Balancing Entrepreneurship- Workshop 3 (Feasibility Analysis)
The Appleton Greene Corporate Training Program (CTP) for Balancing Entrepreneurship is provided by Mr. Meuchel BS Certified Learning Provider (CLP). Program Specifications: Monthly cost USD$2,500.00; Monthly Workshops 6 hours; Monthly Support 4 hours; Program Duration 12 months; Program orders subject to ongoing availability.
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Learning Provider Profile
Mr. Meuchel is a Certified Learning Provider (CLP) at Appleton Greene and he has experience in management and entrepreneurship specializing in the construction industry. He has achieved a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Construction Management. He has industry experience within the following sectors: Business Ownership; Design/Build; Construction Management and General Contracting. His experience within the construction industry incorporates all facets of construction including: Design Phase; Bid Phase and Construction Phase. He has had commercial experience within the following countries: United States of America, or more specifically within the following cities: Baltimore MD; Washington DC; Raleigh NC; Jacksonville FL and Atlanta GA. His personal achievements include: established time management processes; published book for entrepreneurs; entrepreneur mastermind program and construction expert witness. His service skills incorporate: time management; process development & testing; marketing & sales; owner & 1 subcontractor relations; estimating & budgeting; planning & scheduling; cost & quality control; inspections & safety; municipal regulations and permitting.
MOST Analysis
Mission Statement
In the first program phase you established program goals and objectives. Then, during the second phase you performed an assessment focused on setting a baseline to identify the current state of your business and personal life. The purpose of the Feasibility Analysis Phase is to take the results of the first two phases and confirm you are ready to make it happen, to begin identifying any foreseen obstacles and roadblocks you will face, and to look for opportunities. After completing this phase, you will be in a position to begin better leveraging your time and establish priorities. Now that you have realistic goals in place and a sense of the current state of your business it is during this phase that you will start working closely with your mentor to start identifying ways you can make better time management a reality. A key component of creating a healthier work-life balance will be to better leverage your own time while making your actions more intentional and less random. During this phase you will begin market analysis with a focus on identifying any underserved niches in your target market that align with your expertise and vision. Identifying a niche you can leverage at this stage makes your path to success exponentially easier. The preliminary market research you conduct in this phase will also help you in subsequent stages when you begin to test your market. Also during this phase, you will take steps to evaluate the money, risk, earning potential, time frames, legal requirements, available resources, etc. Getting a real handle on these areas of your business now will help streamline the upcoming Priority Identification Phase and All-Star Identification Phase.
Objectives
01. Feasibility Importance: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. How it works: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Financial Feasibility: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Economic Feasibility: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Market Feasibility: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. Technical Feasibility: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. Organizational Feasibility: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. 1 Month
08. Legal Feasibility: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. Scheduling Feasibility: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Project Durability: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. Constraints: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
12. Key decisions: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
Strategies
01. Feasibility Importance: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
02. How it works: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
03. Financial Feasibility: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
04. Economic Feasibility: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
05. Market Feasibility: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
06. Technical Feasibility: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
07. Organizational Feasibility: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
08. Legal Feasibility: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
09. Scheduling Feasibility: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
10. Project Durability: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
11. Constraints: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
12. Key decisions: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
Tasks
01. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Feasibility Importance.
02. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze How it works.
03. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Financial Feasibility.
04. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Economic Feasibility.
05. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Market Feasibility.
06. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Technical Feasibility.
07. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Organizational Feasibility.
08. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Legal Feasibility.
09. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Scheduling Feasibility.
10. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Project Durability.
11. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Constraints.
12. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Key decisions.
Introduction
Introduction
The goal of a feasibility analysis is to determine the viability of a new enterprise and to identify both needed resources and important difficulties that exist now, so that they may be addressed early in the start-up process (Scarborough, 2012). In general, the feasibility analysis technique, content, and focus are well established (Berry, 2017). Product/service feasibility, industry/market feasibility, financial feasibility, and organizational feasibility are the four different but interrelated components of the new-venture start-up that are covered by feasibility study. Prior to producing the business plan, feasibility analysis sits in the center of recognizing opportunities and developing a business model. If the feasibility analysis is done thoroughly and honestly, the new venture’s chances of success increase. What is frequently overlooked, however, is a recognition of the new venture’s longer-term viability and sustainability concerns, indicating a lack of awareness of required resources both before and after launch (Coad et al., 2016).
While feasibility analyses are widely used and acknowledged as a way to improve the chances of a new venture’s success, the failure rate of new businesses remains high. In the United States, over one-third of all new businesses, both for-profit and non-profit, fail during the first two years of operation, with another considerable number failing within four years (Barringer and Gresock, 2008). Many variables can contribute to the failure of a new enterprise, including the lack of a feasibility analysis in the first place. However, flaws that should have been recognized during the feasibility research may be included among the other variables, particularly in terms of the firm’s long-term viability. The longevity of a new endeavor is predicated on having exceptional opportunity recognition in the first place, followed by a thorough and honest feasibility analysis, business model design, and finally, a business plan.
We emphasize the importance of maintaining a strategic lens, or an over-reaching perspective, throughout the typical four-part feasibility analysis in this work. We also propose that such an analysis focus on items generated by considering the context of the organization to be created, particularly those aspects relating to the organization’s core competencies (Barney, 1991), competitive advantage (Porter, 1996), fit with its environment (Fahey and Narayanan, 1986; Venkatraman, 1989), and the new venture’s overall growth and survival plan. This strategic lens provides a longer-term focused perspective/analysis, which is vital in addition to the conventional new venture’s immediate and urgent issues or needs as explored in the standard feasibility investigation.
By matching the feasibility analysis with strategic management theory, our proposed strategic lens improves its effectiveness. The strategic management literature asserts that organizational success depends on emphasizing differences between the organization and its competitors by relying on valuable, rare, costly to imitate, and non-substitutable resources and capabilities to create superior fit between the organization and its environment (Barney, 1991). (Venkatraman, 1989). The enhanced five-part feasibility analysis is tailored to include a longer-term view, which more effectively assesses the overall feasibility of the new venture after the doors are opened, rather than the traditional what-do-we-need-to-do-to-open-the-doors approach of the traditional four-part analysis.
The strategic lens gives the short-term focused feasibility analysis a long-term framework. The success of a business enterprise is determined not only by its capacity to take off and prosper at first, but also by its ability to maintain that success over time. If a business is to succeed in the long run, considerations such as the sustainability of a competitive advantage, substitutability, and imitability of the business product and procedures must be considered. Such attention ensures that the internal and external environments of the company are in sync.
The paper is divided into four parts. The first section provides an introduction of the standard four-part feasibility analysis, while the second section summarizes entrepreneurship and strategic management concepts. The benefits of the expanded feasibility analysis approach are presented in the third part. The fourth section discusses the model’s contributions and shortcomings, as well as making recommendations for further research.
Traditional Feasibility Analysis
Product/service feasibility, industry/market feasibility, organizational feasibility, and financial feasibility are the four aspects of a feasibility analysis for a new venture start-up (Barringer and Gresock, 2008). The overall appeal of the proposed product or service is evaluated in the product/service feasibility analysis (Klink and Athaide, 2006). The industry/market feasibility analysis assesses the overall attractiveness of the industry as well as the availability of niche markets that the new business may successfully access and serve (Allen, 2016). Managerial prowess, talent, expertise with entrepreneurial and business initiatives, and total resource sufficiency are all factors in determining organizational feasibility (Berry, 2017). Financial feasibility analysis focuses on determining how finance will be given not only for the beginning phase but also for ongoing business operations until break-even is achieved. The four-part feasibility study’ goal is to thoroughly and honestly evaluate a business idea’s potential merits, finding difficulties before they become important, and resolving these issues as early as possible in the start-up process (Scarborough, 2012). It also enables and provides as a basis for completing a variety of other tasks in the start-up process, such as budgeting, capital search, key hires and key hire scheduling, and locating essential professional support.
The feasibility analysis is the next step after recognizing the opportunity (Linder et al., 2019). The first phase in the entrepreneurial process is opportunity recognition (Baron, 2006), and it is usually associated with three factors: active search, personal attentiveness, and prior entrepreneur expertise, including life experience (Ardichvili et al., 2003; Shane, 2000). Social capital, cognitive and personality qualities, and a general knowledge of environmental conditions have all lately been recognized as crucial elements (George et al., 2016). Opportunity recognition (Ardichvili et al., 2003) is described as the discovery of a new way of creating value in the market, which then mixes and extends into feasibility studies. Following the feasibility investigation, the business model depicts the interconnected organizational activities that the firm engages in to produce value (Zott et al., 2011), demonstrating both a positive value proposition and a plan to support it (Zott et al., 2011). (McDonald and Eisenhardt, 2020). The feasibility analysis and the business model both contribute to a company’s long-term survival and growth, which is a fundamental concept (Massa et al., 2017).
Conducting a feasibility analysis, like other planning tasks, improves the odds of a new venture’s success (Delmar and Shane, 2003). Planning include determining what the company hopes to achieve, as well as establishing schedules for how and when activities to achieve these objectives will be implemented. Business founders benefit from planning because it improves their ability to make decisions more effectively than trial-and-error experimentation, by assisting them in locating and managing scarce resources, minimizing time-consuming bottlenecks, and more efficiently translating abstract goals into concrete operational activities (Delmar and Shane, 2003). A feasibility analysis can assist detect and avoid many of the usual problems that new venture entrepreneurs face, as well as solve many of the more general challenges that come with starting a business. The classic feasibility study focuses on the immediate demands of starting a firm, attempting to address the questions “what do we need” and “how can we do this” that were raised during the opportunity recognition process.
The planning that emerges from the feasibility analysis extends well beyond the more cursory examinations carried out in the early stages of the startup process, such as the initial recognition or screening of a new business idea. The feasibility study research methodologies examine the viability of the new enterprise with a higher level of specificity (Delmar and Shane, 2003). Importantly, the feasibility analysis also considers implementation, with a focus on organizational and managerial capability to realistically fulfill the tasks (Berry, 2017). Because this data-driven research gives objective answers to crucial problems, the depth and quality of study throughout the feasibility analysis is critical. In this analysis, a high level of objectivity and realistic assumptions are required to reduce the risk of finding favorable results due to overly optimistic convictions, such as whether there is a market for the product or service in the first place, or whether the entrepreneurial team has the ability to successfully open and manage the business given the resources available. Moving on with the startup process requires positive findings in all four areas of the feasibility analysis (Berry, 2017), and displaying positive outcomes in only two or three of the four categories indicates long-term failure, inviting disappointment, frustration, and wasted resources.
Product/Service Feasibility
Product/service feasibility analysis (Klink and Athaide, 2006) evaluates the overall appeal of the product or service being proposed in the marketplace, based on a basic understanding of the financial, marketing, and organizational resources required to bring the product/service to market. The product/service feasibility stage pushes the new business idea beyond the wishful thinking, everyone-will-love-this stage, by employing research-driven data to indicate whether a market not only exists for the product/service, but is also accessible given the new company’s resources. Trend lines or prospective long-term changes to the product or service are frequently neglected. Even if the data for the product/service feasibility analysis is 100% right today, possible problems may be overlooked or neglected without some degree of future emphasis.
Industry/Market Feasibility
An industry/market feasibility analysis assesses the overall attractiveness of the industry, its scale, and the availability of niche markets that the new business may successfully access and serve (Allen, 2016). Given the potential scale advantages or entrenched market control of known competitors, industry/market feasibility analysis looks at existing competitors and substitute products or services, and forces attention on questions of competitive advantage, geographic and demographic market forces, and cost/profit considerations. The information presented thus far is mostly current and historical; nonetheless, rivals are not static and may react fiercely to new entrants into the business. Established players often have built-in cost advantages, giving them a lot of leeway in the market to decrease prices to battle incoming competition. Markets may be expanding, contracting, or saturated with products that are very similar to what the new business proposes to offer, and the new venture must be aware of these market pressures. Because market dynamics are rarely stable, what is true now may not be true tomorrow, as the entry of a new business is a market disruption in and of itself. A degree of future focus is essential, just as it was with the product/service feasibility investigation.
