What are some really good case studies to use for HSC Business Studies overall ? (1 Viewer)

[belindka]

Is qantas a good one?

 

[jenandeeb]

Yeah we use the Qantas case study, I think it's the easiest and has the most information. I think Billabong's alright to use too. But I'd recommend Qantas.

 

[EarthSci34]

Hi belindka,

You can use a contemporary Australian business or a hypothetical business situation! Choose one that you are comfortable with For my HSC, I used 2 case studies: Qantas and IKEA. I also had some knowledge about iPhone just in case! One cannot be too well-prepared. If you have more questions, feel free to pm me

 

[Flop21]

Qantas makes me want to shoot myself, so boring.

I believe the best case studies are ones you are interested in. Qantas however is good to fill in any gaps where you need one, but don't have one for, as it covers everything.

I found business pretty boring just because of all the rote, and boring info, but linking that to businesses I know in real life and recent events made it a bit more bearable and thus easier to remember.

I ended up doing this too late, so start now and thank yourself later, build up a case study bank. Check the syllabus for what points you need case studies for, it tells you (and note that it's not every syllabus point), and write them all down in a word doc, and over the year fill it in with a case study for each.

 

[BLIT2014]

Have at least 1 service business, and at least 1 product business.

For the product business, I can found using Dominos and Arnotts were very helpful.

 

[swagmeister]

Some people say focus on the big ones, other people say build up a case study bank.

My advice? You've got way better things to do then spend time on case studies.

I probably spent ~2 hours on them throughout the whole year, which was pretty much just choosing business names the day before the HSC exam. And hey, it worked for me (see sig).

In saying that though, you do have to have a pretty solid understanding of the content to go and make up your own case studies.

If you want to do big businesses but are worried about not getting stats right or something, do a big business but rename it - that way you can use the same information but can't get marked down if anything is incorrect.

 

[BandSixFix]

Some people say focus on the big ones, other people say build up a case study bank.

My advice? You've got way better things to do then spend time on case studies.

I probably spent ~2 hours on them throughout the whole year, which was pretty much just choosing business names the day before the HSC exam. And hey, it worked for me (see sig).

In saying that though, you do have to have a pretty solid understanding of the content to go and make up your own case studies.

If you want to do big businesses but are worried about not getting stats right or something, do a big business but rename it - that way you can use the same information but can't get marked down if anything is incorrect.

So you just made up case studies both internally and externally?

 

[swagmeister]

So you just made up case studies both internally and externally?

Yup. Never used a real case study in an exam.

And it allowed me to tailor my case studies really nicely to the questions.

You do need to have a pretty comprehensive holistic understanding of concepts though in order to do this

 

[bobmyself]

I had access to a variety of case study banks, each with several recent case studies (majority 2010+) for every syllabus dot point that met the seven criteria (Good, Service, Domestic, Global, Strong, Weak, Same industry). Building this was part of our internal assessment so all of them were legit and of decent quality. We'd share them around + have some from previous cohorts so every student had hundreds of case studies whenever we needed it. Our teacher has said that focusing on a single business would be more appropriate for the old syllabus, where heavily studying businesses such as Qantas and Billabong were common.

In terms of how useful having these hundreds of case studies was...I'd say I've only ever used 50~ in exams or past papers all together. More were used in the internals because we knew they would be restricted to certain syllabus dot points/learn to's (apart from trials) and could memorise relevant case studies the night before but we would consistently weave in made-up ones even then. In saying that, I guess we were lucky as the Section 4 in the externals directly lined up with a practice paper we did as a class the week before so almost everything I used there was legit.

Yup. Never used a real case study in an exam.

And it allowed me to tailor my case studies really nicely to the questions.

