fixing the essay

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BUS B899F Assignment 1

Date due: 28 November 2019 (Thursday) 5 December 2019

Weighting: 5% of the total marks for this course

Length: You are advised to write no more than 3,000 words for this assignment.

Important note:

a. As a mechanism to maintain academic integrity, students are required to

submit both hard and soft copies of their assignments as below:

i. Submission of soft copy

Students should upload the Originality Report, which is downloaded after

processing by the Turnitin, to the OLE of the course by 6:00 pm on the

submission due date. The Originality Report uploaded to the OLE should

be in pdf format, contains the content of the student’s assignment, the

results of an originality check with highlight of matching text. The user

guide of Turnitin is available on the OLE for reference.

Students should upload a soft copy of the assignment to the OLE of the

course by 5:00 pm on the submission due date. Files uploaded to the OLE

should be prepared in Microsoft Word. Please refer to the quick start

guide for submission of assignments to Turnitin.

ii. Submission of hard copy

Students should put a hard copy of the Turnitin Originality Report, in the

collection box on 8/F in Block A or 7/F in Block B by 6:00 pm on the

assignment due date.

iii. 10% of the marks awarded to the assignment will be deducted for each

day it is overdue until both hard and soft copies are submitted the soft

copy is submitted.

Students are allowed to upload their work in Turnitin once per

assignment. Please don’t upload the work to Turnitin in the last minutes

as it takes time to generate the Originality Report. Students must ensure

that the content of both the hard and soft copy are identical. In case of

discrepancies between the two copies, only the hard copies of your

assignment with the Turnitin Originality Report will be graded and

returned.

b. Please include a word count at the end of your assignment. Please note that

the tutor is given the discretion to deduct marks for exceeding the word limit

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or to disregard the content after the word limit is reached.

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Tasks: (100 marks)

Before you write this assignment, please consider some issues relating to

business ideas, including formulating a business idea; exploring and clarifying

the possible problems associated with the idea; and evaluating the idea.

This assignment should include business proposal sections 2-4 (see the appendix

for details):

1. Introduction, including the reader to your business idea and preview of

content of the proposal; (20 marks)

2. Company overview, including company profile/proposed organization, and

the mission, vision and goals of the business; (30 marks)

3. Proposed business, including purposes and values of the business, proposed

product/service, target customer, core competences for achieving the

business goals etc. (50 marks)

Points of Advice:

 When writing your business proposal, use figures, tables, charts or diagrams

to aid your illustrations.  Solicit editorial assistance whenever possible. This is particularly important

for the final version of your business proposal, the final assignment.  Academic integrity: It is important that you properly integrate your sources

into your paper. Make sure you have the complete citations for all your sources. Please note that the parts involved plagiarism (using others’ words or ideas without acknowledgement) will be given ZERO marks.

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Appendix: Business proposal (entrepreneurship project) structure

The following are the major sections in a business proposal:

1. Executive summary

Concisely describe what the business does and what market need it solves. Of

critical importance, describe the “unique success factors,” which are the 4-7

reasons why the business will be successful.

Also show the top-line financial projections and amount of money that needs

to start the business.

2. Introduction

Introduce the reader to your business idea, and preview the content of the

proposal.

3. Company overview

Give a profile of your company. Answer questions such as where you are

located, when you were formed, and what is your legal entity form, etc. Also

discuss the stage of your company: what successes has your company already

achieved?

Or give a proposed organization including type of ownership and rationale,

planned personnel needs, proposed staffing to handle managerial, financial,

marketing, legal, production, etc, functions, proposed organizational chart,

brief job description, etc.

Include the mission and/or vision of your company; business goals ― both

short- and long-term goals with desirable specific, measurable targets.

4. Proposed business

Including purpose of the business, values that drive the business, proposed

services/products, target customer, core competences needed to achieve

mission, goals and objectives.

5. Analyses of the business environments (You can use Porter’s five forces model

and/or SWOT analysis, etc to help you with the analysis.)

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a. Market and industry analysis

Detail the market in which you are competing, how large it is, and what

trends are affecting it, etc.

b. Customer analysis

Identify who your target customers are and their needs. Get as specific as

you can with regards to the demographic and psychographic make-up of

your customers.

c. Competitive analysis

Identify your competitors and their key strengths and weaknesses. Identify

your competitive advantages, that is, why you can be more successful than

the others.

d. Potential strategic allies

Any relationship you can form to share resources to achieve a mutually

beneficial objective?

e. Location analysis

Evaluate availability, cost (rent or buy), traffic patterns, proximity to

competition, etc, of the location.

6. Plans of the new business

a. Marketing plan

Describe your products and/or services and your desired brand

positioning.

Detail your promotions plan, which is how you will get customers to know

about your company (e.g., newspaper ads, direct mail, etc.). Discuss your

distribution plan, which details from where customers can purchase your

products and/or services. Also consider your pricing policy.

b. Operational plan

Detail the key operational processes your organization needs to accomplish

on a daily basis to achieve success. You can also include other issues which

do not clearly have a marketing or financial role here:

‧ Legal and licensing requirements: business name, legal structure and

operating laws and licenses;

‧ Management details: background details about owners / managers, any

information about the proprietors and the experiences they have.

‧ Organizational structure and staffing;

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‧ Professional advisers;

‧ Insurance and security needs;

‧ Business premises;

‧ Plant and equipment required;

‧ Production processes;

‧ Critical risks and contingency plans.

c. Financial plan

Identify the ways in which your company generates revenues. Highlight the

key assumptions which govern your financial projections:

‧ Estimated income and expenses;

‧ Provision of bank accounts with any credit and banking facilities;

‧ Any loans or overdrafts outstanding etc;

‧ Any additional funds needed by the business and interest rate etc.

Identify how much money you need to start and/or run your business, and

the primary uses of these funds:

‧ Sales mix forecast;

‧ Cash flow forecast;

‧ Projected profit and loss statement;

‧ Balance sheet;

‧ Personal expenses, assets and liabilities;

‧ Analysis of financial forecasts: estimation of break-even point, fixed and

variable costs, contribution margins and mark-ups and margins .

7. Implementation timetable

In this section a schedule of the activities needed to be carried out to set up

and run the business is provided. It is usually organized on a monthly basis,

thus providing a set of milestones you need to accomplish over the next 1-3

years in order to achieve success.

8. References (if any)

9. Appendices

Include any supporting materials that support your proposal’s claim.