IB Business Management HLTopic 6 — The Toolkit in PracticePapers 1, 2 & 3Exam skill~11 min read
Applying SWOT and STEEPLE to a Real Business
Knowing the tools is the easy half. The exam gives you a page of messy information about a business and asks you to do something useful with it. This page is about the second half: how to read a case study, pull the right facts out, and build an answer that earns application and judgement marks rather than knowledge marks alone.
📘 What you need to know
Toolkit case studies usually run 2, 4, 4, 10 marks: a definition, two “explain” questions, then an evaluation.
You are marked on four skills: knowledge, application, analysis and judgement.
Knowledge alone caps you in the bottom band. Application means using the actual facts and figures given.
Analysis means chains: this happens, which causes that, which means this for the business.
Judgement means a clear decision, plus what would change your mind.
Evaluating a tool means questioning the data behind it: source, age, sample and bias.
The shape of a good answer
Students spend most of their revision on layer 1 and most of their exam time in layer 1. The marks are further up.
The mini case: Vista Stays
Vista Stays is an online platform that lets private hosts rent out spare rooms and apartments to travellers. It owns no property; it takes a fee on every booking. Last year it made a profit for the first time, across 140 countries. Bookings fell sharply during the pandemic and a weak economy has kept them below the old peak. Three cities have fined Vista hosts for breaking local housing and tourist-tax rules, so Vista now makes hosts sign terms promising to follow them. Its app has ten million users and answers guests automatically if a host does not reply. It claims its shared-home model uses less energy than hotels, and its own research suggests guests are more likely to walk or use public transport than hotel guests. A “community impact” scheme lets charities host and keep all the income.
Step one: sort the facts
Before writing anything, split every fact into internal or external. It takes ninety seconds and it stops the single biggest error.
Fact from the case
Where it belongs
Why
Ten million app users and automatic replies
Strength (internal)
Vista built it and can change it
Owns no property
Strength and weakness
Low fixed costs, but no control over quality
Weak economy holding bookings down
Threat (external)
Vista cannot change the economy
City fines for housing and tax breaches
Threat (external), Legal in STEEPLE
Councils set the rules, not Vista
Travellers wanting local, non-hotel stays
Opportunity (external), Social in STEEPLE
A change in what customers want
Community impact scheme for charities
Strength (internal), Ethical in STEEPLE
Vista’s own choice, and it shapes reputation
Notice the second row. “Owns no property” sits in two boxes at once, and saying so is worth more than picking one. That is the kind of sentence that shows real understanding rather than sorting practice.
Worked examples
WORKED EXAMPLE
Define the term opportunity as used in a SWOT analysis. [2 marks]
Step 1: the meaningAn opportunity is an external change that a business could take advantage of to improve its performance [1].Step 2: an exampleExamples include a growing market, a new technology or a rival leaving the market [1].2 marksthe word “external” is doing a lot of work here — never leave it out
WORKED EXAMPLE
Explain two threats Vista Stays may identify in a SWOT analysis. [4 marks]
Threat 1: regulationCities are fining hosts for breaking housing and tourist-tax rules [1], and if more cities follow, hosts may withdraw their properties, cutting the supply Vista earns its booking fee from [1].Threat 2: the economyA weak economy is holding bookings below their old peak [1], and because Vista earns a percentage of each booking, its revenue falls straight away with no way to cut a matching cost [1].4 marks: two threats, both appliedeach one ends with money: fewer hosts, less fee income
WORKED EXAMPLE
Using STEEPLE, evaluate the external environment Vista Stays operates in. [10 marks — extract]
Legal, with both sidesFines in three cities over housing and tourist-tax rules have damaged Vista’s name and threaten its supply of listings. However, requiring hosts to sign terms shifts responsibility onto them and shows regulators that Vista is acting, which may head off tougher rules later.EconomicA weak economy keeps bookings below the old peak. Because Vista is cheaper than hotels, though, some of that weakness pushes travellers towards it rather than away, so the effect is not entirely negative.Environmental and Ethical togetherLower energy use than hotels, and guests more likely to walk or use transport, suit travellers who care about their footprint. The community impact scheme supports that story. The risk is that the claims rest on Vista’s own research, so a challenge to those figures would hit the brand harder than if they came from an independent source.JudgementLegal is the most urgent factor. Economic pressure will ease with the cycle and the environmental position is a slow-burning advantage, but a wave of city bans would remove the listings the whole model depends on. Vista should put its money into working with city authorities before it spends anything on marketing the green message.Legal risk first, everything else secondthree factors explored, both sides shown, one ranked highest — that is the top band shape
🧩 A 15-minute plan for a 10-mark question
2 minutes: underline every fact and label it internal or external.
2 minutes: pick the three factors with the strongest evidence. Ignore the rest.
1 minute: decide your judgement now, before writing. It keeps the answer pointed at something.
8 minutes: one paragraph per factor. Name it, quote the evidence, explain the effect, give the other side.
2 minutes: the judgement paragraph. Which factor matters most, and what would change your view.
💡 Exam tips
Quote the case study. “Three cities” and “140 countries” are worth more than any general point.
Label your factors out loud: “In terms of legal factors…”.
Give the other side for at least two points. Balance is a mark scheme requirement, not politeness.
Rank your factors at the end. “Most urgent” is a judgement; “all are important” is not.
Question the data source when the business supplies its own research.
Do not describe both tools in full. One sentence of definition each, then get to work.
⚠ Common mix-ups
Rewriting the case study instead of analysing it.
Listing all seven STEEPLE letters with one thin line each.
Bringing in outside knowledge about the real company the case is based on.
Putting internal facts into STEEPLE. Staffing and cash flow are SWOT material.
Finishing with “it depends” and no actual decision.
Spending half the answer defining the tools. That is layer one, worth the fewest marks.
Up next: Applying the BCG Matrix and Decision Trees — the same case-study skills, but this time with numbers you have to calculate before you can judge anything.
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