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Strategy

Business challenges and adapting

Adapting means answering a challenge with a fitting change, such as a merger, an alliance, flexible hours or a new product.

CAPS

Grade 11 · Business Studies · Strategy

Business Studies answers in business language, applied to the scenario.

  • The papers

    Paper 1 is business environments and business ventures. Paper 2 is business roles and business operations. Each paper is 150 marks.

  • A 40-mark essay

    Introduction 2 marks: say what the essay will deal with. Body: facts from the scenario, each with an explanation of the impact or the solution. Conclusion 2 marks: a decision, not a new fact. Insight is 4 marks for layout, analysis, synthesis and originality.

  • How a marker reads it

    A common mix-up is treating a merger as the only way to adapt, when flexible hours or a new product can answer a smaller shock.

Quotes from a scenario must be used, not copied as decoration. A definition with no link to the business in the question stays in the low marks.

Worked theory

Worked theory. A restaurant in eThekwini, near the beachfront, loses municipal water for a week. The kitchen cannot wash or boil as usual, so covers would fall from about 80 to zero if nothing changed. The owner makes an alliance with a guest house two streets away that has borehole water, and pays R500 a day to use its prep sink. The menu shrinks to meals that need less water, and the kitchen opens only in the evening. Covers fall to about 40, but the doors stay open because the response matches the water cut.

More worked examples

  • Pietermaritzburg shared van

    Two small bakeries in Pietermaritzburg each pay for a delivery van that rides half empty. They form an alliance, not a merger, and share one van on a written timetable. Each keeps its own name, its own till and its own recipes. Fuel and the driver's cost drop for both. They adapted to a cost challenge by cooperating while remaining two businesses.

  • Bloemfontein lunch classes

    A gym in Bloemfontein is full before work and almost empty from 10 am to 3 pm. Nearby office staff say they cannot train at dawn. The gym adds 45-minute lunch classes and keeps the same machines. About 30 new memberships come from those offices. Flexible hours were the adaptation, and a merger with another gym was not required.

In ordinary words

A merger joins two businesses so they share costs and customers, while an alliance is a looser deal that leaves each firm separate. Flexible hours match staff and opening times to when people can actually buy. A new product covers a need the old range missed. The change works only when it answers the specific shock, and a random new idea that ignores the cause is not adaptation.

In South Africa

A beachfront kitchen in eThekwini stands with dry taps while prep happens at a borehole two streets away.

Part 1 / 4

What it is

Adapting means answering a challenge with a fitting change, such as a merger, an alliance, flexible hours or a new product.

More worked examples

Board walkthroughs on this topic. Open one, copy the working, then try the next.

Example 1 / 20

Case study: A clothing company's SWOT shows strong brand, poor online sales, growing online market and cheap imports. Classify each.

How we got there

Read this like a teacher at the board. We go slowly, name every number, and say why we take each step.

Explain in another language · 11

1. What is the question asking?

Read the question twice. Circle the unknown. Underline every number and unit. The paper is asking: Case study: A clothing company's SWOT shows strong brand, poor online sales, growing online market and cheap imports. Classify each.

Before any working — hunt first

Given

Numbers and units already in the sentence: no numbers yet — only a name, a diagram, or a worded unknown. Copy each one into a column. A name without a number is not given.

Missing

After you copy the given, the letter that still has no number is missing. The paper is pointing at: Classify each. Circle that word — that is the missing variable.

Find

We are required to find: Classify each. Write that as a symbol on the left, with a question mark, before you touch a formula.

Calculate

What we need to calculate: Strengths/weaknesses internal; opportunities/threats external. Then substitute the given, one line at a time, to get Classify each.

In other words — as if you have never seen this before

If you have never seen this before: Strengths/weaknesses internal; opportunities/threats external. We will name a method in words, write the formula with no numbers, then substitute one line at a time.

2. What do we already know?

SWOT.

3. Which method — and why this one?

Strengths/weaknesses internal; opportunities/threats external.

4. Step-by-step working

  1. 01 / 08

    Step A — Read the question twice

    Slow down. Circle the word that names the unknown. Underline every number and its unit. Do not grab a formula yet — first decide what the paper is actually asking.

    Why this step: If you can say the method in a sentence, you will pick the right formula. First-timers skip this and grab the first equation they remember.

  2. 02 / 08

    Step A2 — Hunt: Given, Missing, Find, Calculate

    Given: Numbers and units already in the sentence: no numbers yet — only a name, a diagram, or a worded unknown. Copy each one into a column. A name without a number is not given. Missing: After you copy the given, the letter that still has no number is missing. The paper is pointing at: Classify each. Circle that word — that is the missing variable. Find: We are required to find: Classify each. Write that as a symbol on the left, with a question mark, before you touch a formula. Calculate: What we need to calculate: Strengths/weaknesses internal; opportunities/threats external. Then substitute the given, one line at a time, to get Classify each.

    Why this step: Do not name the letters yet. First hunt: what already has a number (Given), what has no number (Missing), the word the paper wants (Find), and which formula still contains the missing letter (Calculate).

  3. 03 / 08

    Step B — Write the given in a column

    SWOT.

    Why this step: A column with units stops you mixing cm with m, or minutes with seconds. Markers can also see you started correctly.

  4. 04 / 08

    Step C — Name the method in words

    Strengths/weaknesses internal; opportunities/threats external.

    Why this step: If you can say the method in a sentence, you will pick the right formula. First-timers skip this and grab the first equation they remember.

  5. 05 / 08

    Identify the given

    Strength: brand. Weakness: poor online sales. Opportunity: growing online market. Threat: cheap imports.

    Why this step: We only do one job per line so a marker can follow the marks — and so you can find a slip without starting over.

  6. 06 / 08

    Step G — Sense-check the size

    Ask: is this the kind of number a Grade 10–12 paper would want? A speed of 3 000 ms for a learner walking, or a probability bigger than 1, means a unit or algebra slip. Estimate first: round the numbers and do the sum in your head.

    Why this step: Markers write ‘unrealistic’ in the margin when the method is right but the size is wild. A 10-second head check often finds a missing 10² or a unit that never changed.

  7. 07 / 08

    Step F — Box the answer with its unit

    S brand, W online sales, O online market, T imports.

    Why this step: A number without a unit is half a mark on a Physics paper, and a marker can miss a Maths answer that is buried in working.

  8. 08 / 08

    Step H — What the marker is looking for

    On an NSC memo you usually earn: (1) a method mark for naming the right formula or idea in words, (2) an accuracy mark for substituting the given numbers with units, (3) an accuracy mark for the boxed answer with its unit. Write those three lines even if you are unsure of the arithmetic — blank pages score zero.

    Why this step: First-timers chase the final number and leave the method blank. The memo still pays out for the idea and the substitution even when the last line is wrong.

5. The answer

S brand, W online sales, O online market, T imports.

Copy onto your answer sheet — in this order

Answer: S brand, W online sales, O online market, T imports.

6. Check it like a marker

Use SWOT before strategy.

7. A trap first-timers fall into

First-timers often grab the first formula they remember, mix units (cm with m, minutes with seconds), or drop a minus sign. Write the formula in words first: “this equals that, because…”

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