Keywords
YEAR 9 — Introduction to Business
1. Business Activity and Influences
Business — An organisation that produces goods or provides services to satisfy customer needs and wants.
Goods — Physical products that can be bought and sold.
Services — Activities provided to customers rather than physical products.
Needs — Things people require to live, such as food, water and shelter.
Wants — Things people would like to have but do not need to survive.
Entrepreneur — A person who starts and runs a business, taking risks to make a profit.
Enterprise — The ability and willingness to take risks and organise resources to start and run a business.
Business idea — An idea for a product or service that could be sold to customers.
Opportunity cost — The next best alternative given up when making a decision.
Risk — The possibility that a business decision may result in loss or failure.
Added value — The difference between the cost of making a product and the price it is sold for.
Specialisation — When a person or business focuses on a particular task, product or area.
Division of labour — When production is split into separate tasks completed by different workers.
2. Business Aims and Objectives
Business aim — The overall purpose of a business.
Business objective — A specific, measurable target that a business wants to achieve.
Profit maximisation — The aim of making the largest possible profit.
Profit — The money left after total costs have been deducted from revenue.
Survival — The aim of continuing to operate and avoid going out of business.
Growth — An increase in the size or scale of a business.
Market share — The percentage of total market sales made by a business.
Financial objective — A business target relating to money, such as increasing profit or revenue.
Non-financial objective — A business target that is not directly related to money.
Social objective — An objective aimed at benefiting society or the environment.
Independence — The ability of an owner to make their own business decisions.
3. Ownership
Sole trader — A business owned and controlled by one person.
Partnership — A business owned by two or more people who share responsibility.
Private limited company (Ltd) — A company owned by shareholders whose shares cannot normally be sold to the general public.
Public limited company (plc) — A company whose shares can be bought and sold by the general public.
Share — A unit of ownership in a company.
Shareholder — A person or organisation that owns shares in a company.
Limited liability — When owners can only lose the amount they have invested in the business.
Unlimited liability — When owners can be personally responsible for all the debts of a business.
Dividend — A payment made to shareholders from a company’s profits.
Private sector — Businesses owned by individuals or organisations rather than the government.
Public sector — Organisations owned and controlled by the government.
4. Stakeholders
Stakeholder — A person or group affected by or interested in a business.
Employee — A person who works for a business.
Customer — A person or organisation that buys goods or services.
Supplier — A business that provides goods or services to another business.
Competitor — Another business that sells similar products or services to the same customers.
Government — The organisation responsible for running the country and creating laws that businesses must follow.
Local community — People living in the area surrounding a business.
Stakeholder conflict — When different stakeholders have different interests or objectives.
5. Business Location
Location — The place where a business operates.
Labour — The workers and human effort used by a business.
Labour costs — The costs a business pays for its employees.
Proximity — How close a business is to something important, such as customers or suppliers.
Infrastructure — The facilities and systems needed for a business to operate, such as roads, electricity and internet.
Transport links — Roads, railways, airports and other methods of transporting people and goods.
Rent — The payment made to use a property owned by someone else.
E-commerce — Buying and selling goods or services over the internet.
6. Marketing
Market — A place or situation where buyers and sellers exchange goods or services.
Market research — Collecting and analysing information about customers and the market.
Primary research — Research collected directly by a business for a specific purpose.
Secondary research — Research using information that has already been collected by someone else.
Quantitative data — Numerical information that can be measured.
Qualitative data — Non-numerical information about people’s opinions, attitudes or feelings.
Market segment — A group of customers with similar characteristics or needs.
Target market — The specific group of customers a business aims its products or services at.
Market size — The total value or volume of sales in a market.
USP — A unique selling point that makes a product different from competitors’ products.
Brand — A name, design or image that identifies and distinguishes a business or product.
Customer loyalty — When customers repeatedly buy from the same business.
7. Marketing Mix
Marketing mix — The combination of product, price, promotion and place used by a business.
Product — The good or service a business offers to customers.
Product life cycle — The stages a product goes through from development to decline.
Extension strategy — A strategy used to extend the life of a product and delay its decline.
Product differentiation — Making a product appear different from competitors’ products.
Price — The amount customers pay for a product.
Competitive pricing — Setting a price based on competitors’ prices.
Penetration pricing — Setting a low initial price to attract customers and gain market share.
Price skimming — Setting a high initial price for a new product before gradually lowering it.
Promotional pricing — Temporarily reducing the price to encourage customers to buy.
Cost-plus pricing — Calculating the cost of a product and adding a percentage mark-up.
Promotion — Methods used to inform and persuade customers to buy a product.
Advertising — Paid communication designed to promote a product or business.
