Project Milestone Guidelines

Overview: The final project for this course is the creation of an external capital funding proposal.

Most businesses face a landscape of uncertainty and a never-ending stream of risks and opportunities. Managers must continually project the likely financial impact of decisions, make recommendations, act on those decisions, determine how to pay for them, and evaluate the costs and effectiveness of what has been done. Many decisions are short-term, routine, and operational. Others are longer-term investment decisions that require substantial new resources, such as developing new services, expanding into new geographic markets, or undertaking business combinations or spin-offs. Each requires managers to forecast, plan, and make decisions based on a thorough understanding of both internal and external factors that can affect a company's financial success.

For the summative assessment in this course, you will bring your finance and economics knowledge to bear by preparing an external capital funding proposal for a major international investment at a publicly traded corporation. In order to secure the support of potential financial backers, your proposal will need to lay out what the proposed investment opportunity is, how it fits within the company's broader mission and goals, its financial impact, and the amount being requested and why (including alternative funding mechanisms considered). In addition, it will also need to include information on the organization's context, risk factors, and microeconomic assumptions that could affect the success of the investment.

Prompt: Submit a paper that addresses critical element IV, Risks, of the final project. Discuss any risks that might affect the success of the project and how you have planned for those contingencies.

Note: The risks (and opportunities) you identify should demonstrate your understanding of the company you selected, the industry, the investment project you are proposing, and your project's country and timing. Your estimates of financial impacts will be only preliminary; you will most likely revise them in your final submission at the end of Module Nine.

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

Section I Risks:

1. Internal. What are the company's most significant internal risks and opportunities related to the project? How might they affect your financial estimates and how will you address them? Support your response with specific examples.

2. External. How will you address significant qualitative risks outside the company that might affect project success? Give specific examples. For example, how might culture or politics in the target country affect the proposed investment's financial success? Natural disasters? How have you planned for these risks?

3. Microeconomic. Assess the microeconomic factors that might affect decisions about the proposed investment. Support your response with specific examples. For example, how competitive is the market you will be entering? How elastic is the price for your product or service?

4. Alternate financial scenarios. Use this section to discuss the sensitivity of your financial projections to different scenarios. Be sure to address:

a. How would your projected financial performance change if sales fall 20% short of or are 20% higher than your base assumption? What does your analysis of these two scenarios imply for the proposed investment? Justify your response.

b. What do the net present value, internal rate of return, and payback values from your base scenario and the sales variation scenarios above imply for the proposed investment? Be sure to explain how the time value of money affects your calculations and analysis.