The module will be organised around four compulsory challenges to help develop your skills required for success at university. You must get actively involved in each challenge.
You are required to write an individual report to evidence your participation in the Challenges and to reflect on what you have learned through your involvement.
The report must include coverage of the following-:
The Challenges: An analysis of each challenge which focuses on the business angle e.g., branding, finance, operations. What knowledge did you learn about how businesses actually work?
The Challenges are as follows-:
Presentation Challenge
Develop a pitch to be presented to a panel of investors which clearly highlights an area of need or a business proposal and a product or service which clearly solves the need or provides adequate economic benefits to the investors. You must clearly highlight the financial outlay needed for the investment and how that will be expended. PowerPoint
Note:
Both the apprentice and presentation challenges shall be two-part challenges and the second part will test teamwork in class exercise.
Apprentice Challenge
Write a detailed marketing plan to demonstrate how to develop the market for the product you have developed in your presentation challenge.
The Marketing Plan must include how to market their product or brand, where will it be sold, and how to engage with and attract the target market.
Tips:
Identifying a Target Market, Branding, Positioning, Packing Design, Distribution, Pricing, Marketing.
This should be a word document and should not be more than 1000 words.
T-shirt Challenge
Develop a branded T-Shirt with a specific theme you would like the customers to associate your product with in the market.
Tips:
Describe the product clearly including the theme, identify a target market for the brand, financial projection which include capital requirement and projected income statement, marketing strategies/tactics.
This should be a word document of not more than 1000 words
Hotel Challenge
Develop a growth analysis for a hotel of your choice in a presentation to be presented to the board of directors. PowerPoint
Tips:
Introduce the hotel clearly, current performance chart, competitor’s analysis, SWOT analysis, growth options which includes marketing strategies/tactics and recommendation for improvement.
The Skills: A reflection on the skills you have demonstrated during the challenges to include the following -
- Communication Skills/ Emotional Intelligence
- Teamwork
- Time Management and meeting skills
- Business skills and competencies developed e.g., presentation skills, use of Excel etc.
Action Plan: An action plan on how you will develop these skills over the next 3 years at university.
The report is a reflective piece but still requires you to demonstrate an evidence-based approach to the coverage and consequently there is a need to support the discussion of both the challenges and the skills with reference to core module materials covered in seminar sessions and with additional external research.
The research will represent not only materials covered on the Graduate Challenge module itself but also from other level 4 modules e.g., coverage of branding from marketing lectures, the inclusion of teamwork in from Introduction to People Management, business analysis skills from Global Business Environment or Financial Accounting.
As the report is a reflective piece you do not need to worry about formal style, you can write in terms of “I”, “my” etc.
The use of visuals in the appendix that are related to the tasks completed is highly advisable to add interest -for example t-shirt designs, key visuals from slide presentations and excel pricing worksheets.
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