Learning Objectives:

Analyze a business plan denoting areas for improvement in Marketing, Operations, E-commerce and Digital Media.
Complete a project that closely mimics projects often performed by small business managers.
Prompt:

For your Final Assignment, review the business plan found in Chapter 16 Appendix of your textbook Small Business Management in the 21st Century

You have been hired as a business consultant for Frank’s All-American BarBeQue. Create a PowerPoint presentation with a minimum of 15 slides with recommendations for Frank’s on how they can improve their business. You must include a minimum of three specific recommendations: one related to Marketing, one related to Operations, and one related to e-commerce, digital media or social media. You may add other recommendations if you would like. Your design should be aesthetically pleasing, easy to read and should not include too much text/data on the slides themselves. Be sure to include additional information the “Notes” section of the slides to support your recommendations and elaborate on your suggestions. Your “Notes” should support your recommendations with references and citations from your textbooks and a minimum of five other library quality, academic sources. You may find other sources in your Lessons.

Your final slides should be a Reference page with all sources listed in APA format. All sources referenced in your “Notes” should include an in-text citation.

Instructions:

Develop a PowerPoint presentation with a minimum of 15 slides.
Your presentation should include a reference page on the final slide in APA format.
Utilize the “Speaker Notes” section to expand upon the bullet points in your slides OR record a video of your presentation and include the link with your submission.
Follow APA format for structure. An APA template is attached here. Support your presentation with a minimum of 3 credible, academic references beyond the course materials. Please note Wikipedia, Investopedia and similar general websites are not credible academic references.

It is now time to put your business plan together. Your plan should include the following (See attached for guidance):

Part 1:

Executive summary, company description
Part 2:

Industry analysis & trends, target market, competition, strategic position & risk assessment, marketing plan, & sales strategy
Part 3

Operations, technology plan, management, & organization
Part 4:

Development, milestones, exit plan, the financials
Part 5 (Appendix):

Any supporting documents in the appendix.
NOTE: The business plan will serve as your first attempt at completing this in-depth, well-researched business plan. You will re-visit various sections during your BA program and complete a final, polished business plan in your capstone course ENTR498.

Minimum 8 pages

Business Professional Format

People are the key to success for your business. Complete the management section of your business plan, and share it here. It should include: your key personnel, line of authority, management style, and organization plan. Also share: What management strengths and weak points did you find? Why? How can you capitalize on your strengths? How can you improve upon your weak points? Why is this a challenge for todays entrepreneur?

Assignment Prompt:
This week you will develop an Exit or Harvesting Plan for the company you built a business model for in Week 6. There are many scenarios where a business owner would want (or need) to exit or downsize segments or product lines in his or her business, or possibly exit the entire business. Retirements, deaths, competitive changes, consumer needs, economic downturns, and loss of interest are only a few of the possible reasons for having an “exit or harvesting” plan roughed out and ready to implement. Before getting started on the exit plan portion of your model, make sure you review the resources in the Reading & Resources section of week eight’s lesson.

Assignment Instructions:
For this project, you will be creating a 15 to 20 slide PowerPoint program you will submit by this Sunday midnight. In your presentation, you will develop an exit strategy for your business model utilizing five different scenarios:

Scenario 1: A Major downturn in the economy that has caused cash flow to go negative and is expected to last for 2 to 3 years. As the entrepreneur, you have enough cash saved in the business to last 6 months at your current employment, inventory, and fixed overhead cost levels. What is your exit strategy
Scenario 2: There is a devastating natural disaster (hurricane or earthquake) that has ruined your facilities and completely interrupted your business. It will be months before insurance can be collected to rebuild your facilities, rolling-stock, and inventory. What is your exit strategy?
Scenario 3: A major operation has moved into your market area and the competitive pressure has caused you to reduce prices on one product line to the point that you are barely making a profit. This scenario is different, here you are asked to think and communicate what options are worth trying before “harvesting” that product line. Second, what steps are needed to harvest the struggling product line if your strategies don’t work.
Scenario 4:You have lost your financial backing from the institute you have been using for the past three years. As in scenario 3, what refinancing options are worth trying, how long do you give yourself to evaluate and investigate these options, and, finally, if nothing works, what is your exit strategy.
Scenario 5: You are approaching retirement age, have no heirs who which to run the business. You would like to sell the business and use the proceeds for your retirement. There are no “options” for this scenario, you are wanting to sell the business. Your job is to do some research about how to sell a small business, then put together a workable plan to sell the business looking at all of the options to sell that are possibly open to you.
A possible organization for your presentation is given below. However, you are free to add your own “touches” to this presentation so long as all of the bases (see below) are covered. You are also free to choose a business template you feel best supports your PowerPoint presentation. If you need to brush up on your skills with Microsoft PowerPoint, here is an excellent (no charge) resource to watch some very short videos on using Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 (365) GCFLearnFree.Org/Powerpoint16

