The 9 Domains of Business Intelligence
The 9 Domains of Business Intelligence:
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define the ideal output for business education: students with an intangible set of perceptual frameworks, knowledge and skills
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outline the essential themes and priorities for secondary school business educators
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highlight the unique and distinct academic qualities of business education
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are equally significant, overlapping, and interconnected elements of a holistic business intelligence.​
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The cultivation of Business Intelligence requires a unique pedagogy which combines 3 Core Actions.
Core Concepts
These concepts frame how students should observe, approach and understand business theory and case studies.
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They serve as conceptual lenses or prisms to be interchanged as frequently as possible to view a business problem from a different perspective. This practice will develop student understanding of the complexities of real-world businesses. ​​
Concept 1
Innovation & Value Creation
Focus: The generation of novel ideas, products, services, and business models that drive growth and competitive advantage.
Teacher Guidance: Emphasize innovation as a continuous, iterative process, from ideation and research to commercialisation and adaptation. Foster an entrepreneurial mindset by encouraging students to identify opportunities, develop creative solutions to problems, and understand how businesses create, deliver, and capture new value for customers and markets. Explore different forms of innovation (e.g., product, process, business model, social) and their strategic importance.
Concept 2
Dynamic Interplay:
Systems-Thinking vs Creativity
Focus: Businesses are both refined systems and dynamic, creative endeavours.
Teacher Guidance: Emphasize the constant tension and necessary balance between establishing efficient processes (systems thinking) and fostering innovation, adaptability, and flexible problem-solving in the face of change. Explore how creative labor manifests within structured environments.
Concept 3
Human-Centricity: Psychology & Organisational Dynamics
Focus: Recognizing and leveraging the centrality of human psychology, motivation, and leadership for business success.
Teacher Guidance: Emphasize that business success is fundamentally driven by people. Explore the critical roles of human psychology and social psychology in understanding employees (their motivation, well-being, engagement, and productivity), customers (their needs, experiences, and loyalty), and suppliers (collaborative relationships). Foster an understanding of effective leadership, management interactions, and how a business's treatment of all its stakeholders – including its broader impact on society and the environment – directly influences its performance, reputation, and long-term viability.
Concept 4
Navigating Uncertainty: Risk & Probabilistic Thinking
Focus: Understanding and managing inherent business risk.
Teacher Guidance: Highlight risk as a fundamental aspect of all business activity. Encourage students to think in terms of probabilities, weigh incomplete information, and understand the importance of strategic risk mitigation, especially when facing unforeseen circumstances. Emphasize that bold action often occurs amidst uncertainty.
Concept 5
Holistic Interconnectedness
Focus: A business as a dynamic configuration at the nexus of diverse disciplines and social developments.
Teacher Guidance: Illustrate how a business continuously configures itself in real-time within a complex web of intersecting disciplines - geography, law, technological and scientific development (to name only a few). Emphasize its adaptive posture within a constantly evolving globalized environment, where decisions ripple through internal functions, people, and the broader community, competitive landscape, and international markets. Foster an understanding of intercultural influences, global supply chains, macroeconomic factors, and geopolitical dynamics that shape business strategy and operations on a global scale.
Concept 6
Ethical Foundations: Integrity, Purpose & The Profit Tension
Focus: Integrating integrity, ethics, and a broader purpose into business practice, while navigating inherent tensions.
Teacher Guidance: Discuss the paramount importance of honesty, transparency, and ethical decision-making in building a strong business reputation and fostering trust. Encourage students to critically examine the continual tension between profit-seeking imperatives and ethical conduct, exploring strategies for balancing financial goals with social responsibility. Foster an understanding of how ethical leadership contributes to a meaningful working life for owners and employees, positively impacts society, and ensures long-term sustainability beyond mere financial gain.
Core Skills
These skills are the core of the course. They are vital for the resolution of business problems in the real world and are called upon for almost every question in the HSC exam.
​The development of these creative and action-based skills should be repeatedly targeted through all academic activity undertaken in the course.​
Capacity 1
Financial Storytelling & Acumen
Focus: Interpreting the language of business: financial data.
Teacher Guidance: Equip students with the skills to create, read, and interpret financial statements. Emphasize that numbers tell the comprehensive story of an organization's past, present, and future potential, guiding resource allocation and assessing overall success across all types of entities.
Capacity 2
Causal Reasoning:
Past Implication & Future Projection
Focus: Understanding and predicting cause-and-effect relationships in business.
Teacher Guidance: Develop students' capacity to analyze current business situations by identifying the multi-faceted causal links between internal factors (e.g., operational decisions, staff morale) and external influences (e.g., market trends, government policy). Crucially, empower them to project and envision the likely ripple effects and causal consequences of potential strategic interventions, new policies, or product innovations, fostering foresight and strategic planning.
Capacity 3
Strategic Diagnosis & Intervention
Focus: Identifying business challenges and prescribing effective solutions.
Teacher Guidance: Teach students to apply a data-driven, diagnostic approach to business problems. Develop their ability to analyze key performance indicators (KPIs), identify root causes of issues, and select appropriate strategic interventions to improve business health and performance.
