Part of The Student Room Group

  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

AS and A Level: Case Studies and Analysis

Browse by

Currently browsing by:

Word count:
fewer than 1000 (3)
1000-1999 (2)
2000-2999 (1)
3000+ (4)

Meet our team of inspirational teachers

find out about the team

Get help from 80+ teachers and hundreds of thousands of student written documents

What is corporate social responsibility?

  1. 1 This is where businesses behave in a way that is seen as being ethically acceptable and beneficial to all stakeholders including the wider community.
  2. 2 An example would be a commitment to only buying raw materials from fair trade suppliers. This may raise costs so the business is being socially responsible and not buying from the cheapest source.
  3. 3 Sceptics may say that the business only behaves in a socially responsible way for the publicity they get from it.
  4. 4 This may be the case but it still makes it in the best interest of the business to be socially responsible. Think of other benefits to a business e.g. in the motivation of staff, the long term profit.
  5. 5 The free market view would be that the business only has responsibility to its owners (the shareholders) and anything which raises costs in the interest of social responsibility will be passed onto customers in higher prices anyway.

Top tips for analysing a business

  1. 1 Internal sources of information about a business will include the company accounts, press releases, company website, adverts etc. Remember who is writing them and why. Treat them with some scepticism.
  2. 2 External sources of information include Wikipedia, newspaper articles and internet sites.
  3. 3 Consider why a business has taken a particular course of action. What are its corporate objectives? What are its competitors doing? Is this a response to external or internal factors?
  4. 4 When evaluating use comparisons with previous time periods, with competitors and with its declared objectives.
  5. 5 Be prepared to question. Do not take what a business says uncritically. You may not know the real situation but questioning issues will still be worth marks.

Five things you need to know about stakeholders

  1. 1 Stakeholders are any individuals or groups that have an interest in or are affected by the activities of a business. These include shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, government and local community.
  2. 2 Most businesses will need to take into account the interests and needs of the different stakeholder groups when making decisions. The relative strength and influence of the different groups may be reflected in the final decision.
  3. 3 When analysing a business you may need to consider the effects of any course of action on all the stakeholders. The effects will differ.
  4. 4 Stakeholder groups will usually have different interests that a business must resolve e.g. employees will want fair pay and job security while shareholders will want low costs.
  5. 5 Be prepared in your analysis to point out the winning and losing stakeholders. Some people criticise the whole stakeholder concept and say that businesses are only really interested in satisfying the shareholders.

  • Marked by Teachers essays 22
  1. Marked by a teacher

    Skills and Knowledge Needed to Work In A Business Environment

    5 star(s)

    Being empathetic and relating to the way they feel about certain issues can help find out what the sensitive needs could be. One example of the needs could be an elderly customer that has hard hearing; the person who encounters this person would need to speak louder and slower because the person would need time to process the information that has just been said. 1,3 Describe How To Treat Other People In A Way That Respects Their Abilities, Background, Values, Customs And Beliefs The way to treat other people is to always remember that everyone has different ways of doing

    • Word count: 3674
  2. Marked by a teacher

    Does the increasingly global nature or business mean that all organisations need to change their strategies significantly to achieve higher profits?

    5 star(s)

    Looking at Gap Inc I discovered that they changed their Ansoff Matrix strategy in order to expand and grow. Gap Inc decided it would be best to use the strategy market development, this is where a business keeps their existing product and sale it to a new market. Gap Inc decided to keep their all American image but instead market it to different countries. This appear to have been successful as Gap has plans to triple stores in China from 15 - 45 by the end of the year and increase their square footage in Poland and Japan.

    • Word count: 1084
  3. Marked by a teacher

    Aims of tesco

    5 star(s)

    This 'Steering Wheel' divides the business up into five sections - Customer, Community, Operations, People and Finance. All these sections are monitored by managers with a traffic light system, green indicates that targets are being met and red flags up an area that needs attention. The figure below shows an overview of the Tesco 'Steering Wheel'. Each Tesco store has its own individual Steering Wheel which targets specific areas in each section relating to the store, area and customers. This Steering Wheel strategy is an ingenious tool linking strategy to day-to-day work and helps each store achieve its objectives and meet the overall goals of Tesco.

