ACCT 1028, Assessment 3 Business Performance Report Requirements

OVERVIEW

1. This assessment is worth 50% of your semester marks. It is done solo.

2. This assessment requires you to prepare and submit a report in which you:
a) analysis the performance of, and business results for, your Capstone Company through the Competition Rounds; and,
b) evaluate your decision-making.

3. Your report will be marked on both how well it addresses the issues set for discussion and on its presentation quality.
a) The compulsory content and required presentation format for this report are outlined in this document.
b) Failure to include compulsory content or meet presentation format criteria, as outlined in this document, will be penalised.

4. This assessment is the equivalent of an end-of-semester examination.
a) Therefore, your score for this activity, as is the case for all end-of-semester examinations, will not be released to you except as part of the formal results clarifications processes after the official release of semester results.

5. To ensure that you give yourself a good chance of doing well, you should:
a) Read these conditions thoroughly.
b) Clarify immediately, and early, with the Teaching staff any questions you have regarding this assessment.
c) Commence drafting your Report while you are doing the Competition Rounds. To fit into the overall word length, and also to match the requirements of each section of the report, you should plan to draft and edit your work several times.
? This RMIT web site has assistance on how to write:
http://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/assessment-tasks
6. This course requires that all assessment submitted by you, including your Report, conforms to the RMIT Declaration And Statement Of Authorship conditions that are compulsory for the submission of work for assessment by students at RMIT.

a) The RMIT Declaration And Statement Of Authorship conditions can be found at the following web site:

http://www1.rmit.edu.au/students/assessment/declaration
REPORT CONTENTS

Front Page (not part of word count)
To ensure that we can identify you for the awarding of marks and to satisfy formal submission requirements of RMIT University, the front page of your report must include:

• Your name and student number.

• The name you have given to your Competition Rounds company.

• Acknowledgement by you that you have read and not breached the RMIT Declaration and Statement of Authorship conditions.

Table of Contents (not part of word count)
This section should list the major sections of your report and their page number.

• [The Table of Contents function in Microsoft Word can do this automatically for you.]

Report Overview (no more than 500 words)
In this section, you need to provide a concise overview of what is covered in the main body of your report. This overview should include a summary of the major items in the analysis of the performance of your Company and the evaluation of your decision-making through the Competition Rounds.

Analysis of Your Company's Performance (no more than 1,500 words)

In this section, you need to analyse the performance of, and business results for, your Company across the eight years of your management. In this analysis, it is important that you outline and discuss:

• the business goals you set for your Company;

• the strategy you implemented to achieve those goals;

• how well, or not, your Company dealt with customers, competitors and market trends;

• the degree of success, or not, that your Company had in achieving its goals; and,

• any other factors of importance in explaining the performance of your Company through the Competition Rounds.
Note Well

• This Analysis section should not be a chronological description of decisions taken and results obtained over the eight years; it needs to be a critical analysis of the performance of, and business resultsfor, your Company.

• Any claim you make about the performance of your Company MUST be substantiated by reference to the relevant data for your Company in the appropriate Capstone Courier and/or Balanced Scorecard. This data needs to be either included in the body of your report at the relevant point or included in an appropriately identified appendix to your report and then referenced to in your text.

Evaluation of Your Decision-Making (no more than 1,500 words)

In this section, you need to discuss and outline:
• which business decisions you did well and which you did poorly;
• which aspect of your decision-making improved and which did not;
• the major lessons you have learnt about strategic business planning and decision-making, both on a personal and on a business level;
• any other factors of importance in evaluating your decision-making through the Competition Rounds.
Note Well
• This Evaluation section should not be a chronological description of the decisions you made. Instead, it needs to be a reflective evaluation from you upon your decision-making experience through the Competition Rounds.
• Any claim you make about the success, or otherwise, of your decision-making MUST be substantiated by reference to the relevant data for your Company in the appropriate Capstone Courier and/or Balanced Scorecard. This data needs to be either included in the body of your report at the relevant point or included in an appropriately identified appendix to your report and then referenced to in your text.

Format Requirements
Word Length
• Your report must not be longer than 3,500 words.
• Penalties apply if you exceed this word length.
• Appendices are not part of the word count.
Presentation
• Use Font size 12 and double spacing.
• Page margins to be 2.5 centimetres for top, bottom and sides.
• Label all graphs and tables (including the ones in the Appendices, if you have any).