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Level 4 Diploma in Business Management

Business sectors: primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary

BM402 · Business Operations — Week 1 of 16

CourseBM402
Week1 of 16
SemesterI
TutorOnline in the course chat

This week’s topics

Business sectors: primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary

  1. Primary sector
  2. Secondary sector
  3. Tertiary sector
  4. Quaternary sector

What you will be able to do

  • 1.1 Explain the different types of business sectors.

Activity

Start with this week’s video, then discuss how they apply to this week’s topic and note one example from a real business.

Study materials

Videos

  • The post-industrial economy · Oak National Academy, Key Stage 4 (GCSE level) · plays on Oak’s website · for registered students

Further resources

  • Key figures on Europe – 2025 edition, Business: sectoral structure of value added (EU) · PDF · Eurostat (2025), the shift to services in EU economies, incl. Belgium; pp. 50–56 · for registered students
  • Premature Deindustrialization · Open-access article · Rodrik (2016), Journal of Economic Growth. Why economies shift from manufacturing to services, and what this means for jobs. · for registered students
Materials marked “for registered students” open in the student portal, which is set up as soon as you receive final acceptance.
Week 2
Course chat

Admitted students ask questions on this week’s page in the student portal: an AI assistant trained on the course answers first, and during the course’s timetabled classes Connect to your tutor brings your tutor into the chat, who may start a call if needed.

Open this week in the portal
Course plan
  • Week 1: Business sectors: primary, secondary, tertiary and quaterna…
  • Week 2: Types of business: profit, not for profit, NGOs, micro, SME…
  • Week 3: Legal structures: sole trader, partnership, limited company…
  • Week 4: Business functions and how they work together
  • Week 5: Organisational structures: hierarchic, bureaucratic, matrix…
  • Week 6: How functional relationships shape structure: charts, autho…
  • Week 7: The internal environment of a business and why it is import…
  • Week 8: Midterm evaluation
  • Week 9: Quantifying the internal environment with SWOT/TOWS
  • Week 10: Assessing the internal environment: capacity assessment gri…
  • Week 11: The external environment of a business and why it matters
  • Week 12: Measuring the external environment with PESTLE
  • Week 13: Competition: Porter's Five Forces and the Ansoff matrix
  • Week 14: Assessing a business’s external environment alongside its i…
  • Week 15: Review and coursework completion
  • Week 16: Final evaluation and project assessment
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