Financial Feasibility
Financial feasibility research focuses on the resources required for startup expenditures, evaluating costs and possible revenues, and establishing the necessary financial reserves to cover losses until break-even, which could take several years. This examination looks at how finance will be provided not only for the startup phase, but also for ongoing business operations, with the goal of assisting entrepreneurs in avoiding the typical problem of running out of cash before they can bring in customers or generate enough sales revenue. Financial feasibility research helps entrepreneurs understand how much money they’ll need, when they’ll need it, and what kind of money they’ll need. These are all elements that are usually misunderstood or underestimated by business owners (Katila and Shane, 2005). Because gross income, total and ongoing expenses, and net revenue streams are difficult to estimate properly, the early stages of financial analysis are generally plagued with more problems than answers. The break-even point is frequently a mystery. The financial feasibility section of a typical feasibility analysis is the most forward-looking of the four parts.
Because proformas are founded on both previous and future assumptions, the new venture is automatically at a disadvantage due to the lack of historical data. Future assumptions are only as good as the entrepreneur’s knowledge while making them, and given the uncertainty of the firm-specific economy, these assumptions may be off the mark if made without a future-oriented eye.
Organizational Feasibility
Organizational feasibility analysis aids in the identification of managerial skills required for the start-up and subsequent management of a new enterprise. Even if the market, industry, and financial feasibility analyses are all good, the business will most likely fail if the entrepreneurial start-up team has the competence or expertise to implement the plan and make the many elements function together. The two fundamental concerns of organizational feasibility study are management expertise/prowess and resource sufficiency. Attention to both areas is vital, because management success without resource success, and vice versa, will almost certainly lead to failure. This is a challenging subject to study because many entrepreneurs prefer to exaggerate their own talents in terms of talent and skill while underestimating their competitors’ capacity to adapt and compete (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000).
The entrepreneur’s ability to grasp the markets the new firm aims to service, entrepreneurial and managerial expertise, and the depth of professional and social networks are all common features when evaluating management prowess (Barringer, 2009). According to some research, essential human attributes of the entrepreneurial team, such as love for the new enterprise, motivation and tenacity, integrity and reliability, should also be considered when evaluating management prowess (Kurato and Hornsby, 2009). Tolerance for ambiguity, as well as the ability to deal with uncertainty and risk, is also valued (Teoh and Foo, 1997).
Entrepreneurs frequently have substantial difficulties in determining their resource requirements and determining how to meet them, as well as attracting and locating resources to assist their fledgling firm (Yusuf, 2010). The ability of a company to locate nonfinancial resources, such as important personnel and others such as consultants, lawyers, and accountants, is also considered during the organizational feasibility analysis (Barringer, 2009). Entrepreneurial time availability and energy, as well as intellectual property and knowledge unique to the new firm, are all considered here. An understanding of the human resources and talent required for business expansion as the new venture scales up is sometimes overlooked in the organizational feasibility analysis. A future view is desperately needed in this situation.
The similarities between opportunity recognition, feasibility study, and business model are generally the result of necessary research aimed at reducing ambiguity and uncovering beneficial insights. Research also necessitates a thorough examination of assumptions, all of which leads to increased confidence in decision-making and a reduction in risk (Raffaelli et al., 2019).
The Needed Strategic Management And Entrepreneurship Link
This section gives an overview of the frameworks for entrepreneurship and strategic management. Following a brief overview of the nature of organizations, a review of the general entrepreneurship process is provided. The key ideas of strategic management are then discussed, providing context for the feasibility analysis process, as well as identifying points of congruence and inconsistency between the feasibility analysis process and its environmental and competitive context. As a result of this link, early creation of tactics to take advantage of points of congruence and minimize points of incongruence is possible.
The nature of organizations
Organizations are defined as goal-driven socioeconomic organizations populated by congeries with diverse interests that interact with the environment in a variety of ways (Scott, 2003). Closed-ended goals serve as benchmarks in the pursuit of open-ended goals, giving the criteria against which organizational performance and health are measured, whereas open-ended goals provide direction, purpose, and mission to the company (Hofer and Schendel, 1978). The strategic objectives of the organizations are instances of closed-ended aims (Drucker et al., 2006; Kaplan and Norton, 1992).
Organizations are open systems (Bertalanffy, 1968), and their existence and growth are ultimately dependent on their surroundings. The company has problems as it interacts with its external environment, ranging from favorable opportunities and collaboration to negative threats and resistance. The activities of the organization are primarily orchestrated to meet the problems posed by the environment (Fahey and Narayanan, 1986). The organization obtains required resources from the outside world (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978) and then exports its product or service to the same environment or the entire world. Inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, and service are among the major value chain activities used by the business to generate and deliver its products or services to the external environment (Porter, 1985). Procurement, technology development, human resource management, and firm infrastructure activities are all examples of value chain support activities. For most new ventures, systemic evaluation of these value chains is difficult, and the feasibility analysis barely touches on these value chain activities because the alternatives’ possibilities are relatively unknown, and this uncertainty is compounded because the new venture does not yet know enough about its suppliers or customers.
Entrepreneurship And Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship is widely characterized as the process of forming new businesses in a context-dependent, resource-constrained, innovative, social, and economic environment (Aldrich, 2005). The ability of these new companies to connect available resources with available possibilities, as defined by the entrepreneur, creates value (Garnsey, 1998). By its very nature, the entrepreneurial process is accompanied with a high amount of uncertainty, tempered assumptions, and the entrepreneur’s essential willingness to bear some risk.
Because entrepreneurship is the process of forming a new company that offers an innovative product or service, or at the very least a “new” product or service in a different geographic location, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for any specific enterprise. The discovery of a legitimate opportunity and a suitable arrangement of resources to capture it are critical to the success of an entrepreneurial endeavour. In practical terms, an opportunity does not exist if resources are insufficient to allow it to be taken (Hulhert et al., 1997). A new venture’s failure is frequently caused by misidentification or excessively optimistic interpretation of opportunities, as well as underestimating of required resources or competitors. The feasibility analysis tries to create a realistic analysis of both the opportunity and the needed and/or available resources, but with the limits that have already been mentioned, resulting in data-driven estimations. The feasibility analysis is a useful tool, but it is incomplete without a strategic focus on sustainability, survival, and future change/growth.
Strategic Management In The Context Of The New Venture Start Up
At all levels of the organization, strategy is a collection of activities that establish a pattern while continually changing and adapting to diverse conditions and environments. Strategic management acts as a method for aligning an organization with its environment (Miles and Snow, 1984), with alignment achieved through internal activity coordination and outward adaptation to environmental conditions. Strategic decisions and commitments are made by identifying the firm’s and the environment’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and dangers (Weihrich, 1982). These choices are “action-oriented” (Rumelt, 2010, p. 87) and address the issue “what are we going to do now?” (p. 4 in Spender, 2014). Strategic decisions differ from other types of decisions in that they are “critical in regard to the enterprise’s overarching business objective… [and] are complementary with one another” (Grant and Baden-Fuller, 2018, p. 324).
The strategy of the new enterprise is solely based on assumption-based analysis, but the strategy of the established firm is based on assumptions moderated by data-based operational practice and experience. The established firms’ future operations are predicated on prior performance, which is then modified with data-driven future expectations.
A successful strategy is founded on the organization’s core competencies, which are firm-specific and valuable, rare, expensive to copy, and non-substitutable (Barney, 1991), as well as the fit of these core competences with the competitive industry and broader societal environment. Environmental opportunities and dangers are discovered through meticulous study, and strategic implementation engages with them (Fahey and Narayanan, 1986). When opportunities are viewed through the prism of the organization’s core capabilities, a strategy emerges that highlights the organization’s uniqueness and differentiates it from its competitors (Porter, 1996). Competitors find it difficult to duplicate or match this specific use of core competencies since it creates a fit between the firm and its environment (Venkatraman, 1989). However, due to a lack of exact information about their own performance, as well as a lack of an experience-based reading of the competitive landscape, which is further compounded by the competitive response to the new venture’s introduction into that environment, the new venture is at a disadvantage.
Managers must have a strategic management competency in order to establish and execute a successful strategy. This capability necessitates managers to excel not just in the application of analytical techniques, but also in “judgment, insight, intuition, creativity, and social and communicative skills” (Grant and Baden-Fuller, 2018, p. 322).
In a strategic and market competitive sense, the typical four-part feasibility analysis ignores much of the context or originality of the organization to be built. Rather, it is created in isolation from the strategic management framework of resources and competencies, on which the organization’s success is predicated. According to the improved feasibility analysis described in this study, organization-specific and unique things should be recognized first as the foundation for the classic feasibility analysis’ four components. A perspective/focus that is related to the environment is required; otherwise, the longer-term strategic, sustainability, and survival advantage is overlooked or lost entirely. Because the venture’s success is based on its strategy’s effectiveness, these things would be identified with a focus on internal coordination and external adaptability, as well as how they relate to the strategy’s components: resources, scope, synergy, and competitive advantage (Hofer and Schendel, 1978). This not only clarifies the emphasis of the feasibility research, but it also warns of side-bar pathways that may divert attention away from the core.
Strategy focused organizational feasibility analysis
Context Dependency: Presence And Sufficiency
The standard four-part feasibility study already includes a lesser level of strategic awareness, as well as a degree of alignment between the feasibility analysis and the entrepreneurial process, which includes opportunity recognition, business model, and business plan. For example, during an assessment of an entrepreneur’s/entrepreneurial team’s managerial prowess, the assessment aims to guarantee that the team not only has the skill set required to operate the new enterprise, but also to find and obtain the resources required for its success. Entrepreneurs with a short track record, limited company development experience, and narrow expertise are less likely to be able to run the firm and quickly identify and fill resource shortfalls (Carayannopoulos, 2009). Still, the standard four-part feasibility analysis focuses on the near-term and on getting the new company off the ground. Planning for long-term profitability or the sequence of expansion, product/service development, and survival receives less attention, time, and energy.
Based on a very rigorous and detailed analysis of that environment, an organization’s strategy should focus on the distinctive features of the organization that allow it to achieve fit with its environment (Porter, 1996; Venkatraman, 1989). (Fahey and Narayanan, 1986). Because these criteria highlight originality, feasibility analysis success attributes must also look for distinctive aspects. This is a difficult task because the macro environment is continually changing, and thus organizational fit with the environment is also changing.
A feasibility analysis evaluates a potential organization’s chances of success. The feasibility of a prospective organization’s ability to achieve internal integration and external adaptation, as well as create a fit (Venkatraman, 1989) between the organization’s internal and external environments, is defined in strategic management terms. As a result, a feasibility analysis should be conducted based on a thorough understanding of the organization’s environment as well as the strategic fit and competitive advantage that the plan wants to achieve. This match is not just for the near future, but also for the long term (Figure 1).
When the feasibility analysis is combined with the strategic management framework, it will be more effective (see Figure 1). Prior to the previous four-step study, the new enhanced feasibility analysis focuses on the organization’s and its environment’s unique characteristics. This initial stage is more than generic; it must be investigated, developed, and built specifically for each individual company. Figure 2 depicts a four-phase methodology for conducting a sustainability and strategy feasibility examination. The organizational context’s specific attributes are defined in the first step. These features refer to the competitive marketplace, industry life-cycle stage, specific direct competitors, and ease of entry for new competitors in the unique organizational environment in which the organization intends to operate (Fahey and Narayanan, 1986). This approach looks beyond the here and now to the near future, highlighting that what “works” today may not function in the future.
