Business A Level frequently uses cases studies of real businesses to explore the way firms plan and operate their businesses, and deal with internal problems such as staffing issues, as well as external challenges from the competition or the economic environment.
Therefore before you start your Business lessons you will need to start building up a bank of examples of how real businesses operate. We would like you to collect at least 5 news articles about business issues during your summer break before joining the Sixth Form. At least two of these should be about small or start-up businesses (ie not multi-nationals), and no more than two can be sourced from the internet. Please cut out the articles you have chosen and place in a file or scrapbook. You must be ready to speak about the articles or news stories you have collected.
The best sources of information will be the business pages or supplements of the following newspapers: The Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, The Independent. The weekend editions of these papers are particularly rich in examples. For ideas on small businesses you might like to look at the business advice columns these papers operate where owners of small businesses write in with their problems. The Guardian and Telegraph both offer this in their Saturday editions. The BBC news website, under the Economy\Companies tab may also be useful.
As you choose your articles, you will want to consider the broad topics that you will study:
· Business Strategy & Objectives (this would include plans for growth, or mergers)
· Human Resources – the people side of business which includes recruitment, motivation, pay, and redundancy
· Marketing – the way in which businesses make customers aware of the products they offer and the prices they charge
· Operations – the actual running of the business, including use of technology or changing the way products are made or customers are served.
Good luck, and enjoy starting to explore the world of business.