quality means and why it is important for all businesses • The concept of quality control and how businesses implement quality control
The main factors influencing the location and relocation decisions of a business: • Factors relevant to the location decision of manufacturing businesses and service businesses • Factors that a business could consider

Financial information and decisions

The need for business finance: • The main reasons why businesses need finance, e.g. start-up capital, capital for expansion and additional working capital • Understand the difference between short-term and long-term finance needs
The main sources of finance: • Internal sources and external sources with examples • Short-term and long-term sources with examples, e.g. overdraft for short-term finance and debt or equity for long-term finance
Importance of alternative sources of capital, e.g. micro-finance, crowd-funding • The main factors considered in making the financial choice, e.g. size and legal form of business, amount required, length of time, existing loans
The importance of cash and of cash-flow forecasting: • Why cash is important to a business • What a cash-flow forecast is, how a simple one is constructed and the importance of it • Amend or complete a simple cash-flow forecast
Working capital: • The concept and importance of working capital
What profit is and why it is important: • How a profit is made • Importance of profit to private sector businesses, e.g. reward for risk-taking/ enterprise, source of finance • Difference between profit and cash
Income statements: • Main features of an income statement, e.g. revenue, cost of sales, gross profit, profit and retained profit • Use simple income statements in decisionmaking based on profit calculations
The main elements of a statement of financial position: • The main classifications of assets and liabilities, using examples
Interpret a simple statement of financial position and make deductions from it, e.g. how a business is financing its activities and what assets it owns, sale of inventories to raise finance
Profitability: • The concept and importance of profitability
Liquidity: • The concept and importance of liquidity
How to interpret the financial performance of a business by calculating and analysing profitability ratios and liquidity ratios: • Gross profit margin • Profit margin • Return on Capital Employed • Current ratio • Acid test ratio
Why and how accounts are used: • Needs of different users of accounts and ratio analysis • How users of accounts and ratio results might use information to help make decisions, e.g. whether to lend to or invest in the business

External influences on business activity

Business cycle: • Main stages of the business cycle, e.g. growth, boom, recession, slump • Impact on businesses of changes in employment levels, inflation and Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
Business cycle: • Main stages of the business cycle, e.g. growth, boom, recession, slump • Impact on businesses of changes in employment levels, inflation and Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
Environmental concerns and ethical issues as both opportunities and constraints for businesses: • How business activity can impact on the environment, e.g. global warming
The concept of externalities: possible external costs and external benefits of business decisions • Sustainable development; how business activity can contribute to this
The concept of externalities: possible external costs and external benefits of business decisions • Sustainable development; how business activity can contribute to this
How and why business might respond to environmental pressures and opportunities, e.g. pressure groups • The role of legal controls over business activity affecting the environment, e.g. pollution controls • Ethical issues a business
The importance of globalisation: • The concept of globalisation and the reasons for it • Opportunities and threats of globalisation for businesses • Why governments might introduce import tariffs and import quotas
Reasons for the importance and growth of multinational companies (MNCs): • Benefits to a business of becoming a multinational and the impact on its stakeholders • Potential benefits to a country and/or economy where a MNC is located,
The impact of exchange rate changes: • Depreciation and appreciation of an exchange rate • How exchange rate changes can affect businesses as importers and exporters of products, e.g. prices, competitiveness, profitability.

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Fee:
Price range: $ 11 through $ 750
Lessons:72
Level:All Levels
Last Updated:27/08/2025

BUSINESS STUDIES – 0450

Course Content

Understanding business activity

The purpose and nature of business activity: • Concepts of needs, wants, scarcity and opportunity cost • Importance of specialisation • Purpose of business activity • The concept of adding value and how added value can be increased

Economic sectors in terms of primary, secondary and tertiary sectors: • Basis of business classification, using examples to illustrate the classification • Reasons for the changing importance of business classification,

Classify business enterprises between private sector and public sector in a mixed economy

Enterprise and entrepreneurship: • Characteristics of successful entrepreneurs • Contents of a business plan and how business plans assist entrepreneurs • Why and how governments support business start-ups, e.g. grants, training schemes

The methods and problems of measuring business size: • Methods of measuring business size, e.g. number of people employed, value of output, capital employed (profit is not a method of measuring business size) • Limitations of methods

Why some businesses grow and others remain small: • Why the owners of a business may want to expand the business • Different ways in which businesses can grow, e.g. internal/external • Problems linked to business growth and how these might be overcome

Why some (new or established) businesses fail: • Causes of business failure, e.g. lack of management skills, changes in the business environment, liquidity problems • Why new businesses are at a greater risk of failing

The main features of different forms of business organisation: • Sole traders, partnerships, private and public limited companies, franchises and joint ventures • Differences between unincorporated businesses and limited companies

