...Business (7131) and A-level Business (7132). AS exams May/June 2016 onwards. A-level exams May/June 2017 onwards. Version 1.0 Contents 1 Introduction 5 1.1 Why choose AQA for AS and A-level Business 1.2 Support and resources to help you teach 2 Specification at a glance 2.1 Subject content 2.2 AS 2.3 A-level 5 6 8 8 8 9 3 Subject content 10 Strategic decision making (A-level only) 3.1 What is business? 3.2 Managers, leadership and decision making 3.3 Decision making to improve marketing performance 3.4 Decision making to improve operational performance 3.5 Decision making to improve financial performance 3.6 Decision making to improve human resource performance 3.7 Analysing the strategic position of a business (A-level only) 3.8 Choosing strategic direction (A-level only) 3.9 Strategic methods: how to pursue strategies...
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...Individual Assignment You are required to prepare a case analysis of the case that you choose to present (2000 words, +/- 10%, excluding references). Submission deadline: 1:00pm, Friday, 29th April 2016. In this assignment: * You are required to address all the case questions. * You need to demonstrate in-depth understanding of the case, the questions and the theories covered in the lectures. * You are expected to relate the case to the relevant theories discussed in the lectures and also use relevant additional materials from a range of sources, including journal articles, books, conference proceedings etc., when formulating your assignment. * You are encouraged to update the information on the case when analysing the case, if necessary. * You are also encouraged to use additional examples or cases to compare and contrast when analysing your case. * Your case analysis has to be a coherence piece of work. Submission procedure: You are required to submit an electronic copy via KLE. No hard copy submission is required. Students submitting their work after the 1:00pm deadline on the same day will receive a 5% penalty. Students submitting their work up to seven days after the due date will be marked to a maximum of 40%. Essays submitted more than seven days late, without good cause will be marked at 0% and lead to a failure of the module, with the possibility of re assessment with a maximum mark of 40% overall. If you are ill and...
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...Home Assignment The company in question is being pressed by several of its customers to fulfill their orders faster.The company’s management estimates that the company stands to lose € 250,000 in revenue if they do not reduce their order fulfillment time below 40 working days. Adding one engineer to the existing team would reduce the time to design a hardware down to 14 working days (from 16 days). An additional engineer would cost the company € 50,000. On the other hand, hiring a second engineering team would cost € 250,000. Analyze these two scenarios and recommend an option to the company. Analysing While analysing the two scenarios, It costs around €50000 for each additional engineer to finish the work in 16 days but it costs €250000 for hiring a engineering team, so If we hire three additional engineers it costs around €150000, For example. For 16 days to reduce 14 day company can hire one staff it cost €50000 so it means one staff can reduce 2 days , and 16 days reduce to 10 days company need only 3 staff , it means company can finish the work within 10 days and total cost 3x €50000. So its better to hire 3 engineers and we can reduce the number of working days with less cost. We consider a Level-2 IT service desk with two staff members. Each staff member can handle one service request in 4 working hours on average. Service times are exponentially distributed. Requests arrive at a mean rate of one request every 3 hours according...
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...This presentation will be analysing the Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act 2013(Qld) (VLAD Act), to decide whether the decisions made in court under this legislation are impartial and equitable. This will be determined by using court proceedings as examples and analysing the stakeholders affect. The VLAD Act was an act of the parliament of Queensland; it was introduced to severely punish members of criminal organisations that commit serious offences. The act was passed on the 16 October 2013 and was enforced from that point on. The Act applies to legal organisations or groups containing of three or more members who are involved in lawless activities whether associated informally or formally. The VLAD Act proclaims that a person is a vicious lawless associate if they commit a serious offence in the course of, or for the purpose of participating in the affairs of the criminal organisation. The defendant has the affliction of providing evidence that the association to the criminal organisation is one whose members don’t have the tenacity of obligating the stated offences stated in the VLAD Act....
