Business plan

Business 10

Guidelines for the Final Project

Project Description:

A business is an organization that seeks profit by offering products to satisfy society’s needs. Those products could be goods or services and a business realizes profit when their sales revenue is greater than their expenses.

For this project you will be creating a product or service you believe would be a useful addition to a company and develop a business plan for the “product extension”.

A business plan is a carefully constructed guide for someone starting a business, in this case creating a “product extension”. Consider it as a tool with three basic purposes: communication, management, and planning. It serves as a concise document that potential investors can examine to see if they would like to invest or assist in financing a new venture. It also helps you track, monitor, and evaluate progress. Finally, a business plan guides a businessperson through the various phases of business.

Each student will produce and turn in a written report on Canvas and deliver an oral presentation for extra credit during the last week of lecture.

1. Written Report:

The length of this document is not as important as the quality of its content. The document will present an analysis of your recommended business plans/strategy. For the purposes of the project, analysis means “what the organization is doing and why.” Not only will you need to rely on information gained through class lectures, discussion, and the course text, but also you will need to use online resources to gather information necessary to understand your chosen organization and industry.

The “extension” need not be successful. That is, you can get a good grade for having suggested a “bad” idea provided you explain, with supporting facts, why the idea is not a good “extension.” The project will be graded on the adequacy and coverage of your examination, the accuracy of your research and analysis, the quality of the document’s content, and the clarity and understanding of the course material as demonstrated in the document’s analysis.

Format and Length: The written report should be 5-10 pages, double-spaced, 12-point size font, 1-inch margins on all sides with cover page.

Organization: Your group project should be organized professionally with an executive summary in the beginning and main contents organized into sections, with clearly identified and supported main ideas, presented in separate paragraphs. You are expected to use the business language and terminology you are learning in this class, as opposed to casual language. Correct use of grammar and spelling is a must. Graphs, charts, tables, and visuals are usually helpful. They may or may not be put at the end as appendices; however, they do not count toward the total page limit. They should be clearly named and numbered (i.e., Exhibit 1, 2, etc.) and you should refer to them in the body of the report.

Contents:

Your written report should contain the following sections:

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – Required

· A one-page, brief summary of all the main parts and key points of your report. The executive summary should not focus on a single aspect of the product extension or serve as an introduction. Instead, it should be a concise, insightful overview of your product extension proposal, and should allow the reader to quickly grasp the essence of your proposal, even if he/she does not read the whole report. The executive summary should be written last since it summarizes your insights and recommendations.

II. PRODUCT/SERVICE EXTENSION

· How did your company become aware of a demand for this?

· Describe how the product will meet customer demand and what kind of consumer needs it will address

· Communicate how the product fits into the company’s product mix and what are the unique contributions of the extension to the mix.

III. STRATEGIC ANALYSIS

· How will your extension allow the company to be more competitive in the marketplace?

· In order to find information about this section, you should look for sources outside your company; do not present the company’s viewpoint here; instead, look for general industry, societal, economic, technological trends.

· SWOT -Develop and present a SWOT Analysis for the extension

· Identify and discuss the most influential business/environment factors or ISSUES affecting your company (social, economic and legal, technological, global).

IV. PRODUCTION STRATEGY

· Identify what factors of production will be used for extension production.

· Will you be using outsourcing? Why or why not?

· What kinds of certifications, production systems and methodologies, and quality control mechanisms will be used?

V. MARKETING STRATEGY

· Present how you suggest that the company market the extension, using the 4Ps framework (product, place, price, promotion). Do not focus on just one of the Ps (promotion, for example).

· Product - Discuss the type of product you will be introducing (convenience, shopping, specialty, consumer/industrial); Packaging (if applicable); Branding; Product Life Cycle

· Pricing - Discuss the pricing strategy that you will employ. Will it be sold as 1 unit or in packages? Are there discounts for bulk/pallet purchases?

· Place/Distribution - Discuss what kind of distribution and logistics system will be most appropriate for the product extension as well as what kind of utility will provides (form, time, place, etc)

· Promotion - Explain which elements of the promotional mix will be most appropriate to use for your product extension and why, as well as how you would use them to promote the product extension

· The marketing strategy section of your report should incorporate and demonstrate your understanding of concepts.

VI. FINANCIAL STRATEGY

· Prepare draft budget for the 1st year of introduction of the extension. This requires a Balance sheet and cash flow statement.

· Estimate the capital requirements to bring the extension to market and discuss how you plan to finance the capital needs

· Calculate the current ratio, and debt-to-equity ratio of your company to determine its capacity to fund your product idea (look in book for formulas).

VII. ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY

· Company history - Introduce the company you are analyzing, briefly discuss how it was initially formed and any major changes in its development (i.e. when it was incorporated, became international, any mergers or acquisitions, or any other significant organizational /business changes it went through)

· Market/Industry - Describe the industry your company is in and the current market trends in it (e.g. if your company is a bank, you should discuss the latest important developments in the banking/finance industry).

· What is the organizational structure? How will the product extension impact the organizational structure? Will new organizational units and additional workforce be necessary?

VIII. MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

· Describe the company’s mission. Describe the company’s vision for its products, and how the product extension will support or extend those

· Discuss the organization’s culture and how the product extension will fit in the culture

· Will additional leadership be acquired?

IX. BIBLIOGRAPHY/WORKS CITED - Required

· This is required part of the final project. Your report should end with its own bibliography/works cited page:

· List at least three different sources - you can use the company website and/or the textbook as sources. Different sections of the same website do not count as different sources!

Project Submission:

· Electronic submission: You will have to submit your Group Project Paper electronically through Canvas under “Assignments”. Electronic submissions are due on the last day of class by 11:59 PM.

2. Presentation (Extra Credit)

You will deliver a 5-10-minute oral presentation of your extension idea and upload the presentation on Canvas under “Assignments” along with your report. You need to use visual prompts, a PowerPoint presentation, summarizing the key points of your business strategy. Electronic submissions are due on the last day of class by 11:59 PM.