Sales promotion — Short-term incentives used to encourage customers to buy.
Social media marketing — Using social media platforms to promote a business or product.
Public relations — Activities used to create and maintain a positive image of a business.
Place — Where and how a product is distributed to customers.
Distribution — The process of getting products from the producer to the customer.
Retailer — A business that sells products directly to customers.
YEAR 10 — Developing and Running a Business
12. Human Resources
Human resources — The people who work for a business.
Recruitment — The process of finding and attracting suitable employees.
Selection — The process of choosing the best candidate for a job.
Job description — A document explaining the duties and responsibilities of a job.
Person specification — A document describing the skills, qualifications and qualities needed for a job.
Internal recruitment — Recruiting someone who already works for the business.
External recruitment — Recruiting someone from outside the business.
Training — Teaching employees new skills or improving their existing skills.
Induction — Training given to new employees when they join a business.
On-the-job training — Training carried out while an employee is working.
Off-the-job training — Training carried out away from the employee’s normal workplace.
Employee motivation — The willingness of employees to work hard and achieve business objectives.
Job satisfaction — How happy and fulfilled an employee feels in their job.
Productivity — The amount of output produced per worker or per unit of input.
Labour turnover — The rate at which employees leave a business and are replaced.
Absenteeism — When employees are regularly absent from work.
Remuneration — The payment and benefits employees receive for working.
13. Motivation
Financial motivation — Motivation provided through financial rewards.
Non-financial motivation — Motivation provided through rewards that are not directly financial.
Wage — Payment usually based on the number of hours worked.
Salary — A fixed amount of money paid regularly, usually annually.
Bonus — An additional payment given to an employee, often for good performance.
Commission — Payment based on the amount of sales an employee makes.
Profit sharing — Giving employees a share of the business’s profits.
Fringe benefits — Additional benefits provided to employees, such as company cars or private healthcare.
Promotion — Moving an employee to a higher-level job with greater responsibility.
Job rotation — Moving employees between different tasks to increase variety.
Job enlargement — Giving an employee more tasks at the same level of responsibility.
Job enrichment — Giving employees more responsibility and control over their work.
14. Operations
Production — The process of making goods or providing services.
Job production — Producing one customised product at a time.
Batch production — Producing a set number of identical products before switching to another batch.
Flow production — Producing large quantities of standardised products continuously.
Quality — How well a product meets customer expectations.
Quality control — Checking products for faults during or after production.
Quality assurance — Preventing faults by ensuring quality is built into the production process.
Capacity utilisation — The percentage of a business’s maximum production capacity currently being used.
Economies of scale — Reductions in average cost as a business increases its scale of production.
Diseconomies of scale — Increases in average cost caused by a business becoming too large.
15. Procurement and Stock
Procurement — The process of obtaining goods and services needed by a business.
Stock — Goods and materials held by a business for production or sale.
Buffer stock — Extra stock kept to prevent shortages.
Just-in-time (JIT) — A stock system where goods arrive shortly before they are needed.
Logistics — The management of the movement and storage of goods.
16. External Influences
Interest rate — The percentage charged for borrowing money or paid on savings.
Inflation — A sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services.
Exchange rate — The value of one currency compared with another.
Economic growth — An increase in the amount of goods and services produced by an economy.
Unemployment — The number or proportion of people willing and able to work who do not have a job.
Tax — A compulsory payment made to the government.
Business rates — A tax paid by businesses on certain non-domestic properties.
Corporation tax — A tax charged on the profits of companies.
VAT — A tax added to the price of most goods and services.
Legislation — Laws that businesses must follow.
Minimum wage — The lowest amount employers are legally required to pay eligible workers.
Consumer law — Laws designed to protect consumers when buying goods and services.
Health and safety legislation — Laws designed to protect employees and customers from harm.
17. Globalisation
Globalisation — The increasing integration and connection of businesses and economies around the world.
Import — A good or service bought from another country.
Export — A good or service sold to another country.
Tariff — A tax placed on imported goods.
Trade bloc — A group of countries that agree to reduce trade barriers between them.
Multinational — A business that operates in more than one country.
Outsourcing — Using another business to carry out activities that could be done internally.
Offshoring — Moving business activities to another country.
18. Business Growth
Organic growth — Growth achieved by expanding a business using its own resources.
External growth — Growth achieved by joining with or taking over another business.
Merger — When two businesses agree to combine and form one business.
Takeover — When one business gains control of another business.
Diversification — Expanding into new products or markets.
Economies of scale — Reductions in average cost as a business increases its scale of production.
Diseconomies of scale — Increases in average cost caused by a business becoming too large.