PAM006: You are Required to Produce a 5-year Business/Strategic Plan Report: Strategic Financial Project (SFP) Assignment, UoL, Singapore

Section 1

This should be submitted as a separate document and uploaded to the Project Turnitin submission link for this project via the designated relevant tab (section 1).

Your Individual New business venture proposal/Workplace business-strategic plan report

You are required to produce a 5-year business/strategic plan report.

There are three potential report scenarios from which you should select one:

1. You may if you wish situate your report within your Workplace scenario. If you do so it should be suitable for consideration by a new management team for your workplace in the context of the strategic challenges facing the company.
2. You may if you wish use a workplace/company which is not your primary workplace but one with which you are familiar and can have access to relevant data and information (which can be quite challenging).
3. You may if you wish to prepare a business/strategic plan report for a new business venture (NBV) scenario, the report should be suitable for potential investors and relevant stakeholders.

In producing your report you should:

1. Research the relevant ‘real world’ industry, market, and business environment the company/venture is situated in. You should use a combination of relevant real-world primary and/or secondary research to provide the basis upon which your strategic choices are made.
2. Utilise a range of strategic tools (SWOT, PESTLE, Ansoff, Porter, and so on as appropriate) to help analyse the relevant situated context.
3. Identify, explore, and evaluate alternative strategies for developing the business.
4. Arising out of a), b) and c) above, set out a compelling five-year business plan consultancy report designed to enhance shareholder value. You may use your own definition of shareholder value but must explain and justify its selection. The report may identify a range of strategies for consideration but should ultimately put forward your recommendation with evidence justification for why the proposed is the best way forward.
5. Identify specific key performances (KPIs) to assist in measuring to what degree shareholder value is being enhanced. These KPIs should be justified and appropriately monitored such that it facilitates a good overview of performance.
6. Include extracts of your spreadsheet planning tool results/financial forecasts within your report to strengthen your justifications and evidence. You are not required to submit the actual planning tool. However, the connectivity of your financial plans should flow throughout your report and should be presented in a user-friendly and robust manner.
7. Review your proposed plan, and identify and assess the key risks within it.

Section 2

Context and Requirement Context

“We do not learn so much from the experience as we do from reflecting on our experience.” – John Dewey

John Dewey (1859-1952) is considered by some to be one of the most influential thinkers about the philosophy of education in the twentieth century. His writings in Dewey, J. (1933) How We Think. A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process (Revised edn.), Boston: D.C. has inspired many of those involved in the education process – educators and students. His ideas are located in more recent, populist writings, illustratively:

Harry stared at the stone basin. The contents had returned to their original,
silvery-white state, swirling and rippling beneath his gaze.

“ What is it?” Harry asked shakily.

“This? It is called a Pensieve,” said Dumbledore. “ I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.”

“Err,” said Harry who couldn’t truthfully say that he had ever felt anything of
the sort.

“At these times,” said Dumbledore, indicating the stone basin, “ I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one’s mind, pours them into a basin, and examines them at one’s leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand when they are in this form.’

Reflection is important within educational experiences. A reflective statement is a statement that captures thoughts about, perceptions of, a past experience, such as that you have experienced in your study of this module. They help us to understand past events and associated experiences and to learn lessons. Having written a reflective statement, it is then possible to analyse it and draw lessons about future decisions, behaviour, and actions. Such a statement can focus on the consequences of the educational experience for work-related decisions, behaviour, and actions, not least in the arena of confirming or amending professional work practices.

With this in mind, look back over your Icarus rationale and minutes of meeting submissions and any other correspondence you held with your teammates over the Icarus period (between weeks 12 to 18). If you have been keeping an ‘off-line’ diary during the activity as suggested, you should also refer to this as it will certainly help you identify the experience ‘raw’ at the time in preparation for analyses.

Take time to think about what you have learned from the various interactions, research tasks, performance analyses, and teamwork, etc. that took place during each of the five rounds of play. You should have already captured some of this during the activity. Now, you should be seeking to articulate your experience, feelings, and evaluation of the activity in terms of any personal and professional impact upon you. Note that if you did not participate in Icarus, then you will be unable to reflect and therefore forgo the marks available for this section.

Required:

Using Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (see Appendix A of this document) or an appropriate alternative reflection framework, provide a reflective account of your Icarus activity and its impact upon your personal and professional development now and in your future.

In addressing this task you should ensure that you do not just describe each round of the Icarus activity but rather reflect upon the learning experience through evaluation, analysis, conclusions and ultimately provide your future plans for enhancing your professional practice.

Overall, the reader is seeking to be provided with a written account that captures the critical thought process of reflection. Accordingly, the marking criteria for Section 2 will consider overall cohesion but with particular emphasis on the quality of your evaluation, analysis, conclusions, and action plans.