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AQA Business Studies Unit 2 (BUSS2) Revision thread.

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coolgirl1999

I got 25 for the first one and 30% for the second one ( I rounded it up) Is that right do you think?

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Reply 461

gcsestink

Yes if the price is inelastic price won't affect the demand of the product so that was my point FOR the 10%increase! I put 25 something and 29.74 for labour turnover, examiners are lenient with rounding up!

Reply 462

dannyboyrises

A price in elastic product means that there will be little change in demand. The case study said that it was a 'less intense' market, and so putting in anything about competition is not likely to gain any marks.

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Reply 463

Tom78

Original post by gcsestink

How did everyone find it?! I didn't manage to finish the last question, I just put aboutthe price elasticity being -0.8 and then about setting 10% higher price may lose there bigger contracts as they may look elsewhere ie a big company like staples may look for a cheaper option. The other questions were quite good I just ****ed up my timing for the last question only had 3 minutes to do it!! Do you think I can still gain at least a c?!

Elasticity below 0 is inelastic so demand will change only a small amount if they change the price, unlike if it were elastic :tongue:

sorry, I only learnt that the night before lol.

Good exam though for me, made all the points I thought I could really, hoping for a B at least

Reply 464

Tom78

Original post by dannyboyrises

Yeah but recognising what elasticity is and applying it to the case study will get you marks I'm sure of that.

Reply 465

dannyboyrises

Original post by Tom78

Yeah but recognising what elasticity is and applying it to the case study will get you marks I'm sure of that.

If you are able to link the firm's PED to another piece of evidence e.g. Cash flow issues they were experiencing, then you are likely to get GAN, no matter how you word it.

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Reply 466

dannyboyrises

Original post by Tom78

Elasticity below 0 is inelastic so demand will change only a small amount if they change the price, unlike if it were elastic :tongue:

sorry, I only learnt that the night before lol.

Good exam though for me, made all the points I thought I could really, hoping for a B at least

Actually it's below 1, regardless of the minus e.g. -0.8 would be in elastic as would 0.8.

It doesn't matter anyway, you picked up the right point.

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Reply 467

Charleybearr09

Original post by Davott

I have about 9 mins to read and give you some feedback :P

Seems like a great essay! I would certainly put it in the top mark band, what I would like to see is a more structured essay (so, reason for, against, for, against, conclusion) as it seemed to jump between for/against reasonably randomly. You also went into price elasticity of demand which is a very good point but perhaps just following the line of higher class customers are willing to pay more would be better.

Finally, I was struggling to find more than one negative, it's difficult to give an example at the moment but is there high rent? is staffing costs high? have they done market research in the area?. Essentially, is there anything else other than the interest payments that may suggest that the new stores won't be able to make a profit?

Other than that, a perfect essay and as I say, it is easily shooting to the top mark band as you clearly know your business stuff!

-Dav

i have done a past paper please will you mark it for me?

Its June 2010 unit 2

Another reason is that they give out too much training, they offer nine weeks induction training which is a bit extreme and so if they were to lower it they would save money and make employees feel less needy meaning motivation would increase and so would productivity, if staff are overtrained they may feel like they aren't worthy and the business doesn't think they have enough expereince which can make then feel insecure and so they may leave.

1c)
The marketing mix contains the 4p's product, promotion, place and price however it is influeneced by many other factors.

To some extent it has been the most important element to the marking mix because its the product that has gained them their reputation for supplying high quality frozen foods which has led to their high sales volume and enabled them to become a market leader. Gaining them this repuatuon was vey important because it is what promoted repeat purchases and enables them to spend less on marketing because they are promoted so well through word of mouth advertising.

However to some extent I think that that the promaiton has been the most important part of the marketing mix because it is events like raising funds for charities which boosts the brand name making the business more aware of, which I think is what has enabled them to to enter new markets such as cruise-lines because of the way they have used promotion as it shows the culture of the business which will attract new markets.

