2013-14 BTEC Business Level 3 Unit 1 Assignment brief

BTEC Level 3 Certificate: Business

Assignment Brief Unit 1: The Business Environment (10 credits)

Unit issue date: Thursday 20th September 2013 Unit deadline: Friday 25th October 2013

Assessor: Mrs S Nti

Learning outcomes:

1. Know the range of different businesses and their ownership
2. Understand how businesses are organised to achieve their purposes
3. Know the impact of the economic environment on businesses
4. Know how political, legal and social factors impact on business.

Context
This assignment you will be required to research organisations that operate in different business environments. In the first part of the assignment you will have to research the purposes and ownership of a range of local organisations. The second part of the assignment will look at organisations based in another country. The research carried out in this unit can be used as a basis for more detailed study in later units.

Scenario
You work as a journalist at Northampton’s Chronicle & Echo newspaper which is planning to run a feature article on local businesses. You will need to visit two local businesses in order to carry out your research.

Grade

P1
Assignment 1.1:

You have been asked to prepare a Presentation for the Editor that may later be used as the basis for preparing an article aimed at the readership of your local newspaper.

The first slides to your presentation should include: a brief introduction to the two local businesses one business should be profit-making, e.g. Marks & Spencer; one business should be not-for-profit, e.g. Malcolm Arnold Academy your two businesses should vary in size a description of the types of your businesses a description of the purpose of your businesses, including the aims and objectives of your organisations a description of the ownership of your businesses. This should include an accurate, but not necessarily detailed, statement as to the extent of owners’ liability for debts.

DESCRIBE the type of business, purpose and ownership of two contrasting businesses
Deadline
Friday 27th September 2013

Grade

P2

M1

D1

Assignment 1.2:

You should continue to develop the presentation you started in Assignment 1.1 with: a description of the different stakeholders who influence the purpose of your two different organisations an explanation of the viewpoints of different stakeholders and how these seek to influence the aims and objectives of your business organisations an evaluation of the influence of different stakeholders on one of your two organisations a priority ranking of the stakeholders of your organisation, e.g. 1 = most important, 5 is least important a statement about the importance of each stakeholder and why you believe this to be the case. Your opinions should be supported by evidence from different sources. For each piece of evidence state how reliable you think it is and why.

DESCRIBE the different stakeholders who influence the purpose of two contrasting businesses

EXPLAIN the points of view of different stakeholders seeking to influence the aims and objectives of two contrasting organisations

EVALUATE the influence different stakeholders exert in one organisation

Deadline
Friday 4th October 2013

Grade

P3

P4
Assignment 1.3:

You should continue to develop the presentation you started in Tasks 1.1 and 1.2 with:

a diagrammatic representation of the structure of your two different organisations. This should include the functional areas and span of control of your businesses an explanation of how the style of organisation helps your two businesses fulfil their purposes. Include the following information about your two organisations: mission and values strategic aims and objectives strategic planning process use of SMART objectives.
Access to information will be a key issue here. Information from MAA for example should be accessible and an interview or presentation might be arranged from a governor or member of senior management. Larger organisations, such as Marks & Spencer, should have information available on the Internet and may provide a guest speaker for the academy.

DESCRIBE how two businesses are organised.

EXPLAIN how their style of organisation helps them to fulfil their purposes.
Deadline
Friday 11th October 2013

Grade

P5

M2

Assignment 1.4:

The Chronicle & Echo plans to give a report as a follow up to your presentation, which was well received. In this report you will need to choose one of the two organisations from your initial article and compare it with an organisation from another country. This requires you to research a different economic environment, e.g. China or India, and to look at one business from that country. This business will then be compared with your UK business.
Draw up a table of economic data for the UK and one other, contrasting, economic environment.
Choose at least three economic topics and collect relevant data from two different countries, e.g. GDP, inflation or interest rates.
Using the data collected in your table describe the influence of two contrasting economic environments (i.e. the economic data collected) on business activities within your selected organisations.
Compare the challenges to their business activities that your two organisations face due to their economic environment, e.g. how does the inflation rate impact on supply costs or demand for your two businesses?
Write at least one paragraph for each piece of economic data for each business.

DESCRIBE the influence of two contrasting economic environments on business activities within a selected organisation

COMPARE the challenges to selected business activities within a selected organisation, in two different economic environments
Deadline
Friday 18th October 2013

Grade

P6

M3

D2

Assignment 1.5:

You should continue to develop the report you started in Task 1.4 with the following.
A description of the political, legal and social factors that impact on the business activities of your two selected organisations and their stakeholders.
Select three influences from each factor and describe their impact on both organisations.
Each influence should be researched from the point of view of both countries.
Business activities are any activities carried out by the organisation to achieve its purposes, e.g. recruitment, transport costs, designing a product, promotion etc.

Select at least three business activities from those you identified. Analyse how each of these has changed because of political, legal and social aspects of the business environment.

For each slide develop one point by stating why the activity has changed, for example, ‘Minimum wage laws have increased the cost of hiring staff at Marks & Spencer’. How and why has this affected the organisation?

Choose one of the two organisations looked at in this part of the assignment. List the aims and objectives of your organisation.

Evaluate how future changes in economic, political, legal and social factors may affect the strategy of your organisation. For each factor you will need to research future changes, for example:

economic – forecast inflation political – changes in government legal – new laws social – population growth.

For each aim and objective you have identified recommend a strategy for how your organisation might achieve it. Justify your reasons for recommendation.

DESCRIBE how political, legal and social factors are impacting upon the business activities of the selected organisations and their stakeholders.

ANALYSE how political, legal and social factors have impacted on the two contrasting organisations.

EVALUATE how future changes in economic political, legal and social factors, may impact on the strategy of a specified organisation.

Deadline
Friday 25th October 2013