Hi Diploma students
These are complete revision notes for IB Diploma Programme Business Management, free and open to anyone. They cover all thirty-seven topics of the syllabus across its five units, at standard level and higher level, plus the business management toolkit and guides to Papers 1, 2 and 3 and the internal assessment.
Business management marks come from four things done together: precise definitions, accurate calculations, applying every point to the business in the case, and evaluation that reaches a judgment. Each page is built to practise all four, and the practice questions are written in the style of the current papers.
Please take note that although succinct notes are essential towards your revision, they should not be the only materials you cover — following real businesses in the news and writing timed answers to past papers matter just as much.
Happy revising. — Mr. Suta
🧭Start here
How the five units and the toolkit fit together, what HL adds, how Papers 1, 2 and 3 and the IA are built and marked, the command terms, and a revision plan.
📚The syllabus
Five units and a toolkit. Topics marked HL are higher level only; many other topics contain HL-only sections, flagged HL on the page.
Unit 1 — Introduction to business management
What a business is and how it is organized: sectors, entrepreneurship, legal forms, objectives and CSR, stakeholders, growth, and multinationals. 20 hours at SL and HL.
Unit 2 — Human resource management
Managing people: workforce planning, organizational structures, leadership styles, motivation theories, culture, communication and employee relations. SL 20 hours, HL 35.
Unit 3 — Finance and accounts
The numbers: sources of finance, costs and revenues, final accounts, ratio analysis, cash flow, investment appraisal and budgets. SL 30 hours, HL 35.
Unit 4 — Marketing
Understanding and reaching customers: market orientation, segmentation and positioning, forecasting, market research, the seven Ps and international marketing. SL 30 hours, HL 45.
Unit 5 — Operations management
Making goods and services: production methods, lean and quality, location, break-even, production planning, crisis management, R&D and information systems. SL 15 hours, HL 45.
The business management toolkit
The analytical tools you must apply in every paper and the IA, each with a worked application and its limitations. SL 10 hours, HL 35.
Assessment
How each component is built and marked, with a full practice case study, practice papers with markschemes, and a guide to the business research project.