ITECH 3002 Entrepreneurship Project Report Writing

Background

The entrepreneurial process includes all the functions, activities and actions that are part of perceiving opportunities and creating organizations to pursue them. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs Are examples of entrepreneurial leaders who drove the information technology revolution that transformed the way in which we live, work, and play (Zacharakis, Bygrave& Corbett, 2016).

Moore (1986) and Bygrave (2004) developed a four-stage model depicting the entrepreneurial process. The process begins with recognising an opportunity from a business problem and creating a business concept that articulates it. For the first steps, the entrepreneur (1) builds a concept to solve the business challenge; (2) fashions a story that conveys the meaning of the new venture, and (3) prepares a presentation that tells the story and explains the concept to potential customers, investors and partners. After testing the concept with stakeholders, the entrepreneur may go on to develop a complete business plan.

Requirements

This is an individual task. Students will be required to:

a) undertake ideation and research then create a written report of 4-6 pages with 12pt fonts (penalty applies for breaking the page limits) and around 1,000 words, which champions a new ITbusiness concept, and

b) record a video of an oral presentation discussing your business concept.

Specifically, you are to invent/imagine a new business that you might want to set-up. This business should have something to do with Information Technology for example:

You want to create a business that sells computers with Linux installed instead of Windows, and which provides a limited degree of support topurchasers

You want to set up a company which sells its own-created software, which is software designed to help primary school children learn to read by having words/phrases/characters appear on the screen with pictures, etc.

You want to create a business that first creates an app that allows for mobile-phone issued tickets to sporting events, so that paper tickets are not needed by the spectators, and then the company looks for interested customers such as the companies which run sporting leagues to get those companies to adopt this ticketing system.

Once you have decided the topic of your business, you need to investigate how you would be able to set-up that business. You need to develop a set of plans (as mentioned in the lecture), for how you would start the business. You need to create a presentation in the form of a recording, to present key aspects of what is included in your report.

Report

The written report should be in the format of a business report including the following sections:

Operations plan Identify the problem and discuss the business opportunity that may address it, showing an understanding of the market and potential customers. Also discuss (as appropriate) business details, registration details, premises, organizational chart, management and ownership, key personnel, products and/or services, innovation, insurance, risk, legal considerations, operations and sustainability.

Marketing and social entrepreneurship plan Define your marketing strategy this should include: target market, market segmentation, unique value proposition, SWOT analysis, marketing mix and marketing communication and social media (includes details of marketing tools and advertising approach).

Financial plan Explain the business/revenue model that you will utilize to realize the opportunity. Produce a projected budget, this should include all revenue/income and expense projections for the first 12 months. Indicate all sample costs such as registrations, insurance, plant and equipment, office equipment etc. (as appropriate).

Strategic plan Provide a mission statement. Explain your long-term strategy beyond the first 12 months, indicate your business goals.

A high quality report will include detailed accurate descriptions of all elements of the business plan. It will demonstrate clear and concise language and provide evidence of research from quality authentic sources.

For the best presentation of your business plan, you should adopt writing for scanning by making use of the following formats (do not write long paragraphs):

dot lists or numbered lists

key word headings

tables

graphs or images

Video Presentation

You will be required to make 5 ppt slides and do a 5 minute presentation for week 11 tutorial class. The ppt document will be posted in the week 11 tutorial forum (NOT to be submitted with your report). You may record the 5 minutes video using Kaltura or some other appropriate video editing software in which you will discuss your business idea. You can then post your video to YouTube and link the video to your ppt slide. Alternatively, you may do a voice recording over your ppt slides, that will also be regarded as a video recording.