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...Solartronics, Inc. Company Summary Solartronics , Inc. is a small company that producing solar energy panels. It had established since mid-1977. At first, this company had some bad years but at the end of 1983 it had survived and was able to position itself as a reasonably good-sized firm within the industry. Important Issue In the autumn of 1983, the company was willing to “professionalize” itself by hiring new controller and financial manager, Mrs. Lisa Blocker, to replace a full-time, full charge bookkeeper. Mrs Blocker made a new, summarized income statement using monthly basis. Company Problem The new summarized income statement for January 1984 was confusing for the company’s president and general manager, Mr. John Holden. SOLARTRONICS, INC. (B) Summarized Income Statement January 1984 Sales $165,000 Less: Cost of good sold (at standard) 108,900 Gross margin $ 56,100 Less: Selling expenses $26,500 General corporate overhead 18,000 Operating variances: Direct labor $(3,500) Direct material 500 Variable factory overhead (1,500) Fixed factory overhead—spending 2,000 Fixed factory overhead—volume (17,500) 20,000 64,500 Profit before tax $ (8,400) Mr. Holden had not expected that the firm report a loss for the month of January. He wondered if the first month’s results were bad in terms of the budgeted results for the year. While he knew that sales had been down...
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...Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) The 9/11 attacks increased political pressure for better homeland security and data sharing between 6 agencies. Responding to this pressure, the FBI made promises to bring forward deployment of the new VCF case management system by 6 months - to December 2002. Then they received an additional $78m of funding and promised to chop off another 6 months from the schedule. The classic symptoms of waterfall project failure started to reveal themselves. Project plans were found to be unrealistic, and the oversight of project spend was inadequate. It became obvious that the project would not meet its accelerated deadlines. A commitment to using unproven thin client technology had been made - and the design for a web-like access to a centralised database was deeply flawed - BUT: up-front contracts with suppliers bound the project to this technology and the testing that could have revealed these flaws came too late to allow a change of direction. After a year of development, it became evident that a total re-write of the software was required. Even with the additional $78m of funds, the project missed its milestones. Audit reports took a traditional view of what was wrong: more discipline was required - more detail and planning needed. Work continued, and each year the deadline was put back by another 12 months. Every year a new...
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...M1 Businesses are able to use different ways off communicational skills to illustrate information throughout their business. I am going to be interpreting and analysing the different methods of communication used throughout South Cheshire College, being a member of this college I have first-hand experience with the types of communication they use. Firstly I will analyse the verbal methods of communication, there is many different types of verbal methods including phone calls, face-to-face, business meetings and much more. However the most commonly used verbal method for the college is Face-to-face. During our induction day at the college face to face communication was used whilst our first meeting with our personal tutor. Information like this originated from administration as they have managed to provide our tutor with the necessary information needed to tell us during the original meeting, insuring we have all the correct knowledge needed to complete the course. The purpose of this type of communication in this instance was to ‘update knowledge’ for example our personal tutor ran through what our timetable was going to be like during our first year at college as we were unsure of what our lesson times were going to be like. Also taking us through the rules of the college and making sure we understood what was expected of us as students, and basic rules around the college, for example where the smoking areas are outside of the college, then she went through the consequences...
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...PFF OUTCOME 1&2 Revision Questions Question 1 Outcome 1 Bissett Ltd is a manufacturing business. Budgeted information for the year after overhead costs have been apportioned to the relevant production departments: Department Overheads Labour Hours Machine Hours A1 £2,025,000 270,000 B1 £1,984,500 405,000 63,000 The following information relates to overhead costs; (a) Within each department, Production Overheads are absorbed on the following bases: Department A1 – labour hours Department B1 – machine hours (b) Administration overheads are 12% of Prime Cost (c) Selling and Distribution Overheads are 11% of Production Cost The company has received an order for a job – reference number A/3004 (i) The job will require two types of Direct Materials: 35kg of material P @ £12/kg 40 kg of material Q @ £25/kg (ii) The job will require the following Direct Labour: Department A1 – 30 hours @ £12 per hour Department B1 – 19 hours @ £20 per hour (iii) In Department B1, the order will require 10 hours of machine time (iv) For this job, Bissett Ltd will have to hire a special machine for two months. The cost to hire the machine is £800 for four months. The minimum time the machine can be hired for is four months. (v) The company requires a profit mark up of 10% on this job Required: (a) Prepare an Operating Statement for the job, using...
