RETAKE Assignment Briefing
Assignment Task
Each
student is required to produce an individual report to review, analyse and evaluate a country’s effort
to develop an environment conducive for entrepreneurship, identifying the critical issues related
to supportive environment provided for new small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and problems
surrounding new small enterprise creation as a tool of national economic
development. The assessment aims to encourage an understanding of the role
small enterprises plays in a specific economy, and the identification of
specific national barriers to enterprise creation.
The primary objective of
this assignment is to develop a critical understanding of the main contextual
and conceptual issues related to enterprise and economic development, through
an investigation of the literature and a
range of relevant case-study examples. On successful completion, the assignment
will enable the respective learning outcomes of the module. Of key importance
in this assignment is reference to, and use of, a case-study of a country or region to illustrate the
key issues. These examples can be drawn from a range of sources but their
relevance to the main arguments must be effectively demonstrated.
Assignment
Task
The aim of the assignment is to enable students to imagine
themselves as entrepreneurs in the process of creating a new venture.
The requirement is to write a “Business Plan”, based on an
innovative opportunity presented as a written plan with a focus on your business model incorporating the Alexander Osterwalder
and Yves Pigneur Business Model Canvas
INDICATIVE STRUCTURE:
Executive Summary: a summary of the business plan, covering key headings such as
purpose of the plan, the product/service, marketing strategy, growth strategy,
financial analysis etc.
1.0 Introduction
The introduction should state the ‘purpose’ and ‘rationale’ of the
business plan, address directly
the purpose and rationale for starting your new venture and set the
scene.
2.0 Industry and Market
Analysis
Industry and market analyses should be based on
secondary data available from published industry reports, Internet, journals or
books in order to provide information about the following:
Market size: How large is your market (e.g.
population of people in the market you are targeting, expected volume of
sales in your industry, etc.)
Market Growth: Is the industry/market stagnant, growing or declining?
Competition: Who are the
key competitors in your industry and how will you differentiate your business?
3.0 The Product/Service &
Unique Value Proposition
Explain the
product or service you intend to bring to market, along with the uniqueness of
the idea, the ideal customer and the price you will sell at, i.e. the unique
value proposition. Think
6.0 Operations
What operational
requirements do you need, policies, registrations, licenses and how you will
practically deliver product/services to the customer.
7.0 Marketing Strategy
Outline the marketing strategy of your new venture,
which you can base on the 4Ps of marketing:
‘Product’,
‘Price’, ‘Promotion’ or ‘Place’; or 7Ps, if a service: in addition, ‘People’,
‘Process’ and ‘Physical Evidence’.
8.0 Growth Strategy
Outline the planned
growth strategy of your new venture, which you can base on Ansoff’s Growth
Matrix; thus, your argument should state clearly whether you’ll be using
‘Market Penetration’,
‘New Product
Development’, ‘New Market Development’ or ‘Diversification’ as a growth
strategy.
9.0 References
Provide a reference list using Harvard Reference style. Students are
required to show evidence of the use of diverse sources of information, including
but not limited to journal articles, newspaper articles, reports, books and
other).
Allocation of Marks
Avoiding plagiarism
When you write an essay, report
or dissertation you should always
cite the published sources to which
you quote, refer to or use as evidence, otherwise you are likely to be
committing plagiarism, which is a form of academic misconduct with potentially
very serious consequences. References need to be made both within the text and
in a list at the end.
The aim in
doing this is to ensure that somebody reading your work can easily find these
sources for themselves. This applies to whether you are using a book, a report,
a journal article or an Internet site. You will probably know from your own
experience how much easier it is to find a reference when a reading list or
bibliography is clear and unambiguous.There is help available from the library
and online, including a range of videos such as those given below:
https://mykingston.kingston.ac.uk/library/help_and_training/Pages/referencing.aspx.
http://www.citethemrightonline.com/basics
Do remember you
can submit your work as many times as you like before the final deadline. It is
a good idea to check your Originality Report and ensure that any potential
plagiarism is eradicated for your work by rewriting in your own words and
referencing correctly. The staff on the BLASC desk in the LRC will be able to
advise on this.
Additional helpful resources can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yYf8AihndI
The best way to avoid academic
misconduct or plagiarism is to use your own words at all times; do not cut
andpaste from other work.
Illness or other mitigating circumstances
By submitting
an assignment you are declaring yourself fit to take the assessment therefore
please make sure that if you are unwell you understand our mitigating
circumstances process. The most important thing to do is keep us informed if
you are experiencing problems! See our regulations on this link: http://www.kingston.ac.uk/aboutkingstonuniversity/howtheuniversityworks/policiesandregulations
Group work and academic
misconduct
Work submitted
by a group is the responsibility of the group as a whole. In the unfortunate
event of the work being judged to have been plagiarised, the only circumstance
in which it is possible that the responsibility for the misconduct would only
fall on the group member who actually committed it, would be if there were
clear evidence that that member had dishonestly misled the rest of the group as
to the source of his her contribution. This would require clear and contemporaneous
evidence of group discussions of the sort which should be available if groups
follow the advice given about keeping a log of group proceedings. If the group
work is simply allocated amongst the members of the group without any sort of
group review of the outcomes, then all the group members are taking on
themselves the risk that some element of the work is tainted by academic
misconduct. If you are unclear about any of this, you should refer to the
University’s guide to Plagiarism for further explanation.
