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Unit 1 Introduction to business management

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6 topics · 20 learning objectives

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  1. 1.1 What is a business?

    1. • Understand the nature of business • Businesses combine resources, decision-making, and objectives to create goods or services

    2. • Apply primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary sectors • Classify business activity by production stage or knowledge/service role

    3. • Apply entrepreneurship in business contexts • Entrepreneurs identify opportunities, take risks, and organize resources

    4. • Analyse challenges and opportunities for starting up a business • Start-ups face uncertainty, finance, competition, legal issues, and market opportunity

  2. 1.2 Types of business entities

    1. 1.2.1Private and public sectors

      • Distinguish between private sector and public sector organizations • Ownership, purpose, funding, and accountability differ across sectors

    2. 1.2.2Main for-profit organizations

      • Evaluate features of sole traders, partnerships, privately held companies, and publicly held companies • Compare ownership, liability, control, finance, continuity, and legal status

    3. 1.2.3For-profit social enterprises

      • Evaluate private sector companies, public sector companies, and cooperatives as social enterprises • For-profit social enterprises combine commercial activity with social or environmental aims

    4. 1.2.4Non-profit social enterprises

      • Evaluate non-governmental organizations (NGOs) • NGOs pursue social, humanitarian, or environmental aims without distributing profit to owners

  3. 1.3 Business objectives

    1. • Apply vision statement and mission statement concepts • Vision sets long-term direction; mission explains purpose and core activity

    2. • Apply objectives including growth, profit, shareholder value, and ethical objectives • Objectives guide strategic choices and performance measurement

    3. • Evaluate strategic and tactical objectives • Strategic objectives are long-term and organization-wide; tactical objectives support shorter-term implementation

    4. • Evaluate corporate social responsibility (CSR) • CSR considers ethical, social, and environmental responsibilities beyond legal requirements

  4. 1.4 Stakeholders

    1. • Apply internal and external stakeholder concepts • Internal stakeholders include employees, managers, and owners; external stakeholders include customers, suppliers, government, communities, and pressure groups

    2. • Analyse conflict between stakeholders • Stakeholder objectives may clash over profit, pay, prices, ethics, jobs, growth, and environmental impact

  5. 1.5 Growth and evolution

    1. • Analyse internal and external economies and diseconomies of scale • Growth can lower average costs but may also create coordination, communication, or motivation problems

    2. • Distinguish between internal growth and external growth • Internal growth expands existing operations; external growth combines with or acquires other organizations

    3. • Evaluate reasons for businesses to grow • Growth may increase market share, revenue, profit, survival chances, economies of scale, and market power

    4. • Evaluate reasons for businesses to stay small • Small size may preserve control, flexibility, personal service, niche focus, and lower risk

    5. • Evaluate mergers and acquisitions (M&As), takeovers, joint ventures, strategic alliances, and franchising • External growth methods differ in control, speed, cost, risk, and integration challenges

  6. 1.6 Multinational companies (MNCs)

    1. • Evaluate impacts of multinational companies on host countries • Impacts may include jobs, investment, technology transfer, tax revenue, competition, cultural effects, exploitation, and environmental pressure