SASSY STITCHES ANALYSIS
Project Objective:
The report is to be a situation analysis for our client,
Sassy Stitches.
This report should maintain focus on the
marketing environment and should be suitable as the
first part of a larger strategic or business plan.
The attached outline should also provide some guidance,
but strict adherence to this outline is not required if
the presentation is appropriate for our client.
This is not a creative writing assignment; it is a technical
writing assignment.
Personal philosophy and "shooting from the hip"
are not appropriate for this business analysis and report.
Length is expected to be no more than 20
double spaced pages of text (exclusive of appendices),
and will probably be somewhere around 10 or 15 pages.
Some Important Rules:
Any discussions with or about or client are confidential;
do not discuss any details of this project with anyone who is not in our class.
Do not make direct contact with our client or with anyone who has spoken to our
class; all questions and all responses must be funneled through the professor.
For a variety of reasons, you are prohibited from conducting primary research
excepting some kinds of observational research that would not reveal the nature
of our project.
You might, for example, stand on a street corner to count customer traffic of a
competitor, but you may not call competitors for an interview and you may not
conduct a formal survey of anyone.
This latter issue has caused serious enough problems in the past that I will
immediately drop you from the course if I have reason to suspect that you have
interviewed or surveyed competitors, business leaders, or prospective buyers.
(Engaging in these activities could, for example, reveal our client's intentions to
competitors, could jeopardize our relationships with other business school clients,
could jeopardize relationships with college donors,
and if running surveys, would jeopardize federal funding that our institution receives.)
You are, however, expected to do outside secondary research
for this project.
This could include, for example, finding demographic
information that is related to estimating the size and
location of potential target markets for this product or organization,
finding information regarding industry trends, and such.
Keep copies of all information that you find because you
will be required to cite all sources of information and to
submit copies of all cited information with your final
report.
General Report Structure:
All reports must have some sort of introduction that
explains the nature, focus, and objective of the client and of the
report to the reader.
The body of all reports must in some way
address opportunities and threats in the
environment and address the strengths and
weaknesses of our client.
All reports
must also end with some sort of recommendation.
That is, the report should lead to some speculation
regarding the outlook for our client's project,
the direction that should be set,
and possibly some suggestions regarding how strategy for this project
can be implemented (some issues of tactics).
Although some sort of recommendation is required,
most of the text of the report will be associated
with a scan and assessment of the current
environment that logically leads to a recommendation.
Note that a report that ends with a
negative outlook can be as valuable as a report that
ends with a positive outlook, although you are charged with finding a
solution if one exists.
The Assignment:
- Students will work in teams of five members.
An individual team member evaluation form
will be distributed in another class.
- This is a real world assignment.
The report will be
scored in large part on the professor's perception of the
usefulness and acceptability of the report to the real
client within the framework that this is to be a situation
analysis.
A common problem is that students tend to include
irrelevant and inappropriate material in a report to show
evidence that some particular concept has been learned in
the course.
Note that a minimal requirement is that
reports be relatively free of problems of grammar, spelling,
typing, and such.
Do not fabricate material for the sake of
creating a report. Again, remember that this is not a
creative writing assignment but is a technical writing
assignment.
- The exact format of the finished report is of the team's
own choosing.
Although a suggested format for a situation
analysis is attached for guidance, it is not necessary that
this be followed exactly.
HOWEVER, the attached outline does
cover the major issues that are generally important in such an
analysis; whatever format that you choose must be
appropriate for this assignment.
Other published formats
commonly called "situation analysis,"
"market analysis,"
"environmental analysis," "business plan,"
and such might or might not be appropriate and acceptable.
No two finished
reports would be the same, and it is unlikely that a report
could ever be constructed to exactly fit an imposed outline.
- ALL facts in the report must be substantiated except
those that are obviously common knowledge.
This necessarily
requires that the source of information be cited (footnoted).
Watch for statements that lend themselves to red-ink comments
such as, "says who" or "I disagree."
For example, if a statement
is made that the local economy is likely to get better or
worse over the next five years, then the report MUST
indicate the source of this expectation.
Additionally,
related questions associated with substantiating this
statement might have to be answered, e.g., Who expects
this? How did this person or organization or publication
arrive at this expectation? How many others agree with
this expectation? How many others disagree? If the
speculation is your own, be sure that it is substantiated
with charts, graphs, tables, or figures that indicate the
source of the information contained therein.
- Information sources must be as close to the original source as possible.
For example, reporting population statistics that you found on a
Chamber of Commerce or real estate agency Web site is not appropriate
in a professional report and these third-party compilations are very
often in error.
Such statistics are easily obtained directly
from Census Bureau and you have absolutely no excuses for not
citing directly to an exact page at this original source.
- You are required to cite all sources of information.
A less obtrusive method of citing in a business report is to
list the references at the end of the report in a numbered
list: List all sources at the end of the report in
alphabetical order. Number them in this order, starting the
list with number 1.
Whenever a statement is made that must
reference that source, indicate the source by a number in
parentheses after the statement, like this (12).
Note that
the first time in a report that a source is referenced, the
number is not necessarily (1), the second is not necessarily
(2), etc.
Also note that the same source may appear multiple
times in the same report, like this (23).
If several sources
support the same statement, they should all be included like
this (4, 7, 12, 15); a greater number of sources often
strengthens an assertion.
If several statements are made
in the same paragraph that use the same source, list that
source only once after all such statements within a single
paragraph.
That is, do not source this (8) and this again
(8) for two separate issues that are included in the same
statement.
- If you cite information that was obtained from a Web site,
your reference list must provide a complete
URL to the exact page that you cite.
Since Web pages sometimes disappear, you must also
indicate the date on which you accessed the page.
(Assume that I WILL look up those references to verify
information and that I will seek out cached and archived
pages if I cannot find them. The more work you make for
me, the lower your grade.)
For more information on citing Web sources, see a recent
style manual such as APA - this information can be found
online if your notes and books from a writing course are
getting too old.
- You must submit a folder with your report which contains a copy of any
documents that you reference.
For example, if you reference demographic statistics which were obtained from
the US Census web site, then you must include a printed copy (clearly identified)
of the web page which contained that information.
- As a point of reference, a typical environmental report
for a large established industry is 25-30 double-spaced
pages in length.
However, the practical usefulness of
an environmental report is not necessarily a function
of its weight.
Different people have different writing
styles; different perspectives on the organization might
require more or less detail in analysis.
Different time
constraints and working environments also would necessarily
yield more or less detail.
There are times when no stone
should be left unturned; this is not one of those times.
Neatness (defined as good grammar, punctuation, spelling,
etc.), however, is always important in business writing.
A minimal requirement of the report is that it be free of
blemishes in grammar, spelling, and such.
You are
asked to submit a report that is no more than 20
pages in length, but you are not asked to necessarily
reach that limit.
- Please do not use any sort of report folders; use plain white paper
with a single staple in the top left corner.
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