(PM-204) Business Organisation and Policy Spring 2017 Course Work Brief Deadline for Submission: 04/04/2017 Submit this coursework through the Student Portal with a Turn-it-in Report Word Limit: 2000 words (Plus or minus 10%) Learning outcomes assessed: 1. Demonstrate the influence of environmental and behavioural factors on corporate size, structure and strategy. 2. Understand the processes of business planning and policy making and the reason for change over time. 3. Appreciate the effects of government policies towards monopolies and restrictive practices. This coursework is worth 50% of the total marks for this module. Coursework Instructions (Please read carefully) • Carefully read the module handbook, the marking criteria and the grade descriptors. Academic Misconduct You are responsible for ensuring you understand the policy and regulations about academic misconduct. You must: • Complete this work alone except where required or allowed by this assignment briefing paper and ensure it has not been written or composed by or with the assistance of any other person. • Make sure all sentences or passages quoted from other people’s work in this assignment (with or without trivial changes) are in quotation marks, and are specifically acknowledged by reference to the author, work and page. Assignment Questions Assignment Task Task 1: Business start-up simulation exercise: Formative (LO1, LO2) You will work in groups of 3 or 4 students in a simulated environment to accomplish various activities involved in running an Oligopoly business. “Your business will operate in the UK restaurant Industry and your competitors are the other class groups. You MUST decide on roles amongst the group such as; • Head of Marketing & Publicity • Head of Finance & Accounts • Head of Human Resources & Administration • Head of Kitchen and Purchasing • Head of Customers Services & Customers Bookings • and Managing Director • and so on. The simulation will include the following; • Business name and logo • Business description • Select form of organisation. • Identify recruitment and training needs • Conduct competition analysis. • Identify marketing and promotion strategies • Develop budget • Make management decisions throughout the simulation. • You should not use an existing business name or logo. Each group will act as the competition to the rest of other groups in class”. NB: Your tutor will play the role of a banker or investor and shall provide the initial start-up cost. • Simulations will run from week 5 to week 8 during tutorials. • You must form your groups by week 4 and have it approved by your tutor. • Anybody who cannot find a group must inform the tutor and will be allocated one by the tutor. • You must belong to a group and participate in simulation exercises in order to complete Task 2 of this assessment. TASK 2: Graded Based on your active participation in the group simulation exercise, “Write a reflective report on your overall experience which must cover the following areas:” A) Conduct a STEEPLE analysis on your Oligopolistic simulated business organisation. (35 marks) (LO1) B) Discuss the influence of the above environmental factors on the business start-up and growth strategies with a particular emphasis on the governmental impact on the Industry in terms of regulating the competition within the industry. (35 marks) (LO2, LO3)) C) Write up a reflection on your simulated business experience; explain what went wrong in terms of planning and decision making. Produce an action plan to overcome the issues highlighted. (30 marks) (LO2) Your report should consist of the following sections: • The introduction which explains what the report is all about and covers the scope of what is to be covered in the report.(250 words) • The Main body which sets out in a complete and professional structure your responses to parts a and b of task 2 outlined above (e.g. using headings, sub-headings, in-text citations, tables, figures, etc.).(1500 words) • Conclusion and Recommendations (250 words) • Bibliography showing all your references in Harvard format. • Appendix IS OPTIONAL End of Assignment Brief. Introduction This report requires me to write a “Reflective Report” about my overall experience in the group simulation exercise. What is a Reflective Report After the participation in the group simulation exercise it is necessary to take a critical and in depth review, analysis and assessment into the subject of the simulation programme, by personally assessing and appraising what we have done in the group and expressing my own opinion on the subject matter we had created in the group simulation exercise. “Higher Education Academy, 2009. Reflective Learning”. My Oligopolistic Business Organization is “The London Hot Plates Afro-Caribbean Restaurants & meet-up Diner” Situated at the exclusive mayfair Gardens area of Central London. A Brief Profile and Description of the Business: Why do we say the Business is Operating in an Oligopolistic Business Environment: According to the "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary," an oligopoly is a business environment where just a few players have great influence -- but not control -- over the market. This usually occurs when just a few companies sell very similar or identical products in the marketplace. Auto makers and crude-oil producers are two types of companies that are oligopolies because there aren't a profusion of competitors. However, they are not immune from competition."Columbia Business School"; Oligopoly Dynamics with Barriers to Entry; Jaap H. Abbring & Jeffrey R. Campbell; December 2006. Since the business is operating in an exclusive market environment where we have very few operators targeting a specific high net worth clientele or customer base, we can then say that there few operators or players in the business environment will form a cartel of suppliers or business providers so as to standardise and uniformise their prices, as the clientele has little option but to patronise anyone of them each time the customers needs their services, thereby breeding an oligopolistic business group of organisations Steeple as a Business Analysis Tool: There are very many business tools used in analysing businesses of varying sizes and complexities and these tools are used to analyse different areas of the business. Steeples is just one of such tools used to analyse the externalities or the external environment of the business, others are Pestles Swot analysis, Most Analysis, Steep analysis, Pest analysis Heptalyse Analysis, Scrs,Vpect-t, etc, each one used to analyse different areas of the business. Bibliography 1) Higher Education Academy, 2009. Reflective Learning. http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/hlst/resources/a-zdirectory/reflectivelearning. 2) University of Kent, 2013. Reflective Learning Study Guide. http://www.kent.ac.uk/learning/PDP/reflectivelearningstudyguide1112.docx‎.. 3) Ursula Lucas and Leng Tan, 2007. Developing a Reflective Capacity Within Undergraduate Education: the role of work-based placement learning. York: Higher Education Academy. 4) "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary"; Oligopoly 5) Basic Economics: Oligopoly Market Structure 6) "Encyclopedia of Business"; Oligopoly 7) "Columbia Business School"; Oligopoly Dynamics with Barriers to Entry; Jaap H. Abbring & Jeffrey R. Campbell; December 2006. 8) http://smallbusiness.chron.com/oligopoly-business-23459.html 9) Entrepreneur: 7 Places to Find Startup Money 10) Doug Williams & Associates: Free Business Analysis 11) Entrepreneur: ERP security tools: data mining and analysis software can help auditors test access controls 12) Resources (4) 13) Dinkytown.net: Business Valuation, Cashflow and More Business Calculators 14) SAP: Business Management Software Solutions Applications and Services 15) Oracle: E-Busines Suite 16) Microsoft: Microsoft Dynamics