Assignment 1: New Business, Porters Forces, And Generic Business Strategy
For Assignment 1, select a retail business that you wish to start, from the list of businesses identified below. You must select one of these businesses and the business must sell products, not services, for this assignment. The businesses from which you may choose are:
– A gourmet candy business
**Name of the candy business: Cindy’s Candy Corner**
Those are the only new business choices from which you may select (select only one). You will work on this project most of this semester. There is some background information about your business, below, and then some required deliverables for Assignment 1.
Background Information You have come across sufficient money to turn an interest of yours into a viable business, with both a very small storefront as well as with a robust e-commerce website. You believe you have enough funds to launch the business but before doing anything else. There are 4 parts to Assignment 1:
1. Decide what business you want to open. It should be selected from the list of businesses, above. You will use Power Point for this assignment, so in a couple of PowerPoint slides, tell me a bit about the business and the product(s) you plan to sell. Do not be overly wordy – give me a “60-second elevator pitch” of what you plan to do. Note: you are just planning at this point. Points: 5
2. Analyze and create a Porter’s Five Forces Model on your business, using the Detroit metropolitan area as your environment. The Porter’s Five Forces Model should be created so that all 5 of Porter’s forces are discussed in light of your choice of business (i.e., discuss buyer power in the metro Detroit area and what it means to your business, and finishing up by telling how each “power” ranks for this business (i.e., high? And so on). Points: 20
3. Next, using Michael Porter again, choose a business focus (these are Porter’s 3 generic business strategies). Which will your products/business align with and why? Points: 10
4. CRM Capabilities. List 4 capabilities / techniques on how your customers could reach you. Provide a description and comparison of each. Explain why one might be better for you than another. Points: 10
5. Create a logo. Create a logo for your business. Points: 5 **DON’T DO THIS! I have a logo***
Remember! Though your business has a storefront, it will also have an e-commerce site, which will play heavily in assignment 2 & 3 – so keep that in mind as you are working.
Submitting Your Assignment
1. You have five deliverables. Point values are noted above. Please get them to me by creating a single Power Point file (of multiple slides) and have one or two slides per deliverable (plus title slide). The first slide after the title slide should announce to me (the audience) that you will be opening a retail business that sells [your chosen] goods and tell me a bit about it, as discussed above (i.e., the 60-second elevator pitch).
2. The Porter’s Five Forces will make much more sense if you read up on it in your book and the Moodle lectures. Google may provide other examples of how to format a Porters Forces model – I am not picky but it must be done in a business-like manner.
· Your Porter’s Five Forces slides can fit on one slide, or break it into several slides, if you prefer. You must provide whether or not the identified ‘powers’ are high, low, etc., as directed by the Five Forces model. Your textbook and lectures will help with this.
3. Porter’s generic business strategies should be on the next slide. Put your business in the quadrant you feel it should reside and put real-life competing organizations in the other quadrants. Again, your textbook will help you design the generic business strategies model. Hint: see chapter two.
4. In the “Resource: Assignment One Overview” please ignore the subjects on creating a survey.
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Finally, you will submit your assignment in Moodle by the due date given in the assignment area. To re-cap, I expect you to upload one Power Point presentation with all five deliverables on separate slides PLUS a title slide for your presentation. Keep it business-like and professional and email if you have any questions.
Maximum 20 slides but fewer are fine as long as they thoroughly address the requirements for assignment 1. Use good business-like presentation practices for your slides or face some loss of points. Many sites discuss best practices for business presentations, so I recommend you do a little research before submitting your final product.
Note: all verbiage on your slides must be original; i.e., your own words. Do not cut and paste or otherwise copy from any other source unless you cite your source(s) as per the APA lecture in week one in Moodle. Any questions, please ask.