Business Start-Up Portfolio: Assignment Instructions And Marking Criteria

Tasks

Contents (350-400 words per task)

Page

Learning outcomes

Task 1

a.      Briefly describe the nature of business you have or might like to have in the future.

b.      What are the advantages and disadvantages of owning your own business?

c.       In what ways could PESTEL be useful in planning your start-up business?

3

LO1/4

Task 2

a.      In what ways can ‘globalisation’ have an impact on your business? Discuss two examples. 

b.      What suitable technology would your business use and how would it improve the operations of the business?

4

LO1/2

Task 3

a.      Briefly identify who your ‘customer’ is likely to be. Why is it important for a business to understand its customers?

b.      Describe TWO ways in which you might attract more customers to your business.

5

LO1/3

Task 4

a.      What is the role of ethics in business?

b.       With examples from other businesses, describe how your business can treat its staff ethically.

6

LO3/4

References

7

Week

Task 1

Learning Outcomes

Week 2-3

a.      Briefly describe the nature of business you have or might like to have in the future.

b.      What are the advantages and disadvantages of owning your own business?

c.       In what ways could PESTEL be useful in planning your start-up business?

LO1/4

Your answer should go in the box below.

a.      A coffee shop will be located in the heart of Glasgow city which will be a friendly, pleasant place for the coffee lovers of the city. The coffee shop will be offering international flavors of coffee. Along with that, the atmosphere of the coffee shop will be structured in a way that it gives visitors a relief from the hurly-burly of the city life. The entire café will be decorated with potted plants and heritage furniture. The coffee shop will have a place where people can take good pictures and can cherish their visit to the café. The coffee shop will be well-organized with trained staffs so that they will be able to achieve customer satisfaction. In addition to coffee, healthy beverages will also be provided by the coffee shop keeping the market trend in mind.

b.      Being a business owner is rewarding as well as hectic at the same time. Certain advantages of business ownership are there:

Independence: a business owner is not liable to answer to anyone; he or she can make decisions independently for further success of the company (Bryman and Bell 2015).

Financial rewards: Business ownership gives an opportunity to earn more money, but then the business strategy has to be done applied effectively.

Along with advantages, business ownership also has some disadvantages:

Financial risk: A business owner generally does not get a fixed income as ups and downs are common in business (Goffee and Scase 2015).

Commitment towards employees: In spite of loss, owing a business demands paying its employees on time.

c.       PESTLE analysis is the critical analysis of political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental impacts on business. The importance of PESTLE analysis includes understanding the business environmental change and then in planning the market strategy accordingly (Newton 2014). It is an important tool that helps in identifying the measures to be taken before starting a new business. By conducting PESTLE analysis a business owner learns about the all major factors of the existing business environment so that it can target the right group of customer in order to make its business successful. Through analyzing the essential factors that impact a business can be beneficial in understanding the customer requirement in the industry. The result of PESTLE analysis helps the business analysts in conducting SWOT analysis, which is the internal business environment analysis.

Week

Task 2

Learning Outcomes

Week 4-5

a.       In what ways can ‘globalisation’ have an impact on your business? Discuss two examples. 

b.       What suitable technology would your business use and how would it improve the operations of the business?

LO1/2

Your answer should go in the box below.

a.       Globalization in business alludes to the change of the business environment. Globalization mainly include integration of business culture, international business process, technology adoption in business and so on (Dunning, J.H., 2014).

Impacts of Globalization on businessGlobalization has positive as well as negative impacts on business. Following are the positive impacts on business:

Extended market: Entering into the international market means a company can reach out to more customers (Dunning, J.H., 2014). Price also differs according to different countries. It has been observed that, when a company sells both in the national market and in the international market, ususlly, the profit they gain from international market is higher than the price of  national market.

Foreign investment: Globalization increase the opportunities of foreign investment for a company. According to the market observation, companies that are spread internationally are able to pull more investors than the companies limited within their home country.

Cross-cultural effect: organizations, which trade across the national boundaries modifies and expand their product range keeping the cross-cultural aspect in mind. This way, the companies can gain more profit at they offer variety of products as per different countries.

The negative impacts of Globalization on business include the following:

Price fluctuation: As the price differ country wise, the profit margin of a company that trade over international barriers, gets affected if the company does not achieve its desired margin of sales.   

Legal effects: In case of any disaster in terms of legal issue happen. the company largely gets affected (Dunning, J.H., 2014)..  Legal issues play a major role in decline of the market position of any company. If the company is alleged with any complaint and then if it is proved, the company can loss a huge number of customers as well as its reputation.b.      The coffee shop will use different technologies in order compete in the market. Below mentioned are the technologies will be used by the coffee shop.

·         Technology based brewing machine will be deployed in the coffee shop in order to produce coffee without letting its customers waiting.

·         The coffee shop will use social media networking sites to keep its customer engaged and will also allow them to give feedback of its products.

·         The coffee shop will register itself in some renowned applications of search and discovery of restaurants and cafes in order to promote itself.

Week

Task 3

Word

Count

Learning Outcomes

Week 6-7

a.      Briefly identify who your ‘customer’ is likely to be. Why is it important for a business to understand its customers?

b.      Describe TWO ways in which you might attract more customers to your business.

