Group 3 - Individuals and societies. Offered at HL and SL
Most students will, at least at some point in their lives, either find themselves employed by a business organisation or starting their own. Throughout their lives, all students will interact with businesses as customers. This course provides a background to the challenges facing all businesses in achieving their objectives and the difficulties faced in making decisions. Business Management students become adept at quickly assessing new information and using analytical tools to help them make and justify decisions.
Business Management is a rigorous and dynamic discipline that examines business processes and decision making. It considers how businesses are affected by internal and external environments. It is the study of how individuals and groups interact in an organisation and how businesses seek to maximise profit by meeting customer needs. A wide range of business contexts and cultures are used to ensure that the learning is applied to real world organisations wherever possible.
At the IB level, Business Management consists of 5 key topics:
Business Organisation and Environment: how businesses grow and change over time to achieve their objectives while operating within a changing and competitive environment. For example, should McDonalds sell franchises to achieve rapid growth in new markets?
Human Resource Management: how the organisational structure, leadership style and culture within a business influence motivation and employee relations within it. For example, should commission be offered as an incentive to health insurance sales personnel?
Finance and Accounts: how businesses raise finance, plan their financial and investment strategies, produce and analyse accounts and use them to analyse performance and identify strategies to improve. For example, should Coop sale and leaseback premises to reduce borrowings?
Marketing: how businesses research markets and plan their activities in order to offer goods and services which meet customer needs and will sell at a profit. For example, should Adidas sell a budget range of sports goods using e-commerce?
Operations Management: how business organise their resources in order to produce goods and deliver services of the required quality, with maximum efficiency. For example, should Swisscom outsource its customer call centre operation to Asia?
Business Management leads well into studying business courses at university, many of which are offered as joint-honours with other subjects. It connects well with other subjects such as geography, history, politics and international relations. For students aspiring to work in business or become entrepreneurs the course if invaluable, especially if they choose to study an unrelated subject at university.
IB Business Management Subject Briefs at Higher Level and Standard Level