Course: COMP1635 Professionalism in the IT Industry Contribution: 60% of course 66: Professionalism in the IT Industry - CW1 - Report - Term 1 - MAC PDF file required Greenwich Course Leader: Dr Georgios Samakovitis Due date: 14th November 2016 This coursework will be marked anonymously YOU MUST NOT PUT ANY INDICATION OF YOUR IDENTITY IN YOUR SUBMISSION This coursework should take an average student who is up-to-date with tutorial work approximately 30 hours Learning Outcomes: B. Demonstrate appropriate business communication skills; C. Apply critical thinking skills to a workplace situation; Plagiarism is presenting somebody else's work as your own. It includes: copying information directly from the Web or books without referencing the material; submitting joint coursework as an individual effort; copying another student's coursework; stealing or buying coursework from someone else and submitting it as your own work. Suspected plagiarism will be investigated and if found to have occurred will be dealt with according to the procedures set down by the University. All material copied or amended from any source (e.g. internet, books) must be referenced correctly according to the reference style you are using. Your work will be submitted for electronic plagiarism checking. Any attempt to bypass our plagiarism detection systems will be treated as a severe Assessment Offence. Coursework Submission Requirements • An electronic copy of your work for this coursework should be fully uploaded by midnight (local time) on the Deadline Date. • The last version you upload will be the one that is marked. • For this coursework you must submit a single Acrobat PDF document. In general, any text in the document must not be an image (ie must not be scanned) and would normally be generated from other documents (eg MS Office using "Save As .. PDF"). • There are limits on the file size. The current limits are displayed on the coursework submission page on the Intranet • Make sure that any files you upload are virus-free and not protected by a password or corrupted otherwise they will be treated as null submissions. • Comments on your work will be available from the Coursework page on the Intranet. The grade will be made available in the portal. • You must NOT submit a paper copy of this coursework. • All coursework must be submitted as above The University website has details of the current Coursework Regulations, including details of penalties for late submission, procedures for Extenuating Circumstances, and penalties for Assessment Offences. See http://www2.gre.ac.uk/current-students/regs for details. ________________________________________ Detailed specification This work comprises two parts. Submitting BOTH parts is compulsory for all students. Failing to submit one of the two parts will lead to failing the coursework overall. PART 1. The Group Business Plan: Identical copies of this will be submitted by all members of your team. Please read the detailed description below. PART 2. The individual Critical Reflection and Team Assessment Feedback: Individual work to be submitted by each student separately. Please read the detailed description below. Guidelines 1. The Group Business Plan Document (80% of the Coursework mark) Your task for this assignment is to write a business plan for a start-up firm. Your word limit (3000 words + appendices) is less than for most business plans and therefore the following guidelines have been written to provide more specific guidance for your work. Please note that you can find useful information on the various parts of a business plan in many Enterprise and Entrepreneurship books at the library (Barringer and Ireland, 2012 and Stokes and Wilson, 2010) and from many other sources. Please ensure that your business plan is written in a formal and concise style and ensure that the proposals and projections you make are realistic. Please use the following headings (some guidelines have been provided for a suggested length of each section, although your group can decide to deviate from these and long as you stay within the overall word limit). i) Cover Page / Table of Contents ii) Executive Summary (200 words) – this provides an overall summary of the main points of your report; you should complete this towards the end, once you have put together the main body of your work. iii) Idea and Company Description (300 words) - In this section you need to provide an introduction to your planned product or service. Try to put across the excitement and potential of the business idea. Some questions you should answer are:- What benefits will your product or service bring? What problem does it solve? Why would somebody buy / use it? What value does it add to the customer? What would it compete with? As this is a start-up firm you will obviously not include a detailed company history but you should include a brief explanation of how your firm has come together. iv) Industry and Market analysis (800 words) - Within this section you should describe the industry your business will enter, including its size and projections for growth. You need to highlight key environmental and business trends within the industry, including the significance of economic, social, technological and political/regulatory factors. You also need to explain why it is a good time to consider entering this industry. You need to break the industry down into segments and highlight which segment your firm will participate in. Try to describe a typical buyer – for example, male or female, age profile, income profile, social / ethnic factors, social class, their 'typical' lifestyle and any other relevant information. Include in this section details of any initial market research that you have done. Give some details of what you consider to be the potential size of the market and, in addition, outline if the market is scalable. You also need to provide an analysis of your firm's main competitors. Please