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Sample notes
A full chapter of the tutes students receive, so you can see the format before you register.
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Past papers
Edexcel papers by session, arranged by unit, with the mark scheme beside each one.
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Revision timetable
A term-by-term plan working back from the exam date, ready to fill in.
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Formula sheets
Every calculation in the specification on one page: elasticity, break-even, ratios, investment appraisal.
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Business glossary
The terms that come up in every paper, grouped the way the specification groups them. Definitions are one sentence each, enough to jog a memory mid-revision.
Enterprise and ownership
- Entrepreneur
- A person who organises the other factors of production and takes the risk of running a business.
- Limited liability
- The owners' losses are capped at what they invested; personal assets are not at risk if the business fails.
- Unlimited liability
- The owners are personally responsible for the whole of the business's debts, without limit.
- Stakeholder
- Any individual or group affected by, or able to affect, what a business does: owners, staff, customers, suppliers, the community.
- Opportunity cost
- The value of the next best alternative given up when a choice is made.
Marketing and the market
- Market segmentation
- Dividing a market into groups of customers with similar characteristics so each can be targeted differently.
- USP (unique selling point)
- The feature of a product that distinguishes it from competitors and gives customers a reason to choose it.
- Price elasticity of demand
- How responsive quantity demanded is to a change in price: percentage change in quantity divided by percentage change in price.
- Income elasticity of demand
- How responsive quantity demanded is to a change in consumer income, which is what separates a normal good from an inferior one.
- Marketing mix
- The combination of product, price, place and promotion a business uses to sell to its target market.
- Product life cycle
- The stages a product passes through over time: development, introduction, growth, maturity and decline.
Finance
- Fixed cost
- A cost that does not change with the level of output, such as rent.
- Variable cost
- A cost that rises and falls directly with the level of output.
- Contribution
- Selling price per unit minus variable cost per unit, which is what each unit sold contributes towards fixed costs and then profit.
- Break-even point
- The level of output at which total revenue equals total costs, so the business makes neither profit nor loss.
- Margin of safety
- The amount by which current output exceeds the break-even output, so how far sales can fall before a loss is made.
- Cash flow
- The money moving into and out of a business over a period, which is not the same thing as its profit.
- Working capital
- Current assets minus current liabilities, which is the money available to meet day-to-day running costs.
- Gross profit
- Revenue minus cost of sales, before other operating expenses are taken off.
- Capital expenditure
- Spending on assets that will be used repeatedly over more than one year, as opposed to day-to-day revenue expenditure.
People in business
- Span of control
- The number of subordinates a manager is directly responsible for.
- Delayering
- Removing levels of hierarchy from an organisational structure, usually to cut costs and speed up communication.
- Labour turnover
- The proportion of staff who leave a business over a period, expressed as a percentage of the average number employed.
- Motivation
- The reason a person puts effort into their work, and the subject of Taylor's, Mayo's, Maslow's and Herzberg's theories.
Operations and the external environment
- Productivity
- Output per unit of input, most often measured per worker or per hour.
- Capacity utilisation
- Current output as a percentage of the maximum output possible with existing resources.
- Economies of scale
- The fall in average cost per unit that comes from producing on a larger scale.
- Just-in-time (JIT)
- Holding as little stock as possible and having materials delivered as they are needed.
- Globalisation
- The growing integration of national economies through trade, investment and the movement of people and ideas.
- Exchange rate
- The price of one currency in terms of another, which changes the cost of imports and the competitiveness of exports.
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