WACE Business Management and Enterprise ATAR Unit 4: global business operations exam question types

What this guide covers

Unit 4 of the WACE Business Management and Enterprise ATAR course is about running a business well in a global market: analysing the industry, planning strategically, managing people, responding to the economy and acting ethically. Exam questions give a business scenario and ask you to apply a model, so the marks are in the application. The practice quiz on this page checks the models; this guide shows how to apply them.

Question types you should expect

1. Analyse the industry with Porter's five forces

Work through all five forces, rate each, and support each rating with scenario evidence. Then judge overall attractiveness and link it to a generic strategy: cost leadership, differentiation or focus.

Revise Porter's five forces and competitive advantage.

2. Build or evaluate a strategic plan

Know the six steps in order: vision and mission, environmental analysis, SMART objectives, strategies, implementation, and monitoring and control. In a SWOT, strengths and weaknesses are internal and opportunities and threats are external; a SWOT only earns marks when you use it to justify a decision.

Revise the strategic planning process and SWOT.

3. Recommend a management approach

Identify the function in use (planning, organising, leading, controlling), the skill needed (technical, interpersonal, conceptual) and the style that suits the situation (autocratic in a crisis, participative with skilled teams, and so on). Justify with the scenario, including cultural intelligence for global teams.

Revise features and traits of successful management.

4. Explain the effect of the economy, finance and ethics

Trace the chain of effects: a higher cash rate raises borrowing costs, which reduces investment and consumer spending; a stronger dollar makes exports dearer and imports cheaper. Know which institution supplies which finance (banks for loans and foreign exchange, the ASX for equity). Ethics questions cover supply chain labour (including modern slavery reporting), bribery, tax, the environment and honest marketing.

Revise ethics, economic factors and financial institutions.

5. Evaluate a technology

Weigh benefits (reach, lower costs, better decisions) against risks (cyber attack, privacy law, cost, platform dependence, outages, job impacts), then give a judgement and a way to manage the main risk.

Revise technology in global markets.

Worked example

Question (exam style, 4 marks). A Western Australian skincare brand sells online to overseas customers. Identify one strength and one threat for the brand, and explain how the strength could be used to respond to the threat.

Answer. A strength is its natural, locally sourced ingredients, which differentiate the brand (internal). A threat is new overseas competitors entering online skincare with lower prices (external). The brand can respond by building its marketing around the ingredients' origin and quality, reinforcing differentiation so customers compare it on value rather than price alone and so it avoids a price war it would lose.

Keep going

Continue with the Unit 3 international business growth practice, then work through the practice questions on each dot point page.