also highlight any risks that will need to be monitored. v) Marketing plan (500 words) - You need to describe how your business will market and sell its product. You will need to make clear how your firm will position itself in the market and how it will differentiate itself from competitors. As you will be explaining your product adequately in other sections of your plan, concentrate on your firm's approach to price, promotion and distribution. The decisions which you outline here need to correspond with what you describe in other sections and your positioning of the product and points of distribution. vi) Company structure / management team (200 words) - This section should be fairly short, provide a concise explanation of the skills of the various team members and how they will divide up the various tasks within the business. vii) Product / Service Development and Operations Plan (700 words) - Describe in detail what your product or service is and what is different / innovative about it. Identify competitor or substitute products or services and outline the advantages that your product has over these competitors. Describe what is involved in making / providing your product or service. Describe how this will be done – will your team do it themselves, will you need help, what skills, knowledge, materials, equipment etc will you need? Describe what you will need in terms of accommodation and technology, outlining whether you already have access to these or you will need to acquire them. Will you need to invest money up front to enable you to produce you product / service and, if so, how much? Outline what challenges and difficulties you can foresee as you develop your product. In addition, are there any legal requirements that you need to be aware of eg health and safety. viii) Financial projections (300 words) - For this section you need to make some projections about the financial development of your firm. You need to outline any assumptions that you have made in putting together these projections. It is very important that you are realistic in the projections that you make. In order to do this try to answer the following questions:- How many products / services do you expect to sell? (Try to predict sales over a 3 year period and explain the evidence you are using to support your predictions). Explain how much do you expect to be able to charge for your product or service and how this compares with competitors and substitutes. Explain whether you intend to apply any discounts? Outline what costs will you incur, including fixed and direct costs (itemise these as accurately as you can). For this section you will need to provide and explain your 'Projected Financial Statements', (referred to as Pro forma financial statements in the Barringer and Ireland textbook). Please include the following projected for 3 years:- - Profit and Loss Statement (referred to as 'Pro forma Income Statement' by Barringer and Ireland) - Cash Flow Statement Finally A couple of final points of advice. Firstly, make sure that sure that the different sections of your business plan fit together well and that there are no contradictions / inconsistencies in the plan. Please also remember that for this work you are required to reference your sources. This would not be the case in a normal business plan but is a requirement here as, for an assignment, referencing provides evidence of the research you have done. Finally, remember that you need to try and convey to the reader the excitement and potential of your business idea. Hopefully you will find this work both enjoyable and creative – Good luck! 2. The individual Critical Reflection and Team Assessment Feedback (20% of the Coursework mark) A 400-500 word document that will provide: a. A description of the roles and tasks that YOU performed in your team. b. A critical review of YOUR performance in the team (e.g. reflecting on what you could have done more, or how you believe you could have put your skills to work in a more effective way) c. A critical reflection on what YOU believe could have been done better, overall, to enhance your team's performance and improve the quality & impact of the Business Plan. Grading and Assessment Criteria A 70%-100% You would be expected to demonstrate: • An excellent approach to writing your report and conveying your argument. • A detailed understanding of the need to select appropriate information sources • The ability to critically evaluate and discuss all appropriate information sources in an effective way. • Proper use of referencing throughout your report. B 60%-69% You would be expected to demonstrate: • A clear, concise approach to writing your report and conveying your argument. • An understanding of the need to select information sources that will provide you with the opportunity to make a well-rounded argument. • The ability to critically evaluate the main issues raised in the information sources that you have used and present this as a reasonable discussion. • Proper use of referencing throughout your report. C 50%-59% You would be expected to demonstrate: • Report writing skills that enable you to present facts/argument in a straightforward way. • The ability to make a sensible choice of information sources. • An attempt to critically evaluate your information sources and provide a competent discussion. • Proper use of referencing throughout your report. D 40%-49% You would be expected to demonstrate • Basic report writing skills that enable you to set out a structured, if weak, argument. • The ability to choose information sources relating to the subject matter that may provide you with the basis for a basic discussion. • A basic attempt at critical evaluation and discussion. • Proper use of referencing throughout your report. F Less than 40% You will fail this assessment if: • You don't meet the minimum assessment criteria specified above. • You don't reference your report adequately.