Introduction:

This assignment gives you the opportunity to prepare a business plan for a firm of your choice.

You need to elaborate a thorough decision-making framework and to provide a report.

You are required to write a formal business report that covers the assessments tasks set out below. The individual performance and grading are according to BSBI’s grading criteria where additional marks will be awarded for possible connection of your answers.

Assignment Tasks (weights in brackets):

1. Discuss the nature of Information required at different stages in formulation of a business plan/project report.

[Weight: 25%]

2. Critically highlight the common errors noticed in project formulation and ways to avoid them.

[Weight: 25%]

3. You are starting a small manufacturing unit; give an outline of your business plan.

[Weight: 50%]

Learning Outcomes:

LO1	Critically evaluate and analyze the concepts of Business environment analysis (LO1)
LO2	Analyze and synthesize the element of the industry background (LO2)
LO3	Critically enhance to the market analysis (LO3)
LO4	Evaluate the use of Strategic Planning for running a business (LO4)

Assessment Criteria: Weighting 100%

Written Report: 3,000 words

GUIDANCE ON ASSESSMENT

All materials must be properly referenced under Harvard conventions. The length required is 3,000 words with tasks equally weighted. The writing style should be formal academic / report writing style with in-text referencing to support your comments and observations. Originality, quality of argument and good structure are required. The report should demonstrate sound understanding and ability to apply knowledge and theory in subject context with additional marks being awarded for juxtaposition and insight of issues.

2 Grading Criteria

Grading	70%+100	60-69%	50-59%	0 -49% Fail
Criteria
Generic skills:	Comprehensive and	Well-structured	Good report in most	Very poor report
communication and	correctly structured	report which follows	aspects but suffers	which is incorrectly
presentation.	assessment. Style	appropriate format	from variations in	structured and
	of writing is very	but some aspects of	quality and the	contains major errors
	fluent and develops	layout and	layout contains	and omissions. Style
	a coherent and	referencing could	some inadequacies.	of writing is
	logical argument.	be improved. Style	Style of writing is	descriptive, lacks
	Excellent	of writing is fairly	satisfactory.	coherence and
	referencing.	fluent. Good	Referencing needs	fluency. Poor
		referencing.	improving.	referencing.
Knowledge &	Demonstrates	Wide range of	Good range of	Very poor range of
Understanding	excellent knowledge	knowledge	knowledge	knowledge, research
	of theory and	demonstrated and	demonstrated but	and interpretation of
	provides critical	evidence of good	with some room for	information that is
	theoretical	understanding of	improvement. Some	subjective and lacks
	underpinning. Very	the topic.	understanding	conceptual
	good interpretations	Ability to interpret	displayed of the	coherence.  There is
	and summarising of	and summarise	topic.	no clear identification,
	main themes.	succinctly.	Summary and	understanding or
			interpretation are	interpretation of main
			satisfactory.	themes.
Analysis	Excellent use of	Very good use of	Use of theory and	Very poor use of
	theoretical and	the theoretical and	concepts limited in	theory and very little
	conceptual models	conceptual models	scope and depth but	application of core
	to guide analysis	with good critical	relevant. Application	concepts.
	linked with a critical	discussion.  Has	could be improved	Very little or limited
	discussion of main	applied a range of	and there is a	analysis and
	themes.	analytical skills with	tendency towards	evaluation in relation
	Has demonstrated	greater	description rather	to fundamental
	an ability to	independence and	than application of	principles and
	discriminate in the	understanding of	concepts.	business practise.
	use of more	more abstract data
	abstract concepts	or concepts.
	and techniques.
Application of	Logical presentation	Very good account	Good account of	Very poor account of
relevant theory to	of themes with	of main themes with	main themes with	main themes with
business concepts	appropriate	sound application.	some attempt at	little or no application
	examples being	Good attempt at	application. Limited	between models and
	demonstrated.	applying models to	evidence of	argument.
	Models have been	the argument. Fairly	synthesis.
	clearly applied to	good attempt at
	the argument.	synthesising the
		salient points.