1
ACCG 3008 S1, 2020 Business Plan Requirements
(individual task – 25%)
This task is due 10am, 22nd April 2020 (Note new date)
Let’s get the warning out of the way first. You do NOT need to include a coversheet, but you
will be asked to sign the turn-it-in form which states that YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE
MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICY. This means that you have
submitted ORIGINAL WORK. You should not be including cut-and-pasted text from internet
sources, other students OR you own previous work. Let me say that again, DO NOT SUBMIT
WORK YOU HAVE SUBMITTED BEFORE OR COPIED FROM SOMEONE ELSE. There
are severe penalties for plagiarism and self-plagiarism. Don’t be that student crying in my
office after realising that they won’t be able to convince the Disciplinary Committee that there
has been a ‘misunderstanding’ because they submitted the ‘wrong draft’. Trust me, we’ve heard
it many times before. And we didn’t believe it the first time.
OK, warning over – let’s get to the task, which we hope will be not only valuable but also
interesting, and even fun! The assignment requirement is to create a short but
comprehensive three-year business plan for a new business venture. The venture should
e for-profit, but have clear social benefits which would allow it to be considered as a ‘B-
Corporation’ in a few years. In addition, at least part of the capital should be raised via a
crowdsourcing campaign (e.g. via Kickstarter or similar service). Please read this assessment
guide carefully, including the FAQs at the end of this document, and ask your tutors if you
have any questions.
Pro tip 1: Your plan must be JUSTIFIED. This assignment is not a creative writing exercise.
What this means is that the assumptions that you make should be based on external evidence.
Don’t just pick numbers out of thin air – work out what the staff you require will expect to get
paid. Research the wholesale rates for your inputs. Find similar warehouse space to what you
will need, and find out what it costs. And above all, put all these external references in your
usiness plan so that the marker can see that you have put something credible together. If there
is one common criticism of the poorer business plans that we have seen it is this: “not enough
evidence”. So from the beginning start working on collecting strong evidence for the key
assumptions / financials in your plan.
Pro tip 2: At the end of the assignment, you will be asked to come up with a VALUATION of
your business. This doesn’t need to be detailed, but again you need to justify both the choice
of valuation method (from the 4 options discussed in Week 5) and the assumptions used to
calculate the valuation. This is something that many students leave to the last minute and hence
score poorly on, so don’t let that be you!
2
Detailed Requirements
The plan should be a maximum of 10 pages, including financial information as per below, but
excluding references. ANY MATERIAL BEYOND THE PAGE LIMIT WILL NOT BE
MARKED. You should use 12 point Arial font and line spacing should be 1.15. Standard
margins should be used (top and bottom 2.54cm; left and right 2.54cm).
The assignment should be submitted on iLearn as ONE file which EITHER BE A WORD OR
PDF file. DO NOT submit a different format – e.g. Apple Pages, compressed zip file, etc. It
messes up the turn-it-in process which then means I need to contact you and wastes your time
and my time. This means you will need to EMBED your Excel spreadsheet in the word
document or combine it in a pdf file.
If you don’t know how to do that here are a couple of video tutorials from the amazing resource
LinkedIn Learning (previously Lynda.com). Access is free for students and you should
definitely check it out if you haven’t already – note that you may need to cut and paste the links
into your
owser as pdf links can be problematic:
Embed an excel table into word:
• https:
www.lynda.com/Office-tutorials/Inserting-Excel-table-calculations-
charts/378044/ XXXXXXXXXXhtml
Combine multiple files into a pdf:
• https:
www.lynda.com/Acrobat-tutorials/Combining-multiple-
PDFs/175718/ XXXXXXXXXXhtml
Your business plan should be presented with the following headings:
Let me say that again: your business plan should be presented with the following headings.
