Developing a Viable Start-up Business Idea: A Business Plan

1. Demonstrate the following knowledge and understanding of entrepreneurship and leadership approaches, and the operation and leadership of a business organisation and be able to discern those approaches and styles.
2. Demonstrate the skills and attributes required in the leadership, operation and management of entrepreneurial organisations and produce an innovative and viable business plan

What am I required to do in this assignment?

Identify a new start up business idea, research and evidence in a business plan the steps needed to take the idea and develop it into a viablebusiness venture.

Justify the idea by explaining the opportunity, demonstrate research and evidence of the market, analyse the industry, identify your product/service and your competitive advantage. Prepare competitor analysis and describe how you will deliver your products and services in an operating plan. Identify risks and mitigate them. Calculate start-up costs and justify the viability of your idea by linking, your marketing

activity, your pricing strategy and cash flow requirements for the first year of trading. You must support all content of your plan with relevant evidence which will be added in the appendices. The report must be fully supported by references to theory and evidence your wider reading in this unit.

The plan will be laid out in the format of a business plan. You can be creative and develop a ‘brand’ and use charts, images and graphs to highlight key elements of the report.

Executive summary

• Table of contents
• Business details
• Location
• Market / Industry analysis
• Product/Service description
• USP and Competitor analysis
• Operations Plan
• Risk and Contingency plans
• Sales and marketing strategy
• Finance and funding plans
• Management team – justifying your ability to lead and manage this venture

What do I need to do to pass? (Threshold Expectations from UIF)

• Evidence the process of developing a business idea
• Provide evidence of relevant research and learning that supports the development of the business idea using sources listed in the reading list
• Develop a formal report with headings in a business plan style using Harvard referencing
• Demonstrate the functions of business required to develop a new venture

How do I produce high quality work that merits a good grade?

We will be filling this section in together in class on Click or tap to enter a date. make sure you have downloaded/printed out the

Assignment Brief and bring it to the session with you.

How does assignment relate to what we are doing in scheduled sessions?

The assignment links directly to demonstrating your understanding through unit learning of how entrepreneurial traits and Leadership

styles influence and add value to business organisations and how a business idea is created and developed. Each week the topics covered

systematically build to help construct evidence for the completed business plan report.

How will my assignment be marked?

Your assignment will be marked according to the threshold expectations and the criteria on the following page.

You can use them to evaluate your own work and consider your grade before you submit.