AQA BUSS 4 - Corporate Culture Discussion

Well in conclusion you are giving judgements and a reason for your judgement.
Feels like you're a judge in a court; you have heard both side of the story and now you need to make a decision and of course you can't just give someone a penalty without any convincing reason.


One way to conclude is to say:


Overall I believe that point 1 is much more significant than point 2 because.........
However it could be possible that they are interlinked and one causes another.......

You could also talk about what each factors depend upon.
You could say:
On balance I believe that point 1 depends upon external factors such as the economic climate or competitors action and then give an example that you know to back up your point.

The easiest for me is probably short run vs long run. In business you need to consider between short run implications and log run implications.

For example:
Lowering prices will help to increase the revenue of firm A (point made) as consumers fundamentally look for a good price (2nd point made). However this depends upon the price elasticity of demand (evaluation). Price elasticity of demand is the responsiveness of demand to change in price (knowledge). If price is inelastic then a fall in prices will actually lead to a fall in revenue however if elastic then a fall in prices will lead to a gain in revenue (analysed).
Even if (evaluation) prices are elastic and firm A does lower the price for its product, they may only see the benefit in the short run as in the long run competitiors are likely react to the fall in prices and adjust their prices too hence no benefits will be gained by them in the long run. A lot of this will depend (evaluation) upon the market structure that the firm is operating. If firm A is operating in an Oligopoly market, where firms are interdependent, then they are less likely to leave the prices alone as a price war is not favourable in such market structure.
Also it is to bare in mind that consumers may place great value on quality rather than price (evaluation). This can perhaps be seen in the mobile phone industry; taking Apple and Blackberry as an example. Although Blackberry seems to be a lot more cheaper than an iPhone but due to its unique selling point and high quality Apple has been able to build a strong customer base and have much greater market share than Blackberry.


On balance, based on the evidence I believe that firm A should NOT lower it's prices (judgement made) because they seem to be operating in an oligopoly market where a price war means that they will be the real losers in the long run due to prices being "sticky". I believe they should invest heavily in marketing in order to increase their market share (recommendation made) because this is the best solution to build a strong customer base in such markets to increase their competetivness. However a lot will depend (evaluation) upon how much other competitors are investing in marketing too. If they are investing as much and their marketing is as effective as firm's A strategy then relative competitiveness will remain the same.



I hope you get the idea of what I'm doing. I'm not an expert at this but I think that is a good conclusion.
Don't be scared to bring in other topical areas from BUSS 1-3. For example you could have said well yh they could invest in marketing but can the finance function support this strategy? Or from BUSS2 you could have said yes marketing could increase but what if they're already close to full capacity and therefore even if demand increases they won't be able to meet demand so will that really increase market share? Or even some BUSS1 topics such a market research in order to understand what the consumers need....... You could have also said things that are not in the book. With poor economic conditions in the EU and UK maybe a fall in revenue may not be such a massive concern and even question the question. Is market share really the best way to measure competitiveness of the firm and how they are performing?

I hope this makes sense. Conclusion is your judgement, there is no right or wrong answer as long as your judgement is logical and is backed up with logical analysis, theories and real world examples.


Good luck!

hey for section A and B do you follow the structure of 1 intro 2 for 2 against and conclusion?

For Buss 4 I've stopped doing an introduction altogether and just go straight into my first point for/against...

hey for section A and B do you follow the structure of 1 intro 2 for 2 against and conclusion?

Erm well i retook unit 3 on wednesday (I got a D last time ) but it went really bad, so I have a really bad feeling that I may not have improved, but still kind of hopeful that I have, but meh.

So overall if I haven't improved in Unit 3, for an A in this exam I'd need 88 UMS, which is really high but I'm just going to try my best and maybe pray a lot haha, and you never know I could get an A, but we'll see

you?

I've got one question. I know that people cannot emphasise enough that PLANNING is crucial, especially in this exam. The question is - HOW do you plan?

Do you guys have any structure for your plan and how much detail do you include? Plus, how long should we spend on it?

hoping that globalisation/emerging markets comes up in section B, tescos 'fresh and easy' stores in america is a great example to use!

I thought that the 'fresh and easy' were good for retrenchment!

oh yea I never thought of that! have you got any other examples for retrenchment?

I have Tesco's 'fresh and easy' and their retrenchment from Japan and Nokia's retrenchment strategy.

tescos retrenchment from america is also good where did nokia retrench from?

I am, LOADS. I feel like the only one! I've wrote revision cards for unit 4, and typed up businesses relating to the different bullet points of organisational culture, I haven't even started essay practice or actually remembering figures and what not. We've got 4 days, we can do this...

Pleasse Please Please could you send me your notes for Section A? Im really really struggling and I depserately need an A to get into Uni, which right now is looking very unlikely

tescos retrenchment from america is also good where did nokia retrench from?

Remember that retrenchment does not always mean exiting a certain market.
Nokia used retrenchment strategy to minimise costs and get back in the game in the mobile phone market. They've done this by e.g. cutting labour costs by redundancies.

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/retrenchment-strategy-are-things-looking-better-for-nokia-and-stephen-elop

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/more-retrenchment-at-nokia-june-2012

http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/nokia-and-strategic-change-the-essential-a2-business-case

My notes aren't fab, I have only had a few days to research and what not, I've tried sticking to key facts per business, but how I will remember them all is beyond me...

but, feel free to inbox me your address