Business Studies GCSE

Business Studies GCSE

1. Aims and objectives

   • Year 1) Survive
   • Year 2) Make a profit
   • Year 3) Expand

2. Motivation

   • Monetary
     • Bonuses. These aim to motivate staff and make them work harder as they could achieve more money.
     • Fringe benefits. These are bonuses that could include a company car for convenience (for example).
   • Non monetary
     • Job rotation. This is where employees change the job that they do over a period of time.
     • Employee of the month reward schemes. These aim to motivate employees by giving them recognition in the workplace.

3. Pricing strategies

   • Penetration pricing
     • Where a product is introduced into the market with a very low price to gain more customer interest.
   • Skimming
     • This is the opposite to penetration pricing as it used used when a product is initailly entering the market at a high cost to cause a higher demand and as time progresses, the price of the product decreases to help it become a mass-maraket product
   • competitive pricing
     • This is where a firm prices it's products similarly to similar products already on the market
   • Cost-plus priceing
     • This is where you price your product by working out how much it costs to maker and adding a percentage mark up.

4. Sectors

   • Secondary
     • The secondary sector manufactures goods.
   • Tertiary
     • The tertiary sector provides services such as selling goods
   • Primary
     • The primary sector produces raw materials.

5. Methods of production

   • Job
     • This is where the product is manufactured once at a time and are usually expensive and take a long time.
   • Batch
     • Batch flow is the mixture of flow and job production as it produces batches of products such as chocolates in different flavours.
   • Flow
     • Flow is the method of making lots of products contunuously.

6. Quality management

   • Quality control
     • Spotting problems before it's too late by checking products, raw materials and method of manufacture faults.
     • Total quality management (TQM)
       • TQM is where employees meet to discuss the reduction in costs by cutting out waste.

7. Sources of finance

   • Retaining profits. This can be done by putting amounts of money aside for saving towards something better for the business such as better machinery.
   • Shares. Shares can be sold to help the business make money, private limited companies are able to sell shares to friends and family therefore increasing the amount of shares sold and increasing profits.
   • Government grant. A grant is a sum of money given to a business from a government however the money must be used to create jobs or help the local community.

8. Business Ownership structures

   • Sole traders
     • Most small businesses are sole traders
       • -One owner, Unlimited liability, Work long hours, May have to sell, possessions to pay debts
   • Partnerships
     • Partnerships are not that common;
       • More ideas, Less work, More capital into the business, unlimited liability, more disagreements / conflict

9. Training

   • On the job training
     • Often taught by a colligue therefore bad working practices can be passed on.
     • It is cost effective as the person continues to work while training.
   • Off the job training
     • More expensive than on the job training but it is usually a higher quality

10. Integration

    • Economies of scale lead to intergration
      • horizontal
        • Horizontal integration is when businesses are at the same stage of production, advantages include that it reduces the cost of production due to economies of large-scale production. A disadvantage would be that choice is reduced therefore there is a reduced product range
      • Backwards vertical
        • Where a business takes over or merges with a supplier- and advantage would be that the business has more control over supply but a drawback would be that it could lead to a reduction in the product range therefore attracting a smaller market
      • Forwards vertical
        • Where a business takes over or merges with a business at a higher stage of production. An advantage would be that it improves job security for workers however a disadvantage would be that it could lead to higher prices or reduced choice.