    • Word count: 5008
  4. Marked by a teacher

    Explain different types of business information, their sources and purposes for Sainsburys.

    4 star(s)

    Communication is the exchange of thoughts, messages that occur because they are sources of information. It is vital that businesses communicate efficiently, in order to do a variety of things such as buying stock and selling goods these two examples of information sources can both be verbal and non-verbal. Businesses need information to be successful, and that information can come from a variety of sources, both internal and external. The types of information used by Sainsbury?s include; verbal, written, on-screen, multimedia and web based. Sainsbury?s uses verbal information on a daily basis, staff need to communicate with the customers in order to help them find goods and also to sell them products at the counter, which is an internal source of information.

    • Word count: 871
  5. Marked by a teacher

    Diversification case study. Reasons why GSK diversify

    4 star(s)

    GSK diversify into over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, oral healthcare and nutritional healthcare. Worldwide it is the second largest in OTC medicines and the third largest in Oral healthcare. In Nutritional healthcare it holds the leading position in the UK, India and Ireland. OTC medicines include Panadol, Eno. Oral healthcare products include Aquafresh and Sensodyne. Nutritional healthcare products include Horlicks, Ribena and Lucozade. Economies of scope enable GSK to leverage core competences, such as R&D. It also enables them to moblilize invisible assets, such as their 12 800 highly skilled researchers. The scale of manufacturing in GSK is huge, with the manufacture of over 4 billion packs per year in 28,000 different presentations (including tablets, creams/ointments, inhalers, injections, liquids and steriles), which are then supplied to over 150 markets.

    • Word count: 869
  6. Marked by a teacher

    Frederick Taylor's and Elton Mayo's theories applied in companies - McDonalds and Tesco.

    4 star(s)

    McDonald's encourages its employees through many effective ways where they offer a competitive wage and promotion program. Employees which are hardworking, dedicated and show performance results are recognized and rewarded at McDonald's. Mc Donalds conducts recognition programs such as ' Employee of the Month ' where it recognizes the best worker for the entire month and rewards them with some incentives and this gives motivation to the other employees to aim towards that too . McDonald's also offers great incentive programs with access to gift certificates, merchandise, free food, recognition programs and even company car program to increase monetary incentives.

    • Word count: 1948
  7. Marked by a teacher

    Business Culture & Strategy Analysis Of JD Wetherspoon

    4 star(s)

    On choosing between brewing and retailing, JD Wetherspoon entered the market as a retailer. It was a new company with no connections to any brewery and was able to build from scratch. Economic With the changed market environment, the 1980s and early 1990s were characterized by a number of launches and re-launches as well as changes of ownership among other public house operators. Legal Smoking ban is putted out. A quarter of the space in each pubs is non-smoking. Technology There are more entertainment elements.

    • Word count: 3544
  8. Marked by a teacher

    SWOT, PEST and Boston Matrix analysis for Sainsburys.

    4 star(s)

    The Ansoff Growth matrix is a tool that helps a business decide their product and market growth strategy. There are four sections in an Ansoff Matrix: Market Penetration - This occurs when Sainsbury's enter an existing market with an existing product(s). Sainsbury's would seek to achieve four main objectives when using this. * To maintain or increase the market share of current products - Sainsbury's can achieve this by using a combination of pricing strategies, advertising campaigns, sales promotions and more recourses dedicated to personal selling. * Securing dominance of growth markets * Restructure a mature market by driving out competitors - To do this Sainsbury's would need to develop a much more aggressive promotional campaign supported by a pricing strategy that would be unattractive to competitors.

    • Word count: 2467
  9. Marked by a teacher

    Cadburys Aims and Objectives

    4 star(s)

    Profitably secure and grow regional beverages share. -This aim was made for Cadburys to increase the product that they supply all over the globe so that they can increase market share. Invest, innovate and execute - In the UK, there have been a increase of the rate of innovation and our marketing spend in the second half of the year with the creation of new chocolates like Cadbury Dairy ,Cadbury Dark etc. And will continue with successful new ideas like Cr�me egg, Cadbury Dairy Milk.

