IGCSE & A LEVELS GUIDE

Chapter 17 - Achieving Quality Production Lesson Objective: To understand the importance of quality for businesses In your opinion, what is a quality product? The most reliable? The best performing? The longer lasting? Quality is a relative concept which depends on variables such as: Price; Customers' expectations; Customers' satisfaction. Quality , therefore, is about being defect-free and meeting customers' expectations . The concept of Quality Standard comes after under

Chapter 17 - Achieving Quality Production Lesson Objective: To understand how quality control and assurance work Case study (p. 231) Test yourself (p. 231) There are mainly two approaches for achieving quality: Control is based on inspection/checking of the completed unit Assurance is the process of self-checking quality by the workers in charge of each process preventing and reducing faulty products. Control , therefore, can be problematic: Workers and inspectors live in

Chapter 16 - Costs, Scale of Production, and Break-Even Analysis Lesson Objective: To understand and to be able to differentiate among the many different types of costs Costs, costs, costs... They come in many forms, sizes, and tastes: Fixed costs; Variable costs; Total costs; Average costs. Let's first look in to fixed and variable costs: Activity 16.1 (p. 216) And then we have our total costs , which obviously is the sum of variable + fixed costs: Activity 16.2 (p.

Chapter 15 - Production of Goods and Services Lesson Objective: To understand the difference between production and productivity Throughout the next couple of blog posts we will discuss operations management, more specifically, production : The question remains: What is production? Production is the process of converting inputs (what is inputs?) such as land, labour, and capital into sealable outputs/goods (e.g. shoes). There is one department of business that is responsibl

Now that you understand how the product life-cycle works as well as the different extension strategies, let's see how the product life-cycle influences the 4P's (Marketing Mix) decisions: Product Life-Cycle and PRODUCT Decisions: - On the introduction stage , companies tend to present an introductory product to the market (base mode); - On the growth stage, companies make adjustments to the base mode according to the market feedback; - On the maturity stage , companies start

Chapter 12 - Marketing Mix, Product and Price Lesson Objective: To understand the importance of the Marketing Mix and to be introduced to the Product decision In the world of Marketing there are four (4) extremely important decisions that can be made businesses to influence the overall success of the company and its products in the market: Such decisions are called the Marketing Mix or the 4P's: Let's start by looking at the Product : a decision that involves a lot more than

Chapter 11 - Market Research Lesson Objective: To understand the differences between quantitative and qualitative data Primary and Secondary Market Research are essentially different: Let's dive in more details on those two types of research/data: Primary Research : collecting first-hand data that serves the research purpose: Primary Research can be of two types: - Quantitative Research , which produces numerical results and can be presented as tables, charts, and analyzed t

Chapter 11 - Market Research Lesson Objective: To understand the benefits of market research What is Market Research? "Market research is the action or activity of gathering information about consumers ' needs and preferences , competitors , and the market itself." Market Research reveals important information about customers , competitors , and the market in which the business competes. It is useful for various reasons : It helps businesses understand what customers like

Chapter 11 - Market Research Lesson Objectives: To understand sampling, how to present market research data and problems with market research You now understand the difference between primary and secondary research. You are also well aware of qualitative and quantitative methods of market research. To finalize Market Research we now need to understand the following: Sampling Market Research Inaccuracies Presentation and use of Market Research data S ampling is separating

Your understanding of the differences between Mass Marketing and Niche Marketing should now be completed: - Mass Marketing is selling the same product to the whole market with no differentiation of price, place, or promotion strategies; - Niche Marketing, on the other hand, involves differentiating products, prices, locations, and promotion strategies. One of the main problems with mass marketing is the fact that customers are not being offered exactly what they want/need

Chapter 10, Marketing, Competition, and the Customer Lesson Objective: To understand You have learned that the business environment is made of many different elements : Price; Price of the competition; Customers' income; Population size, structure, and changes; Changes in consumers' preferences; Spending on advertisement and promotion spending. One of the elements that impact business environment the most is the government intervention over markets - in other words, governme

It's important for us to understand the basics of Marketing so that we can go further on Marketing subjects later on. Here are some of the basic concepts we will go through to build on the basis of our Marketing knowledge : Needs and Wants; Customer base; Markets (consumer and industrial); Target market; Consumer vs. Customer; The business environment. Let's start by reminding ourselves of needs and wants : - Needs are essential items we need in order to live (e.g. food, wa

Chapter 8 - Recruitment, Selection and Training of Workers Learning Objective: To understand the difference between internal and external recruiting The recruiting process is important for the success of a business - it is also costly and time consuming. Recruitment can be done internally or externally: Internal Recruitment happens when the business decides to choose someone who is already working in the company to take on the opened vacancy instead of picking someone from o

Chapter 7 - Organization and Management Learning Objective: To understand the importance and impact of trade unions We will wrap up the topic of Organization Structure and Management by discussing a very delicate topic: Trade Unions: In short, Trade Unions are organizations formed and financed by workers to protect their interests (e.g. wages, working conditions, etc.). Their activities include: Negotiating better wages, working hours, conditions, holidays ( collective barg