You do need to have a pretty comprehensive holistic understanding of concepts though in order to do this

Looks like it turned out well for you so congrats. Just wondering what you would have done if the section 4 was something more case study based, something along the lines of:

• assess the relationship between operations and the other key business functions in two actual businesses
• evaluate the effectiveness of human resource management for one business and recommend appropriate alternative strategies

 

[BandSixFix]

I had access to a variety of case study banks, each with several recent case studies (majority 2010+) for every syllabus dot point that met the seven criteria (Good, Service, Domestic, Global, Strong, Weak, Same industry). Building this was part of our internal assessment so all of them were legit and of decent quality. We'd share them around + have some from previous cohorts so every student had hundreds of case studies whenever we needed it. Our teacher has said that focusing on a single business would be more appropriate for the old syllabus, where heavily studying businesses such as Qantas and Billabong were common.

In terms of how useful having these hundreds of case studies was...I'd say I've only ever used 50~ in exams or past papers all together. More were used in the internals because we knew they would be restricted to certain syllabus dot points/learn to's (apart from trials) and could memorise relevant case studies the night before but we would consistently weave in made-up ones even then. In saying that, I guess we were lucky as the Section 4 in the externals directly lined up with a practice paper we did as a class the week before so almost everything I used there was legit.



Looks like it turned out well for you so congrats. Just wondering what you would have done if the section 4 was something more case study based, something along the lines of:

• assess the relationship between operations and the other key business functions in two actual businesses
• evaluate the effectiveness of human resource management for one business and recommend appropriate alternative strategies

I'm very confused o.o What's the seven criteria? You used 50 case studies? whaat

 

[bobmyself]

I'm very confused o.o What's the seven criteria? You used 50 case studies? whaat

The seven criteria were basically what we had to fulfill for each syllabus dot point. They aren't official terms or something you necessary need to know but they were criteria for our internal assessments. Our case studies had to cover (there could be a combination of these in each individual case study) about a good, a service, a domestic business, a global business, a well-performing (strong) business, a struggling (weak) business and 2 within the same industry. This would allow us to cover all the bases that questions could ask about. It would look something like this for a single dot point;

E-marketing

Google Google makes USD $38.6 billion just in advertising revenue. This accounted for 33% of all online ad revenue in 2013. The closest competitor for ad revenue was Facebook, with USD 6.4 billion. This comprises of ad revenue from ads on google sites, ads on other sites, and all other ad revenues including their search engine and Google Apps. Google has three main advertisement sections. Adsense is used for displaying ads on you own website. Adwords is for displaying your ads on other people’s websites. Google analytics allows the business to analyse visitor traffic and paint a complete picture of you audience. It targets advertising at consumers. For example, if you have searched for boots over a few sites and then went to an unrelated site, an ad for your perfect pair would appear on the website. Google targets ads in four ways, contextual, placement, interest-based and language.

Hyundai The Hyundai competition was launched on the 25th of March 2014 and it encouraged fans to recreate their favourite goal celebrations and enter them online, to gain a chance to win one of seven pairs of VIP packages to see Brazil versus Mexico on 17 June. Andrew Cullis, Hyundai’s marketing director, said: "Our long-term partnership with FIFA allows us to connect fundamentally with a passionate global audience. For this year’s 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, we wanted to further improve that connection by working with Copa90 and YouTube to bring engaging content and an exclusive competition to enhance the fans’ experience of the tournament – bringing a bit more of Brazil to Britain." Also, they have taken to Twitter to offer football fans a series of free rides and ultimate city guides in a Hyundai ix35 in Brazil.

Holden Holden began its online marketing campaign for the Barina Spark aiming to sell to young, female drivers. They launched their campaign online to specifically target the people most likely to buy the product, young people, women and first car buyers. The price of the car is from $12 490. The campaign allows for people to design their car specifically online and then share their designs through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. People are then able to vote on which cars they like the best, then the winner per fortnight will be awarded a Barina Spark.

The 50~ estimate I mentioned covers my whole BS career and was just to show that we didn't even end up using most of these as it's easier to just make them up, so long as you are reasonable with your statistics. Knowing syllabus content is more important to focus on than just memorising case studies toward success in BS.

