Welcome to this step-by-step guide of how to answer business as paper 2 case study questions i spent a lot of time preparing writing filming and editing youtube question guides in igcse and a level business to make sure that you guys get clear.
Concise and insightful tutorials to unlock the most effective exam technique however this video is a little bit different i wanted to put myself into your shoes and show you how i would tackle the case study paper having never seen it before some of the answers may not be perfect but hopefully it will show you how to.
Work through each question step by step how to think through and plan answers how to improve your time management and how to use the case study to improve your grades the past paper and my solution is available at caiebusiness.com along with loads of other resources and courses.
Specifically designed for cambridge business exams see the link in the description please let me know what you think and remember to subscribe to stay updated with the latest tutorials to take you to the top in cambridge business exams so let’s get started.
so to start with let’s spend five minutes just reading through the case study so set my five minute timer okay so let’s find out what’s the case that i got in store first always a very nervous time so it’s designer clothing medium sized.
Private limited company and has three main shareholders okay it’s 10 years trading so it’s an established company and it makes luxury dresses job production so that’s premium making unique products it’s also going to let excellent a.
Reputation for quality and okay so these dresses are going to be super expensive super premium because there’s an individual meeting with each customer and they use cost based pricing so it seems that they’re not particularly worried about competition because their dresses are.
Unique and they’re catering to the to the luxury market okay and logically this will mean that their employees are highly skilled but they’re paid hourly rates and okay so that’s just going to be some kind of calculation question on producing the dress.
Right so now we’re coming on to what’s in every case study is some kind of business scenario or problem solving situation in this case it’s moving into a new market so moving from the dresses for women to branded trousers and so instead of being.
Job production these are going to be in much larger scale and going to large shops okay so she’s winning on the market research okay pricing strategy mentioned there so probably a pricing question coming up or batch production actually so the first question.
Is a two marker um so it’s one half minutes per mark so that’s three minutes for this one and i’ll just put it in here and we’ll get started so the with these questions it’s really just a confidence builder it’s a simple knowledge question just two points down and then you move on.
So for shareholders shareholders are i don’t need to put that in people who invest once they invest invest capital would be the correct term in a business so that’s one point and then we need another point about shareholders.
What do we know and to get dividends in return okay so two points done we can move on to the next one which is going to be a three marker so for this question we need three points in five minutes or four and a half.
Minutes to be exact so focus groups is to do with market research and to do with primary research so you can get primary research in there primary market research method so we need to explain a little bit about it so focus groups is a small.
Group of consumers are asked for their opinions about a product or service okay we get two points there and we could also say about either conducted so conducted with an interview here.
He records the answers and then we could just we got three points there but we could just put another one there as an insurance policy still got lots of time um i mean you could always talk about how useful it is so.
Uh bias come from interviewer but useful for gaining attentive okay so we got that one done quickly and the next one is three marks two so because we’re doing so well we’ll give each other.
Give five minutes for the next one as well and this one is the calculation question so we’re going to have to go to the case study to find the information the price of the dress for lydia okay right i remember it’s cost plus where is it yes so the cross plus.
Is used with 50 added to the total costs so first we have to figure out what the cost of address is now we add 50 percent so we’ll start with 20 times 10 equals whoops 100 and then we need to add up the material cost 250 and we need to add up packaging 50.
Okay so it’s 200 plus 250 plus 50. so that is 500 sorry i had a bit of a brain freeze there and we need to uh add on the 50 so to do that well you can tell pretty easily the 50 of 500 is 250 so yeah 250 500 but i just make it quick to show the.
Examiner i have done it let’s just multiply it by 1.5 which if we get the same result and don’t forget to put in the dollars because we’re talking dollars 750 okay calculation done but our next short answer question is another three marker so let’s give ourselves five minutes.
Again let’s get the question in there right and this one is asking for a payment method so currently i believe let’s just double check they are paid by hourly rate um the one that springs to mind from me.
Is piece read because often employees and clothing factories are paid with piece rates so they’re paid for the amount of garments or pieces of clothing that they produce so for this one three marks we need one knowledge one application and one explanation so we’ll start with the knowledge which is.
Peace read and then we’re going to explain it so employees are paid for every and in this case it’s let’s get the application in here address that they reduce okay now technically we’ve we’ve done it there because we got all three.
Knowledge application analysis but just to drive the point home to make sure let’s give an example so if a employee is paid say five dollars per address fifty dollars okay short questions done so the c question is eight marks so.
We’ll give ourselves 12 minutes that’s one half minutes per mark for this one and once i’ve got this question and we can start the time right so it’s asking for two human resource problems from the introduction of the new batch production method so let’s go back and.
Have a look at what we can find out about batch production so the machinery is going to be needed for the new production method and they’re worried about the problems this may cause not going to tell us what those problems are and just to remind ourselves that.
Batch production is being used for the new trousers but what impact is it going to have on the employees well let’s find out about the employees they are highly skilled paid hourly rates and they’re involved in making what’s a pretty special product which is.
Producing individual addresses and very high cost as well so there’ll be a lot of status involved in that so well first thing will be the motivation may be impacted if you’re if they’re going from producing high-end dresses to batch production using machinery um with the machinery let’s see anything.
Else we know but well the machinery is also going to involve training so that could be an issue organizing that and well it says that it’s not the new batch production is going to be used alongside or we can assume it’s going to be.
Used alongside so it’s going to mean business growth so that might mean recruitment of workers so that’s the best i can come up with for the moment and we’re gonna have to choose two of those and make sure we get two two completely different points with knowledge application analysis and.
Further analysis and while motivation definitely is going to be one of my points so i’ll start with that one motivation so the employees are highly skilled they make individual.
Premium products so this gives them job satisfaction and a feeling of meant if there is a change to batch production this may decrease motivation as well their skills.
Are not being used okay so let’s take this one step further if motivation decreases whether this be a problem for the business well this may need to lower productivity um i suppose it could lead to an higher labor turnover cover all bases okay that’s that one.
Done time’s looking good eight minutes left so let’s go on to the next i think i’m gonna go with training because that’s it’s it’s it’s made clear here that there’s machinery involved so for the machinery there’s going to be a training issue and it’s not really mentioned anything.
About recruiting new employees so i’m going to i’m going to go with training for the second point so same thing again we get our knowledge point down then we the application so batch new machinery what kind of new machinery okay uh it’s not really telling us um.
But what we can put in for the risers okay so what is this and this will mean workers must and receive training on how the machines work um so safety could be an issue as well and be.
Showing how to break the machines safely okay um so where can this lead to issues for the business well it could training is a higher cost um it’s also going to involve organization and it’s also going to involve um perhaps disruption of the work.
Okay i well i think cost is not maybe such a big issue at the moment for this business because there so let’s go with um this could lead to disruption of the uh what is it they’re making addresses and workers.
disruption of production for a business okay so for both we got the knowledge we got the application we’ve got the analysis and further analysis so that should be all eight.
Points and we can move on thank you for watching the past paper and my solution is available at caiebusiness.com along with loads of other resources and courses specifically designed for cambridge business exams see the link in the description to take.
You right there please let me know what you think and remember to subscribe to stay updated with the latest tutorials to take you to the top in cambridge business exams if you want to see the full survival guide to as paper 2 click up here and if you want to see how.
To build a chain of analysis in business a level click over here see you next time