Your plan will get a mark for the material in each of the sub-headings. It is therefore much
easier for the markers (i.e. your tutor) if you use the headings below, including numbers. Even
more important, it is better for you because you can see what you have done and what you have
left to do. In the sage-like words of my high school maths teacher: “a blank page gets no
marks”.
https:
www.lynda.com/Office-tutorials/Inserting-Excel-table-calculations-charts/378044/ XXXXXXXXXXhtml
https:
www.lynda.com/Office-tutorials/Inserting-Excel-table-calculations-charts/378044/ XXXXXXXXXXhtml
https:
www.lynda.com/Acrobat-tutorials/Combining-multiple-PDFs/175718/ XXXXXXXXXXhtml
https:
www.lynda.com/Acrobat-tutorials/Combining-multiple-PDFs/175718/ XXXXXXXXXXhtml
3
Business Plan Headings (compulsory to use)
1.0 Business Plan Pitch
1.1 Written pitch
1.2 Visual pitch
1.3 Backer rewards
2.0 Business Opportunity
2.1 Customer need and target market
2.2 Social impact
2.3 Relevant megatrends
2.4 Similar successful campaign
2.5 Opportunity testing plan
3.0 Sales and Marketing strategy
3.1 Fundamentals
3.2 Social media and free publicity
3.3 Measurement and information
4.0 Operational strategy
4.1 Operational structure
4.2 Outsourcing
4.3 Operational risks
5.0 Financial plans
5.1 P&L and Balance Sheet
5.2 Capital requirements and funding plan
5.3 Valuation and justification
6.0 References
4
Business Plan Detailed Marking Criteria
The criteria below will be used to evaluate each element of your plan. This will be used in
conjunction with the ‘Overall Criteria’ (p. 6) to determine the grade awarded for each
element of your plan.
1.0 Business Plan Pitch [15%]
1.1 Written pitch
5% - extent to which your pitch ‘sells’ the project by presenting a compelling story of the
enefits to all stakeholders
1.2 Visual pitch
5% - quality of images that accompany the text (note that these must be attributed, and either
e your images or you must have the appropriate permission to use them in your campaign,
i.e. they are open-source)
1.3 Backer rewards
5% - originality, desirability and feasibility of a minimum of four (4) tiers of rewards offered
to backers.
2.0 Business Opportunity [25%]
2.1 Customer need and target market
5% - Business opportunity is clearly articulated with reference to plausible customer need
and target market characteristics
2.2 Social impact
5% - Social benefit – the plan explains the social benefits of the enterprise to one or more
stakeholder groups
2.3 Relevant megatrends
5% - Business opportunity is well justified with reference to ‘megatrends’ and external data
(e.g. ABS reports; industry reports)
2.4 Similar successful campaign
5% - Reference to a similar enterprise to yours which has been funded at least partly via
crowdsourcing, which includes
ief details as to the operations and capital raised.
2.5 Opportunity testing plan
5% - Business opportunity includes one plausible and low-cost way that market demand
assumptions can be tested.
5
3.0 Sales and Marketing strategy [15%]
3.1 Fundamentals
5% - Sales and marketing strategy clearly articulates an appropriate key product success
factor, price, place and promotion strategy and sales force.
3.2 Social media and free publicity
5% - Sales and marketing strategy well explains plausible strategies for social media
marketing and one idea for obtaining free publicity.
3.3 Measurement and information
5% - Sales and marketing strategy includes appropriate measures of success and a plausible
process for obtaining ongoing market information.
4.0 Operational strategy [15%]
4.1 Operational structure
5% - Operational strategy provides an appropriate organisational structure, key positions
and supplier needs.
4.2 Outsourcing and motivation
5% - Operational strategy provides plausible details as to how positions will be filled with
eference to suitability (or otherwise) of outsourcing sites, as well as information as to how
employees / contractors will be motivated to provide the best performance.
4.3 Operational risks
5% - A risk matrix is provided which shows the top five (5) operational risks in terms of
likelihood / impact. The operational strategy clearly defines each risk and
iefly explains
how it will be managed.
5.0 Financial plans [15%]
5.1 P&L and Balance Sheet
5% - Financial plans provide a three year P&L summary (1/2 page) and Balance sheet
summary (1/2 page) that are JUSTIFIED and consistent with the previous sections of the
usiness plan.
5.2 Capital requirements and funding plan
5% - Financial plans identify plausible initial capital requirements and capital funding plan.
5.3 Valuation and justification
5% - Financial plans include a plausible business valuation at the end of year 3 using either
the asset value, capitalised future earnings, earnings multiple or comparable sales approach.
Both the choice of valuation method and the assumptions used to calculate the valuation are
justified.
6
6.0 References [5%]
5% - References cited in APA format (this mark is for co
ect formatting only: marks for
depth of research and extent of referencing are embedded in the marks for the other sections
as per above.
Additional marking elements [10%]
5% - Readability – clarity of text and expression, extent