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...appropriate and relevant to the topic • provide an answer which is relevant to the topic You can work through the individual sections of this module in order by following the sequence in the navigation menu on the left, or you can jump around and focus on only those areas that you need to work on. Interpreting the assignment topic Before you begin working on an assignment, you need to understand what it is that the assignment is asking you to do. Your lecturer has written the assignment topic a certain way because he or she wants you to be able to demonstrate a certain type of understanding. Being able to interpret what the assignment is asking you to do is a vital skill. One of the first steps in interpreting the assignment topic is to identify the direction words which tell you what to do. Some of these words will be clear to you, but others will be unknown , and you will have to make sense of them before you know what's required of you. After you've done this, you're ready to begin analysing the question itself. This is where you really work out what's expected of you so you can think about how to meet these expectations. Of course, it would be silly of you not to consider any additional notes on the assignment given to you by your lecturer or tutor. Identifying unknown words You should make sure you know the precise meaning of every word in an assignment topic. You can check...
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...Module Page Description 1 Strategy Set of techniques & tools for leading, managing, coordinating and making decision in times of complexity & change Organising tools, shared language for analysing and communicating current position of Org Means of communicating tasks of coordinating complex activities towards the goals of Org Emergence - Changes in nature of Ownership and management, Changing and gloabliisng market conditions, New Org structures Org vision and mission statement articulates its strategy, Org performance relative to its strategy is in performance review in Annual Report Telstra One Factory Approach - Bringing together Operations and Management of IT System, removing duplication and complexity in system. Leadership Leadership = influence process “Follower-ship” different from management “Subordinate-ship” Power & Influence – Power to change people’s behaviour and Influence to change their preferences Can be exercised from any level or position within an Org Capacity to motive and elicit employee commitment Effective and Forward thinking Accountant Roles in Strategic Leadership 2 External Environment – Analysing an Industry Process includes – definition of ‘Industry’, Life Cycle Stage, Evolution, how factors may change their impact on future growth & profitability, what drives customers demand, Critical Success factors & how competitors compete Gathering Data – Internet, Public Agencies & Statutory Authorities, Industry Associations,...
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...Capital Market Segment- Case Study Analysis I. Case Problem – Problem Statement What would be the action plan or transition plan for the day after the event? II. Analysing Case Data Resources are rising its costs same with the wages and yet the profit itself is all-time low. The most affected in this issue in the first place is the company. They are paying the salaries and wages yet the profit they got are not the satisfying and also the employees who will be terminated in two weeks later. Table 1.1 Constraints | Opportunities | 1. There will be changes with their productivity after the termination. 2. Tasks will not be in order and will not be performed well. 3. The company shows signs of losing profit. 4. There will be unions of employees such as those with contracts. 5. Investors might withdraw their shares. | 1. It is easier to control and facilitate them. 2. The company can response better with others expenses rather than wages and salaries. | III. Generating Alternatives Possible Alternatives A. Job Rotation B. Purchase Machineries C. Overtime D. Set Quota with Additional Benefits E. Multitasking F. No Rest Day IV. Evaluation of Alternatives We generate this alternatives that follows the rule of BE REALISTIC. We have different opinions so we construct this table to see which alternative will be more appropriate to recommend to the said company. As a summary, we list all the possible constraints...
