Business Studies - National Moderator's Report

Insights

91382: Develop a marketing plan for a new or existing product 

Performance overview

To reach Achieved, the standard requires students to devise a marketing aim for the launch of a new product or to increase the market share of an existing product in the New Zealand market.

Students must analyse market research data they have collated from a marketing audit. This helps formulate their marketing strategy. This strategy/plan should articulate specific marketing strategies that will be implemented, along with their costs. An action plan should specify the staged marketing activities that align with the sales forecast and marketing budget. There should also be discussion of how the marketing strategy will be monitored and what contingency plans would be used should the strategies not enable the sales forecast to be realised.

Practices that need strengthening

Marketing budgets will only be estimates of promotional costs. However, these estimates should be supported by some form of research or data. While social media platforms such as Instagram are free to join, creating high-quality content, maintaining engagement, and promoting posts all involve real costs in time, effort, and sometimes paid advertising.

For all grades, students must demonstrate understanding of relevant business knowledge at curriculum level 8. This would include the use of marketing tools. While a SWOT analysis or the 4 (or more) Ps might be useful in conducting a marketing audit, curriculum level 8 tools would also be applied.

These tools could include:

• PEST/PESTLE analysis
• Boston Matrix
• Ansoff Matrix
• Porter’s Five Forces
• STP (segmentation, targeting, and positioning).

Students should choose tools that are reflective of their intended marketing objectives, and should use/apply the tools rather than merely demonstrating or stating their understanding of them.

In 2025, as in previous years, a significant number of moderation grade changes occurred at the Merit/Excellence boundary. 

For Excellence, it is expected that there would be integration or links between aspects of the marketing plan and the use of evidence to justify the use of certain marketing strategies to meet the marketing objectives. For example, if the Boston matrix identifies the product as a problem child with low market share in a high growth industry, the marketing budget should reflect that a high amount would need to be spent to gain market share and become a shining star. The contingency plan would also detail actions that could be taken if shining star status is not achieved.

A comprehensive marketing plan shows a student’s awareness that marketing decisions occur within uncertain and dynamic environments. This understanding should be evident through a detailed timeline and a contingency plan that identifies plausible risks, outlines alternative strategies, and explains how these adjustments would help achieve the marketing objectives if the initial plan does not deliver the expected results.

91383: Analyse a human resource issue affecting businesses

Performance overview

To achieve the standard, it is necessary for students to identify New Zealand businesses that have experienced a specific human resource issue. Evidence from the businesses, or reliable NZ research or statistical data, will substantiate that the issue has caused complex human resource problems. While students may refer to broader industry trends to support their analysis, referencing industry trends alone is not sufficient to meet the requirements of the standard. The focus must remain on how the human resource issue affects specific businesses.

Students analyse the issue by demonstrating accurate business knowledge around relevant aspects of the human resource cycle, such as training, appraisal and relevant legislation, and employment relations. 

Consequences of the issue on stakeholders such as employees, shareholders, and customers will provide context. However, the focus should be on how the issue affects businesses.

One solution the business community could feasibly implement to solve or mitigate the issue would be provided for Achieved. At least two possible solutions would be provided for Merit and Excellence. The student would also recommend the best of the solutions for Excellence. 

Practices that need strengthening

In 2025, as in previous years, some submissions have not featured evidence from or about two New Zealand businesses experiencing the complex HR issue. This requirement is indicated in the title of the standard and the guidance given in the clarification document and grade boundary exemplars.

Students should take care to select human resource issues rather than wider social issues which fall outside the scope of the standard. Social trends are broad changes in society that shape consumer behaviour and demand across industries. Human resource trends are changes in how businesses manage their people, such as recruitment, training, and well-being, which directly affect staffing and performance inside firms. For example, accidents on quad bikes are a social issue because they affect community safety, health, and injury statistics across rural New Zealand. As a human resource issue, they affect specific farm businesses through lost work time, higher ACC or insurance costs, the need for safety training and protective equipment, possible legal liability, and challenges in retaining or replacing injured workers.

Solutions need to be realistic, lawful business-level actions that the businesses could implement. For example, increasing pay in the public healthcare sector is a government-level decision and not within the control of entities in the sector, whereas this solution could be feasible and relevant in private health sector businesses.

91384: Carry out, with consultation, an innovative and sustainable business activity

Performance overview

For this standard, the business activity should be ongoing over several months. This differentiates the activity from 90848, which requires students to carry out their activity on two separate occasions. A product should be taken to market over a period conducive to the nine credits awarded for this standard. Selling may be face-to-face, online, or a combination of both. If there is a valid reason the product cannot be sold, receiving a written agreement for future sale of the product or the business model would suffice as taking it to market.

Consultation must be with advisors with expertise in the innovative or sustainable aspects of the business activity or experts in the activity itself. Consultation should go beyond one-off feedback from presenting a business pitch (which is not a requirement of the standard). The consultant(s) should be named, and the extent to which consultation advice was followed (or not) discussed within the business plan and/or the review.

Students are required to justify why their chosen activity can be regarded as innovative. They may choose to base this on originality, invention, or commercialisation of their product or service. Innovation could also be shown in processes, for example the production process or the use of viral marketing or crowd fundraising.

Sustainability refers to meeting the quadruple bottom line of cultural (including ethical), social, environmental, and economic outcomes. The focus on these must be apparent in the goal setting and other relevant sections of the business plan. Reviews must also involve measuring the performance of the business activity in relation to the sustainability outcomes stated in the plan.

The grade awarded for the business plan is the maximum a group member may be awarded. As the review is inextricably linked to the planning of the activity, an Achieved level plan that lacks the planning detail and depth of business knowledge required for Merit is unable to generate a Merit level review.

Some schools adopt an integrated approach to the assessment of the marketing and business activity strands. At Level 3, where a marketing plan relates to the business activity, students need to complete and submit evidence for each standard. This is because substantially more marketing detail is required for 91382 than for the marketing section of planning for 91384.

Practices that need strengthening

An essential component of the standard is business planning. Effective planning underpins success in carrying out and evaluating an innovative and sustainable business activity. Planning should include SMART business objectives with measurable sales, profit, and sustainability outcomes, supported by detailed financial and operational information. If a business is well planned, the subsequent evaluation can be measured against the business plan itself, rather than being limited by inadequate preparation.

Reviews/evaluations at the end of the selling activity are required. This entails students reporting on whether sales/profit targets and planned sustainability outcomes were achieved by measuring actual performance against the planned performance.

At all grade levels, NZC level 8 business knowledge should be included in the planning and review phases. For example, target customers (their demographics, needs, purchasing habits, etc), competitor strengths and weaknesses, the USP, procurement or production processes, advertising and distribution channels, pricing strategy, a sales forecast, and a correctly formatted projected income statement.

Business knowledge would be stated for Achieved and explained for Merit. Excellence requires an integration of business knowledge through the evidence. For example, a student could apply a PESTLE analysis to identify increasing government focus on waste reduction, then use this to justify investing in reusable or recyclable packaging as both a compliance and differentiation strategy.

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