MG5590 Business Planning

This assignment is comprised of two (2) elements. A 3-minute individual recorded presentation, which counts for 50% of your overall mark, and an  individual reflective report of no more than 1000 words, which counts for the remaining 50%.  

1st Element – main objective 

Your group will be allocated a Made in Brunel design project (details available on the MG5590 Brightspace site) from which you are required to create a  business plan forming the basis of a new business venture and pre-record a presentation of your part of the business plan. The aim is to encourage you to  apply your knowledge and insights of good business planning practice (drawn from the module, your associated reading and the collective business  experience of your group members) to outline your own contribution in the development of the business plan. 

Description of the 1st element: 

The task is to, as a group, discuss and create each element of the business plan. Each group member will have a fixed role, based on one of the distinct  elements of the business plan (Strategy, Marketing, Finance, HRM, Operations and, if a group has six members, Key Issues and Future Development). The  roles are not pre-assigned, the groups need to agree which individual will undertake which role.

The assignment requires each student to conduct independent research, data collection, and data interpretation from various sources such as a library and/or the Web, and work in order to create an individual, pre-recorded video presentation of their contribution. Although this assignment requires group work for the business plan, students will receive a separate mark and feedback for their individual performance in the video presentation and for the quality of their contribution (There is NO overall joint group mark!). 

Details of the 1st element of the assignment are presented below.

The 3-minute pre-recorded individual video presentation:

• Should include an overview of your contribution, drawing on the relevant elements of the business plan and elaborating on the key issues and recommendations 
• Should last no more than three minutes
• You are free to use any visual aid during the presentation or develop slides, but these are not a required part of this assignment
• An electronic copy should be submitted in MP4 form by each individual, by the specified date

Important notes 

• All members of every group will be expected to take part in the development of the group business plan 
• Each group member must contribute a clear and distinct element of their group’s business plan. 
• All group members must complete the groupwork contribution record sheet (indicating which group members took responsibility for which  areas of the business plan) by the specified date.

2nd Element – main objective

You are required to write an individual report reflecting on your work in connection with the module up to the date of assignment submission. The aim is to  encourage you to develop a critical approach to your work, through carrying out an analysis and evaluation of your group business plan, its key elements, and of the effectiveness of your own contribution to its development.

Description of the 2nd element:

The assignment should include:

• A brief introduction to the Made in Brunel product or service forming the basis of your group business plan
• A brief summary of the key elements of the related business plan on which your group has worked, the underlying theoretical issues and the  linkages between the plan and the commercialisation of your group’s Made in Brunel product or service 
• An analysis and evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the plan and suggestions as to how this could have been improved 
• An analysis and evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of your own contribution to the work of the group and to the development of this.
• A summary of the main benefits that you feel that you have drawn from your participation in the module and the group business planning process, including academic and anticipated employability outcomes

The assignment should build on academic literature presented in your module and the recommended reading, as well as wider reading.

The assignment should be written in report form and should be no more than 1000 words in length. Failure to adhere to this word length (+/-10%) may  result in a reduction in marks awarded.

In-text citations and reference list should follow Harvard referencing. For more details about how to cite and reference academic journals, books, book chapters, magazines and websites, please click here: https://libguides.brunel.ac.uk/referencing/harvard. Please note that the practice of taking someone  else’s work or ideas and passing them off as your own is considered as act of plagiarism, which has severe consequences (see ‘Academic Misconduct,  Plagiarism and Collusion’ below). To avoid plagiarism, make sure you cite sources accurately, and you use quotation marks (“…”), when extracting a direct  quotation from a source while include the page number in the citation (i.e. Bourdieu, 1993, p.73).