ASSIGNMENT: EVALUATION OF BUSINESS PLANNINGTHEORY & PRACTICE
During the Business Project module you have applied a wide range of professional techniques and academic frameworks in order to investigate, analyse and develop a business plan for a new mobile app.
The focus of this final assignment is on business planning in theory and practice. You will look back at the techniques and frameworks that you have used and evaluate their contribution to the development and refinement of your app idea and ultimately to the presentation of your business plan.
There are a number of key steps involved:
1. Identification of techniques, frameworks, theories that were used. In addition to principles of business planning, project management and virtual teams you will also have drawn on concepts and frameworks from all your other modules, for example, PESTEL, Tuckman, marketing mix...
2. Selecting the most interesting and/or useful techniques/frameworks:
a. Application - give examples and explain how you used the technique/framework in your team.
b. Results - what did you find out? How did the technique contribute to your business project?
c. Evaluation - How useful was the technique/framework you used in this context?
3. Conclusion - Which techniques/frameworks did you find most effective for the development of your business plan and for the organisation and management of your team? What would you do differently if you were to do the project again?
For this individualassignment you should prepare a short piece of written work (1000 words) reflecting on your experiences of working on the business project module this year.
We expect your work to be well written, structured and presented, using appropriate language and business terminology. We expect you to keep a clear focus on the issues under consideration and to illustrate your evaluation with practical examples from your project experience, and figures/diagrams where appropriate.
A full list of references (and optionally a bibliography) should be included in BBS Harvard style. Citations must be included in the text of your assignment wherever appropriate.
Total word count: 1000 words
SOURCES YOU WILL NEED TO DRAW UPON INCLUDE:
Kugler L (2016) ‘Smartphone Apps for Good', Communications of the ACM, Vol 59, p18-20.
Barrow C, Barrow P & Brown R (2015) The Business Plan Workbook, 8th edition, Kogan Page.
Blackwell, E. (2008) ‘Chapter 9: How not to write a business plan - or run a business' In How to Prepare a Business Plan, 5th Edition, Kogan Page, p133-139.
Eriksson P &Kovalainen A (2011) ‘Chapter 12: Focus Group Research' In Qualitative Methods in Business Research, Sage, London, p173-192.
Finch (2013) How to write a Business Plan, 4th Edition, Kogan Page.
Learn Higher (2012) ‘Ground rules for group work',
Randolph WA & Posner BZ (1988) ‘What every manager needs to know about project management', Sloan Management Review, Vol 29, No 4, p65-73.
Saunders M, Lewis P & Thornhill A (2012) ‘Chapter 12: Analysing Quantitative Data' In Research Methods for Business Students, Sixth Edition, Financial Times/Prentice Hall, p472-543.
Siebdrat F, Hoegland M & Ernst H (2009) ‘How to manage virtual teams', MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol 50, No 4, p63-68.
Stutely R (2012) The Definitive Business Plan, 3rd Edition, Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Zheltoukhova K &Suckley L (2014) ‘Hands-on or hands-off: effective leadership and management in SMEs', CIPD: Research Insight Report.