Every named company, in one place

Corporate objectives — critically appraising a mission statement

Peloton's own mission statement — "to use technology and connect the world through fitness" — was used in a genuine 7-mark exam response as an example of a broad, motivational mission statement, broad enough to survive the company's later expansion into new product categories, while still needing to be tested against whether Peloton's actual conduct backs up that ambition.

Theories of corporate strategy — applying Ansoff's Matrix to a named initiative

A real January 2023 exam question asked candidates to apply Ansoff's Matrix specifically to Brompton Bikes' new bike-hire service; the examiner report noted that weaker candidates lost marks by discussing Brompton's unrelated new factory, museum, and use of e-bikes instead of the bike-hire initiative the question actually named.

Theories of corporate strategy — Porter's generic strategies, the "stuck in the middle" critique

Toyota's lean production system is cited as a beyond-spec counterexample to Porter's "stuck in the middle" claim: its capabilities deliver genuine cost efficiency and real quality-driven differentiation at once, from the same underlying operational capability, rather than forcing a trade-off between the two.

Theories of corporate strategy — Porter's generic strategies, the "stuck in the middle" critique

IKEA is cited alongside Toyota as a firm sustaining something close to both a cost and a differentiation advantage at once: flat-pack self-assembly cuts costs, while the in-store experience and Scandinavian design are a genuine, paid-for differentiator — longer than Porter's framework predicts should be possible.

External influences — Porter's five forces applied to a real market

A real 18/20 exemplar answer applied Porter's five forces to the smartwatch market, citing Apple's roughly one-third share (33.5%) against Fitbit and Google combined (8.1%), Huawei (8.4%) and Samsung (8.0%), and referencing 2022 supply-chain disruption when discussing suppliers' bargaining power.

External influences — the changing competitive environment

Spotify's entry into the audiobook market, then dominated by Amazon's Audible with roughly two-thirds global share, was tested as a real example of a changing competitive environment: Spotify brought a user base of 226 million subscribers into a market forecast to grow from about $4bn in 2021 to more than $9bn by 2026. A real examiner report noted that candidates who framed their answer around the Ansoff Matrix rather than Spotify's own intentions scored worse.

External influences — PESTLE analysis, real exam application

A real January 2025 20-mark Evaluate question applied PESTLE analysis to Dyson and SharkNinja, confirming PESTLE as genuine, examined content at that tariff on this paper.

Growth objectives — economies of scale

A real January 2023 examiner report was built around Brompton Bikes constructing a new factory, testing internal economies of scale in an 8-mark Discuss question; weaker candidates lost marks for merely listing types of economy of scale rather than explaining the mechanism behind each one.

Inorganic growth — advantages and disadvantages of a takeover

A real June 2022 exam mark scheme built a 12-mark Assess question around Peloton's actual takeover of Precor. A genuine 12/12 exemplar answer credited it with four advantages — speed to access new markets, gaining new skills, increased market share, and a reduction in competition — against three disadvantages: the cost of the takeover, possible culture clashes, and diseconomies of scale, including slower communication from added management layers.

Inorganic growth — market power and regulatory risk of a merger

Cited as a real case in which a competition regulator blocked an otherwise rational, cost-reducing proposed merger between Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp, illustrating that the market-power gain a horizontal deal seeks is exactly what a regulator can intervene to stop even when the firms' cost case is sound.

Quantitative sales forecasting — moving averages and limitations of extrapolation

A real mark scheme worked through a 3-year moving average on UK pet-ownership percentages — (40% + 41% + 60%) ÷ 3 = 47% — and, in a related extract, cautioned that the rise in UK pet ownership seen in 2020/21 does not mean the trend will continue, and that a forecast of the pet care market growing to £7bn may not occur.

Quantitative sales forecasting — limitations, forecast accuracy

A real mark scheme credited an exam answer for noting that Spotify's actual number of monthly premium subscribers came in 2 million above the forecast figure, illustrating a case where a sales forecast held up well in practice.

Investment appraisal — simple payback period

An Airbus aircraft purchase appeared as a real 4-mark Calculate question testing the simple payback period method on this paper.