Adding a strategic framework to the feasibility analysis improves the new venture’s capacity to discover “new discoveries and possibilities in the direction of corporate goals and targets [italics added].” Guven et al., 2020). Continuity must be maintained throughout the venture’s lifespan. The feasibility analysis, which is concerned with opening the doors to a new enterprise, cannot be carried out independently of the venture’s long-term strategy; it must be carried out in the framework of the long-term strategy.
Organization-specific success competencies are discovered in the second phase. This phase concentrates on the organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses. Core competencies are defined as “capabilities and resources that are valuable, scarce, expensive to imitate, and non-substitutable” (Barney, 1991), and comprise both material and human resources, as well as skill, experience, and ability. The essential four-part feasibility analysis is conducted in the third step, based on the outcomes of the first two phases. These skills should be tailored to the specific needs of each company and its environment, both now and in the future. In the fourth phase, the feasibility assessment items are re-examined and further developed, with the goal of discovering future possibilities and risks that may necessitate some strength items being reinforced and specific feasibility weakness items being mitigated. Organizational success is dependent on the ability of the organization to emphasize its uniqueness through a customised strategy, hence feasibility analysis items will differ from one organization to the next and must be defined for different companies and situations.
Discussion
The approach given in this study shows how a strategic focus can be added to the typical four-part feasibility analysis as an augmented phase. According to the study, a strategic feasibility analysis based on the environmental circumstances of the to-be-created firm, with an emphasis on longer-term and sustainability features, as well as core competency internal qualities, would improve the new venture’s chances of success. The new five-part feasibility analysis will be more contextually relevant the more probable the organization will succeed.
When the study is driven by the context of the organization to be built in the long run and the principles of the strategic management framework, a more effective feasibility analysis is obtained (Barney, 1991; Porter, 1996; Venkatraman, 1989). The feasibility analysis is created for each specific firm and should be directed by the predicted strategic fit and competitive advantage it intends to attain in the coming years, rather than just the hurdles of getting the new endeavor off the ground. Once the new endeavor is started and known competing forces have responded to the new venture’s entry, the feasibility analysis should focus on the new venture’s competitive advantage in the long run.
Because certain aspects are generic, but many others are not, feasibility analysis factors should be generated as well as generically prescribed. The calculation is based on the broader and longer-term organizational environment, the organization’s core competences, the strategic fit that the organization requires and expects to achieve, and the required entrepreneur/entrepreneurial team competencies.
Beginning with opportunity recognition, the improved feasibility analysis conducts research to gather data and information. This study feeds the business model and company plan, which are both important components of the entrepreneurial process. The feasibility analysis is not a stand-alone work, but rather an important part of the entrepreneurial process that leads to organizational success, sustainability, growth potential, and durability.
This work adds to the body of knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship by increasing the feasibility analysis component of the process, which leads to stronger business models and business plans, and hence stronger companies with a better chance of surviving and thriving. The relationship between opportunity recognition, feasibility analysis, the business model, and the business plan, which are generally taught as independent entities with their own specific areas of specialty, is a critical learning for business students. It is necessary to place entrepreneurial scholarship more firmly into the research and learning streams common to business school students by focusing on long-term sustainability and survival through the addition of a longer-term strategic viewpoint.
Executive Summary
Course Manual 1: Feasibility Importance
The Value of a Feasibility Study to a Business Owner
The dynamic nature of today’s business world has increased the risks and uncertainties that firms must deal with. Customers’ increasing awareness has resulted in a huge increase in competition, as more and more businesses try to meet their requirements. It has become critical for businesses to outperform their competitors when it comes to providing value to their customers. Surviving in the marketplace has gotten challenging, but getting into it is a completely different story. The failure of entrants is due to a lack of sufficient planning and thinking. As a result, conducting some form of analysis before entering the market becomes necessary to secure profitability. The feasibility study is a good example of this type of examination.
Why Should You, As A Company, Not Overlook The Value Of A Feasibility Study?
A feasibility study is a research method used to evaluate a prospective business’s potential, viability, and practicability. Feasibility studies have a few key characteristics:
• It is a good tool for predicting the possibility of a new company venture’s success or failure, and it may also be used to include new items or ideas into the business mix.
• A feasibility study entails all of the steps necessary to determine whether a business idea has a good chance of succeeding.
• It is a step-by-step procedure that aids in weighing the benefits and drawbacks of each phase before moving forward with the process;
• It delivers outcomes for crucial decisions such as moving forward with the idea, improving it, or abandoning it completely.
The feasibility study is the foundation of the business plan. A feasibility study also identifies alternatives and solutions that would otherwise go unnoticed. As a result, conducting this study before to committing business resources, time, and money to a business idea that may not work out as intended is crucial, as this just leads to additional investment to fix previous mistakes. The gathering of this information aids in making educated decisions about which path is the most profitable. This document examines all of the many aspects of the business’s incorporation and execution.
Course Manual 2: How It Works
How a Feasibility Study can ensure your business will be on track
• A well-executed feasibility study aids the company in gaining a broad image as well as a detailed examination of its potential business viability.
• It can learn more about a project before committing money, time, or other resources to it. • The feasibility study ensures that all decisions are taken before entering the business and discovering the flaws afterwards. Various business conduct choices are developed, and the most optimal one is chosen.
• This research gives essential information and a thorough examination of the complete business picture.
• It improves the success rate by evaluating a variety of parameters; it is also a good source of information for future business investors. They will be able to get a thorough picture of the venture’s many aspects.
• Feasibility studies are used in a variety of businesses, including the hotel, hospitality, restaurant, real estate, medical, office, and industrial sectors. To ensure that the business gets off to a good start, detailed instructions are supplied. This research aids in the smooth operation of the company and prepares the way for efficient operations.
• It allows the company to concentrate on both immediate and long-term objectives. The importance of this document cannot be overstated, since it determines whether the company succeeds or fails.
Prepare A Risk Assessment Strategy
Stumbling hurdles are unavoidable in the early stages of a business. On the contrary, if you are aware of the blocks ahead of time, your chances of falling are greatly reduced.
A risk assessment strategy will assist you in identifying all of the important risk variables that may develop during the course of your company’s operations.
You’ll then devise a strategy to mitigate those threats, ensuring that your company is spared any substantial damage.
Course Manual 3: Financial Feasibility
A feasibility study is used to determine the financial attractiveness of a company proposal. Any action cannot be carried out without financial resources. This includes estimating all costs that will be important from the start of the project to the operational costs in the later phases of its existence. The initial money is one of the most crucial charges. The goal of the research is to figure out how much money you’ll need to establish a business. After these have been determined, the potential sources of capital generation are presented. The return on investment is another crucial metric (ROI). The degree to which a particular activity generates monetary gains is developed. The future prospective cash flows are calculated. It also brings up the payback period, which is the amount of time it takes for an investment to break even.
Track Your financial Feasibility
Finance is the backbone of any company. As a result, it is a critical component of a feasibility study. Consider your start-up costs, cash flow, and ongoing expenses when evaluating the economic viability of your business plan.
Payroll proved to be the most expensive start-up cost, costing approximately $ 300,500 for five employees across the United States, according to a smart asset survey.
Financial feasibility research will assist you in determining the commercial success of your company by allowing you to analyze areas such as sales volume, price structure, return on investment, and profitability.
Course Manual 4: Economic Feasibility
Under any economic environment, starting a new firm, developing a new product line, or expanding into a new market is risky. An economic feasibility analysis, also known as an economic feasibility study or economic viability analysis, is a crucial stage in determining the costs, benefits, risks, and rewards of a new business initiative. Feasibility studies assist companies in planning operations, identifying opportunities and risks, and attracting investors. A feasibility analysis does not have to be complex or costly, but it must be comprehensive, taking into account all potential challenges and concerns.
A feasibility study determines the financial benefits that the company will receive. It aids in determining the extent to which the idea’s economic benefits outweigh the idea’s economic costs. An accurate comparison of all of the expenditures to be incurred and the benefits to be received is carried out. This not only assesses the project’s viability, but also steers the company toward avoiding an insufficient resource allocation. The idea’s believability is evaluated, and management obtains a detailed summary of all the costs it will incur from project inception to completion. When these costs are balanced against the potential benefits, the project’s overall economic viability is determined.
It’s time to determine business feasibility when the technical feasibility and market investigations are completed. The initial goal of this project is to develop a financial model for the business potential and conduct a break-even analysis. In other words, how much income earned from units sold is required to break-even, and over what period of time, depending on expenses of products sold, capital costs, and management and administration?
Following the development of a break-even analysis, the entrepreneurs can create accurate financial estimates for best and worst case situations. Strategic planning, milestone development, and venture valuation research will all benefit from these scenarios. The simple goal is to figure out how much revenue is needed to meet the founder’s and/or investors’ expectations for a return on investment.
The economic feasibility stage of business development is the time when a break-even financial model of the business endeavor is produced based on all costs connected with bringing a product from concept to market and producing sales sufficient to meet loan or investment requirements.
The goal of the economic feasibility study is to create a financial model for the business enterprise. This step’s output is a thorough integration of technical product information and market research into one or more break-even financial models.
Entrepreneurial Activities.
This step includes all of the business activities required to establish a conceptual plan for a new endeavor based on one or more financial scenarios.
The following tasks must be done at the economic feasibility stage:
• Create a financial study to determine break-even scenarios based on unit prices, sales volume, and costs.
• Determine whether the profit margins on the business potential are sufficient to justify a venture.
• Examine the benefits of licensing the opportunity versus going it alone.
Milestones: A financial model that accurately represents the business possibility is a milestone.
Funding Sources:Personal funds, as well as friends and family, are sources of funding.
Business Information: The completion of the economic feasibility step usually results in a yes/no decision on the business endeavor, and if the decision is affirmative, identification of seed capital sources and uses for the development phase.
Course Manual 5: Market Feasibility
The market feasibility is an important aspect of the feasibility research. This section contains all of the relevant industry information. Important information is acquired, such as the industry’s size, retail value, and trends. The specific market is also examined, as well as the market’s future potential. To ensure the business’s success, a thorough assessment is essential. The competitive environment has also been prepared. As a result, the company chooses the best strategy for positioning itself against the competition.
The product/service description is also determined. All of the possibilities are reviewed and analyzed in order to select the most profitable option. A profile of possible customers is created, as well as an assessment of the market’s size in terms of potential buyers. Sales estimates can be estimated with the help of previous data. The target audience’s various places are investigated, and the most beneficial audience and location may be chosen. The suggested target audience’s level of acceptability of the delivery can be determined. It guarantees that the correct product is created for the correct customers. Pricing decisions and tactics are made. It guides decision-makers toward finding the most advantageous possibilities.
An industry/market feasibility analysis assesses the overall attractiveness of the industry, its scale, and the availability of niche markets that the new business may successfully access and serve (Allen, 2016). Given the potential scale advantages or entrenched market control of known competitors, industry/market feasibility analysis looks at existing competitors and substitute products or services, and forces attention on questions of competitive advantage, geographic and demographic market forces, and cost/profit considerations.
The information presented thus far is mostly current and historical; nonetheless, rivals are not static and may react fiercely to new entrants into the business. Established players often have built-in cost advantages, giving them a lot of leeway in the market to decrease prices to battle incoming competition. Markets may be expanding, contracting, or saturated with products that are very similar to what the new business proposes to offer, and the new venture must be aware of these market pressures. Because market dynamics are rarely stable, what is true now may not be true tomorrow, as the entry of a new business is a market disruption in and of itself. A degree of future focus is essential, just as it was with the product/service feasibility investigation.
