Learning Outcomes and Pass Attainment Level: Business Plan/Report

Improved Business plan/report

Learning outcomes and pass attainment level:

1. Formulate proposal for innovative business venture/project or for improvement to existing goods/services, systems or processes with clearly defined aims and objectives and suitable business models.
2. Conduct small-scale research and collect, analyse and synthesise data to determine/support the feasibility, viability and sustainability of new business ideas, or organisational improvement to goods/services, systems or processes.
3. Produce realistic, defendable business reports/ plans that integrates the key functional areas of organisations in a suitable format for the targeted audiences.
4. Apply relevant theories, models and concepts in the development and implementation of business ideas and projects and effectively communicate the idea in a professional manner.

OPTION 1: Improved Business plan/report

Using the feedback you received from your previous attempt, you should come up with an improved business idea/report. In addition to that, you are required to provide a one page (or 500 words) reflective statement on what went wrong, lessons you have learned, how you have improved your assignment and the changes you have made. The rest of the information about the assessment is as given under option 2 below.

OPTION 2: New Business Plan/report

Alternatively, you can think of a new and innovative business idea that exploits identified opportunities or gap in the market. This could be an opportunity to innovate existing organisational processes or provision of goods and services. You are free in your choice of business ideas, i.e. this could take the form of a new business venture, social enterprises or a business case for innovations to existing provision of good and services or processes to be introduced in the private, public or third sector. Consequently, the potential investors or funders at which the idea is targeted can take the form of venture capitalist, banks, government funds, impact investors, other funding agencies or philanthropists to name a few. It is important that you spell out the target investor or funder at the beginning. The plan should be presented in 2 parts as follows:

Part 1 - Proposition

In the 1st part of the plan, you will be expected to make a case for the new and innovative business venture/idea or improvement to existing products/services or process, and provide a rationale and justification. Using the domains of entrepreneurship ecosystem, you should present an analysis of the prevailing or suitable ecosystem relevant to the idea and location of the business. Using the Business Model Canvas framework, you should provide an innovative business model that supports the idea. You should then indicate the required start-up capital, how it will be used and your own contribution.

Part 2 – Detailed plan

In the main part, you will provide relevant details to support the proposition. This would include but not limited to: details of the product/service concept, market and competitive analyses, marketing, promotional and sales/ revenue generation plans and projections, operational and staffing plans including the plan (e.g. GANTT chart) for launching for the business, Financial plans and projections should include Cash flows (monthly for the 1st 12 months and annual thereafter), costs, pricing and Breakeven analyses as a minimum. You should be able to show the sustainability and scalability of the plan over the medium to long term (covering at least the first 3 years of trading) and this should be reflected in your projections. The plan will be marked on its content, structure, presentation, creativity,consistency and integration of the different elements.

Your lecturer will look at up to 2 pages A4 size draft version of your plan ONLY ONCE, up to 2 weeks before the hand-in date or in week 12. This way you can use this ‘formative’ feedback to develop your work further. This feedback does not contribute towards a ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ mark. Drafts are not graded or assessed – the purpose of these is for you to gain feedback for improving your work. Guidance can be sought by speaking to your lecturer (Dr Tom Domboka) if there are any areas of confusion by arranging an appointment via e-mail.

Formatting/Presentation requirements

The assignment should be word-processed and. Use of bullet points should be avoided or used sparingly. Other formatting requirements are:

- Use Ariel size 11 point for your report fully justified

- State the word count on title page

- Each page should be numbered except for the contents pages (if any)

- Use 1½ line spacing.

- Presentation must be formal in language and style.

All work should be referenced using the Harvard format – there are handouts available online at the library website and are available as hard copy in the library if you are unsure of this.

- Exercise caution when using Wikipedia, Google or Yahoo – the former is not peer assessed and the work is not always reliable and the later are search engines. Do not rely too heavily or exclusively on such sources.

- Use textbooks and journal articles (newspaper articles may at times be acceptable). You should however, make more reliance on journal articles as these are peer reviewed and are often more recent than text books. If you are to use textbooks, these should be the latestso it is important to check whether you have the latest edition. Citations should be used very minimally and in limited circumstances, you may reference lecture material such as handouts and presentation slides.