    • Word count: 917
  10. Marked by a teacher

    Primark. The company I have chosen to look at is Primark, in this report I shall be looking into the operations management. Followed by the inputs, transformations and outputs to the company.

    4 star(s)

    Combining these two meaning, you can clearly identify what operation management is concerned with. Operations management can be found everywhere, as shown in Fig 1. 2.1 PRIMARK Primark was first established in Dublin, under the name of Pennies, which, situates itself amongst the retail market in the service sector. Trading in over 125 stores, and currently taking over little woods stores, additionally opening up another 65 stores this year. Primark currently targets the under 35's, with there up to date fashion conscience clothing lines, at low cost prices encompassing the brand mark "Look Good, Pay Less".

    • Word count: 3287
  11. Marked by a teacher

    Wace Burgess Case Study

    4 star(s)

    The main objectives for the M&S business are quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost. In terms of quality M&S are looking for high quality to meet its existing customer's requirements, they are known for high quality products so need to produce the cards with this in mind. They will need to have their staff to be very courteous, friendly and helpful. This will enable them to have an effective and efficient work force in order to meet the demand for the M&S order.

    • Word count: 1846
11 essays
  1. 1
  2. 2

Conclusion analysis

Good conclusions usually refer back to the question or title and address it directly - for example by using key words from the title.
How well do you think these conclusions address the title or question? Answering these questions should help you find out.

  1. Do they use key words from the title or question?
  2. Do they answer the question directly?
  3. Can you work out the question or title just by reading the conclusion?

  • In This unit I am gong analyse the product knowledge required by employees of the organisation. The organisation that I am going to analyse is Alton Towers.

    "Conclusion From my research I have found out a great deal about how Alton Towers runs its park. From my research I have examined the secondary research methods used by Alton Towers. From my secondary research I believe that the most effective type of method to delivery product knowledge is the use of the Alton Towers website. This is because it can be easily updated and changed to suit customer types or any up and coming events. I believe it is a quick and good method of delivering product knowledge as the amount of people that have access to a computer is constantly growing. I have concluded that Alton Towers has excellent product knowledge and that the majority of its staff where able to deliver accurate and reliable answers to any of the questions that I asked members of staff. From my research I conclude that the most affective type of primary research undertaken to get up to date product knowledge from staff is questionnaires. The only problem with this is that it is time consuming to find a member of staff and ask several questions. This type of research is affective if a person needs to know one or two questions but to find out lots of product knowledge I would recommend an educational talk."

  • With reference to the car market, discuss the case for and against engaging in niche marketing as distinct from mass marketing.

    "In conclusion, the most effective market for the motor industry is the mass market which is the volume car produces because there are many people who are interested in purchasing cars at affordable prices than for higher prices from the luxury car produces. This means the mass market are more likely to become successful as a whole because there will always be people who will be interested in purchasing affordable prices cars than for high end cars who generally cater fewer customers. Therefore, since there will be on-going purchases from the volume car producers they're likely going to become much more successful than the luxury car producers."

  • Analyse the arguments for First Cars car club proposal. June 2010 AQA

    "In conclusion, I think First Cars should take the risk. The evidence shows that the business has to take drastic action to stop further falls in profit. This strategy of market development (same product but new market) is not as risky as diversification but should be more profitable than trying to penetrate the car hire market further. Although First Cars may have to wait for several years before the proposal becomes profitable there is scope for a successful result, especially as the costs of running a car are forecast to increase which should raise demand for car clubs. The main factor which will influence success is whether the business, managers and workers can change their culture from a low price low customer service business into a high price and high customer service one. If they can do this then I think the car club will be successful and I recommend that First Cars goes ahead with it."

Marked by a teacher

This document has been marked by one of our great teachers. You can read the full teachers notes when you download the document.

Peer reviewed

This document has been reviewed by one of our specialist student essay reviewing squad. Read the full review on the document page.

Peer reviewed

This document has been reviewed by one of our specialist student document reviewing squad. Read the full review under the document preview on this page.