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.

Module code and title:

MG408 The Graduate Challenge

Module leaders:

Assignment No. and type:

CW2: 1500-word reflective report

Assessment weighting:

80%

Submission time and date:

Target feedback time and date:

Assignment task: MG408 The Graduate Challenge

To complete a 1500-word reflective report as evidence of developing skills and knowledge through the participation in 4 major challenges (separate portfolios to be attached to report).  The report will summarise the business angle of each challenge and reflect on the personal skills developed and potential areas for continuous improvement

This assignment has been designed to provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate your achievement of the following module learning outcomes:

LO 2

Work effectively in a team.

LO 4

Develop business skills, including presentation skills, emotional intelligence, meeting skills and use of spreadsheets

Task requirements: MG408 The Graduate Challenge

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.

Referencing and research requirements

Please reference your work according to the Harvard style as defined in Cite Them Right Online (http://www.citethemrightonline.com). This information is also available in book form: Pears, R. and Shields, G. (2019) Cite them right: the essential reference guide. 11^th edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Copies are available via the University library

How your work will be assessed: MG408 The Graduate Challenge

Your work will be assessed on the extent to which it demonstrates your achievement of the stated learning outcomes for this assignment (see above) and against other key criteria as defined by your programme team.

You are being assessed according to the following criteria:

Literacy (incorporating formal, concise, Business English, report format followed). 10%

Research / Evidence-based writing (evidence of having read into some of the business

operations and also into the themes e.g., Team Work, Emotional Intelligence). 20%                   

Analysis of Challenges 20%

Discussion of themes 20%

Action Plan (needs to be SMART) 10%

Referencing 20%                                                  

Submission details

• You are reminded of the University’s regulations on academic misconduct, which can be viewed on the University website: https://bucks.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/9546/Academic-Misconduct-Policy.pdf. In submitting your assignment, you are acknowledging that you have read and understood these regulations
• Please also note that work that is submitted up to 10 working days beyond the submission date will be considered a late submission. Late submissions will be marked and the actual mark recorded, but will be capped at the pass mark (typically 40%), provided that the work is of a passing standard. Work submitted after this period will not be marked and will be treated as a non-submission.
• This assignment should be submitted electronically. Please use the relevant Turnitin submission point in the Submit your work area in your Blackboard module shell.
• Please ensure that your work has been saved in an appropriate file format. Turnitin will only accept the following file types: Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint, PostScript, PDF, HTML, RTF, OpenOffice (ODT), Hangul (HWP), Google Docs, or plain text. Your file must also contain at least 20 words of text, consist of fewer than 400 pages and be less than 40MB in size.
• You can submit your work as many times as you like before the submission date. If you do submit your work more than once, your earlier submission will be replaced by the most recent version.
• Once you have submitted your work, you will receive a digital receipt as proof of submission, which will be sent to your forwarded e-mail address (provided you have set this up). Please keep this receipt for future reference, along with the original electronic copy of your assignment.

Before you submit

• Please use the provided checklist below to make sure you are ‘fit to submit’ your work
• We recommend you use this checklist as soon as you get this assignment brief to help you plan your work

• This assignment should be submitted electronically. Please use the relevant Turnitin submission point in the Submit your work area in your Blackboard module shell.
• Please ensure that your work has been saved in an appropriate file format. Turnitin will only accept the following file types: Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint, PostScript, PDF, HTML, RTF, OpenOffice (ODT), Hangul (HWP), Google Docs, or plain text. Your file must also contain at least 20 words of text, consist of fewer than 400 pages and be less than 40MB in size.
• You can submit your work as many times as you like before the submission date. If you do submit your work more than once, your earlier submission will be replaced by the most recent version.
• Once you have submitted your work, you will receive a digital receipt as proof of submission, which will be sent to your forwarded e-mail address (provided you have set this up). Please keep this receipt for future reference, along with the original electronic copy of your assignment

• LO 2	Work effectively in a team.
  LO 4	Develop business skills, including presentation skills, emotional intelligence, meeting skills and use of spreadsheets