AQA A level Business Studies

• What are the 2 types of Market Research?

  Primary and Secondary
• Why is market research used?

  - It targets the customer

  - It can asses products

  - It checks competition

  - Checks adverts

  - Can use to see market trends
• Name 5 external influences on marketing objectives

  Economic environment - The key factor in determining demand (recession = less money = people buy cheaper products)

  
  

  - Competition: Marketing objectives have to take account of likely competitor responses.

  
  

  Market dynamics: Changes in market size, growth and segmentation influence marketing objectives

  (e.g - if a market is growing slowly, you can't have the objective of revenue growth of product development)

  
  

  Technological change: Rapid technological change created great opportunities for innovation and shortens product life cycles

  
  

  Social & political change: Changes to legislation could change marketing opportunities, as could changes in the attitudes of society
• Name 4 internal influences on marketing objectives

  - Corporate objectives: these are the most important internal influence. A marketing objective shouldn't conflict with a corporate objective

  
  

  - Finance: The financial position of the business directly affects the scope and scale of marketing activities

  
  

  - Human resources: Only a motivated and well-trained workforce can deliver market-leading customer service and productivity.

  
  

  - Business culture: e.g - a marketing-oriented business is constantly looking for ways to meet customer needs. A production-oriented culture may result in management setting unrealistic or irrelevant marketing objectives.
• What are some marketing objectives?

  - Sales volume and sales value

  - Market size

  - Market and sales growth

  - Market share

  - Brand loyalty
• What should a company do with stakeholders that have a low level of power and a low level of interest?

  They should only be communicated with when necessary (the least effort)
• What should a company do with stakeholders that have a low level of power but a high level of interest?

  They should be monitored and communicated with regularly (so they don't gain more power)
• What should a company do with stakeholders that have a high level of power but a low level of interest?

  They should be managed closely and kept satisfied (so they don't gain more interest)
• What should a company do with stakeholders that have a high level of power and a high level of interest?

  They should be kept satisfied, noticed and engaged with directly
• What is stakeholder mapping? What does it measure?

  Stakeholder mapping is a way of classifying a company's stakeholders in regards to the power and interest they have in the business and how the business should deal with them according to that position.

  
  

  They are usually classified in regards to a specific decision a company is making and how that stakeholder group would react
• What is a 'win-win' situation in regards to stakeholder expectations?

  Where all stakeholders involved in a corporate decision ultimate benefit
• What is a 'win-lose' situation in regards to stakeholder expectations?

  Where one stakeholder (group) wins while another loses

  
  

  e.g - Increasing employee wages means stakeholders get lower returns on their investments
• What are the influences on (leadership) decision making?

  - The company's mission

  - Their objectives

  - Ethics

  - The external environment including competition

  - Resource constraints
• Why shouldn't Capacity Utilisation be too low?

  - Bad company image

  - May need to reduce costs (lay off staff etc)
• Why shouldn't Capacity Utilisation be too high?


  - Not enough time for routine maintenance (e.g - hotels)

  - Staff under stress
• How is Capacity Utilisation calculated?


  (Actual output in a given time / maximum possible output in a given time) x 100
• What is Capacity Utilisation?

  The percentage of the firm's total possible production capacity that is actually being used
• What is Productive Capacity?

  The total level of output or production that a firm could produce in a given time period
• How do you calculate labour productivity?

  Output per period / number of employees in that period
• What does the Operations Department do?

  They produce products, manage quality and create service. They decide the operational objectives which are short term goals to help a company achieve their longer term goals
• What are some operational objectives?

  (There are 11, you probably don't need to know all of them)

  - Unit costs (needs to be low)

  - Low price (cheaper for consumer)

  - Defect rates (needs to be low - costs & PR)

  - Delivery time (low)

  - Customer complaints (low - PR)

  - Percentage of repeat business (high, brand loyalty)

  - Capacity utilisation (less costs, more profit)

  - Labour productivity (more productive = less costs)

  - Energy efficiency (less cost, ^ PR)

  - Recycling rate (good PR. lower waste, lower cost)

  - Customer satisfaction (needs to be high)
• What are the 2 internal factors that might influence a business' choice of operational objective?

  - Corporate objectives (more important, mustn't clash)

  - Finance
• What internal and external factors might influence a business' choice of setting operational objectives?

  (PESTLE+C)

  Politics

  Economy

  Social factors

  Technology

  Laws

  Environment

  +

  Competition
• How do we structure an 8 mark analysis question?

  PECAn

  Point

  Explain

  Context

  Analysis