2. Assessment Structure

3. Assessment 1 Details

3.1 Task

Develop a business plan for one of the small business listed below. Your business plan needs to include a researched-based strategy that your chosen small business could pivot* after the Coronavirus pandemic and lockdown. In developing the business plan and strategy, you should provide a realistic assessment of the sector that the business operates in. Present your business plan and strategy in a form of a 2,000-word report.

* ‘Pivot’ refers to a significant business change, ranging from mild to dramatic. Pivoting is usually intended to help a business recover from a tough period or survive after experiencing new competition or other factors that make the original business model unsustainable.

Write your strategy for one of the following businesses:

• Lock N Load Events

• Gymbox Black

• Cafepod

• JustPark

• Little Lamb’s Preschool and Nursery

• Commuter Club

Cover the following points in your report:

1.  Company description (100 words)

2. Vision, mission and values and current strategy (100 words)

3.  Market analysis (including identification of the company’s target audience and how they may have been economically affected by the pandemic) (200 words)

4.  Competitor analysis (including identification of closest direct competitors, their business model and how they may have been affected/pivoted as a result of the pandemic) (200 words)

5.  Organisation and management (including identification of the leadership team and any strengths and weaknesses) (200 words)

6. Marketing plan (i.e. use 4P’s to highlight the company’s marketing strategy) (200 words)

7.  Financial analysis (i.e. describe the company’s current financial position and how this may have been affected by the pandemic) (300 words)

8.  SWOT analysis (i.e. summarise the main strengths and weaknesses fond in research, and match strengths and weaknesses to opportunities and threats found in external analysis) (200 words)

9.  Pivot Strategy (i.e. use research findings to recommend what and how the company should pivot and the Coronavirus pandemic and lockdown) (500 words)

You are encouraged to use infographics to illustrate some of your findings. This assignment should be uploaded as a Microsoft Word document.

3.2 Submission requirements

You must submit your assignment by using the Turnitin gateway in the module’s Canvas site.

Please Note: When you submit you will be asked to confirm you have referred to the Submission Checklist (see Appendix 1) and the act of submitting your work electronically will be taken as an acceptance of the Declaration of Authorship (see Appendix 2)

4. Learning Outcomes for the assessment

This item of assessment covers the following learning outcomes. For the full list of learning outcomes for the module, please refer to the Module Study Guide.

• Distinguish between business ideas and opportunities

• Draft a business and/or marketing plan,and explain how to finance business ventures.

• Assess the characteristics of successful small businesses.

• Critically analyse and evaluate the entrepreneurial process through which business ideas may be evaluated.

• Develop tools and techniques for conducting a feasibility analysis and evaluation for a business plan.

• Present findings

Appendix 1: Submission Checklist

1. Have you checked Canvas messages/announcements for any additional/final details of the assessment?
2. Are you submitting in the correct submission area e.g. if it is a resubmission of your second assignment it should be ‘AS2R’?
3. Make sure you are submitting the correct final version of your work.
4. Have you kept to the word limit? Remember, anything greater than 10% above the word count will not be marked.
5. Have you addressed the assessment requirements as outlined in the Assessment Brief?
6. Have you spell checked and proofread your work?
7. Is your work formatted correctly and consistently?
8. Are you submitting a document in the correct format?
9. Is your work written in an appropriate academic style?
10. Have you checked your citations and Reference List/Bibliography?
11. Have you submitted your work to get a similarity report to check you have paraphrased where required?
12. Have you read the Declaration of Authorship (Appendix 2)

Appendix 2: Declaration of Authorship

By submitting this work electronically to Bloomsbury Institute and the University of Northampton, I confirm that I have read and understood the Declaration and Definitions below:

Declaration of Authorship:

1. I hold a copy of this assignment which can be produced if the original is lost/damaged.
2. This assignment is my original work and no part of it has been copied from any other student’s work or from any other source except where due acknowledgement has been made.
3. No part of this assignment has been written for me by any other person except where such collaboration has been authorised and as detailed in the Assessment Brief.
4. I have not previously submitted this work for any other course/module.
5. Where applicable, I have included a declaration confirming external editorial or proof-reading services (see Appendix 3).

Definitions

I understand that:

1. Plagiarism is the presentation of the work, idea or creation of another person as though it is one’s own. It is a form of cheating and is a serious academic offence which may lead to expulsion. Plagiarised material can be drawn from, and presented in, written, graphic and visual form, including electronic data, and oral presentations. Plagiarism occurs when the origin of the material used is not appropriately cited.
2. Collusion is working with someone else on an assessment task which is intended to be wholly your own work.
3. Contract cheating/Commissioning is where you contract out an academic assessment to writers and purchase back the finished work and submit it as your own.
4. Duplication/Replication is submitting the same material more than once for the purposes of obtaining academic credit.
5. Fabrication refers specifically to the falsification of data, information or citations in an academic exercise, typically an assignment. This includes false excuses for missing deadlines and false claims to have submitted work. It may be specifically referred to as falsification.
6. My completed assignment is submitted and checked for plagiarism through the use of plagiarism detection software called Turnitin.

Please note: Submitting work which is not your own and/or cheating in exams can be considered as fraud2 and handled in accordance with the University of Northampton’s Academic Integrity and Misconduct Policy. Penalties can include:

• Reduction in grade for assignment.

• Grade for module reduced to AG [fail for academic misconduct] and right to repeat module withdrawn.

• Termination from studies.

Further information on plagiarism can be found in your Student Handbook, Section 13.

Appendix 3: Use of external editorial or proof-reading services

The University of Northampton’s Academic Integrity and Misconduct Policy (Sections 4.10 – 4.14) provides clear guidance on the use of proof-readers to check your work.

What you need to know:

1. You can ask your tutors or our Learning Enhancement and Employability (LEE) Team ([email protected]) for advice and support on how to proof your work.
2. Proof-readers should not make live changes to your work. They should only indicate where possible changes could be made.
3. A proof-reader should not change the meaning of your work in any way.
4. If a proof-reader’s comments or amendments do change the meaning of your work, this may be deemed as academic misconduct.
5. If you do use a proof-reader you must declare this clearly when you submit your work. The declaration should be on the first page (cover page) of your assignment.

Example declaration:

“A proof-reader has helped me with this assignment. The proof-reader was my friend/name of proof-reading service/a family member/other. I have kept a copy of my original work with comments from the proof-reader.”

For more information please go to the policy itself, which is available in the Quality Enhancement Manual on our website.