Course Manual 6: Technical Feasibility
Another important aspect is the support system required for the firm to run smoothly. It’s possible to find differences in logistical alternatives. It aids in the discovery of available resources in terms of labor, materials, and related technology. The firm’s technological resources are evaluated for their potential. An evaluation of the technical team’s abilities is carried out. Any flaws are investigated, as well as potential solutions. It also entails a review of critical systems, such as hardware, software, and technological needs for the entire system.
Track Your financial Feasibility
Finance is the backbone of any company. As a result, it is a critical component of a feasibility study. Consider your start-up costs, cash flow, and ongoing expenses when evaluating the economic viability of your business plan.
Payroll proved to be the most expensive start-up cost, costing approximately $ 300,500 for five employees across the United States, according to a smart asset survey.
Financial feasibility research will assist you in determining the commercial success of your company by allowing you to analyze areas such as sales volume, price structure, return on investment, and profitability.
Course Manual 7: Organizational Feasibility
The organizational feasibility of a proposed information system is determined by how well it assumes the organization’s goal and strategic plan for an information system. This could include details about the founders, their professional backgrounds, and the abilities they need to get the business off the ground and keep it running. It also determines whether or not the new system will receive sufficient support from participants to be deployed successfully, as well as whether or not participants will be able to operate the system. Projects that do not directly contribute to achieving a strategic goal of the company, for example, are often not financed. It refers to how well a proposed information system serves the goals of an organization’s information systems strategic plan.
Organizational Feasibility Analysis comprises an examination of:
• What non financial resources are required, such as human resources (management, staff), facilities/location, equipment, intellectual property protection, and so on?
• Management prowess: what is the initial management team’s ability?
The human resource requirements are also examined. This category includes the professional skills required and an estimate of the firm’s capacity. The required professional background is examined, as well as any shortcomings in the current human resource of the new firm or project. In the absence of an effective team, the feasibility study may be used to make employment decisions. The entire legal and organizational framework of the company has been planned properly. Similarly, this research aids in ensuring that the company has sufficient resources to run smoothly.
Course Manual 8: Legal Feasibility
Every country’s legal ramifications are different. Any legal regulations that may obstruct business activities must be taken into account. This investigation looks into all of the legal issues that may arise as a result of the planned enterprise. All applicable legislation and protective acts are considered. By learning about any form of locational limits that its firm may face due to legal regulations, an organization may save a lot of time and work.
The due diligence procedure should guarantee that the project is procured in compliance with current legal standards, both domestically and internationally, and that essential components of the project have been legalized. Legal due diligence should involve at least three critical processes, as outlined below, in order to analyze the project’s legal feasibility.
The first step is to examine the legal structure in place. This includes locating and analyzing relevant legislation and regulations that may have an impact on the project. The following are some of the legal and regulatory issues that must be addressed.
• The enabling PPP legislation, particularly in search of specific project requirements such as a minimum capital value and maximum contractual duration;
• The public procurement law, which may be partially applicable, particularly in search of general contractual and procurement guidelines;
• Legislation relating to foreign investment, property, and labor issues;
• Legislation relating to land use planning and environmental laws;
• Sector specific legislation
Course Manual 9: Scheduling Feasibility
The many stages of the business’s lifetime are planned and taken into consideration. The most important milestones, as well as the timeline for achieving them, are mentioned. The various stages of company activity are estimated based on future estimates. All of the necessary activities are given, along with their completion dates.
The following are the steps to creating a project schedule:
Step 1: Create a work breakdown structure, or WBS
Step 2: Calculate the time of each project phase.
Step 3: Determine the necessary resources, including funding, technology, and team members.
Step 4: Determine which tasks or predecessors must be completed before the next one may begin.
Step 5: Establish project milestones to track progress.
Step 6: Determine any dependencies that may have an influence on deliverables and collaboration.
What is the goal of project planning?
Teams would seldom finish projects on schedule if project scheduling was not in place, and projects would frequently exceed budgets.
Project scheduling can be as basic or as complicated as required. Even if it’s only penciling in project details on a calendar and communicating with teams via email, most firms perform some type of project scheduling.
Other firms, on the other hand, utilize spreadsheets to manage their projects, however many have switched to cloud-based project management platforms and other project scheduling software that makes it easier to manage with visual planning solutions. But we’ll get to that later.
What are some methods for project scheduling?
Project managers employ a variety of tools and approaches for project scheduling. Before you become overwhelmed by terms like Kanban boards and Scrum, keep in mind that the best technique for you is determined by your timeframe, goals, and task list.
The Critical Path Method, Program Evaluation and Review Technique, Fast-tracking and Crashing, and Gantt charts are four common scheduling approaches used by project managers.
Course Manual 10: Project durability
Despite the fact that individuals have been writing and opining on what it takes to start a new business for years, roughly seven out of ten new firms fail within the first two years. What is the reason for this? It’s due to the fact that they haven’t yet acquired Durability.
Durability comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. One is monetary. You write a business plan that includes a cash flow analysis and forecasts that your company will be cash flow positive in 18 months. You may figure out how much capital you’ll need by adding up the total cash shortage up to the point where you’ll be cash flow positive. Do you have enough cash on hand or credit available? Because if you don’t, it’s irrational to believe that your company will succeed.
If your study indicates that you’ll need 18 months to achieve cash flow positive status, you should budget for at least 24 months of outlay. Because your income will most likely be lower than your pro forma and your costs will likely be higher. How many firms collapse just a few months before they reach a critical mass of success?
A significant amount of money and valuable resources are invested in a single project. These must be utilized to the fullest extent possible. A feasibility study lays out the whole course that the project could take. It contains crucial information such as financial estimates. It is only prudent to choose the business idea or project that will be the most long-lasting and will withstand future financial dangers.
Course Manual 11: Constraints
The feasibility study outlines all of the business’s potential constraints as a consequence of the investigation. Monetary, technical, resource-related, technological, financial, marketing, logistical, legal, and environmental restraints are only a few examples. Estimating these limitations gives you a clear picture of all the problem areas where the project can run into problems in the future, as well as their primary causes.
Find The Silver Lining
Look objectively for your company’s constraints and scope. Examine the results carefully and objectively.
During the course of your feasibility research, you may come across amazing solutions or walk uncharted territory in terms of possible customers and demands. This may pave the way for new business prospects.
Course Manual 12: Key decisions
The choice to proceed with the business is one of the main objectives of the feasibility study. Because all business-related factors are included, a clear picture of the many aspects is generated. Due to the limited nature of resources, it is critical to ensure that they are used effectively. The most advantageous option should be chosen since valuable resources are not only saved from being wasted on ineffective projects, but are also invested in more profitable ones in the future. A company avoids losses by determining whether or not to pursue a new initiative based on how the return is weighed against the investment. A feasibility study, on the other hand, gives tangible reasons for avoiding the prospective business. The research is exploratory in nature, since it aids in the evaluation of numerous choices and their effects. The go/no-go decision is one of the most important in business development because judgments cannot be reversed, and it is always better to make reasoned decisions than to correct mistakes later.
Action Plan for After the Feasibility Study
Choosing whether to go or not to go: Before you take the plunge, you must brainstorm and undertake extensive research to assess all of the critical components for the successful execution of your start-up idea.
To avoid wasting valuable time, money, resources, and, most importantly, your credibility, your final judgment should be neutral and take into account all of the advantages and disadvantages of the concept.
Form your business idea into a corporation: This is the stage at which your vision becomes a concrete reality. You plan capital allocation, employee hiring, and application for required licenses and permits. You also provide instructions to help your company’s procedures run more smoothly.
Make A Feasibility Study Template For Yourself
By using the above-mentioned points, you may develop your own feasibility study template. The template can be used to create a consistent and repeatable model for your company.
This template can also be used to evaluate future company ideas.
All of the aforementioned elements assist you in strategizing and planning a successful event without spending too much time or resources.
If you have a project that is in cascade (predictive) or incremental (stages or phases), a phase gate is frequently used as a Go/No-Go decision. It could be at the end of a phase that is finished and ready to be handed off to another team, or it could be paused till we resume and go on to the next portion.
That is the Go/No-Go idea. It’s not just a matter of yes or no. It’s all about verifying and validating. It’s not validate first because we don’t validate till after the go. “We’re going to show it to the customer,” it says.
It’s the maître d’ or head chef’s final inspection of all the food being picked up and delivered to the clients. Make sure the presentation is correct, not just the flavor, and that the hot and cold items are served separately. Everything is served at the proper temperature, and the champagne is in perfect condition before we pop the cork and taste it, serve it, and so on.
The following are the elements that will determine whether we will do the Go/No-Go:
Go/No-Go Drivers
• Project Lifecycle
• Corporate Constraints
• Regulations
• Type of Project
• Type of Product
Many projects have informal checks in place, but no-go decisions are a formal check.
Curriculum
Balancing Entrepreneurship – Workshop 3 – Feasibility Analysis
- Feasibility Importance
- How it works
- Financial Feasibility
- Economic Feasibility
- Market Feasibility
- Technical Feasibility
- Organizational Feasibility
- Legal Feasibility
- Scheduling Feasibility
- Project Durability
- Constraints
- Key decisions
Distance Learning
Introduction
Welcome to Appleton Greene and thank you for enrolling on the Balancing Entrepreneurship corporate training program. You will be learning through our unique facilitation via distance-learning method, which will enable you to practically implement everything that you learn academically. The methods and materials used in your program have been designed and developed to ensure that you derive the maximum benefits and enjoyment possible. We hope that you find the program challenging and fun to do. However, if you have never been a distance-learner before, you may be experiencing some trepidation at the task before you. So we will get you started by giving you some basic information and guidance on how you can make the best use of the modules, how you should manage the materials and what you should be doing as you work through them. This guide is designed to point you in the right direction and help you to become an effective distance-learner. Take a few hours or so to study this guide and your guide to tutorial support for students, while making notes, before you start to study in earnest.
Study environment
You will need to locate a quiet and private place to study, preferably a room where you can easily be isolated from external disturbances or distractions. Make sure the room is well-lit and incorporates a relaxed, pleasant feel. If you can spoil yourself within your study environment, you will have much more of a chance to ensure that you are always in the right frame of mind when you do devote time to study. For example, a nice fire, the ability to play soft soothing background music, soft but effective lighting, perhaps a nice view if possible and a good size desk with a comfortable chair. Make sure that your family know when you are studying and understand your study rules. Your study environment is very important. The ideal situation, if at all possible, is to have a separate study, which can be devoted to you. If this is not possible then you will need to pay a lot more attention to developing and managing your study schedule, because it will affect other people as well as yourself. The better your study environment, the more productive you will be.
Study tools & rules
Try and make sure that your study tools are sufficient and in good working order. You will need to have access to a computer, scanner and printer, with access to the internet. You will need a very comfortable chair, which supports your lower back, and you will need a good filing system. It can be very frustrating if you are spending valuable study time trying to fix study tools that are unreliable, or unsuitable for the task. Make sure that your study tools are up to date. You will also need to consider some study rules. Some of these rules will apply to you and will be intended to help you to be more disciplined about when and how you study. This distance-learning guide will help you and after you have read it you can put some thought into what your study rules should be. You will also need to negotiate some study rules for your family, friends or anyone who lives with you. They too will need to be disciplined in order to ensure that they can support you while you study. It is important to ensure that your family and friends are an integral part of your study team. Having their support and encouragement can prove to be a crucial contribution to your successful completion of the program. Involve them in as much as you can.
Successful distance-learning
Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes or workshops, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. But unlike traditional internal training courses, it is the student’s responsibility, with a distance-learning program, to ensure that they manage their own study contribution. This requires strong self-discipline and self-motivation skills and there must be a clear will to succeed. Those students who are used to managing themselves, are good at managing others and who enjoy working in isolation, are more likely to be good distance-learners. It is also important to be aware of the main reasons why you are studying and of the main objectives that you are hoping to achieve as a result. You will need to remind yourself of these objectives at times when you need to motivate yourself. Never lose sight of your long-term goals and your short-term objectives. There is nobody available here to pamper you, or to look after you, or to spoon-feed you with information, so you will need to find ways to encourage and appreciate yourself while you are studying. Make sure that you chart your study progress, so that you can be sure of your achievements and re-evaluate your goals and objectives regularly.
