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The course and the exams

IB DP Business Management · guide for first assessment 2024

Ten minutes here will tell you how the course fits together, what separates SL from HL, how each paper is built and marked, and how to use these notes. The notes follow the IB Business management guide for first assessment 2024. If your school tells you it has moved to a newer guide, check the topic list below against it.

📚The five units and the toolkit

Unit 1 — Introduction to business management
1.1–1.6 · 20 hours at SL and HL. Sectors, entrepreneurship, business entities, objectives, stakeholders, growth and MNCs.
Unit 2 — Human resource management
2.1–2.7 · SL 20 h, HL 35 h. Workforce planning, structure, leadership, motivation, culture, communication and employee relations.
Unit 3 — Finance and accounts
3.1–3.9 · SL 30 h, HL 35 h. Sources of finance, costs, final accounts, ratios, cash flow, investment appraisal and budgets.
Unit 4 — Marketing
4.1–4.6 · SL 30 h, HL 45 h. Market orientation, STP, forecasting, market research, the seven Ps and international marketing.
Unit 5 — Operations management
5.1–5.9 · SL 15 h, HL 45 h. Production methods, lean and quality, location, break-even, production planning, crisis management, R&D and MIS.
The toolkit
SL 10 h, HL 35 h. Analytical tools (SWOT, STEEPLE, Ansoff, BCG, decision trees and more) used across every unit and every paper.

The course is 150 teaching hours at SL and 240 at HL, including 20 hours for the internal assessment and 5 hours researching the Paper 1 pre-released statement. The toolkit is not taught as a separate unit: you are expected to apply its tools to the business in front of you. See the three toolkit pages: T1, T2 and T3.

🔑The four key concepts

Change, creativity, ethics and sustainability. They run through the course. You need them most for the internal assessment, which must use exactly one of them as its lens, but they are also strong evaluation angles in essays (“this plan raises profit but raises ethical questions about…”). Sustainability is often framed as the triple bottom line: people, planet and profit.

🎓SL or HL

HL adds extensions inside several topics, flagged HL on these pages, eleven topics that are HL only in their entirety, more toolkit items and a third paper:

HL toolkit items: force field analysis, Gantt charts, critical path analysis, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, Porter’s generic strategies, contribution (make or buy, contribution and absorption costing) and simple linear regression. Much of the HL extension is quantitative: NPV, depreciation, efficiency ratios, variances, stock control, capacity and productivity.

📝How you are assessed

Paper 1 — pre-released case study
1 h 30 min · 30 marks
Section A: all structured questions (20). Section B: one of two 10-mark questions.
SL 35% · HL 25%
Paper 1 guide
Paper 2 — quantitative stimulus
SL 1 h 30 min, 40 marks · HL 1 h 45 min, 50 marks
Section A: all questions. Section B: one of two (10 structured + 10 extended).
SL 35% · HL 30%
Paper 2 guide
Paper 3 — social enterprise (HL)
1 h 15 min · 25 marks
Three compulsory questions: 2, 6 and 17 marks.
HL 25%
Paper 3 guide
Internal assessment
Business research project, 1800 words max · 25 marks
SL 30% · HL 20%
IA guide

All papers start with 5 minutes’ reading time. A calculator is allowed; a four-function one is enough for every calculation.

💬Command terms

The command term tells you how deep to go, and the marks tell you how long to write.

  • AO1 (knowledge): define, describe, identify, list, outline, state. Short, precise, usually 1–2 marks per point.
  • AO2 (application and analysis): analyse, apply, comment, demonstrate, distinguish, explain, suggest. Develop cause and effect and link to the case.
  • AO3 (synthesis and evaluation): compare, contrast, discuss, evaluate, examine, justify, recommend, to what extent. Weigh both sides and reach a judgment.
  • AO4 (skills): annotate, calculate, complete, construct, determine, draw, label, plot, prepare. Show working, units and correct layouts.

🧭How to use these notes

Every topic page follows the same pattern: what you need to be able to do (from the guide), the business management with diagrams and formulae, one worked example with a check and a common trap, six practice questions in exam style with hidden answers, and links to go deeper. Many of the finance, operations and toolkit examples follow one fictional Bali business, Ombak Boards, a surfboard maker, so the numbers connect from topic to topic: its accounts in 3.4 feed the ratios in 3.5, and its break-even in 5.5 reappears in the toolkit.

🕑A revision plan that works

  1. Definitions first. Every 2-mark definition is a free mark. Make flashcards for the key terms of each topic.
  2. Formulae and calculations weekly. Paper 2 rewards practice: ratios, break-even, investment appraisal, cash flow, and at HL NPV, stock control and CPA.
  3. Apply, always. Rewrite a textbook point about “a business” so it is about a specific one: local businesses you know are ideal.
  4. Timed 10-mark answers. Write one a week under timed conditions: definitions, both sides with evidence, a tool, a judgment, a limitation.
  5. From the release date, the pre-released statement. Research the context topics and map the syllabus onto the case (see the Paper 1 guide).