Overall I agree that the product was the most important part because although the promotion played a big part it wouldn't have got anywhere with out a product that was right for customers. The fact that the product porfolio was was widened I think this shows the importance of the prouct to the marketing mix beccause by offereing other products such as foods from china and mexico the buiness can tailor its needs to individuals meaning they can adapt their customer loyalty which shall increase revenue and imporve reputation because they offer more and so can cater for a larger audience which shall lead to large profits which has enabled them to offer the training they need to improve their business to make it more competitive.

1d

motivation techniques are ways in whch the business changes a job role to make the employees happier so that the job is done to a better standard, these can be non financial or financial incentives.

To some extent i agree because if they didnt invest heavily on trainting their labour turnover would be a lot higher from the very low percentage it is and by having a low turnover the business saves money as they dont have to spend lots of money on recruitment and selection because there are less vacanices to fill and so less induction training is needed and so the business can just focus on developing their employees skills further to imporve quality and efficiency so that higher revenues are made and more costs are cut becuse less wastage is produced as the likeliness of defects has been reduced. so the training has ment less labour turnover because the staff feel enriched and empowered because they feel like the bsuiness wants them within the business because they have invested money in training them up effecively also their training leads to qualifications which will instantly motivate the staff as they feel like the they are getting something valuable out of the business other than money.

however to some extent i disagree because providing this much training isnt neccassay and managers that have to do all this training may feel overstretched and if they arent qulaified can feel demotivated because they arent that sure of what they are doing and so the whole process could be a disaster. Also by prividing this much training the staff are under tight control because they are being obsevered a lot which can make them feel like the business doesn't trust them which will lead to demotivation because they feel like they can never use their own initiative and so they are likely to feel under that much pressure they take lots of time of sick meaning high absesnteesim leading to higher costs because they will have to find someone to cover this role or they may even leave which means they have wasted a large sum of money because aftr paying for this training they have left and so the business will have to employ someone without the skills and retrain them up which is also a big time waster.

overall i agree because althoughthey may be overtraining their staff it seems to be effective because its emplyes have three time voted them as best employers and sothey must be overly happy with the training and motivation theories that are in place. they also over large cash rewards for employees which perfom well which is likely to motivate them severly as such a high percentage of cash is up for stake (40%) whoch could mke them focus on quantity rather than quality however because of their taining they are likely to overcome this and keep their quality up to scratch.motivating them with these financial incentives is a key to making the work force more effective because it will enable them to be more productive as they feel they are being rewarded for their efforts.

2a)
netprofit
revenue

= 45045/46200=0.975

2b)
customer sevice is the ways in which the business satisfies the customers either by helpful and friendly staff of after sale servive or even just providing a good quality product.

one reason could be because of the labour turnover as it was already at 10% which is still quite high which means that a lot of new staff have been joining and so will be unfamilar with the buinesses objectives and so may not be very helpful to customers because they are new to the bsiness and havent yet got the right skills.
annother reason is that it has cut expeniture on training which means new staff may not get inducton training and so wont know what they are doing, it also means staff will be demotivated becasue the business cant provide them with the skills they need and so they wont care for the businesses reputation and so wont go out of their way to be overly friendly and so customers will feel this negative impact towards the employer and feel dissatisfied with the service they recieve.

2c)
When you sub contract work you get other businesses to help you fufil orders because you dont have the capacity to fill them yourself.