Concepts of risk, ownership and limited liability • Recommend and justify a suitable form of business organisation to owners/management in a given situation • Business organisations in the public sector, e.g. public corporations

Businesses can have several objectives and the importance of them can change: • Need for business objectives and the importance of them • Different business objectives, e.g. survival, growth, profit and market share • Objectives of social enterprises

The role of stakeholder groups involved in business activity: • Main internal and external stakeholder groups • Objectives of different stakeholder groups • How these objectives might conflict with each other, use examples

Differences in the objectives of private sector and public sector enterprises

People in business

The importance of a well-motivated workforce: • Why people work and what motivation means • The benefits of a well-motivated workforce: labour productivity, reduced absenteeism and labour turnover • The concept of human needs, e.g. Maslow’s hierarchy

Methods of motivation: • Financial rewards, e.g. wage, salary, bonus, commission and profit sharing • Non-financial methods, e.g. job enrichment, job rotation, teamworking, training, opportunities for promotion

Draw, interpret and understand simple organisational charts: • Simple hierarchical structures: levels of hierarchy, span of control, chain of command e.g. tall/short • Roles and responsibilities of directors, managers, supervisors,

The role of management: • Functions of management, e.g. planning, organising, coordinating, commanding and controlling • Importance of delegation; trust versus control

Leadership styles: • Features of the main leadership styles, e.g. autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire • Recommend and justify an appropriate leadership style in given circumstances

Trade unions: • What a trade union is and the effects of employees being union members

Recruitment and selecting employees: • Recruitment and selection methods • Difference between internal recruitment and external recruitment • Main stages in recruitment and selection of employees

Recommend and justify who to employ in given circumstances • Benefits and limitations of part-time employees and full-time employees

The importance of training and the methods of training: • Importance of training to a business and to employees • Benefits and limitations of induction training, on-the-job training and off-the-job training

Why reducing the size of the workforce might be necessary: • Difference between dismissal and redundancy with examples • Understand situations in which downsizing the workforce might be necessary, e.g. automation or reduced demand for products

Legal controls over employment issues and their impact on employers and employees: • Legal controls over employment contracts, unfair dismissal, discrimination, health and safety, legal minimum wage

Why effective communication is important and the methods used to achieve it: • Effective communication and its importance to business • Benefits and limitations of different communication methods including those based on information technology (IT)

2 Demonstrate an awareness of communication barriers: • How communication barriers arise and problems of ineffective communication; how communication barriers can be reduced or removed

Marketing

The role of marketing: • Identifying customer needs • Satisfying customer needs • Maintaining customer loyalty • Building customer relationships

Market changes: • Why customer/consumer spending patterns may change • The importance of changing customer needs • Why some markets have become more competitive • How businesses can respond to changing spending patterns and increased competition

Concepts of niche marketing and mass marketing: • Benefits and limitations of both approaches to marketing

How and why market segmentation is undertaken: • How markets can be segmented, e.g. according to age, socio-economic grouping, location, gender • Potential benefits of segmentation to business

The role of market research and methods used: • Market-orientated businesses (uses of market research information to a business) • Primary research and secondary research (benefits and limitations of each)

Methods of primary research, e.g. postal questionnaire, online survey, interviews, focus groups • The need for sampling • Methods of secondary research, e.g. online, accessing government sources, paying for commercial market research reports

Presentation and use of market research results: • Analyse market research data shown in the form of graphs, charts and diagrams; draw simple conclusions from such data

Product: • The limitations and benefits of developing new products • Brand image; impact on sales and customer loyalty • The role of packaging • The product life cycle: main stages and extension strategies; draw and interpret a product life cycle diagram

Price: • Pricing methods (benefits and limitations of different methods), e.g. cost plus, competitive, penetration, skimming, and promotional • Recommend and justify an appropriate pricing method in given circumstances

Place – distribution channels: • Advantages and disadvantages of different channels, e.g. use of wholesalers, retailers or direct to consumers • Recommend and justify an appropriate distribution channel in given circumstances

Promotion: • The aims of promotion • Different forms of promotion and how they influence sales, e.g. advertising, sales promotion • The need for cost-effectiveness in spending the marketing budget on promotion

Technology and the marketing mix: • Define and explain the concept of e-commerce • The opportunities and threats of e-commerce to business and consumers • Use of the internet and social media networks for promotion

Justify marketing strategies appropriate to a given situation: • Importance of different elements of the marketing mix in influencing consumer decisions in given circumstances • Recommend and justify an appropriate marketing strategy

The nature and impact of legal controls related to marketing: • Impact of legal controls on marketing strategy, e.g. misleading promotion, faulty and dangerous goods