Self-assessment
Appleton Greene training programs are in all cases post-graduate programs. Consequently, you should already have obtained a business-related degree and be an experienced learner. You should therefore already be aware of your study strengths and weaknesses. For example, which time of the day are you at your most productive? Are you a lark or an owl? What study methods do you respond to the most? Are you a consistent learner? How do you discipline yourself? How do you ensure that you enjoy yourself while studying? It is important to understand yourself as a learner and so some self-assessment early on will be necessary if you are to apply yourself correctly. Perform a SWOT analysis on yourself as a student. List your internal strengths and weaknesses as a student and your external opportunities and threats. This will help you later on when you are creating a study plan. You can then incorporate features within your study plan that can ensure that you are playing to your strengths, while compensating for your weaknesses. You can also ensure that you make the most of your opportunities, while avoiding the potential threats to your success.
Accepting responsibility as a student
Training programs invariably require a significant investment, both in terms of what they cost and in the time that you need to contribute to study and the responsibility for successful completion of training programs rests entirely with the student. This is never more apparent than when a student is learning via distance-learning. Accepting responsibility as a student is an important step towards ensuring that you can successfully complete your training program. It is easy to instantly blame other people or factors when things go wrong. But the fact of the matter is that if a failure is your failure, then you have the power to do something about it, it is entirely in your own hands. If it is always someone else’s failure, then you are powerless to do anything about it. All students study in entirely different ways, this is because we are all individuals and what is right for one student, is not necessarily right for another. In order to succeed, you will have to accept personal responsibility for finding a way to plan, implement and manage a personal study plan that works for you. If you do not succeed, you only have yourself to blame.
Planning
By far the most critical contribution to stress, is the feeling of not being in control. In the absence of planning we tend to be reactive and can stumble from pillar to post in the hope that things will turn out fine in the end. Invariably they don’t! In order to be in control, we need to have firm ideas about how and when we want to do things. We also need to consider as many possible eventualities as we can, so that we are prepared for them when they happen. Prescriptive Change, is far easier to manage and control, than Emergent Change. The same is true with distance-learning. It is much easier and much more enjoyable, if you feel that you are in control and that things are going to plan. Even when things do go wrong, you are prepared for them and can act accordingly without any unnecessary stress. It is important therefore that you do take time to plan your studies properly.
Management
Once you have developed a clear study plan, it is of equal importance to ensure that you manage the implementation of it. Most of us usually enjoy planning, but it is usually during implementation when things go wrong. Targets are not met and we do not understand why. Sometimes we do not even know if targets are being met. It is not enough for us to conclude that the study plan just failed. If it is failing, you will need to understand what you can do about it. Similarly if your study plan is succeeding, it is still important to understand why, so that you can improve upon your success. You therefore need to have guidelines for self-assessment so that you can be consistent with performance improvement throughout the program. If you manage things correctly, then your performance should constantly improve throughout the program.
Study objectives & tasks
The first place to start is developing your program objectives. These should feature your reasons for undertaking the training program in order of priority. Keep them succinct and to the point in order to avoid confusion. Do not just write the first things that come into your head because they are likely to be too similar to each other. Make a list of possible departmental headings, such as: Customer Service; E-business; Finance; Globalization; Human Resources; Technology; Legal; Management; Marketing and Production. Then brainstorm for ideas by listing as many things that you want to achieve under each heading and later re-arrange these things in order of priority. Finally, select the top item from each department heading and choose these as your program objectives. Try and restrict yourself to five because it will enable you to focus clearly. It is likely that the other things that you listed will be achieved if each of the top objectives are achieved. If this does not prove to be the case, then simply work through the process again.
Study forecast
As a guide, the Appleton Greene Balancing Entrepreneurship corporate training program should take 12-18 months to complete, depending upon your availability and current commitments. The reason why there is such a variance in time estimates is because every student is an individual, with differing productivity levels and different commitments. These differentiations are then exaggerated by the fact that this is a distance-learning program, which incorporates the practical integration of academic theory as an as a part of the training program. Consequently all of the project studies are real, which means that important decisions and compromises need to be made. You will want to get things right and will need to be patient with your expectations in order to ensure that they are. We would always recommend that you are prudent with your own task and time forecasts, but you still need to develop them and have a clear indication of what are realistic expectations in your case. With reference to your time planning: consider the time that you can realistically dedicate towards study with the program every week; calculate how long it should take you to complete the program, using the guidelines featured here; then break the program down into logical modules and allocate a suitable proportion of time to each of them, these will be your milestones; you can create a time plan by using a spreadsheet on your computer, or a personal organizer such as MS Outlook, you could also use a financial forecasting software; break your time forecasts down into manageable chunks of time, the more specific you can be, the more productive and accurate your time management will be; finally, use formulas where possible to do your time calculations for you, because this will help later on when your forecasts need to change in line with actual performance. With reference to your task planning: refer to your list of tasks that need to be undertaken in order to achieve your program objectives; with reference to your time plan, calculate when each task should be implemented; remember that you are not estimating when your objectives will be achieved, but when you will need to focus upon implementing the corresponding tasks; you also need to ensure that each task is implemented in conjunction with the associated training modules which are relevant; then break each single task down into a list of specific to do’s, say approximately ten to do’s for each task and enter these into your study plan; once again you could use MS Outlook to incorporate both your time and task planning and this could constitute your study plan; you could also use a project management software like MS Project. You should now have a clear and realistic forecast detailing when you can expect to be able to do something about undertaking the tasks to achieve your program objectives.
Performance management
It is one thing to develop your study forecast, it is quite another to monitor your progress. Ultimately it is less important whether you achieve your original study forecast and more important that you update it so that it constantly remains realistic in line with your performance. As you begin to work through the program, you will begin to have more of an idea about your own personal performance and productivity levels as a distance-learner. Once you have completed your first study module, you should re-evaluate your study forecast for both time and tasks, so that they reflect your actual performance level achieved. In order to achieve this you must first time yourself while training by using an alarm clock. Set the alarm for hourly intervals and make a note of how far you have come within that time. You can then make a note of your actual performance on your study plan and then compare your performance against your forecast. Then consider the reasons that have contributed towards your performance level, whether they are positive or negative and make a considered adjustment to your future forecasts as a result. Given time, you should start achieving your forecasts regularly.
With reference to time management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual time taken in your study plan; consider your successes with time-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; consider your failures with time-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to time planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your time expectations. You need to be consistent with your time management, otherwise you will never complete your studies. This will either be because you are not contributing enough time to your studies, or you will become less efficient with the time that you do allocate to your studies. Remember, if you are not in control of your studies, they can just become yet another cause of stress for you.
With reference to your task management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual tasks that you have undertaken in your study plan; consider your successes with task-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case; take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; consider your failures with task-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to task planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your task expectations. You need to be consistent with your task management, otherwise you will never know whether you are achieving your program objectives or not.
Keeping in touch
You will have access to qualified and experienced professors and tutors who are responsible for providing tutorial support for your particular training program. So don’t be shy about letting them know how you are getting on. We keep electronic records of all tutorial support emails so that professors and tutors can review previous correspondence before considering an individual response. It also means that there is a record of all communications between you and your professors and tutors and this helps to avoid any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation. If you have a problem relating to the program, share it with them via email. It is likely that they have come across the same problem before and are usually able to make helpful suggestions and steer you in the right direction. To learn more about when and how to use tutorial support, please refer to the Tutorial Support section of this student information guide. This will help you to ensure that you are making the most of tutorial support that is available to you and will ultimately contribute towards your success and enjoyment with your training program.
Work colleagues and family
You should certainly discuss your program study progress with your colleagues, friends and your family. Appleton Greene training programs are very practical. They require you to seek information from other people, to plan, develop and implement processes with other people and to achieve feedback from other people in relation to viability and productivity. You will therefore have plenty of opportunities to test your ideas and enlist the views of others. People tend to be sympathetic towards distance-learners, so don’t bottle it all up in yourself. Get out there and share it! It is also likely that your family and colleagues are going to benefit from your labors with the program, so they are likely to be much more interested in being involved than you might think. Be bold about delegating work to those who might benefit themselves. This is a great way to achieve understanding and commitment from people who you may later rely upon for process implementation. Share your experiences with your friends and family.
Making it relevant
The key to successful learning is to make it relevant to your own individual circumstances. At all times you should be trying to make bridges between the content of the program and your own situation. Whether you achieve this through quiet reflection or through interactive discussion with your colleagues, client partners or your family, remember that it is the most important and rewarding aspect of translating your studies into real self-improvement. You should be clear about how you want the program to benefit you. This involves setting clear study objectives in relation to the content of the course in terms of understanding, concepts, completing research or reviewing activities and relating the content of the modules to your own situation. Your objectives may understandably change as you work through the program, in which case you should enter the revised objectives on your study plan so that you have a permanent reminder of what you are trying to achieve, when and why.
Distance-learning check-list
Prepare your study environment, your study tools and rules.
Undertake detailed self-assessment in terms of your ability as a learner.
Create a format for your study plan.
Consider your study objectives and tasks.
Create a study forecast.
Assess your study performance.
Re-evaluate your study forecast.
Be consistent when managing your study plan.
Use your Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) for tutorial support.
Make sure you keep in touch with those around you.
Tutorial Support
Programs
Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. They are implemented over a sustainable period of time and professional support is consistently provided by qualified learning providers and specialist consultants.
Support available
You will have a designated Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and an Accredited Consultant and we encourage you to communicate with them as much as possible. In all cases tutorial support is provided online because we can then keep a record of all communications to ensure that tutorial support remains consistent. You would also be forwarding your work to the tutorial support unit for evaluation and assessment. You will receive individual feedback on all of the work that you undertake on a one-to-one basis, together with specific recommendations for anything that may need to be changed in order to achieve a pass with merit or a pass with distinction and you then have as many opportunities as you may need to re-submit project studies until they meet with the required standard. Consequently the only reason that you should really fail (CLP) is if you do not do the work. It makes no difference to us whether a student takes 12 months or 18 months to complete the program, what matters is that in all cases the same quality standard will have been achieved.
Support Process
Please forward all of your future emails to the designated (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit email address that has been provided and please do not duplicate or copy your emails to other AGC email accounts as this will just cause unnecessary administration. Please note that emails are always answered as quickly as possible but you will need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general tutorial support emails during busy periods, because emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. You will also need to allow a period of up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Please therefore kindly allow for this within your time planning. All communications are managed online via email because it enables tutorial service support managers to review other communications which have been received before responding and it ensures that there is a copy of all communications retained on file for future reference. All communications will be stored within your personal (CLP) study file here at Appleton Greene throughout your designated study period. If you need any assistance or clarification at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us by forwarding an email and remember that we are here to help. If you have any questions, please list and number your questions succinctly and you can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each and every query.
Time Management
It takes approximately 1 Year to complete the Balancing Entrepreneurship corporate training program, incorporating 12 x 6-hour monthly workshops. Each student will also need to contribute approximately 4 hours per week over 1 Year of their personal time. Students can study from home or work at their own pace and are responsible for managing their own study plan. There are no formal examinations and students are evaluated and assessed based upon their project study submissions, together with the quality of their internal analysis and supporting documents. They can contribute more time towards study when they have the time to do so and can contribute less time when they are busy. All students tend to be in full time employment while studying and the Balancing Entrepreneurship program is purposely designed to accommodate this, so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of time management. It makes no difference to us at Appleton Greene, whether individuals take 12-18 months to complete this program. What matters is that in all cases the same standard of quality will have been achieved with the standard and bespoke programs that have been developed.