to some extent i agree because increasing sales is very importsnt in his situation because cash flow is a problem as he has exceeded his limit of the overdraft several times and so with cash flow (unlike proftit) it is very imporant in the short term as if they cant pay their debts they wont be able to continue any longer because they need materials to create an output so that they can create a sale and so this order could change everything for them because if they manage to increases sales revenue they can pay their debts and so keep cash flow positive and so imporve the efficciy of the business.
however to some extent i disagree because if th pople who theyve contracted their work dont produce the right quality their position could fall further because retailers such as tesco wont be happy if they dont receive the quality they've payed for and so it wont be the subcontractrs that lose the contract with tescos it will be Warick clothing and losing large orders such as these will send them in to immedate decline as they are already producing hardly any profit in 2009-10 they only made £1155 profit) and so they cant afford to risk losing contracts which are keeping them afloat at the minute.
overall i diagree because there is alot of risks that come with subcontracting work and so the likeliness of increasing sales by subcontracting is slim as specially as the subcontractor in Vietnam has low costs which means the quality may be suffered to get the costs at such a low price, also as they are so far away they cant be sure that the subcontractors are offereing fair wages and good working enviroments for their workers andso if anyone from tescos knows about this their reputation willhave a really big negative impact which could lead them to ultimate failure and so it would be best to turn down this order because the extra sales that could be got out of this chance put the whole business at stake and so i disagree with his decison to subcontract to increae sales because i think there are other ways to improve the business rather than putting the whole busines at sake for a few extra sales, areas such as cutomer service should be tackled and then sales will rise instantly meaning they dont have to risk letting anyone else fulfil their orders because they dont have the trust to do so.

2d)

cash flow is the money that flows into and out of the bsiness over a give period of time where as profit is how much the business makes once total costs have been subtacted from sales revuence.

to some extent i think cash flow poses a greater threat because its something the business can survive without in the short term and so if they dont find a way to improve thir cash flow situation they arent very likely to surivie as they cant coninue to sell if they cant pay for material to make the products in the first place. they have exceeded their bank overdraft several times which would have led to big penatly fines which would havebut them in an even worse situation and so having cashflow is the most important thing ina buiness because you cant operate wthout cashflow.
however to some extent low levels of profability are a bigger threat because if the business cant produce enough sales or cut cost effectively it wont be making any profit and so motivation finaicial inctentives are out of the window meaning motivation may decrease which will lead to further customer complaints which is very bad in their situation considreing in 2008-9 theyonly satisfied 74% of their customers and by not keeping customers happy they won't have anyone to purchase their proudcts and so their situation will further deteriorate.
overall i think cash flow imposes more of a threat because although profit is important the business can survive with out it in the the short term where with cash flow it cant. Alan is already delaying outflows as much as possible because if he cant pay outflows he has no chance of success, even though he has borrowed money from the bank he still cant pay outflows on time and so suppliers will leave him meaning he has to find more suppliers which may take time and so he will worsen his situation because he cant operate without suppliers, he doesn't have the money or time to find new suppliers and so its important he pays them on time and in full because they wont stick around, and because the suppliers know they have advantage over him they can up prices which would be impossible for him to cope with. so cash flow overly poses more threat to the success because the business cant operate at all with out inflows to pay his outflows.

Reply 468

Kay_Ellen96

Do you guys reckon the exam tomorrow will be really hard or easy? Starting to get nervous now!!!

Reply 469

lidiya

Is the structure like
1. For
2. Against
3. Overall.. it depends up on...
??

Reply 470

User1845017

**** this pussy boy, **** it! **** it right boy! (you know I love it when you) **** it, ****...

Reply 471

rocnation90210

Original post by Magic Dust

So I thought I would start a thread for those of us sitting the unit 2 paper in June.

I personally see it as the most important business studies paper as it is worth the biggest percentage of the whole A level even though it is much easier then units 3 and 4.

Hello Magic Dust, I tried to send you a private message but I was informed that your inbox is full and that you may need to delete some in order for me to be able to send you one. Could you please delete some? I really need your help with something, thanks!!

Reply 472

splashking

This site could be very useful to anyone who is looking for good condensed notes to use and go over http://noteking.weebly.com/business-unit-2---budgets

Reply 473

samm98

How did people find it today? I thought it was ok, could have been harder, could have been easier. Does anyone remember all the questions as I'd quite like to work my mark out haha.