The opportunities and problems of entering new foreign markets: • Growth potential of new markets in other countries • Problems of entering foreign markets, e.g. cultural differences and lack of knowledge

Operations management

The meaning of production: • Managing resources effectively to produce goods and services • Difference between production and productivity • Benefits of increasing efficiency and how to increase it

Why businesses hold inventories • The concept of lean production: how to achieve it, e.g. just-in-time inventory control and Kaizen; benefits of lean production

The main methods of production: • Features, benefits and limitations of job, batch and flow production • Recommend and justify an appropriate production method for a given situation

How technology has changed and is changing production methods, e.g. using computers in design and manufacturing

Identify and classify costs: • Classifying costs using examples, e.g. fixed, variable, average, total • Use cost data to help make simple cost-based decisions, e.g. to stop production or continue

Economies and diseconomies of scale: • The concept of economies of scale with examples, e.g. purchasing, marketing, financial, managerial, technical • The concept of diseconomies of scale with examples,

Break-even analysis: • The concept of break-even • Construct, complete or amend a simple break-even chart • Interpret a given chart and use it to analyse a situation

Calculate break-even output from given data • Define, calculate and interpret the margin of safety • Use break-even analysis to help make simple decisions, e.g. impact of higher price • Understand the limitations of break-even analysis

Why quality is important and how quality production might be achieved: • What quality means and why it is important for all businesses • The concept of quality control and how businesses implement quality control

The main factors influencing the location and relocation decisions of a business: • Factors relevant to the location decision of manufacturing businesses and service businesses • Factors that a business could consider

Financial information and decisions

The need for business finance: • The main reasons why businesses need finance, e.g. start-up capital, capital for expansion and additional working capital • Understand the difference between short-term and long-term finance needs

The main sources of finance: • Internal sources and external sources with examples • Short-term and long-term sources with examples, e.g. overdraft for short-term finance and debt or equity for long-term finance

Importance of alternative sources of capital, e.g. micro-finance, crowd-funding • The main factors considered in making the financial choice, e.g. size and legal form of business, amount required, length of time, existing loans

The importance of cash and of cash-flow forecasting: • Why cash is important to a business • What a cash-flow forecast is, how a simple one is constructed and the importance of it • Amend or complete a simple cash-flow forecast

Working capital: • The concept and importance of working capital

What profit is and why it is important: • How a profit is made • Importance of profit to private sector businesses, e.g. reward for risk-taking/ enterprise, source of finance • Difference between profit and cash

Income statements: • Main features of an income statement, e.g. revenue, cost of sales, gross profit, profit and retained profit • Use simple income statements in decisionmaking based on profit calculations

The main elements of a statement of financial position: • The main classifications of assets and liabilities, using examples

Interpret a simple statement of financial position and make deductions from it, e.g. how a business is financing its activities and what assets it owns, sale of inventories to raise finance

Profitability: • The concept and importance of profitability

Liquidity: • The concept and importance of liquidity

How to interpret the financial performance of a business by calculating and analysing profitability ratios and liquidity ratios: • Gross profit margin • Profit margin • Return on Capital Employed • Current ratio • Acid test ratio

Why and how accounts are used: • Needs of different users of accounts and ratio analysis • How users of accounts and ratio results might use information to help make decisions, e.g. whether to lend to or invest in the business

External influences on business activity

Business cycle: • Main stages of the business cycle, e.g. growth, boom, recession, slump • Impact on businesses of changes in employment levels, inflation and Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Business cycle: • Main stages of the business cycle, e.g. growth, boom, recession, slump • Impact on businesses of changes in employment levels, inflation and Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Environmental concerns and ethical issues as both opportunities and constraints for businesses: • How business activity can impact on the environment, e.g. global warming

The concept of externalities: possible external costs and external benefits of business decisions • Sustainable development; how business activity can contribute to this

The concept of externalities: possible external costs and external benefits of business decisions • Sustainable development; how business activity can contribute to this

How and why business might respond to environmental pressures and opportunities, e.g. pressure groups • The role of legal controls over business activity affecting the environment, e.g. pollution controls • Ethical issues a business

The importance of globalisation: • The concept of globalisation and the reasons for it • Opportunities and threats of globalisation for businesses • Why governments might introduce import tariffs and import quotas

Reasons for the importance and growth of multinational companies (MNCs): • Benefits to a business of becoming a multinational and the impact on its stakeholders • Potential benefits to a country and/or economy where a MNC is located,

The impact of exchange rate changes: • Depreciation and appreciation of an exchange rate • How exchange rate changes can affect businesses as importers and exporters of products, e.g. prices, competitiveness, profitability.