Foundation · Business basics
People, rules and responsibility: organisation, regulation and sustainability
The parts of a business that sit behind the numbers: how a company organises its people, why staff do what they are paid to do, why change fails, how many people to hire, the rules every case touches (competition law, data protection, licences), and what sustainability means beyond carbon. Each idea comes with the maths to put a number on it in a case.
Key takeaways
- An organisation design is who reports to whom and where decisions are made.
- An incentive is a reward for doing something: a commission, a bonus, a promotion, even praise.
- A plan creates value only when people change what they do every day.
- Workforce planning answers three questions: how many people the work needs, how many you must hire to reach that number when some staff leave, and how early you must start because hiring takes time.
- Competition law (called antitrust law in the US) protects customers from markets where firms stop competing.
- Count spans and layers and put a cost on a flatter or more central organisation
- Spot when a pay scheme rewards the wrong behaviour, and redesign it with numbers
- Explain why change programmes stall and measure adoption step by step
- Work out hiring needs from growth, attrition and hiring lead times
- Name the three parts of competition law, the main data protection laws, and why licences matter, with real cases from the EU, India, the Gulf, Singapore and the US
- Explain governance, labour and supply chain standards, the EU CSRD and CSDDD, and how sustainability shows up in costs, revenue and financing
Lessons
Organisation design: spans, layers, and central or local
How companies arrange their people, how to count managers, and what a flatter or more central setup saves and risks.
Incentives: people do what they are paid to do
How pay schemes shape behaviour, a sales commission example with the numbers, and a real case where targets went badly wrong.
Change management: why change fails and how to measure adoption
Why good plans stall when people do not change how they work, what makes change stick, and how to measure adoption step by step.
Workforce planning: headcount maths, attrition and hiring lead times
How many people a business needs, how many it must hire to stand still, and how early it must start.
Competition law: mergers, cartels and abuse of dominance
The three things competition authorities police, real cases from the EU, India and the US, and the market share maths behind merger reviews.
Data protection, sector regulators and licences
What data protection laws ask of companies in Europe, India, the Gulf and Singapore, what breaking them can cost, and why licences shape whole industries.
ESG beyond carbon: governance, labour, supply chains and the EU rules
What governance and social standards ask of companies, the EU CSRD and CSDDD in plain words, and how sustainability shows up in costs, revenue and financing.
Using people, rules and responsibility in a case
What to ask, what to calculate and what to say, with one worked case that brings the module together.
Worked cases in this module
- What a flatter claims unit saves
- Why store staff give away discounts
- Where the value of a new system leaks away
- Hiring plan for an IT services firm in India
- Will this cement merger face a hard review?
- Is a loyalty data project worth the data risk?
- A garment maker weighs a safety and labour upgrade
- A grocery chain buys its rival
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Key terms