Clean Arena (CA) Nala lives in country P. She left school in 2014 and started university in city A to study Business. In her first year she joined CA as a part-time cleaner. CA is a large business that cleans offices. When Nala graduated in 2018, she tried to find a management job while still working as a cleaner. As country P's economy was in recession, there were no suitable vacancies available. Fortunately, the owners of CA offered Nala the post of Operations Manager. She accepted and became a full-time employee. Developing a corporate plan CA offer Nala the opportunity to buy the city $$\(Z\)$$ branch at a very low price. However, to gain finance from a bank, she has been asked to create a corporate plan for the future of the city Z branch. Appendix 1: Network diagram used by Nala for city Z branch in 2020 Appendix 2: Lean production methods implemented by Nala at city Z branch in 2021 - Kaizen is introduced throughout the city $$\(Z\)$$ branch. - All cleaners are assigned to a quality circle, with each quality circle to include eight cleaners and one manager. - A target to ethically recycle $$\(90 \%\)$$ of customers' waste. - Inventory of cleaning materials ordered on a just in time (JIT) basis. Appendix 3: Local news article in city Z about CA's Al system in 2022 Cleaning firm CA has made the majority of its customer service operatives redundant. The company has replaced these workers with a new 'chatbot' system that uses an online database to respond to customer needs. The system can book appointments, answer customer queries and even take complaints, most of which have been about the chatbot itself. A spokesperson from a local business which is a customer of CA is quoted as saying 'when you replace people with computers you might save money, but it's the customers who suffer.' Appendix 4: Comparison between the operations of the city Z branch and the city A branch of CA Advise Nala on the most important elements to be included in a corporate plan for the future of the city Z branch. Permission to reproduce items where third-party owned material protected by copyright is included has been sought and cleared where possible. Every reasonable effort has been made by the publisher (UCLES) to trace copyright holders, but if any items requiring clearance have unwittingly been included, the publisher will be pleased to make amends at the earliest possible opportunity. To avoid the issue of disclosure of answer-related information to candidates, all copyright acknowledgements are reproduced online in the Cambridge Assessment International Education Copyright Acknowledgements Booklet. This is produced for each series of examinations and is freely available to download at www.cambridgeinternational.org after the live examination series. Cambridge Assessment International Education is part of Cambridge Assessment. Cambridge Assessment is the brand name of the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES), which is a department of the University of Cambridge.

AO1 Knowledge and understanding
Knowledge \(\square\) (max 1 mark) can be awarded for any relevant business knowledge about a corporate plan / corporate planning, including, including:
- Knowledge of the contents of a corporate plan, including:
- mission/vision
- objectives
- strategic planning
- external influences on a business: social, legal, economic, environmental, ethical, political, technological
- functional data: marketing, operations management, human resources management, financial management
- contingency planning, risk management
- Knowledge of the process of corporate planning, including:
- a corporate plan is similar to a strategic plan
- used for businesses with multiple business units or subsidiaries/parts
- defines business direction
- and business strategy to get there
- usually refers to the broader business as a whole, not individual parts/functions
- steps involved in corporate planning, such as assess your current strategy/position, identify objectives, develop your strategic plan and determine performance metrics, implement and share plan, revise and amend.

Award \(\overline{D E V}\) for any explanation of relevant business knowledge, up to a max of 2 marks.
AO2 Application
Application \(\square\) (max 2 marks) can be awarded for applying knowledge of a corporate plan or corporate planning, to CA and/or the city \(Z\) branch, including:
- Nala has experience as a cleaner, Operations Manager with CA and planning and management of a branch of CA.
- Nala has contacts that she built up (employees, customers, local information) in her role with CA.
- Data from the timeline.
- Data from the appendices.
- A corporate plan is required by the bank to finance her new start-up.
AO3 Analysis
Analysis is likely to be based on the elements of a corporate plan or corporate planning ( \(\square\) and \(\square\)
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and \(\square\) ) for CA and/or the city Z branch.

Arguments of what should (or should not) be included in Nala's corporate plan for a new cleaning business, including: Mission/vision - to give the business direction - important for a new business and to convince the bank to provide finance for the new business - however this might not be useful as the separate business has not been set up yet. Objectives - likely to be Nala's own objectives, unless she is planning to bring in shareholders - a new business is likely to focus on survival and/or providing Nala with enough income to survive.
Strategic planning - likely to be one of the most important elements of Nala's corporate plan as this will give the bank an idea of how she plans to achieve her objectives and repay any finance loaned - Nala may have more experience of her strategy than many start-up businesses as she has managed the city \(Z\) branch for the past four years (she has expertise).
External influences on a business - may be less important to inform the bank/Nala as these will be common to all businesses in city Z and/or market. However, Nala may need to provide evidence to the bank (and other stakeholders) that she has recognised these influences.
Functional data:
- Marketing - to prove that Nala understands the cleaning market in city Z and to show that she has a plan to reach her target market in sufficient numbers to meet her objectives.
- Operations management - Nala's area of expertise (as a previous Operations Manager of CA) and important to show that she is able to deliver a service sector product.
- Human resources management - as a business offering a service in city Z, the management of people will be important to allowing Nala to meet her objectives and implement the business strategy.
- Financial management - important as Nala's main purpose in preparing a corporate plan is to raise finance to fund
AO4 Evaluation
Evaluation ( \(\square\) and \(\square\) and \(\square\) N3 including:

Evaluation will largely depend on the points raised in the analysis.
- A judgement over what Nala should include in a corporate plan for her new cleaning business.
- What the judgement may depend upon; further data about the market in city \(Z\) for cleaning services, external influences, such as the economy, legal issues, fashions/trends, demographic changes, ethical influences, environmental influences, political influences, technological influences, the prior history of Nala with CA and other stakeholders whom she may need to interact with in her new business.
- Weighing up of the relevant pieces of data needed for Nala's corporate plan and its use in financing the new business.
- Weighing up of the relevant arguments for the use of other data instead of (or in tandem with) the corporate plan.

Accept all valid responses.