Syllabus: OCR - A and AS Level Business
Module: Business Objectives and Strategy
Lesson: Decision Making

Introduction

This lesson aligns directly with the OCR A Level Business specification’s unit on Business Objectives and Strategy, focusing specifically on the role of decision making. It’s designed to help students understand not just how decisions are made in business contexts, but also why they matter — and what can go wrong when strategic thinking is ignored.

This topic builds critical awareness around business aims, operational choices, and the tools used to make sound decisions. It supports exam readiness while developing the analytical and evaluative skills needed to interpret real-world strategy.

Key Concepts

From the OCR specification, students are expected to understand and apply:

• Mission statements and corporate objectives: Their role in shaping business direction.

• Strategic and tactical decisions: Differences and how each affects operations.

• Decision trees: Understanding expected values, probabilities and making choices under uncertainty.

• Influences on decision making: Including data quality, stakeholder interest, risk appetite, and opportunity cost.

• SWOT and PESTLE: How internal and external environments impact strategic options.

• Ansoff’s Matrix and Porter’s Generic Strategies: Strategic tools to frame business growth and competitiveness.

The OCR syllabus encourages students to “analyse and evaluate” strategic choices, recognising the importance of context, trade-offs and consequences.

Real-World Relevance

In June 2023, supermarket giant Tesco faced falling profits despite a strong market share. The company’s strategic decision to exit loss-making international markets (such as Thailand and Poland) highlighted the tension between short-term revenue and long-term brand focus.

Students can use Tesco’s situation to explore the role of decision trees: How did Tesco evaluate risk versus return? Which stakeholders were impacted? Was the decision tactical or strategic?

Similarly, small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic had to make fast decisions with limited information — from shifting to e-commerce to renegotiating supplier contracts — underscoring the real-world volatility where these models apply.

How It’s Assessed

OCR assessment includes structured and essay-style questions that test understanding, application and evaluation:

• Command words:

  • Explain: define a concept or give a contextual example.

  • Analyse: build logical chains of reasoning.

  • Evaluate: weigh alternatives and reach supported judgements.

• Common formats:

  • Multiple-choice questions around decision tree outcomes.

  • Data-response questions requiring SWOT or PESTLE application.

  • Extended essays comparing strategic tools.

Students must be comfortable interpreting numerical data, applying business models, and justifying decisions under different scenarios.

Enterprise Skills Integration

This topic naturally strengthens core enterprise skills:

• Decision-making: Using tools like decision trees develops a structured approach to uncertainty.

• Problem-solving: PESTLE and SWOT help identify and respond to real-time challenges.

• Strategic thinking: Comparing growth strategies through Ansoff’s Matrix or Porter’s framework encourages long-term planning.

• Communication: Justifying decisions helps students practise articulating ideas under pressure — essential for both exams and future roles.

Enterprise Skills simulations allow students to act as business owners making decisions in real time. They select pricing strategies, allocate budgets, and face trade-offs — giving life to abstract models.

Careers Links

Understanding decision making links closely to a range of business careers, fulfilling Gatsby Benchmarks 4, 5 and 6:

• Business analyst: Uses data to guide decision-making.

• Marketing strategist: Applies tools like Ansoff to segment markets.

• Entrepreneur: Must evaluate risk and opportunity rapidly.

• Operations manager: Makes daily tactical decisions with strategic consequences.

Skills developed here — data interpretation, strategic reasoning, stakeholder awareness — are relevant to university courses in business, economics, management and beyond.

Teaching Notes

Tips for delivery:

• Begin with a fictional scenario (e.g. a failing café needing a growth strategy) to ground the tools.

• Use Enterprise Skills’ decision-making simulations as a plug-and-play class activity — minimal setup, maximum impact.

• Embed frequent mini-assessments using exam-style questions with mark schemes to build confidence.

Common pitfalls:

• Students often confuse tactical with strategic decisions. Reinforce with dual examples.

• When using decision trees, watch for arithmetic errors and misunderstanding of expected value.

Extension activity:

• Task students with building a full strategic recommendation using SWOT, Ansoff and financial data for a real SME of their choice.

• Or host a classroom debate: “Was X company right to expand internationally?” backed by stakeholder mapping and model application.