Every named company, in one place

Types of business — joint ventures

A real January 2025 exam MCQ tested joint ventures using Sony (electronics) and Honda (vehicles) 'collaborating' on a project while remaining independent businesses everywhere else; the examiner report recorded that approximately two-thirds of candidates answered it correctly.

Business growth — organic growth (international market entry)

Uniqlo's organic growth into new international markets (June 2024) is used as a verified real-world example of expansion funded and staffed from within the existing business, rather than through acquisition.

Business growth — organic growth (store rollout)

Lidl opened 25 new stores in 2023, with a further 50 planned by 2025 — 75 additional stores across the rollout (October 2024), entirely funded and staffed from within the existing business rather than through a single acquisition.

Business growth — horizontal integration and merger regulation

In January 2021, Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp — Europe's two largest steelmakers — proposed a horizontal merger projected to generate around €400m in annual synergies, affecting roughly 4,000 jobs. The European Competition Commission blocked the deal, judging the resulting loss of competition and higher downstream steel prices to outweigh the efficiency gains.

Business growth — risk diversification (conglomerate integration logic)

The October 2021 Visinema mark scheme reasons that if the animated film industry declined, other areas of the firm's film production could offset the losses — real Pearson indicative content illustrating the risk-diversification logic behind conglomerate integration, applied here to one firm diversifying across projects.

Business growth — takeover (horizontal-leaning)

Mars completed its takeover of Hotel Chocolat in January 2025 — treated in the lesson as closer to horizontal than conglomerate integration since both are confectionery firms. The related exam mark scheme caps responses at Level 3 if only one economic agent (business or consumers) is discussed.

Business growth — impact of growth on efficiency

A real October 2023 exam essay built on Nestlé shows both sides of firm growth: a larger firm can gain productive efficiency (spreading fixed costs, specialised labour and capital) and dynamic efficiency (supernormal profit funding R&D), but may also suffer diseconomies of scale, X-inefficiency, reduced incentive to innovate, and slower response to a changing market than smaller rivals.

Business growth — demergers

A real January 2020 exam question is built on the Metro Group/CECONOMY demerger. Its mark scheme credits reversing diseconomies of scale as the business-side benefit, caps marks if only one economic agent (business or workforce) is discussed, and notes a firm may come to regret a demerger if the demerged unit performs well independently or the funds raised simply cover debt rather than fund investment.

Business objectives — divorce of ownership from control

Jeff Bezos holds 12.7% of Amazon's shares and works as Executive Chair of its board — a senior manager who is also a major shareholder. The real Jan 2024 WEC13 mark scheme cites this as an example of owner-manager alignment working against divorce of ownership from control, crediting it to profit-maximising reasoning rather than revenue-maximising behaviour.

Business objectives — divorce of ownership from control

Daniel Kretinsky owns 22% of the shares in the UK's Royal Mail Service but does not work for the company. Set alongside the Amazon/Bezos case in the same real Jan 2024 WEC13 question stem, this illustrates ownership held without any managerial control.

Profits and losses — short-run vs long-run shutdown points

A real WEC13 past-paper question (Jan 2021, Q9) used Flybe, the airline, as the named industry for a shutdown-points essay, testing whether a loss-making firm should keep producing in the short run (price covers AVC) versus exit in the long run (price fails to cover AC).

Market structure — concentration ratio (cloud infrastructure)

A real Pearson mark scheme (June 2022) on cloud-infrastructure providers gives cumulative concentration ratios built from named firms: Amazon Web Services at 33% market share and Microsoft Azure at 18%, with CR2=51%, CR3=59%, CR4=65%, CR5=70% — the two largest firms holding roughly half the market between them, with a long tail of much smaller rivals.

Oligopoly — assumptions and concentration

Pearson's own verified worked example of an oligopoly is cloud-infrastructure hosting: a two-firm concentration ratio of 51% (Amazon Web Services at 33%, Microsoft Azure at 18%) was enough for a mark scheme to credit the market as oligopolistic.

Oligopoly — barriers to entry (branding)

A real Pearson mark scheme on an electric-vehicle-market question uses Dyson's attempted entry against Tesla as a worked barriers-to-entry example: Dyson's brand is associated with domestic appliances, not electric cars, so its existing recognition doesn't automatically transfer trust — though the same mark scheme also credits Dyson's general reputation for quality and innovation as a reason branding might not prove a major barrier after all.

Oligopoly — collusion and game theory in a real cartel

South Korean shipping companies were fined $63 million for coordinating on price — a real collusion case referenced by the October 2024 examiner report, whose description of how to construct the payoff-matrix 'cheat' cell underlies this lesson's own worked-chain matrix.

Oligopoly — game theory applied to a real market

A real June 2023 exam question on the UK food-delivery market (centred on Deliveroo, per the lesson's own sourcing notes) required candidates to apply game-theory reasoning without a drawn diagram; the examiner report noted only stronger candidates gave real contextual analysis, while weaker answers included no game-theory content at all.

Oligopoly — collusion and regulatory penalties

JD Sports and Leicester City FC were fined £880,000 for collusion — a real, verified example used to show how government recovers some of the deadweight-loss cost of a cartel as fine revenue, while still bearing the ongoing cost of running the competition authority that catches it.

Oligopoly — non-price competition

A real October 2022 exam question on the smartphone industry (Apple, Samsung, OnePlus) credited non-price competition with making demand less price-elastic and raising revenue, at the cost of higher production costs, new sunk costs, and a barrier to entry that disadvantages smaller firms specifically.