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...TERMS OF REFERENCE Prepared on behalf of First Movement Ltd. In respect of a Marketing and Communications Audit (this is a piece of Market, Customer and Competitor analysis) Date 20th February 2014 1.0 Purpose The purpose of this document is to set out the scope of the requirements of First Movement Ltd. With regard to a marketing and communication audit (Market, Customer and Competitor Analysis) and to detail the basis under which Hoang H Dao, Ni Fu, Siyu Chen and Sok Mei Celina Lei (give yourself a name for your Consultancy group) with undertake this investigation. It reflects on why this activity is required, details the specific outcomes desired and sets out the proposed research activity, timeframe and cost in order to provide a basis for project allocation or further refinement. 2.0 Background Since 1988, First Movement Ltd., as a charity organisation, focus on working with learning disabled people; by creating projects in order to develop and promote their unique creativity. They aim to deliver arts projects including digital arts projects for people with learning disabilities. In addition, they also focus on supporting local artists and creative industries. Moreover, by placing those learning disabled people in a situation that allow them to have opportunities to work with other creative people thus to value them. The core issue of the organisation is focusing on learning disabled adults but there are also specific tailor made opportunities...
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...15th April 2011 The purpose of this assignment is to introduce you to gathering, analysing and reporting research data. The focus is on examining Piaget’s concepts in a practical way. It links to your achievement of the Unit Outcomes 3 and 4: 3 Collect, analyse and interpret data with respect to the domains of development. 4 Develop academic essay and report writing skills The assignment consists of clear steps which are outlined below: Gathering the data (revisit Chapter 2 for information on ethics, observation and note taking) Collect about 20 small items that can be sorted or categorised in multiple ways e.g. shells, screws / nails, buttons, pictures from a shopping catalogue or magazine etc. Select two people of different ages. A larger discrepancy (a primary school aged child and an adult; or a preschooler and an adolescent for example) will be easier for you but you may need just to work with people you have easy access to. Explain that you need to ask people of different ages to do a short activity for a university assignment. It should take a maximum of about 20 minutes. Gain their consent to participate in your study. Make sure you submit signed consent forms (see link under “Assessments”) from the participants. It is important that you learn normal research protocol, and this demands that, irrespective of whether or not the person is a family member, you would need to have them sign the consent form. A parent or guardian should sign on behalf of any...
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...because of the renewal of the annual membership fees and heavy court usage, it still will be hard for CRC to estimate its cash receipts during the summer. However, in terms of the new membership scheme, membership fees will be the only source of revenue for CRC. Besides, the original three categories of members (individual, student and family) will be reduced to two categories (individual and family). Therefore, it will be easier for CRC to plan its cash receipts since there will be less uncertain factors that have influence on the entity’s cash receipts. To be more precise, as the membership fees will be collected once the membership application is completed and there will not be other fees being charged during the membership, CRC only need to estimate the numbers of individual and family members throughout different seasons to plan its cash receipts. In contrast, when CRC plans its cash receipt under present membership, it also has to estimate the usage of court in different seasons to predict the...
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...techniques that are used to portray a theme/idea in a certain way. This means analysing the stylistic language choices that the author made to establish a particular tone and present the theme(s)/idea(s) to impact the audience in a particular way. Thus, the inter-relationship between author, text, and reader is what you need to look at. You need to read your question carefully in order to determine how to pull apart and include everything required of you. Highlight the important parts. ‘How’ in a text analysis essay means that you need to refer to technique. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANALYSIS AND DESCRIPTION The difference between producing an essay that passes and one that doesn’t comes down to your analytical skills. If you find yourself taking about the characters as though they are people and recounting the plot. Stop. Wrong Way. Go Back. Do not collect $200. Think about what language choices the author made in order to portray or construct the text in a particular way. The language choices of a text establish its tone which can be serious, humorous, satirical, ironic, formal, informal etc. This tone manipulates the reader to interpret the text in a particular way. So the reader views the theme/topic in the same light as the tone. INTRODUCTION Global sentence that provides a context for the text(s) you are analysing. Text sentence that states which text(s) you are analysing and who wrote them. Ensure you get all details correct. Descriptive...
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