Cambridge A Level Business (for first examination in 2016) 9609 — 2024 Oct/Nov Paper 4 · Variant 1

1 Evaluate the extent to which corporate planning could have prevented the ‘Fly-away’ promotion crisis. [20]

Mark scheme: Question Answer Marks 1 Evaluate the extent to which corporate planning could have prevented the ‘Fly-away’ promotion crisis. 20 Indicative content Responses may include: AO1 Knowledge and understanding Knowledge (max 1 mark) can be awarded for any relevant business knowledge about planning: • the process of setting goals for a business and developing a strategy to achieve them, including: • Defining goals/objectives • Creating a plan • Identifying/allocating resources • Monitoring progress • Functional (Marketing, Operations HR, Finance) decision making Award for any explanation of corporate planning and implementation, up to a max of 2 marks, including: • Objectives for the entire organisation • Long term objectives and strategy/plans • Business priorities • Role of corporate culture • Role of transformational leadership • Role of contingency planning • Role of crisis management • Role of strategic (planning) approaches (blue ocean strategy, scenario planning, SWOT analysis, PEST analysis, Porter’s five forces, core competency framework, Ansoff matrix, force field analysis, decisions trees) AO2 Application Application (max 2 marks) can be awarded for • Cost to be shared equally between AB and DF. • Demand is much greater than expectations. • DF refuses the majority of ‘Fly-away’ applications. • Negative comments from angry customers trend on social media. • The ‘Fly-away’ promotion crisis is highlighted on consumer TV programmes. • Use of data in appendix 1 (not repetition of basic data) 1 AO3 Analysis Analysis is likely to be based upon DF’s planning ( and and ) Analysis of the corporate planning; Advantages • Improve communication – better planning could have helped marketing communicate better with other functions to anticipate the problems • Adapt to change – would have allowed DF to anticipate and adapt to changes as the strategy unfolded • Improved decision making – would have allowed the management to consider more options and make better decisions as to how the promotion should run or if it should have run at all • Focus on resources – planning would have helped ensure enough resources – financial or otherwise – were in place to help the promotion be successful • Drive growth – planning would have helped identify all possible growth avenues for DL and maybe look at alternatives to the promotion Disadvantages • Overplanning – plans may have been too detailed in some areas and lacking in others that decisions may have become too complex • Complacency – planning may lead management to become complacent and not consider all the options as they were focused on this particular promotion instead of other ways to achieve growth. • Limited flexibility- planning may have been too tight that it limits the flexibility for DF to respond when things did start to go wrong, the plans need an element of adaptability to ensure DF can respond in a timely manner • Limited creativity – planning may have limited the creativity to help solve this crises quickly and ‘nip it in the bud’ before social media got hold of it. AO4 Evaluation Evaluation ( and and ) including: Evaluation will largely depend on the points raised in the analysis. • A judgement over the extent to which DF’s corporate planning could have prevented the ‘Fly-away’ promotion crisis • Discussion over what elements of corporate planning could have been used and what that judgement could depend upon; • External environment will have influenced the demand for and reputation of the promotion 1 • Competition – DF’s response was to a competitive environment and their actions forced DF to come up with something more creative, and risky, to win customers/market share • Shareholder expectations – these were low given the recent ratio performance and pressure to perform better/increase sales/increase market share may have led to risky promotions being put together • Customer reactions – this was always going to be a good deal so did DF underestimate customers or have flawed market research which led to the crises? Accept all valid responses.

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