5

LO1/3

Your answer should go in the box below.

a.      The coffee shop will target the people of all ages. Hence, the campaigning will be age orientated (Quatse et al. 2013). Separate market plans for each group age. For e.g. the campaigning will be structured in a way that the teenagers are inspired to visit the coffee shop, where they will get beverages at reasonable price. Primarily the target will be residents of Glasgow city. Secondary target will be the tourists, where they can get all the flavors of coffee across the world under one roof. While most of the coffee houses focus on teenagers, the coffee shop will target the middle aged and older people along with teenagers. 

Knowing the customer of any business is the core factor to make the business successful. Clear understanding of the requirement of customers makes an organization eanble to offer that particular product or service to its customers. Therefore, the purchasing behavior of customers is essential before starting a new business, so that the company can address the exact requirement of the customer. It also help the company to understand the market requirement so that it can plan accordingly. 

b.      In order to attract the customers the coffee shop will held different promotional campaigns. The promotional campaign will be divided in two parts Firstly, it will be carried for 8 months and then after a follow up and depending on the funds, the second phase will long for 4 months (Baker 2014). Both traditional and social media marketing strategies will be taken to promote the company. The purpose of the campaign will be to inspire the people of all ages to visit the café. 

 As part of the social media marketing, some campaigns will be done over the social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so on (Baker 2014). By using these social networking sites the company not only will be able to reach out to more people in a short time span but also can be the engaging content of social media marketing will inspire the customers to visit to the coffee shop.

The traditional marketing strategy will also be held along with the social media marketing. The traditional media marketing will include advertisements over newspapers, televisions and other traditional medias ((Baker 2014). Advertisement agencies can also be hired for this purpose.

Week

Task 4

Learning Outcomes

Week 8-9

a.      What is the role of ethics in business? 

b.       With examples from other businesses, describe how your business can treat its staff ethically.

LO3/4

Your answer should go in the box below.

a.      Ethics play a major role in business. Business heads takes important decisions for the noble purpose of the business reflects the culture of that company. Therefore, it can be ethical judgments should be taken by the business individuals so that the reputation of the company does not get hampered (Crane and Matten 2016). Beside directors or mangerisl heads, employess themselves should behave ethical in order to improve the culture of the company.  Ethical behaviors therefore is able to bring these below mentioned benefits for organizations (Crane and Matten 2016).

·         Ethical behaviors of a company pull more customers in order to buy the product of the company and therefore the sales and profit margin increase as well.

·         Ethical judgements taken by the business heads boosts employee retention in the company.

·         Employee retention shows that the employees are being motivated to stay and work with the company, which in turn results the more productivity.

·         It has been observed that people tend become employee of such a company, which has been making ethical judgemnets towards the company.

In contrast to ethical behavior, unethical behavior makes the company to incapable to retain its position in the market.

b.      Maintaining ethical preinciples in a company is important for both the company and its employees. There are few ways through which the coffee shop can treat its employee ethically.

·         Paying the employees timely and fairly will be the primary aim of the company as part of ethical treatment towards its employee (Frisch and Huppenbauer 2014). For instance, Company like Cadbury has been raetinng its position in the market successfully by paying its employee decent wages on time.

·         Healthy working environment with lack of discrimination among the employees will be another core factor that the coffee shop will provide in order to remain ethical to its employees (Hassan et al.2013). The coffee shop will build trust among the employee with its hierarchy so that the coffee shop can pull further workforce.

·         The coffee shop will encourage its employee to behave ethical with each other in order to maintain a healthy environment to work. Another r instance can be given that Google in its all offices across the world, undertake different motivational strategies so that its employee behave ethical towards each other

  baker, M.J., 2014. Marketing strategy and management. Palgrave Macmillan.

Bishop, W.H., 2013. The role of ethics in 21st century organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 118(3), pp.635-637.

Bryman, A. and Bell, E., 2015. Business research methods. Oxford University Press, USA.

Burns, P., 2016. Entrepreneurship and small business. Palgrave Macmillan Limited.

Cavalcanti, M. (2014). Coffee Clusters in Brazil. International Journal of Research in Business and Technology, 4(3), 502-509.

Crane, A. and Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.

Dunning, J.H., 2014. The Globalization of Business (Routledge Revivals): The Challenge of the 1990s. Routledge.

Elder, S. D., Lister, J., & Dauvergne, P. (2014). Big retail and sustainable coffee: A new development studies research agenda. Progress in Development Studies, 14(1), 77-90.

Frisch, C. and Huppenbauer, M., 2014. New insights into ethical leadership: A qualitative investigation of the experiences of executive ethical leaders. Journal of Business Ethics, 123(1), pp.23-43.

Goffee, R. and Scase, R., 2015. The Real World of the Small Business Owner (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.

Guerci, M., Radaelli, G., Siletti, E., Cirella, S. and Shani, A.R., 2015. The impact of human resource management practices and corporate sustainability on organizational ethical climates: An employee perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 126(2), pp.325-342.

Hassan, S., Mahsud, R., Yukl, G. and Prussia, G.E., 2013. Ethical and empowering leadership and leader effectiveness. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 28(2), pp.133-146.

Newton, P., 2014. What is the PESTLE Analysis?.

 Quatse, J.T., Karhinen, A. and Wasserman, E.G., YOU Technology Inc, 2013. High-precision customer-based targeting by individual usage statistics. U.S. Patent 8,412,566.

Sekaran, U. and Bougie, R., 2016. Research methods for business: A skill building approach. John Wiley & Sons.

YESHU, M., 2016. ROLE OF ETHICS IN BUSINESS.