DP Business Management, ready to teach.

This unit addresses six topics across 23 lessons: the nature and purpose of business activity, types of business entity (sole traders, partnerships, companies, and non-profits), business objectives and CSR, stakeholder identification and mapping, growth and evolution strategies, and the characteristics and impact of multinational companies. Key concepts including Change, Ethics, Globalisation, and Sustainability frame the enquiry throughout.

Skills & assessment. Students develop the ability to define and apply business terminology (AO1), explain and analyse organisational decisions (AO2–AO3), and evaluate competing interests and strategic choices using tools such as the Ansoff matrix and Mendelow power-interest matrix (AO4). Exam-style questions across the unit reinforce the command terms most frequently used in Paper 1 structured responses.

This unit spans 23 lessons across 7 topics: organisational structure, the functions of HRM and the employee lifecycle, leadership and management styles, motivation theories (Taylor, Maslow, Herzberg, Adams, Pink, and McClelland), organisational culture including the cultural web, communication channels and technology, and — at HL — industrial and employee relations including trade unions, industrial action, and conflict resolution.

Skills & assessment. Lessons build from definition and description (AO1) through explanation and analysis (AO2–AO3) to evaluation of management decisions in context (AO4). HL lessons on industrial relations are clearly flagged. Students practise applying motivation theories and leadership frameworks to business scenarios, developing the evaluative writing skills required for extended Paper 1 and Paper 2 responses.

The largest unit in the course, Finance & Accounts delivers 29 lessons across 9 topics: the role of finance and capital versus revenue expenditure, internal and external sources of finance, costs and revenues, cash flow forecasting and management, budgeting and variance analysis, the income statement and balance sheet, depreciation, profitability and liquidity ratio analysis, gearing and the efficiency ratios (stock turnover, debtor days and creditor days), and investment appraisal (payback period, ARR, and NPV).

Skills & assessment. Quantitative skills are central — students practise constructing and interpreting financial statements, calculating ratios, and applying investment appraisal methods, with each calculation task accompanied by structured interpretation questions aligned to AO2–AO4. Conceptual lessons on the distinction between profit and cash flow, and between debt and equity financing, develop the evaluative reasoning required for Paper 2 data-response questions.

Across 26 lessons and 6 topics, this unit addresses the role and orientation of marketing, primary and secondary market research, sampling methods, market segmentation and targeting, positioning and perception maps, the marketing plan, sales forecasting using moving averages and extrapolation, the seven Ps of the marketing mix (including product life cycle, Boston matrix, and branding), and the opportunities and challenges of international marketing — including the adapt-versus-standardise debate.

Skills & assessment. Students develop skills in interpreting market research data, constructing and reading perception maps, and analysing sales forecasts — alongside the evaluative skills needed to assess marketing mix decisions in context. The globalisation key concept runs through the international marketing topic, connecting unit content to wider DP themes and the kind of real-world issues that appear in Paper 1 case studies.

The unit covers 28 lessons across 9 topics: the role and nature of operations management, production methods (job, batch, flow, and mass customisation), break-even analysis, lean production and quality management, location decisions including offshoring and outsourcing, research and development and intellectual property, and — at HL — production planning (capacity utilisation, EOQ, and supply chain management), crisis management and contingency planning, and management information systems (TPS, MIS, DSS, expert systems, big data).

Skills & assessment. Quantitative tasks include calculating and interpreting break-even output, margin of safety, capacity utilisation rates, and EOQ. Evaluative tasks ask students to weigh the costs and benefits of lean systems, location decisions, and contingency planning — skills directly tested in Paper 2. HL-only lessons are clearly flagged throughout, and the Sustainability and Creativity key concepts connect operations content to broader strategic and ethical questions.

Skills & assessment.