 

[BandSixFix]

The seven criteria were basically what we had to fulfill for each syllabus dot point. They aren't official terms or something you necessary need to know but they were criteria for our internal assessments. Our case studies had to cover (there could be a combination of these in each individual case study) about a good, a service, a domestic business, a global business, a well-performing (strong) business, a struggling (weak) business and 2 within the same industry. This would allow us to cover all the bases that questions could ask about. It would look something like this for a single dot point;

E-marketing

Google Google makes USD $38.6 billion just in advertising revenue. This accounted for 33% of all online ad revenue in 2013. The closest competitor for ad revenue was Facebook, with USD 6.4 billion. This comprises of ad revenue from ads on google sites, ads on other sites, and all other ad revenues including their search engine and Google Apps. Google has three main advertisement sections. Adsense is used for displaying ads on you own website. Adwords is for displaying your ads on other people’s websites. Google analytics allows the business to analyse visitor traffic and paint a complete picture of you audience. It targets advertising at consumers. For example, if you have searched for boots over a few sites and then went to an unrelated site, an ad for your perfect pair would appear on the website. Google targets ads in four ways, contextual, placement, interest-based and language.

Hyundai The Hyundai competition was launched on the 25th of March 2014 and it encouraged fans to recreate their favourite goal celebrations and enter them online, to gain a chance to win one of seven pairs of VIP packages to see Brazil versus Mexico on 17 June. Andrew Cullis, Hyundai’s marketing director, said: "Our long-term partnership with FIFA allows us to connect fundamentally with a passionate global audience. For this year’s 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, we wanted to further improve that connection by working with Copa90 and YouTube to bring engaging content and an exclusive competition to enhance the fans’ experience of the tournament – bringing a bit more of Brazil to Britain." Also, they have taken to Twitter to offer football fans a series of free rides and ultimate city guides in a Hyundai ix35 in Brazil.

Holden Holden began its online marketing campaign for the Barina Spark aiming to sell to young, female drivers. They launched their campaign online to specifically target the people most likely to buy the product, young people, women and first car buyers. The price of the car is from $12 490. The campaign allows for people to design their car specifically online and then share their designs through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. People are then able to vote on which cars they like the best, then the winner per fortnight will be awarded a Barina Spark.

The 50~ estimate I mentioned covers my whole BS career and was just to show that we didn't even end up using most of these as it's easier to just make them up, so long as you are reasonable with your statistics. Knowing syllabus content is more important to focus on than just memorising case studies toward success in BS.

Oh I see. It's just an internal thing, I thought I was missing something How many did you refer to in each essay? 2-4?

 

[bobmyself]

Oh I see. It's just an internal thing, I thought I was missing something How many did you refer to in each essay? 2-4?

It'd depend on the question and how many points I'd choose to cover but 4 should be a minimum. If you are familiar with the PEEL style paragraph or something similar, case studies would account for the example so you should be including at least one in every body paragraph.

 

[BandSixFix]

It'd depend on the question and how many points I'd choose to cover but 4 should be a minimum. If you are familiar with the PEEL style paragraph or something similar, case studies would account for the example so you should be including at least one in every body paragraph.

My teacher said to try and not include a different case study per paragraph as 'markers' could would like it. Would you recommend writing a different one per paragraph or having a sustained integration of just a main case study with smaller ones here and there?

 

[bobmyself]

My teacher said to try and not include a different case study per paragraph as 'markers' could would like it. Would you recommend writing a different one per paragraph or having a sustained integration of just a main case study with smaller ones here and there?

I believe that using a single, main case study better suits the old business studies syllabus. Take a few minutes to read through the student learn to's of the old syllabus (particularly 9.5) compared to the current one.

You will notice that the older syllabus is more inclined to ask for extensive knowledge of a single business rather than about business concepts of which the current syllabus asks. Using a variety of case studies demonstrates that you have a wide understanding of contemporary business issues (course outcome) and allows you to better shape your response to the types of questions you may be asked in the current syllabus.

