BTEC Business Level 3 Unit 6 Principles of Management May 2024 Exam
Gale Papers Ltd Notes
The purpose of this document is to provide you with lots of content that you can use as part
of your revision for the Unit 6 Principles of Management May 2024 exam. The document
covers 4 challenges, 4 proposals and 4 recommendations, and does discuss some
additional proposals in short detail. You should aim to choose at least 3
challenges/proposals/recommendations to use in the exam. You should focus on identifying
the challenge, how it has arisen, its impact on the business goals, then identify a proposal
that can solve this challenge, stating how, and the impact on the business goals, and finally
identify a recommendation to ensure the successful implementation of the proposal and
state who is responsible.
Brief overview:
● Overview of Gale Papers
○ Established since 2014, owned by two brothers
○ Factory producing a range of paper products, selling to large retailers (B2B)
○ Mission is to exceed expectations, providing quality products at a low cost
● Workforce Structure and Characteristics
○ There is a group of core/permanent workers (skilled), often doing repetitive
tasks
○ The company has started using agency staff with the owners believing that it
gives them more flexibility
○ Permanent staff and agency staff do not work well together
○ Compulsory overtime at the weekend, shifts enforced without consultation
and without compensation
● Recent changes
○ The catalyst for change was their competitor stopping trading, resulting in a
higher demand
○ Changes include:
■ Buying a new warehouse
■ New shift pattern
■ Compulsory overtime with the same rates
■ Contracts changed without consultation
■ New roles subcontracted out to a local employment agency (this is
where the agency staff have come from)
● Mission
○ “To exceed customer expectations for quality product and value for money”
■ To achieve this mission there needs to be a focus on a quality culture
and quality control/assurance
● Business goals
1. To minimise costs at each point of production
2. To be an excellent employer with high staff retention rates
3. To increase market share
It is clear that the unexpected rise in demand for Gale Papers’ products (due to their
competitor shutting down) has led to a range of decisions that overlooks the needs and
wants of their permanent staff, and ignores their business goals and mission.
, Challenges and link to business goals:
1. Low quality products
a. The first challenge is low quality products which has led to rising waste, lower
customer satisfaction and undermines the mission and goals of Gale Papers
b. This challenge has arisen due to three key reasons:
i. One reason is that there are no quality control procedures in place
and staff were encouraged to check their own work. However, as the
staff have not been trained or briefed on how to check the quality of
their work, nor been told what the standards are, it's impossible for
them to determine whether the product quality is acceptable or not.
ii. The second reason is due to Gethin regularly changing suppliers
which led to issues with quality.
iii. The third reason is the agency staff who due to their lack of training
(only 30 minutes) and them not caring about the quality of their work,
has caused a significant number of mistakes, leading to a rise in
waste.
c. Impact linked to business goals:
i. One impact of this challenge is a rise in production costs, negatively
impacting the first business goal. The rise in errors and mistakes has
led to an increase in waste from 5% in 2021 to 35% in 2023. A rise in
waste increases the costs of production as they have to use more
resources and spend more time correcting the error.
ii. The business goal “to increase market share” is also negatively
impacted, as the poor quality has led to key customers complaining
and even one large retailer threatening to cancel future orders if
quality does not improve. Customer satisfaction has fallen from 98% in
2021 to 75% in 2023. This puts Gale Papers at risk of losing
customers which will decrease their market share.