Distance Learning Guide
The distance learning guide should be your first port of call when starting your training program. It will help you when you are planning how and when to study, how to create the right environment and how to establish the right frame of mind. If you can lay the foundations properly during the planning stage, then it will contribute to your enjoyment and productivity while training later. The guide helps to change your lifestyle in order to accommodate time for study and to cultivate good study habits. It helps you to chart your progress so that you can measure your performance and achieve your goals. It explains the tools that you will need for study and how to make them work. It also explains how to translate academic theory into practical reality. Spend some time now working through your distance learning guide and make sure that you have firm foundations in place so that you can make the most of your distance learning program. There is no requirement for you to attend training workshops or classes at Appleton Greene offices. The entire program is undertaken online, program course manuals and project studies are administered via the Appleton Greene web site and via email, so you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office as long as you have a computer and access to the internet.
How To Study
The how to study guide provides students with a clear understanding of the Appleton Greene facilitation via distance learning training methods and enables students to obtain a clear overview of the training program content. It enables students to understand the step-by-step training methods used by Appleton Greene and how course manuals are integrated with project studies. It explains the research and development that is required and the need to provide evidence and references to support your statements. It also enables students to understand precisely what will be required of them in order to achieve a pass with merit and a pass with distinction for individual project studies and provides useful guidance on how to be innovative and creative when developing your Unique Program Proposition (UPP).
Tutorial Support
Tutorial support for the Appleton Greene Balancing Entrepreneurship corporate training program is provided online either through the Appleton Greene Client Support Portal (CSP), or via email. All tutorial support requests are facilitated by a designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). They are responsible for deciding which professor or tutor is the most appropriate option relating to the support required and then the tutorial support request is forwarded onto them. Once the professor or tutor has completed the tutorial support request and answered any questions that have been asked, this communication is then returned to the student via email by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). This enables all tutorial support, between students, professors and tutors, to be facilitated by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM) efficiently and securely through the email account. You will therefore need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general support queries and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because all tutorial support requests are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Consequently you need to put some thought into the management of your tutorial support procedure in order to ensure that your study plan is feasible and to obtain the maximum possible benefit from tutorial support during your period of study. Please retain copies of your tutorial support emails for future reference. Please ensure that ALL of your tutorial support emails are set out using the format as suggested within your guide to tutorial support. Your tutorial support emails need to be referenced clearly to the specific part of the course manual or project study which you are working on at any given time. You also need to list and number any questions that you would like to ask, up to a maximum of five questions within each tutorial support email. Remember the more specific you can be with your questions the more specific your answers will be too and this will help you to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or duplication. The guide to tutorial support is intended to help you to understand how and when to use support in order to ensure that you get the most out of your training program. Appleton Greene training programs are designed to enable you to do things for yourself. They provide you with a structure or a framework and we use tutorial support to facilitate students while they practically implement what they learn. In other words, we are enabling students to do things for themselves. The benefits of distance learning via facilitation are considerable and are much more sustainable in the long-term than traditional short-term knowledge sharing programs. Consequently you should learn how and when to use tutorial support so that you can maximize the benefits from your learning experience with Appleton Greene. This guide describes the purpose of each training function and how to use them and how to use tutorial support in relation to each aspect of the training program. It also provides useful tips and guidance with regard to best practice.
Tutorial Support Tips
Students are often unsure about how and when to use tutorial support with Appleton Greene. This Tip List will help you to understand more about how to achieve the most from using tutorial support. Refer to it regularly to ensure that you are continuing to use the service properly. Tutorial support is critical to the success of your training experience, but it is important to understand when and how to use it in order to maximize the benefit that you receive. It is no coincidence that those students who succeed are those that learn how to be positive, proactive and productive when using tutorial support.
Be positive and friendly with your tutorial support emails
Remember that if you forward an email to the tutorial support unit, you are dealing with real people. “Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you”. If you are positive, complimentary and generally friendly in your emails, you will generate a similar response in return. This will be more enjoyable, productive and rewarding for you in the long-term.
Think about the impression that you want to create
Every time that you communicate, you create an impression, which can be either positive or negative, so put some thought into the impression that you want to create. Remember that copies of all tutorial support emails are stored electronically and tutors will always refer to prior correspondence before responding to any current emails. Over a period of time, a general opinion will be arrived at in relation to your character, attitude and ability. Try to manage your own frustrations, mood swings and temperament professionally, without involving the tutorial support team. Demonstrating frustration or a lack of patience is a weakness and will be interpreted as such. The good thing about communicating in writing, is that you will have the time to consider your content carefully, you can review it and proof-read it before sending your email to Appleton Greene and this should help you to communicate more professionally, consistently and to avoid any unnecessary knee-jerk reactions to individual situations as and when they may arise. Please also remember that the CLP Tutorial Support Unit will not just be responsible for evaluating and assessing the quality of your work, they will also be responsible for providing recommendations to other learning providers and to client contacts within the Appleton Greene global client network, so do be in control of your own emotions and try to create a good impression.
Remember that quality is preferred to quantity
Please remember that when you send an email to the tutorial support team, you are not using Twitter or Text Messaging. Try not to forward an email every time that you have a thought. This will not prove to be productive either for you or for the tutorial support team. Take time to prepare your communications properly, as if you were writing a professional letter to a business colleague and make a list of queries that you are likely to have and then incorporate them within one email, say once every month, so that the tutorial support team can understand more about context, application and your methodology for study. Get yourself into a consistent routine with your tutorial support requests and use the tutorial support template provided with ALL of your emails. The (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit will not spoon-feed you with information. They need to be able to evaluate and assess your tutorial support requests carefully and professionally.
Be specific about your questions in order to receive specific answers
Try not to write essays by thinking as you are writing tutorial support emails. The tutorial support unit can be unclear about what in fact you are asking, or what you are looking to achieve. Be specific about asking questions that you want answers to. Number your questions. You will then receive specific answers to each and every question. This is the main purpose of tutorial support via email.
Keep a record of your tutorial support emails
It is important that you keep a record of all tutorial support emails that are forwarded to you. You can then refer to them when necessary and it avoids any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Individual training workshops or telephone support
Please be advised that Appleton Greene does not provide separate or individual tutorial support meetings, workshops, or provide telephone support for individual students. Appleton Greene is an equal opportunities learning and service provider and we are therefore understandably bound to treat all students equally. We cannot therefore broker special financial or study arrangements with individual students regardless of the circumstances. All tutorial support is provided online and this enables Appleton Greene to keep a record of all communications between students, professors and tutors on file for future reference, in accordance with our quality management procedure and your terms and conditions of enrolment. All tutorial support is provided online via email because it enables us to have time to consider support content carefully, it ensures that you receive a considered and detailed response to your queries. You can number questions that you would like to ask, which relate to things that you do not understand or where clarification may be required. You can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each individual query. You will also then have a record of these communications and of all tutorial support, which has been provided to you. This makes tutorial support administration more productive by avoiding any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Tutorial Support Email Format
You should use this tutorial support format if you need to request clarification or assistance while studying with your training program. Please note that ALL of your tutorial support request emails should use the same format. You should therefore set up a standard email template, which you can then use as and when you need to. Emails that are forwarded to Appleton Greene, which do not use the following format, may be rejected and returned to you by the (CLP) Program Administration Manager. A detailed response will then be forwarded to you via email usually within 20 business days of receipt for general support queries and 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Your tutorial support request, together with the corresponding TSU reply, will then be saved and stored within your electronic TSU file at Appleton Greene for future reference.
Subject line of your email
Please insert: Appleton Greene (CLP) Tutorial Support Request: (Your Full Name) (Date), within the subject line of your email.
Main body of your email
Please insert:
1. Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) Tutorial Support Request
2. Your Full Name
3. Date of TS request
4. Preferred email address
5. Backup email address
6. Course manual page name or number (reference)
7. Project study page name or number (reference)
Subject of enquiry
Please insert a maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Briefly outline the subject matter of your inquiry, or what your questions relate to.
Question 1
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 3
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 4
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 5
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Please note that a maximum of 5 questions is permitted with each individual tutorial support request email.
Procedure
* List the questions that you want to ask first, then re-arrange them in order of priority. Make sure that you reference them, where necessary, to the course manuals or project studies.
* Make sure that you are specific about your questions and number them. Try to plan the content within your emails to make sure that it is relevant.
* Make sure that your tutorial support emails are set out correctly, using the Tutorial Support Email Format provided here.
* Save a copy of your email and incorporate the date sent after the subject title. Keep your tutorial support emails within the same file and in date order for easy reference.
* Allow up to 20 business days for a response to general tutorial support emails and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because detailed individual responses will be made in all cases and tutorial support emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received.
* Emails can and do get lost. So if you have not received a reply within the appropriate time, forward another copy or a reminder to the tutorial support unit to be sure that it has been received but do not forward reminders unless the appropriate time has elapsed.
* When you receive a reply, save it immediately featuring the date of receipt after the subject heading for easy reference. In most cases the tutorial support unit replies to your questions individually, so you will have a record of the questions that you asked as well as the answers offered. With project studies however, separate emails are usually forwarded by the tutorial support unit, so do keep a record of your own original emails as well.
* Remember to be positive and friendly in your emails. You are dealing with real people who will respond to the same things that you respond to.
* Try not to repeat questions that have already been asked in previous emails. If this happens the tutorial support unit will probably just refer you to the appropriate answers that have already been provided within previous emails.
* If you lose your tutorial support email records you can write to Appleton Greene to receive a copy of your tutorial support file, but a separate administration charge may be levied for this service.
How To Study
Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can help you to plan a task list for getting started so that you can be clear about your direction and your priorities in relation to your training program. It is also a good way to introduce yourself to the tutorial support team.
Planning your study environment
Your study conditions are of great importance and will have a direct effect on how much you enjoy your training program. Consider how much space you will have, whether it is comfortable and private and whether you are likely to be disturbed. The study tools and facilities at your disposal are also important to the success of your distance-learning experience. Your tutorial support unit can help with useful tips and guidance, regardless of your starting position. It is important to get this right before you start working on your training program.
Planning your program objectives
It is important that you have a clear list of study objectives, in order of priority, before you start working on your training program. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance here to ensure that your study objectives have been afforded due consideration and priority.
Planning how and when to study
Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. This approach is designed to let you study efficiently away from the traditional classroom environment. It is important however, that you plan how and when to study, so that you are making the most of your natural attributes, strengths and opportunities. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance and useful tips to ensure that you are playing to your strengths.
Planning your study tasks
You should have a clear understanding of the study tasks that you should be undertaking and the priority associated with each task. These tasks should also be integrated with your program objectives. The distance learning guide and the guide to tutorial support for students should help you here, but if you need any clarification or assistance, please contact your tutorial support unit.
Planning your time
You will need to allocate specific times during your calendar when you intend to study if you are to have a realistic chance of completing your program on time. You are responsible for planning and managing your own study time, so it is important that you are successful with this. Your tutorial support unit can help you with this if your time plan is not working.
Keeping in touch
Consistency is the key here. If you communicate too frequently in short bursts, or too infrequently with no pattern, then your management ability with your studies will be questioned, both by you and by your tutorial support unit. It is obvious when a student is in control and when one is not and this will depend how able you are at sticking with your study plan. Inconsistency invariably leads to in-completion.
Charting your progress
Your tutorial support team can help you to chart your own study progress. Refer to your distance learning guide for further details.
Making it work
To succeed, all that you will need to do is apply yourself to undertaking your training program and interpreting it correctly. Success or failure lies in your hands and your hands alone, so be sure that you have a strategy for making it work. Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can guide you through the process of program planning, development and implementation.
