Assessment Title Practical Assessment: The Case Study (1200-1500 words or a 4-5 minute video)
Task Description
This is an individual assignment. Students have the choice of submitting a written case study or a video case study.
A written case study should be 1200 to 1500 words, not including references, diagrams, tables, any appendices, etc. A video case study should be between four to five minutes in length.
The objective of Assessment 1 is to build students' research, critical thinking, business evaluation and entrepreneurial skills. While researching the case study, students are encouraged to explore and learn about different business models, including the type of business models that are most associated with success and high levels of profitability. By learning about a number of businesses and their business models, including their competitive environment, and writing a deep case description of a particular innovative business venture, students will not only learn how to identify the most important aspects of a successful business model but also how to effectively explain winning business models to others.
Although this is an individual assignment, students should feel free to work with others taking this unit. For instance, students may want to collaborate with others when making a video. This allows students to learn much more potentially about practical video production than they would have done if making the video themselves.
However, it should be noted that the assignment work submitted should be wholly the student's own work. No two students in the unit should do the same case study.
Before commencing, students must confirm with their lecturer that the organisation they plan to write about is permissible and that no other student doing the unit is doing the same case study. The organisation that is the focus of the case should also be a relatively new, innovative business venture, which means it was most likely established in the last five years.
The case study should include the following information:
The business context and background, including the industry, location, size of the business, market conditions, customer segments, demand conditions, competitors, founders' background, etc.
Comprehensive description of the business, including the product(s) and service(s) that the business makes available to customers and its business model.
Your evaluation of the strategy and future prospects of the organisation (students can apply SWOT, PEST, ratio or other analytical techniques to derive and justify their evaluation).
Summary of the key points, including a discussion of the one aspect of the business model you think is the most important for the management of the organisation to keep in mind to ensure the ongoing success of the organisation.
Students will be rewarded for presenting the case creatively and their ability to craft compelling arguments. Students should also write a case study that is highly accessible. Thus, it should not be too technical and can be easily understood by someone with very little business training.
Students choosing the video option should note that they will not be assessed on their video production skills but on the content of the video.
Students who get a distinction or above may be given the opportunity to have their case study published or used for teaching in the next semesters.
1. Define and apply key concepts of innovation in digital, service, social and commercial contexts.
2. Discuss and critically analyse the reasons organisations innovate.
3. Demonstrate understanding and apply the stages of the innovation process.
4. Identify and discuss the technical, financial and organisational constraints to innovation in markets.
5. Assess the environmental, social and economic factors for market entry of the innovations developed in the unit.
6. Forecast the success and market diffusion of your innovation using business models.
Assessment
Practical Assessment: Your Business Idea and the Constructive Workshopping of
Ideas
Task Description
This is an individual assignment that students complete in consultation with their group/team. The objective of Assessment 2 is to learn how to develop a business idea by brainstorming and levering off the skillsets of others.
Thus, you will be focussing on developing a business idea of YOUR own in the first instance. However, Assessment 2 should also be seen as an opportunity to learn how to work with others to realise business ideas. It is also structured in such a way that it represents an opportunity to do work towards Assessment 3, which is when your group presents via Powerpoint a business idea jointly.
While working on Assessment 2, your group/team MUST via a consensus process identify the best idea, that is, the idea from the ideas workshopped that will get YOUR team the highest proportion possible of the pool of investment money available. N.B. All the teams will be trying to get as much as possible of a potential $100k investment from an investor.
You should also note that if you are an on-campus student you MUST attend the workshops to be assessed for your ability to work constructively and collaboratively as part of a group/team.
If you are an online/flexible student, you will have a different set of challenges. Instead, of being required to cooperate in a workshop setting on-campus, online/flexible students are required to be proactive and make sure they get themselves in a virtual team and then communicate as is required with team mates to complete Assessment 2 and Assessment 3. It will also be necessary for you to schedule AT LEAST ONE conference group meeting with your lecturer. You can schedule this meeting in Week 7, 8, 9, 10 or as late as Week 11. It is your team's choice and you can also schedule more than one meeting if this suits your team. The meeting with your lecturer will be your team's opportunity to explain what you are doing to ensure successful completion of Assessment 2 but also Assessment 3. Think of the meeting as simulating what you would need to do to convince an investor or a manager at a large firm to fund your business idea realisation project. Investors think big and they want to find entrepreneurs who also think big.
NB. Online/flexible students will be given advanced instruction on the Moodle site at the commencement of the semester.
In summary, there are two parts to Assessment 2 upon which the individual student is assessed: One involves written assessment and the other involves the assessement of the individual's ability to work constructively with team mates to develop their own and other group mate's ideas, that is, involves being observed as having the ability to work constructively and collaboratively in either a workshop setting or by inference (as a result of what gets done and submitted and via a reassuring conference call). Assignment 2 is an opportunity to work towards Assignment 3's tasks in a workshop environment, drawing on the advice of your lecturer as required.
The following describes the materials individuals must submit and what is required of the group/team:
INDIVDIUAL SUBMISSION
Develop the following:
2-3 page (1.5 spacing, A4) summary of YOUR business idea and its most essential business model components
GROUP ASSESSMENT
The individual as part of a group must be observed as having the ability to work constructively and collaboratively in a workshop setting with others or, if an online/flexible student, working constructively and collaboratively by inference. The objective is to successfully develop any three of the following as part of a portfolio of materials:
description of the innovation process to be used
cashflow projections, including profit & loss, balanced sheet estimates for the first two years
short videos or animated Powerpoint communications that are focussed on explaining and selling an aspect of the business to potential investors and customers
a draft website (maximum 6 pages) that is focussed on explaining and selling the business to potential investors and customers
an example of a blog or newsletter or other such communication that is focussed on explaining and selling the business to potential investors and customers
a 2 page plan/outline (A4, 1.5 spacing) that explains how social media will be used a related application software
a short brochure in pdf
a prototype of the product
a schematic or simulation or other such representation of the planned service offering
another such item that positively demonstrates some aspect of the product/service you want to develop and which will persuade investors to fund your project.
Do note that the assignments that have got the highest marks in previous terms produced an extremely creative and informative portfolio of materials. Assignment 2 involves you working on these items together so that you are all in a position by the end of the term to produce something that is truly impressive when you present your group business ideas as part of Assessment 3.
It is mandatory that the group/team completes a team charter and submits this with the porfolio (see the description of Assessment 3). A half page of dotpoints will be sufficient for the charter but you can submit a more detailed charter if you would like to do so.
To reiterate, in the first instance, the focus in the workshops will be on each student getting feedback about how to develop their individual business idea.This should enable the individual student to put together a 2-3 page (1.5 spacing, A4) summary of HIS/HER business idea and its most essential business model components.
The focus of workshops will then shift to developing the idea that the group/team thinks has the best chance of getting them a large slice of the grant/investment money on offer when they (convincingly) present in the final teaching week for this unit.
One of the important aspects of this assessment is that it reinforces that though entrepreneurs must be dogged in their determination to succeed and see their business idea fully realised, successful entrepreneurs do not get fixated on just one idea. They keep an open mind. They also appreciate that there can be many good business ideas and the best business idea might be generated by someone else. Indeed, the most successful entrepreneurs are usually serial entrepreneurs and they are very good at working with and persuading other people, including proactively and positively levering of the business ideas of others.