MGT501 Business Environment Assessment Assignment One – Environment Scan Part A Individual/Group Individual Length 1500 words Learning Outcomes This assessment addresses the following subject learning outcomes: a) critically evaluate the effect of the ext

Hello Everyone,

Assignment one is an INDIVIDUAL assignment.

The word limit is 1500 words, you can go over the limit by 10%, even 20% that’s ok.

This is week 2. You can submit by Sunday night of week 4. December 09 night, 11.59 PM. Don’t worry about what’s written in turnitin, I am the only one managing this course – so you will not have any issues.

As you can see, I am extending this already, so please plan accordingly and don’t come back to me asking for an extension except on serious grounds. The reason is not inconvenience to me, it is because I need to space out your efforts over the trimester.

How do you go about this assignment:

You must choose an Australian firm of appropriate size and view it through the lens of theories and frameworks identified in this subject.

Now – the firm need not be Australian if you have an excellent example from another country, I am happy to make an exception.

What is appropriate size? I recommend a large firm like IKEA or Woolworths – why? Because there will be so much information in the internet about such firms. If you choose a small café for example, everything we study is applicable for this too, but where will you find information about the café? But if the owner of the café is ready to sit with you and give you all the data, I don’t mind that. But please take due permission because you will be sharing this information with me and any other staff who may look at the assignment.

What frameworks and theories?

Just TWO.

PESTEL analysis and Porter five forces Model.

PESTEL is an acronym for

Political

Economic

Social (also cultural)

Technological

Environmental and

Legal (Regulatory)

All the factors impacting on businesses are categorised into the six above groupings.

There will be overlap, as in a change in government may cause political changes, legal changes and the economic environment may change too. It is impossible to separate out the strands sometimes, so you can repeat it and draw reference saying that this was also discussed under another “heading” - but in P focus more on the politics, in L on the regulation and in E on the economic implications. Don’t repeat verbatim under all headings.

Porter five forces model:

The business guru Porter said that, a business’ success depends on the following:

Competitive rivalry in the industry

Bargaining power of the Suppliers (including employees who supply labour)

Bargaining power of the customers

Threat of new entry

Threat of substitutes

You need to evaluate these five for your chosen firm.

On this, what is competition? Look at it like this, if your door is closed, whose door will the customer knock? For instance, if the coffee shop in George street in Syndey is closed, the customer has many options. But if the coffee shop in your street opposite the beach in Gold coast is closed, there are few competitors, I am not going to take a flight and go to Starbucks in George street Sydney for a coffee. In that sense, UQ and Torrens are not really competitors for most of the market. Because the target market is different (not 100%, but for the majority).

In terms of writing the assignment:

Start with an introduction – what is this report about, what is your chosen company, briefly where are they, what do they do, who are their main customer groups and then finish up by stating what the remainder of the paper will say. Like Section 2 will discuss this, section 3 will…The last section will conclude.

Now two sections in the body

Section 2: PESTEL, sub sections for P E S T E L

Section 3: Five forces, Sub sections for each.

How to write this? One sentence explaining what is P. Then a 3-5 sentences (or more) on the P factors for your firm and likewise for each sub-section under PESTEL and five forces. You cant make it up – there should be references.

Section 4 Conclusion: What did this report achieve, what will the reader have learnt from reading your report.

References, more than 10. Choose journal articles. Think wisely, you can reference PESTEL an five forces easily from journal articles – don’t use the internet for this. For data on the company, reference the company reports and website. And for everything else, you can do your googling, but reference the source. Don’t plagiarise.

Follow APA in referencing.

Kind regards

Kris