Reading methods
Interpretation is often unique to the individual but it can be improved and even quantified by implementing consistent interpretation methods. Interpretation can be affected by outside interference such as family members, TV, or the Internet, or simply by other thoughts which are demanding priority in our minds. One thing that can improve our productivity is using recognized reading methods. This helps us to focus and to be more structured when reading information for reasons of importance, rather than relaxation.
Speed reading
When reading through course manuals for the first time, subconsciously set your reading speed to be just fast enough that you cannot dwell on individual words or tables. With practice, you should be able to read an A4 sheet of paper in one minute. You will not achieve much in the way of a detailed understanding, but your brain will retain a useful overview. This overview will be important later on and will enable you to keep individual issues in perspective with a more generic picture because speed reading appeals to the memory part of the brain. Do not worry about what you do or do not remember at this stage.
Content reading
Once you have speed read everything, you can then start work in earnest. You now need to read a particular section of your course manual thoroughly, by making detailed notes while you read. This process is called Content Reading and it will help to consolidate your understanding and interpretation of the information that has been provided.
Making structured notes on the course manuals
When you are content reading, you should be making detailed notes, which are both structured and informative. Make these notes in a MS Word document on your computer, because you can then amend and update these as and when you deem it to be necessary. List your notes under three headings: 1. Interpretation – 2. Questions – 3. Tasks. The purpose of the 1st section is to clarify your interpretation by writing it down. The purpose of the 2nd section is to list any questions that the issue raises for you. The purpose of the 3rd section is to list any tasks that you should undertake as a result. Anyone who has graduated with a business-related degree should already be familiar with this process.
Organizing structured notes separately
You should then transfer your notes to a separate study notebook, preferably one that enables easy referencing, such as a MS Word Document, a MS Excel Spreadsheet, a MS Access Database, or a personal organizer on your cell phone. Transferring your notes allows you to have the opportunity of cross-checking and verifying them, which assists considerably with understanding and interpretation. You will also find that the better you are at doing this, the more chance you will have of ensuring that you achieve your study objectives.
Question your understanding
Do challenge your understanding. Explain things to yourself in your own words by writing things down.
Clarifying your understanding
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your understanding.
Question your interpretation
Do challenge your interpretation. Qualify your interpretation by writing it down.
Clarifying your interpretation
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your interpretation.
Qualification Requirements
The student will need to successfully complete the project study and all of the exercises relating to the Balancing Entrepreneurship corporate training program, achieving a pass with merit or distinction in each case, in order to qualify as an Accredited Balancing EntrepreneurshipSpecialist (APTS). All monthly workshops need to be tried and tested within your company. These project studies can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office. There are no formal examinations, assessment is based upon the successful completion of the project studies. They are called project studies because, unlike case studies, these projects are not theoretical, they incorporate real program processes that need to be properly researched and developed. The project studies assist us in measuring your understanding and interpretation of the training program and enable us to assess qualification merits. All of the project studies are based entirely upon the content within the training program and they enable you to integrate what you have learnt into your corporate training practice.
Balancing Entrepreneurship– Grading Contribution
Project Study – Grading Contribution
Customer Service – 10%
E-business – 05%
Finance – 10%
Globalization – 10%
Human Resources – 10%
Information Technology – 10%
Legal – 05%
Management – 10%
Marketing – 10%
Production – 10%
Education – 05%
Logistics – 05%
TOTAL GRADING – 100%
Qualification grades
A mark of 90% = Pass with Distinction.
A mark of 75% = Pass with Merit.
A mark of less than 75% = Fail.
If you fail to achieve a mark of 75% with a project study, you will receive detailed feedback from the Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and/or Accredited Consultant, together with a list of tasks which you will need to complete, in order to ensure that your project study meets with the minimum quality standard that is required by Appleton Greene. You can then re-submit your project study for further evaluation and assessment. Indeed you can re-submit as many drafts of your project studies as you need to, until such a time as they eventually meet with the required standard by Appleton Greene, so you need not worry about this, it is all part of the learning process.
When marking project studies, Appleton Greene is looking for sufficient evidence of the following:
Pass with merit
A satisfactory level of program understanding
A satisfactory level of program interpretation
A satisfactory level of project study content presentation
A satisfactory level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
A satisfactory level of the practical integration of academic theory
Pass with distinction
An exceptional level of program understanding
An exceptional level of program interpretation
An exceptional level of project study content presentation
An exceptional level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
An exceptional level of the practical integration of academic theory
Preliminary Analysis
Research Article:Improving Entrepreneurship Team Performance through Market Feasibility Analysis, Early Identification of Technical Requirements, and Intellectual Property Support
Abstract
Choosing the wrong technology—due to insurmountable technical hurdles, market limitations, or resource constraints—can be devastating to a start-up company. Either the company deftly changes directions or it ceases to exist. While experiencing these realities may provide invaluable entrepreneurial life lessons, because of structured academic calendars, course commitments, the requirement for grades, and other factors, it is very difficult to drop a technology or disband a company staffed by students fulfilling university educational requirements. Many university-based entrepreneurial education centers provide real-world projects for participating students. The University of Florida Integrated Technology Ventures (ITV) program, launched in Fall 2003, is designed to provide engineering, business and law students with an intense, immersive entrepreneurial experience. Participating students are members of a virtual company led by a serial entrepreneur who acts as a volunteer CEO. The focus of the company is to commercialize university intellectual property. To improve the chances of successfully adopting a new technological innovation and boosting entrepreneurial team performance, we propose an improved way to select suitable technologies, better timing for delivering market-driven requirements to product designers, and enhanced understanding of the implications of business and technical decisions with regards to impact on intellectual property.
Introduction
Life in a start-up technology business is no doubt a rich learning experience. Resources such as capital, facilities, people, and ideas are severely constrained. This environment forces one to adapt quickly or find another activity. While it may not be feasible to replicate all the chaos and pressure associated with such an endeavor in an academic environment, researchers at the University of Florida believe it is possible to come close. The Integrated Technology Ventures (ITV) program provides a conduit for business, engineering and law students to gain valuable entrepreneurial experience developing emerging technologies from the university’s intellectual property portfolio. The students work in virtual companies under the guidance of seasoned CEO consultants, university inventors, and business, engineering, and law school faculty mentors. The ITV program has been in operation since fall 2003. Since that time nine virtual companies have been formed and over 70 students have participated. After the pilot offering, it was recognized that several issues were limiting the overall “Proceedings of the 2007 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2007, American Society for Engineering Education”
If you would like to know more, click Here.
Research Article: Determining Stakeholders For Feasibility Analysis
Abstract
Most techniques for stakeholder identification and salience in the pre-start up phase of a tourism development are not systematic in approach. This paper explores the utility of a systematic stakeholder analysis within a feasibility analysis. For a more inclusive assessment of stakeholder salience in the context of sustainable development, balancing the managerial lack of intrinsic stakeholder commitment, a third party perspective is added to the evaluation process. Contributing to the final evaluation of a development proposal, the coding scheme provides practitioners with parameters for stakeholder identification and salience. While application of the theory bears limitations in quantitative measurement, the results suggest that systematic stakeholder analysis is beneficial and useful in the context of feasibility analysis.
Introduction
Stakeholder and collaboration theory is often referenced in the literature on sustainable tourism development. The argument is in order to produce equitable and environmentally sustainable tourism developments multiple stakeholders must be involved in the process of planning and implementing the project. At the site level, however, tourism developers have few theory-based or analytic resources to assist in achieving stakeholder involvement. They need a planning framework that supports both the ideals of sustainability and the practical application of policy.
Feasibility analysis offers a potential framework for planning and assessing a proposed development including identifying stakeholders. At the pre-development phase, most planners attempt to identify potential stakeholders, producing often unsatisfactory results. While the literature announces stakeholder involvement as a vital aspect of pre-start up planning, most of the techniques for identifying and assessing stakeholder orientation at this stage are not theory driven or systematic in approach. This paper, therefore, turns to the stakeholder theory literature for an identification and salience typology and then, through field research, explores the utility of this systematic stakeholder analysis within feasibility analysis context.
Feasibility and systematic stakeholder analysis
A significant challenge for planners and practitioners of sustainable tourism developments is the implementation of sustainability principles at the tourism site level, where regional and destination contexts yield tangible results (Marcouiller 1997). In terms of stakeholder involvement in the planning process, often stakeholder issues and orientations will be site-specific. Considering the need for multiple stakeholder involvement in the planning process and subsequent operations, tourism operators and planners need to address the identification and voice of stakeholders in the early stages of strategic planning.
Feasibility Analysis
Feasibility analysis is a pre-start up and strategic planning tool, conducted in the pre-business plan phase of a development. It involves a process of “collecting and analyzing data prior to the new business start up, and then using knowledge thus gained to formulate the business plan itself” (Castrogiovanni 1996:803). Implementing a detailed feasibility analysis during the project planning process demonstrates how the development will operate under a specific set of assumptions (Matson 2004) considering all economic and non-economic factors (Graaskamp 1970). It is conducted at a key juncture allowing for an informed go/no go decision on a proposed development before considerable investment is made.
While feasibility analysis is generally considered an important business tool, it is also subject to the debate on the usefulness and benefits of strategic planning to business success. Critics of strategic planning usually refer to the rigidity and suppression of creative solutions that planning can produce (Miller and Cardinal 1994). Some studies, however, argue convincingly that pre-start up planning has concrete advantages depending on certain contexts and contingencies (Castrogiovanni, 1996, Delmar and Shane, 2003, Soteriou and Roberts, 1998). Such contexts include a number of environmental conditions, such as uncertainty, munificence, and industry maturity, and founder conditions, such as knowledge and capital (Castrogiovanni 1996). The various contexts have either positive or negative results on the effectiveness of strategic planning efforts. Basing their evaluation on the contexts in Yip’s (1985) article, Murphy and Murphy (2004) claim that strategic planning is particularly relevant in the tourism industry provided a plan remains flexible and fluid. Reflecting the complexity of the tourism context and a new tourism planning paradigm, Costa states,
Tourism planning ought to be viewed from a rational and technical point of view (professionalism), which has to be matched against the particularity of every place, the needs and wishes of the people that live in the area, market forces, the availability of manpower and funding, and the position of the place in the world market. (2001:439).
In other words, strategic planning in the tourism industry is crucial in so far as it integrates multiple stakeholders, and remains adaptable to changing environmental, social and economic conditions.
Castrogiovanni (1996) argues that, with all contexts considered, pre-start up planning has no direct result on financial performance, survival or other outcomes. Planning does, however, yield direct benefits that bear upon the firm’s ability to act in a way conducive to achieving its goals and objectives. These benefits include legitimization of the business, improving communication with external stakeholders, meeting expectations of many people who simply believe in pre-planning, learning through planning, increased efficiency and cooperation through improved communication within the organization, and streamlining certain procedures before starting up the business (Castrogiovanni 1996). Lyles, Baird, Orris, and Kuratko (1993) propose that formal planning offers small firms a comprehensive strategic decision making process including a wide variety of alternative strategies and this in turn leads to higher levels of performance and profitability.
Engaging the debate on the usefulness of strategic planning, numerous studies assess the relationship of pre-start up planning to business performance, yielding mixed results. A number of authors conclude that the literature does not provide a comprehensive and consistent conclusion: that formal strategic planning results in performance success (Pearce et al., 1987, Powell, 1992, Schwenk and Shrader, 1993). Methodological differences are potential explanations of these inconsistencies (Miller and Cardinal 1994). Despite the ambiguity in the study results, taken as a whole they do suggest that strategic planning is a beneficial activity. Rue and Ibrahim (1998) find enough support in the literature to argue that planning in small business formation can increase performance and success rate. Powell notes that among the number of studies he reviewed “positive planning-performance relationships outnumbered negative ones” (1992:552). And Schwenk and Shrader conclude from their meta-analysis, “the overall relationship between formal planning and performance across studies is positive and significant” (1993:53).
