shoes industries of brazil
Your Project
Your project makes up 35% of your final mark, making it the biggest part of your course. It is made up of three parts:
- Proposal/Outline – Trading Partner Worksheet & Product Description Worksheet (2.5% each)
- Presentation – present your proposal/outline to the class and take questions (10%)
- Written Report (85%)
Your project can be done individually or with one other person.
- The two worksheets are your starting point and have notes to help you complete them.
- The presentation to the class is based on the two work sheets and the work that you have done up to that point.
Presenting to a group is an important skill.
- Talk to the group rather than read from notes.
- Talk about the problems that you have encountered as well as the successes – you may get helpful suggestions from the audience.
- Remember that “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer at this stage.
If it is a group project, both members of the group must participate (talk about the project and take questions) to get a mark. If you require a computer (e.g. for a Power Point) please tell the instructor)
- The most successful projects are always ones on which students have started working from the start of the course. As soon as you have decided on a product/service and a country to trade with, you can start building your project week by week based on the work that we do in class. In this way you won’t face the overwhelming task of trying to do all the work in the last few weeks.
This will also help in making your project analytical (rather than descriptive) and to draw strong, clear conclusions.
Imagine that your are presenting this report to a prospective financial backer or, at the very least, to someone who has paid you to assess the venture. The report should include:
- Title page
- Executive Summary (see below)
- Research (see below)
- Analysis (see below)
- List of sources used.
The title page should include the following lines:
- A title for your project
- Your name
- For
- Date
Executive Summary
The ability to sum up concisely and clearly is an important business skill. The summary should include a description of the business (including the ownership and management), the purpose of the venture, the strategy, the prospects for success, and financing required. Although this will be the last part you write up, it will be the first part of your report.
It is not necessary to develop a venture that will be successful. The purpose of your research is to assess the chances of success. Showing that a business venture won’t work could have saved countless entrepreneurs a lot of money.
- Name and description of the business
- Description of the export or import venture
- The product or service
- The reason for the opportunity
- Strategy or plan
- Key risks
- Prospects for success
- Financing required
- Additional key comments
Length: 1 page.
Research:
You will have already gathered information for the Trading Partner Worksheet in your Proposal, and you will have added more by the time you write your report. You should also make use of information that you have found in assignments.
Analysis:
One way to analyse your business is to rate how it performs in the topics that we have covered in the class. For example:
- Globalisation – what advantage does international trade is there a global market and how will this affect your business? Can you find a niche market or are you going to face competition from other producers? What will be your comparative advantage? (Week 1)?
- Country differences – what are the effects of the culture, political economy, legal systems and ethics on your business? How much risk might there be in these cases (weeks 2 and 3)?
In this way you can build on your project week by week, apply what we learn in class to your business idea. You can also use the analysis that you have done for the assignments if you make it applicable to your project.
Discuss or show:
- The advantages to be gained for your business by this international trade.
- The advantages gained by your trading partner from this trade.
- Key challenges and opportunities. Include:
- Identify any challenges that arise from competitive, legal, economic, cultural, physical and other forces.
- Your competitive position in terms of your target markets and key competitors
- Any concerns that will arise internally, such as organizing and obtaining the factors of production, or obtaining any needed approvals. Are there issues of intellectual property protection?
- How to cover logistics (shipping, delivery, payment).
- Identify key risks.
- Estimates of Revenue, cost and profit for a typical year. Include:
- Assumptions made to estimate the revenues.
- Identification costs
- Startup costs and financing required.
Length: This portion could range for 5 to 10 pages depending on circumstance.
Your project should look professional and business like. The layout, ease of finding information, spelling and grammar will be evaluated. These are important skills in business and this is reflected in the marking.
Your sources:
This section helps you show that your research is credible, that your information is reliable. The quality of your sources is also important because you are usually relying on other organizations for your information. Make sure that you give full information about sources your instructor should be able to find the information that you have used easily (that is, without having to search several pages of a website or book).
Product/Service Description Worksheet
This sheet should give the reader an outline of what your business idea is.
- Business Name
- What is the good or service that you provide?
- How will you produce it? (manufacture it and import/export; buy it and resell it importing/exporting etc.)
- Description of potential customer(s)
- Identification of need (Why does the customer need or want this product?)
- Competitive products available to the customer
- Estimated cost of product or service.
- Estimated selling price of the product or service
- How will you finance the business?
- Identify 2 risks that you might face (be specific: e.g. if transport costs are significant, if they increased it would be a serious problem, say this rather than ‘going bankrupt’)
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