Business Management at QLS Level 3

The course will explore the theory and practice of the following broad areas, all of which are fundamental to operating effectively in a business environment:

Unit 1: Management and the Manager

• What is management?
• Function of managers
• Planning
• Organising
• Staffing
• Leading
• Controlling
• Coordination: the essence of management
• Organisational Structures

Unit 2: Management and Decision Making

• Types of decisions
• Decision Making Models
• SWOT analysis
• Internal and external factors that influence decision making
• Tutor Marked Assignment 1

Unit 3: Employee Performance

• The Performance Cycle
• Planning performance
• Supporting performance
• On-going review
• Appraisals
• What should be appraised?
• Personality and appraisals
• 360-degree Feedback
• Performance Management Systems
• Team Performance
• Teams within organisations
• Cross-functional management teams
• Functional teams
• Problem-solving teams
• Are teams always the way forward?
• Tutor Marked Assignment 2

Unit 4: Financial Management

• Total and average costs
• Direct and indirect costs
• Price, Total Revenue and Profit
• How to calculate the business revenue
• Calculation of profit
• Break-even Analysis and Decision-Making
• Contribution and contribution per unit
• Contribution and break-even
• Changing overheads
• Target profit levels of activity
• Introduction to cash flow forecasting
• Forecasting cash flow
• Importance of forecasting cash flow for businesses
• Setting of Budgets
• Income, expenditure and profit budgets
• Balance sheet analysis
• Interpreting Published Accounts
• Liquidity ratios
• Financial efficiency ratios
• Shareholder ratios
• Selecting Financial Strategies
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Discounted cash flow (DCF)

Tutor Marked Assignment 3

Unit 5: Marketing Management

• What is marketing?
• Features of marketing
• The importance of marketing
• Approaches to running a business: product or market?
• Objectives of Marketing and Market Research
• Market research
• Methods of primary and secondary market research
• Primary research
• Secondary research
• Pros and cons of research methods
• Qualitative and quantitative research
• Variations between qualitative and quantitative research
• Market segmentation
• Market research data analysis
• Niche and Mass Marketing
• The marketing mix
• Designing an effective marketing mix
• Product lifecycle

Unit 6: Operations Management

• Making Operational Decisions
• Capacity utilisation
• Non-standard orders
• Effective Operations Management: Quality
• Quality control (QC) and quality assurance (QA)
• Systems of quality assurance
• Benchmarking
• Quality standards and concepts
• An introduction to quality systems and their management
• Effective Operations Management: Customer Service
• Effective Operations Management: Working with Suppliers
• Role of suppliers in enhanced operational performance
• Tutor Marked Assignment 4

Unit 7: Change Management

• What is Change Management?
• Internal Causes of Change
• Planning for Change
• Key Influences on the Change Process: Leadership
• Key Influences on the Change Process: Culture
• Making Strategic Decisions
• Importance of information management
• Implementing and managing Change
• Force field analysis

Unit 8: External Influences on a Business

• Government
• Inflation and your Business
• Causes of inflation
• Effects of inflation
• Growth
• The business cycle
• The effect of lack of growth on the business
• Surviving a recession
• Tutor Marked Assignment 5

At the end of this course successful learners will be given the option to receive a Certificate of Achievement from the Quality Licence Scheme and a Learner Unit Summary (which lists the components the learner has completed as part of the course).

The course has been endorsed under the Quality Licence Scheme.  This means that Kendal Publishing Ltd has undergone an external quality check to ensure that the organisation and the courses it offers, meet defined quality criteria. The completion of this course alone does not lead to a regulated qualification* but may be used as evidence of knowledge and skills gained. The Learner Unit Summary may be used as evidence towards Recognition of Prior Learning if you wish to progress your studies in this subject. To this end the learning outcomes of the course have been benchmarked at Level 3 against level descriptors published by Ofqual, to indicate the depth of study and level of demand/complexity involved in successful completion by the learner.

The course itself has been designed by Kendal Publishing Ltd to meet specific learners’ and/or employers’ requirements which cannot be satisfied through current regulated qualifications.   The Quality Licence Scheme endorsement involves robust and rigorous quality audits by external auditors to ensure quality is continually met.  A review of courses is carried out as part of the endorsement process.

The Quality Licence Scheme is part of the Skills and Education Group, a charitable organisation that unites education and skills-orientated organisations that share similar values and objectives. With more than 100 years of collective experience, the Skills and Education Group’s strategic partnerships create opportunities to inform, influence and represent the wider education and skills sector.

The Skills and Education Group also includes two nationally recognised awarding organisations; Skills and Education Group Awards and Skills and Education Group Access. Through our awarding organisations we have developed a reputation for providing high-quality qualifications and assessments for the education and skills sector. We are committed to helping employers, organisations and learners cultivate the relevant skills for learning, skills for employment, and skills for life.

Our knowledge and experience of working within the awarding sector enables us to work with training providers, through the Quality Licence Scheme, to help them develop high-quality courses and/or training programmes for the non-regulated market.

*Regulated qualification refers to those qualifications that are regulated by Ofqual / CCEA / Qualification Wales

Paper Based Version

The course comes to you as a paper-based pack delivered by courier.

You will be given guidance through the Study Guide on the nuts and bolts of studying and submitting assignments.

Postal assignments cannot be accepted without prior permission from the tutor.

Online Version

Our online courses are fully digitised versions of the paper-courses, so you can study on any PC or smart device when connected to the internet.

As with the paper course, your online learning programme is completely flexible, so you can study at a pace that suits you.

All of our online course content is broken down into bite size chunks to make your learning more manageable and effective.

The course contains a number of assignments which your tutor will mark and give you valuable feedback on. We call these Tutor Marked Assignments (TMAs). You need only send the TMAs to your tutor for comment, not the self-assessment exercises which are also part of the course to help you gauge your progress.

This course can be taken over a 12 month period but you can complete it as fast or as slowly as you wish.

You will have access to a tutor via email who will mark your work and guide you through the course and will assist you with any problems you may have. In addition you will be supplied with a comprehensive Study Guide which will help you through the study and assessment process.