How business decisions are made: functions, numbers, data and context: Where to start

Behind almost every business question sits a decision. A business has to choose what to do, and you have to say why. This chapter hands you the tools that every one of those decisions needs, one tool to a video. This is How business decisions are made, for GCSE Business. Every later chapter leans on what it sets up.

The list builds in order. It starts inside the business, moves through the numbers and the data, and ends on the setting that can change the right answer.

The four business functions and how they depend on each other comes first. If business is new to you, start there, because every decision lands on one part of a business and spreads to the rest. A common slip is writing about the function the story mentions, instead of the one the question names. Percentages, percentage change and averages is the number video, and these sums turn up in calculation questions on every course. Percentages trip up a lot of students, so give this one extra practice. Plenty of answers there divide the change by the new figure instead of the original one. Qualitative and quantitative data: reading graphs, charts and tables is about reading what a case puts in front of you. The usual slip is an answer that drops the thousands, or the pound sign, that the chart was given in. If you can already work the numbers and read a chart, go straight to Using data to make and justify business decisions. That is where the data becomes a decision you can defend. Where it goes wrong, the answer could fit any business, with no fact from the case behind it. Business size, scale and context: how they shape decisions is for every student, whatever your course. It shows why the same decision can be right for one business and wrong for another. Some courses ask you to size a business by its staff, others ask where it trades, and this video covers both. Any of these can be found by its name or its code, and the quickest way is the scholafly.com website, which indexes every video in every subject. If you are still unsure, start at the top of the list, with the four business functions.

Next in the chapter is The four business functions and how they depend on each other. Hopefully that's next in your feed, but if not, search for ScholaFly B U oh two, oh one.

Every other video is on scholafly.com too, easy to search by video code or by keyword. Whatever you're revising, go there and have a look, or, watch the next video.