Monopoly — allocative inefficiency and market power

A real WEC13 mark scheme (Oct 2021) uses MTN Ghana's roughly 70% market share as the applied evidence for why a monopoly is not allocatively efficient: the lack of competition lets it charge a price above marginal cost (P>MC).

Monopoly — third-degree price discrimination

A real, verified WEC13 exam context (Oct 2020) in which a firm price-discriminates between a less price-elastic domestic market and a more price-elastic export market — the genuine basis for this lesson's own domestic-vs-export worked example, though the specific numbers used are invented rather than Zambia Sugar's actual figures.

Monopsony — buyer of labour

A real WEC13 exam question (Jan 2021, Q7) is built on Tata Steel and Thyssenkrupp's proposed merger, which would make the combined firm a monopsony employer of steelworkers across the UK and the Netherlands, used to derive the below-competitive wage and employment outcome of monopsony power over labour.

Monopsony — buyer of a physical input

A real WEC13 exam question (Jan 2025, Q8) centres on British Sugar as the sole substantial buyer of sugar beet from thousands of independent UK farmers — the goods-market (non-labour) monopsony case, and the source of the evaluative point that a monopsonist may keep, rather than pass on, its input-cost savings.

Labour markets — monopsony power and trade-union bargaining

A real WEC13 exam essay (Jan 2023) uses Walmart as its stem context for evaluating monopsony power's impact on employees and suppliers, with the mark scheme crediting the point that bargaining power from farmers or a trade union can offset a monopsony's dominance.

Labour markets — geographical and occupational immobility

A real WEC13 mark scheme (Oct 2023) states that Belgium has a skills shortage because unemployed workers are unable to fill the vacancies available — used as the verified real-world case of unfilled vacancies coexisting with unemployment, illustrating both geographical and occupational immobility.

Government intervention — demerger essay (evaluation-coverage trap)

A real WEC13 exam essay is built around a demerger involving Metro; the lesson cites it, alongside a British Sugar essay and a Mars/Hotel Chocolat takeover essay, as a real mark scheme that caps the mark unless more than one affected stakeholder group is discussed.

Government intervention — takeover essay (evaluation-coverage trap)

A real WEC13 exam essay covers a takeover involving Mars and Hotel Chocolat; the lesson cites it, alongside a British Sugar essay and Metro's demerger essay, as a real mark scheme that caps the mark unless more than one affected stakeholder group is discussed.

Government intervention — referral to a regulator/competition authority

JD Sports and Leicester City FC's real collusion case resulted in an £880,000 fine, used as the verified example that referring anti-competitive conduct to a regulator leads to actual investigation and punishment, not merely disapproval.

Government intervention — merger and takeover legislation

The European Competition Commission blocked Tata Steel and Thyssenkrupp's proposed steel merger (Jan 2021 essay) — projected at roughly €400m in synergies and about 4,000 jobs — on competition grounds, used as the real example of merger-control legislation stopping a merger before it happens.

Government intervention — promoting competition and contestability

Singapore's use of tax incentives to attract new market entrants (Jun 2022) is Pearson's own verified real context for the 'promote competition' policy list — tax incentives and grants for small businesses and inward investment.

Government intervention — promoting competition and contestability

Indonesia's Kredit Usaha subsidised-loan programme for small businesses (Jan 2025) is Pearson's own verified real context illustrating a government measure — subsidised finance for small firms — used to promote competition and contestability.

Government intervention — nationalisation

A real WEC13 exam essay (Jun 2023) uses a nationalised French energy monopolist as its indicative content: because a nationalised firm doesn't need to profit-maximise, it can price at marginal cost directly without an external regulator forcing it there, and can redirect profit into investment or public services instead of shareholder dividends.

Government intervention — minimum wage (a rise)

A real WEC13 exam context (Jan 2020) covers a substantial rise in Malaysia's existing minimum wage for textile workers in 2018, with the examiner report flagging the rise as large enough that firms were unlikely to absorb the entire cost increase.

Government intervention — minimum wage (an introduction)

A real WEC13 exam context (Jan 2021) covers the introduction of a minimum wage in South Africa's labour-intensive, low-paid tourism industry, used as the verified case where high labour intensity makes the cost impact of a new wage floor unusually significant.

Government intervention — minimum wage (a rise, not an introduction)

A real WEC13 exam essay (Oct 2022) tests a rise in Greece's already-existing minimum wage, cited as a genuine exam case for the difference between a 'rise' and an 'introduction' of a wage floor, since misreading one as the other has cost real candidates marks.

Government intervention — minimum wage (garment workers)

A real WEC13 exam essay (Jan 2024) sets a minimum-wage question among Bangladesh's garment workers, cited alongside Greece's essay as a real case where candidates were marked down for misreading a wage 'rise' as an 'introduction'.

Government intervention — minimum wage plus maximum working week

A real WEC13 exam context (correctly dated to Oct 2024, not Oct 2023 as an earlier course build had it) covers Mexico introducing a simultaneous rise in the minimum wage and a new maximum 48-hour working week.

Government intervention — maximum wage

A real WEC13 exam context (Jun 2023) covers Egypt introducing a maximum wage in its banking sector; the question stimulus records that roughly 200 executives resigned from the sector following the policy, illustrating the risk that a binding pay ceiling drives out skilled workers rather than simply redistributing their pay.