GCSE Business: Business in the Wider World

This part of the course is about everything a business does not decide — interest rates, exchange rates, the law, what customers can afford — and about the decisions it still has to make in the middle of it.

It opens with a shop proposing to open on Sundays, where the answer has to show a conflict rather than a benefit: more revenue for the owner, lost weekends for the staff, and a possible price rise for customers to cover the extra shifts. The option in which everybody wins is there because that is how stakeholders are usually described and almost never how they behave.

Two questions are arithmetic in disguise. A twenty thousand pound loan at five per cent costs a thousand a year; at eight it costs one thousand six hundred; the question asks for the increase, and one thousand six hundred is offered because giving the new total instead of the change is the way this mark is lost. Then a firm that buys its fabric abroad and sells every garment at home discovers that a weaker pound reaches it anyway, which is the point: exchange rates are not only an exporter's problem.

A fall in household incomes is put to a jeweller and a grocer, and the deciding question is stated plainly — can the purchase wait? A necklace can, dinner cannot, which is why optional spending falls first and furthest.

Then the law, in ordinary words. A kettle fails after a fortnight and the shop points at the absence of an extended warranty; goods have to be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described, and a shop's own policy does not displace that. An employer thinking about paying under the minimum is told plainly that this is not one of the options, and the question asks what the lawful ones are.

The last four are judgements with costs on both sides. Automation brings consistency and lower running costs, and it also brings a large bill up front and people whose jobs were the thing being replaced. Recyclable packaging costs more per unit and may be worth it, with neither "always choose the cheapest" nor "the green option always pays" accepted. A complaint going round online is answered quickly and in public, then taken private — ignoring it is offered, because that is what firms do and it is what makes things worse. And a cheaper supplier that will not permit inspections is weighed against a dearer one that will: a certain cost against a risk to the firm's name and to the people making the clothes.

Every business and person described is invented. No real company, brand, politician or party is named, and no law is cited by section. Nothing is reproduced from any exam board specification, past paper or mark scheme.

Zestly is an independent study tool. It is not affiliated with any exam board and it is not an exam centre.

• Identify who gains and who loses from one business decision
• Calculate the increase in an interest cost rather than the new total
• Explain why a weaker pound affects a firm that sells only at home
• Say which kind of retailer a fall in incomes hits hardest, and why
• State what a customer is entitled to expect from goods that fail
• Say why paying under the minimum wage is not a cost-saving option, and what is
• Weigh automation on both sides, including the people doing the job
• Weigh an environmental choice that costs more per unit
• Say what a firm should do first about a complaint spreading online
• State what a firm risks by choosing a supplier it cannot inspect

Ten invented businesses and situations: a shop proposing to open on Sundays, a twenty thousand pound loan whose rate goes from five per cent to eight, a clothing maker buying fabric abroad while the pound falls, a jeweller and a grocer in a downturn, a kettle that fails in a fortnight, an employer eyeing the minimum wage, a packing line about to be automated, a producer weighing recyclable packaging, a complaint going round online, and a supplier that refuses inspections. Twelve flashcards carry the vocabulary — stakeholder, shareholder, interest rate, exchange rate, recession, consumer rights, minimum wage, automation, sustainability, ethical sourcing, corporate social responsibility, reputation.