1 Presentation “Title slide” with your name, company name, and a Title for your presentation
1 Slide with a short description of the Business
1 Slide with your definition of an Exit/Harvesting Strategy
1 Slide with all 5 Scenarios listed
5 Sub-Title slides that separate the presentation into each of the five
1 to 2 slides under each of the 5 sub-title slides defining your exit strategy for the scenario. Make sure you include a short paraphrase of the scenario as the title for each of the 1 or 2 pages .
1 Slide for References (minimum 3)
Include speaker notes on all slides that further enhance your bullet points on the slides

In previous weeks, you went into the New York Times Small Business Case Study file and chose either an e-commerce or service related business to report on.  This week you will head back into the extensive list of small businesses case studies provided by the New York times and choose a product-oriented small business to describe the that business must plan for in order to assure continued viability.  Start this discussion the same way you did in week 2, by noting the business name, owner, and type of business the entrepreneur is in.  Then review the challenges this business found itself in and what solutions it applied.  Finally, recommend one additional solution to the challenge the entrepreneur could have considered.

https://www.nytimes.com/search?query=Case+Studies

In previous weeks, you went into the New York Times Small Business Case Study file and chose either an e-commerce or service related business to report on.  This week you will head back into the extensive list of small businesses case studies provided by the New York times and choose a product-oriented small business to describe the that business must plan for in order to assure continued viability.  Start this discussion the same way you did in week 2, by noting the business name, owner, and type of business the entrepreneur is in.  Then review the challenges this business found itself in and what solutions it applied.  Finally, recommend one additional solution to the challenge the entrepreneur could have considered.

https://www.nytimes.com/search?query=Case+Studies

For this week’s assignment, you will be developing a Business Model for a business opportunity of interest to you.  Your discussion assignment this week is to describe your initial thinking about the business for which you have chosen to Model. To the extent you can, introduce your fellow learners regarding: (a) the products and/or services offered; the facilities, equipment, inventory, and other assets needed; the target market and customer demographics on which you will focus; and what expertise you, as the entrepreneur, bring to the business.

Assignment Prompt:
This week your assignment is to begin researching a small business of interest to you and then start the process of organizing and writing of a formal business model. You will want to select a small business or franchise for which you have some expertise, knowledge, experience, and (most importantly) considerable interest. Before you attempt this Model, please review some of the resources listed in the Reading & Resources section of the Week 6 Lesson.

Once you have reviewed the resources in the lesson, the next step in this process is to watch the video hyperlinked below. We will be using the model design that is covered in this short 9-minute video. Before you start the video, download and print out a copy of the Outline sheet that has been inserted below, it will help you in your note taking as you watch this video.

The Business Model Canvas – 9 Steps to Creating a Successful Business Model – Startup Tips

Now that you have a good feel for the business you want to model, and the format we are going to use to develop your Business Model, it’s time to get to work formatting your business plan. We will follow an organization much like the video you just watched, with two exceptions (see the outline below):

Section 1 – The company description, location, and name
Section 2 – The Value Proposition
Section 3 – Customer Segments
Section 4 – Channels
Section 5 – Revenue Streams
Section 6 – Key Resources Required
Section 7 – Key Partners
Section 8 – Key Activities
Section 9 – Cost Structure (no numbers required, just layout what is important to plan for as important (a) fixed costs, (b) variable costs, (c) activity costs, (d) logistics costs, and (e) legal, license,
Instructions:
How you present this Model is up to you, it can be a PowerPoint presentation or MS Word report. Your submission will be assessed according to the following criteria

The thought that was put into each of the 9 segments. Was everything considered and has the author considered all of the important factors affecting each part of the model? Is it complete with no missing elements?
How creative was the model presentation
How professionally narrated, written, or presented the Model is?
Manage your time carefully, this project could easily take more time than some of the others. Submit your Model by Sunday, Midnight.