Investment appraisal — matching the appraisal method to the business

Brompton Bikes' launch of a bike-hire service was assessed through payback logic in a real 12-mark exam question. Examiners credited answers that linked the method to the business itself, noting Brompton was in a very dynamic, fast-changing technology market and so needed an appraisal method focused on speed of return rather than profitability.

Critical path analysis — purpose and a real project duration

A real Pearson exam question used Coca-Cola's Zero Sugar relaunch as a critical path analysis scenario; the mark scheme confirmed the project's correct duration was 32 weeks, and a full-marks examiner-report exemplar described CPA's purpose as helping a business plan a timeline, calculate float, and find the critical path to meet a deadline.

Contribution — total contribution calculation

Lush's bath-soap range sold at £5.50 per unit with a variable cost of £1.00 per unit, giving £4.50 contribution per unit; on 3,300,000 units sold in a month, total contribution came to £14,850,000, confirmed in a genuine June 2023 examiner-report exemplar with two independently valid working methods.

Corporate culture — Handy's typology (task culture)

A real Oct 2022 examiner report on a Zappos.com/Holacracy question found many candidates misunderstood task culture — mistakenly treating it as simply 'organising work into tasks' rather than the correct definition: pulling personnel from different departments onto a one-off project team, then returning them to their departments once it finishes.

Business ethics — the profit-vs-ethics trade-off

A real Oct 2022 examiner report on Volvo's cobalt sourcing from the Democratic Republic of Congo credited the counter-argument that tracing and auditing an ethical supply chain raises costs passed on to consumers, and that many consumers want cheaper prices and are not concerned with ethical sourcing.

Business ethics — pay and rewards

A real June 2022 examiner report compared Amazon's US minimum starting wage — cited as 'more than double the US national minimum wage… as of 2018' — against Levi's own 168-year brand history, crediting candidates who applied Taylor, Maslow and Herzberg's motivation theories on both sides.

Business ethics — pay and rewards (employee share ownership)

Lush gifted 10% of the company into an employee benefit trust in 2017; a genuine full-marks June 2023 exemplar answer links that share ownership directly to falling labour turnover, with Taylor, Herzberg and Mayo argued on the counter side as non-financial motivators.

Business ethics — pay and rewards

When the John Lewis Partnership didn't pay staff a bonus in 2023, a real Jan 2025 mark scheme set Taylor's view that money is workers' primary motivator against Mayo and Herzberg's view that job security, career development and flexible working matter more, noting bonuses had been as high as £89.4m in previous years.

Interpretation of financial statements — stakeholder interest

A genuine June 2023 examiner-report exemplar, explaining why Lush's shareholders would scrutinise its financial statements, cited that shareholders received no dividends in 2022, that pre-tax profit fell from £45m to £29m, and that turnover fell by £29.1m.

Profitability ratios — operating profit margin

A real June 2022 examiner report used Peloton's own figures to examine operating profit margin: £115m operating profit on £3,085m revenue, giving an operating margin of 3.73%.

Gearing ratio

Spotify's September 2023 accounts show non-current liabilities of €1,752m against capital employed of €3,891m, giving a gearing ratio of 45.03% — confirmed directly in the real Jan 2025 mark scheme.

Gearing ratio

Pets at Home's March 2021 accounts show non-current liabilities of £433.7m against capital employed of £1,427.4m, giving a gearing ratio of 30.38% — confirmed directly in the real Oct 2022 mark scheme.

HR strategies — employee share ownership

Lush's employee benefit trust — 10% of the company gifted into it since 2017 — is directly linked to falling labour turnover in a genuine full-marks June 2023 exemplar response, with Taylor, Herzberg and Mayo argued on the counter side.

Contingency planning — risk assessment (IT systems failure)

A real Oct 2021 12-mark Assess exam question used British Airways' IT systems failure as the scenario for a contingency-planning/risk-assessment question on this paper.

Contingency planning — succession planning

A real Oct 2022 12-mark Assess exam question examined Pets at Home's succession planning; the examiner report noted this question was answered less well than the adjacent portfolio-analysis question, with strong answers weighing the importance of maintaining culture and the speed of replacing senior personnel against the costs of training and finding a suitable successor.