 

[BandSixFix]

I believe that using a single, main case study better suits the old business studies syllabus. Take a few minutes to read through the student learn to's of the old syllabus (particularly 9.5) compared to the current one.

You will notice that the older syllabus is more inclined to ask for extensive knowledge of a single business rather than about business concepts of which the current syllabus asks. Using a variety of case studies demonstrates that you have a wide understanding of contemporary business issues (course outcome) and allows you to better shape your response to the types of questions you may be asked in the current syllabus.

Alright sweet. I just hope I don't get discriminated against for not using the big ones like "Qantas" or "iPhone" in my responses. (Internally) Since I think It'd be better to make up hypothetical case studie(s) and tailor it to my business more effectively.

 

[swagmeister]

Alright sweet. I just hope I don't get discriminated against for not using the big ones like "Qantas" or "iPhone" in my responses. (Internally) Since I think It'd be better to make up hypothetical case studie(s) and tailor it to my business more effectively.

Well, you definitely won't get discriminated externally - I made all of mine up, walked into the exam with 5 business names and roughly what they were about.

I wasn't discriminated internally but some schools may incorrectly do so - with these kinds of things, I'd highly recommend asking your teacher or potentially even the head of the school's HSIE department

 

[BandSixFix]

Well, you definitely won't get discriminated externally - I made all of mine up, walked into the exam with 5 business names and roughly what they were about.

I wasn't discriminated internally but some schools may incorrectly do so - with these kinds of things, I'd highly recommend asking your teacher or potentially even the head of the school's HSIE department

Yeah I'll definitely ask them. Aren't the schools bound by the hands of BOSTES? Can't I appeal if this happens?

 

[swagmeister]

Yeah I'll definitely ask them. Aren't the schools bound by the hands of BOSTES? Can't I appeal if this happens?

BOSTES would probably say that it's a grey area based upon the school's interpretation of the syllabus.

Not that they're correct in saying that, but they probably would. They wouldn't want to get involved.

Rambling ahead:

In saying that, I got marked down in a school based exam once and I disagreed with the answer. So I looked at some past HSC papers and while the questions were slightly different they also didn't have things completely correct. I contacted BOSTES with my logic, and eventually got referred to the chief examiner for the subject who basically said that I was right, meaning that it would mean that for some HSC multiple choice questions there was no correct answer, however he said this was fine because economics is a social science. So I showed my teacher and got the mark back for the school assessment. Then, in the 2015 exam paper they completely changed the structure of that question and made the answer so it reflected what I was saying. Chance? I think not.

What I'm saying here is if you can get BOSTES to say that you are correct and show this to the school, then they don't really have much choice to oblige. But contacting BOSTES and getting them to get in touch with the school and have it sorted probably won't work - at least that's what I think.

 

[BandSixFix]

BOSTES would probably say that it's a grey area based upon the school's interpretation of the syllabus.

Not that they're correct in saying that, but they probably would. They wouldn't want to get involved.

Rambling ahead:

In saying that, I got marked down in a school based exam once and I disagreed with the answer. So I looked at some past HSC papers and while the questions were slightly different they also didn't have things completely correct. I contacted BOSTES with my logic, and eventually got referred to the chief examiner for the subject who basically said that I was right, meaning that it would mean that for some HSC multiple choice questions there was no correct answer, however he said this was fine because economics is a social science. So I showed my teacher and got the mark back for the school assessment. Then, in the 2015 exam paper they completely changed the structure of that question and made the answer so it reflected what I was saying. Chance? I think not.

What I'm saying here is if you can get BOSTES to say that you are correct and show this to the school, then they don't really have much choice to oblige. But contacting BOSTES and getting them to get in touch with the school and have it sorted probably won't work - at least that's what I think.

Oh... Well, I guess its just up to me asking my faculty I think! But it does say "hypothetical" in the marking rubric so...