Most of these planning-performance studies examine the impact of strategic planning on financial performance only (Bracker et al., 1988, Pearce et al., 1987, Powell, 1992, Rhyne, 1986, Robinson and Pearce, 1983, Schwenk and Shrader, 1993). Introducing an alternative indicator for performance success, Castrogiovanni (1996) argues for business survival to be the defining success factor. In recent years, however, measuring the success of a business must involve an evaluation that goes beyond the financials or survival. Elkington (1999) articulates the need for businesses to implement policies and practices that aim for economic, social and environmental sustainability. While previous articles on strategic planning focus on financial success, an increasing number of studies reflect the changing attitudes that “strategic planning can and should have an impact beyond the financial performance of the firm” (Judge and Douglas 1998). Those studies that do examine the incorporation of environmental and social concerns into strategic planning and the subsequent results on performance are concerned with large existing firms well past the start up phase (Hart and Ahuja, 1998, Judge and Douglas, 1998, Ruf et al., 2001). Very few studies measure the impact of pre-start up planning on long-term social, economic and environmental success. In the ecotourism industry, one case study examines how a pre-business plan environmental management and control system, developed in conjunction with multiple stakeholders has resulted in a successful sustainable tourism business (Herremans and Welsh, 1999, Herremans and Welsh, 2001, Welsh and Herremans, 1998).
Success, then, refers to much more than financial profitability. In the tourism industry specifically, the push for sustainable tourism certification (UNWTO 2003) and the recent declarations of organizations such as the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO 2002), reflects the pressure for a sustainable tourism industry, one that measures success by environmental and social indicators as well as financial.
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Research Article: A Contemporary Approach To Entrepreneurship Education
Abstract
Entrepreneurial education is the process of providing individuals with the ability to recognise commercial opportunities and the insight, self‐esteem, knowledge and skills to act on them. It includes instruction in opportunity recognition, commercialising a concept, marshalling resources in the face of risk, and initiating a business venture. It also includes instruction in traditional business disciplines such as management, marketing, information systems and finance. The purpose of this paper is to describe the design and introduction of a new programme in entrepreneurship at the University of Tasmania. Within this programme the process and responsibility of learning has largely been reversed through the process of student centred learning. This method of learning represents a challenging departure from traditional mainstream teaching practices. In considering the benefits achievable from this teaching method, this paper also considers the difficulties in transferring increased responsibility to students to manage their futures.
Introduction
The growing literature on entrepreneurship education tends to argue that a different learning environment is required to support the study of entrepreneurship within a university setting (e.g. Gibb, 2002). Essentially, a teaching style that is action‐oriented, encourages experiential learning, problem solving, project‐based learning, creativity, and is supportive of peer evaluation. It is thought that such a process best provides the mix of enterprising skills and behaviours akin to those required to create and manage a small business. However, the departure from a traditional lecturer‐centred, passive learning approach is all the more difficult when instruction in traditional business disciplines such as management, marketing, information systems and finance also contribute to the development of entrepreneurship knowledge.
The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of designing and introducing a new programme in entrepreneurship at the University of Tasmania in 2002. The paper is set out as follows. First, the local and global importance of entrepreneurial education is discussed. Second, a review of the extant literature provides support for the chosen curriculum. Third, the choices of teaching and delivery strategies that support a contemporary approach to entrepreneurship education are outlined. Finally, the outcomes to date are considered with possible future amendments to the existing entrepreneurship major canvassed.
Why entrepreneurial education is important
On 29 January 2001, the Australian Federal Government released its long‐awaited innovations statement – Backing Australia’s Ability. The programme provides $2.9 billion over five years to promote innovation in Australia. It consists of three key elements: strengthening our ability to generate ideas and undertake research; accelerating the commercial application of these ideas; and developing and retaining skills. One of the initiatives includes 2,000 additional university places to foster a culture of enterprise and innovation.
New entrepreneurship programmes have been emerging at business schools in Australia and overseas. In the USA, they have been launched at such prestigious institutions as Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, and the University of Chicago. In 1999, there were 170 American universities offering courses in entrepreneurship. Less than half of them existed three years earlier (Lord, 1999). Similarly, a growing number of Australian universities are offering entrepreneurship programmes in response to developments in overseas universities and accelerated by the Australian Federal Government’s innovations statement.
The rise of these programmes has also been fuelled by unprecedented student demand as students look for a style of business education that will provide them with the transferable skills (Cooper et al., 2004) needed to succeed in an increasingly divergent business environment. In the not too distant past, business schools might nod in the direction of entrepreneurship by offering an elective. Students today are demanding integrated programmes that teach practical skills for starting and expanding business enterprises (Farrell, 1994). Traditional business education programmes, although well attended, have come under criticism for failing to be relevant to the needs of the changing business environment.
For example, entrepreneurial education emphasises imagination, creativity, and risk taking in business whereas traditional business schools tend to over‐emphasise quantitative and corporate techniques at the expense of more creative skills (Porter, 1994). Traditional business school programmes emphasise the large established corporation over the small or start‐up venture and nurture the follower and steward over the leader, creator and risk taker (Chia, 1996). However, entrepreneurial education has firmly established a beachhead in academia as a result of a shift in academic thinking about the value of this field. It is now recognised that entrepreneurship is an important educational innovation that provides the impetus to learning about learning (Charney and Libecap, 2003) Interest in entrepreneurship as a field of research and teaching has been fuelled by the growing demand for entrepreneurship courses by business students.
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Research Article: Entrepreneurship Education: Towards A Discipline‐Based Framework
Abstract
The purpose of this exploratory research was to investigate whether: entrepreneurship in the higher education context can be distinguished by disciplined‐based needs; and curricula can be developed around these needs.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors reviewed the literature related to the development of professions in order to establish a sound theoretical base to distinguish disciplines that require stringent criteria, and which potentially would challenge the introduction of a more flexible curriculum that includes contemporary concepts such as entrepreneurship. The research then focused on two other groups of disciplines which lead to entrepreneurial opportunities with distinct needs in (principally) people management and intellectual property law. This discussion was couched in the occupational motivation literature. Semi‐structured interviews (n=31) were conducted with individuals randomly selected from three groups associated with an American Land Grant Research University. Additional survey data were collected from 58 respondents.
Findings
The research found support for the categorization of disciplines into the framework of profession‐, industry‐, or invention‐based entrepreneurial ventures.
Originality/value
Although this is an exploratory investigation, the framework sets out clear pathways through the entrepreneurial processes and has crucial implications for a variety of stakeholders. For example: curriculum designers will be better able to understand and address the demands and vagaries of multiple disciplines; critical assumptions (that often plague those involved with technology transfer) will be able to be addressed prior to or in the early stage of the commercialization process because inventors will be better informed and prepared; equity stakeholder negotiations (particularly those that involve government‐operated institutions) will be more realistic as both parties, over time, become increasingly “market‐savvy”; and students (tomorrow’s entrepreneurs) will be better able to plan for an entrepreneurially‐focused career.
Introduction
Entrepreneurship is a complex multi‐faceted concept that has received increasing attention in recent times (Davidsson and Wiklund, 2000; Low, 2001; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000; Venkataraman, 1997). Even so, the topic of entrepreneurship education remains contentious (Fiet, 2002). While most agree that entrepreneurs have and do contribute to economic development and that the role of entrepreneurship needs to be acknowledged and valued, pedagogically, entrepreneurship is still a conundrum to many. Among the reasons for this is that although entrepreneurship is synonymous with and usually linked to business colleges and educators, increasingly it is becoming a campus‐wide responsibility (Laukkanen, 2000).
Historically, when the worlds of entrepreneurship and higher education collided, it was largely a dyadic relationship that saw the technically‐focused create and the business‐focused commercialize. This relationship has proved to be problematic and continues to challenge researchers, administrators, policy makers and industry. In a rapidly changing higher education and globally competitive landscape, the center of attention is now turning toward universities as the drivers of entrepreneurship (Allen and Wong, 2003).
Although still burgeoning, entrepreneurship is well enough established in most academic arenas (for a summary of the development of the field, see, Hills, 1998; Katz, 2003; Vesper, 1990; Vesper and Gartner, 1997). Entrepreneurship scholars and teachers have arguably won (or are winning) the battle for academic respectability that they have fought over the past 25 years against more established disciplines. Specifically, Laukkanen (2000, p. 26) claimed:
As a consequence of the entrepreneurial trend and widespread lay beliefs of the societal and economic efficacy of entrepreneurship, the field has acquired a higher profile, more status and more resources than previously.
Having established the entrepreneurship field in business schools (and in the eyes of policy makers, academic colleagues from more established disciplines, and importantly, existing and alumni cohorts) the next challenge for the entrepreneurship education movement is into non‐business school arenas and (some would argue) against an even more formidable opposition.
It has been suggested that the methods used, content and delivery modes of entrepreneurial education should vary dependent on the student group (Hynes, 1996) and be distinct from management‐driven education. For example, in order to provide effective entrepreneurial education, students need to deal with ambiguity and complexity and the methods used to deliver entrepreneurial programs include substantial hands‐on experience working with the small firm sector (McMullen and Long, 1987). This has prompted a moving of focus and responsibility for entrepreneurship educators as they deal with the what as well as the how. It also challenges curriculum designers who are bound, for example, by professional bodies that set conditions based on skills needed to be accepted into professional associations, many of which do not see entrepreneurial orientation as a desirable (or a teachable) function. It was this latter challenge that initially motivated our research project and we proceeded to investigate the following research questions: “Can entrepreneurship in the higher education context be distinguished by disciplined‐based needs?” and “Can curricula be developed around these needs?”.
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Research Article: Feasibility Analysis for the New Venture Nonprofit Enterprise
Abstract
This article explores the value of feasibility analysis for the pre-launch nonprofit enterprise. Similarities and differences between for-profit entrepreneurial ventures and nonprofit entrepreneurial ventures are outlined, and then the traditional format of feasibility analysis used by the entrepreneurial for-profit start-up is reviewed and analyzed. This four-stage analysis is then adapted to the needs of the nonprofit new venture enterprise. The benefits of doing a feasibility analysis for the nonprofit enterprise start-up are identified, and guidelines are suggested. An underpopulated research stream is identified and explained in this article for the start-up and early developmental phases of the nonprofit enterprise.
Introduction
All new enterprises need some form of organization and structure that enables the entrepreneur to raise funds, to establish a strategic plan, and then to carry out tasks in service of that strategy. The creation of a new enterprise is the means by which entrepreneurs realize their entrepreneurial ambitions and personal goals. Significantly, these new ventures may be for-profit or nonprofit enterprises (Majumdar, 2008). Regardless of purpose, all organizations seek survival, success, and efficiency, often achieved through innovative and careful management of their operations and expenditure of resources. Forprofit firms usually seek to create profit by increasing their return on investment or by increasing market share, while nonprofit enterprises usually seek to increase their influence and scale of operation as they strive to assist in solving social problems or delivering socially important goods (Dees & Anderson, 2003). Nonprofit enterprises take on a multitude of roles and do everything from housing to feeding the homeless to supporting the arts and education. Yet, regardless of purpose or mission, about onethird of all new firms in the United States, including both for-profit and nonprofit enterprises, fail within the first few years of operation, while another significant percentage fail within four years (Barringer & Gresock, 2008). An obvious and significant factor that contributes to new venture success or failure is planning, or lack of planning (Delmar & Shane, 2003). There are many planning resources to assist established for-profit organizations including strategic, tactical, and functional planning tools, with most of these tools using financial and economic measurements to evaluate or judge ongoing performance. Fewer resources are available for pre-launch analysis and planning, but the two most common are the prescreening of new business ideas through feasibility analysis, and then the writing of a business plan (Barringer & Gresock, 2008). Often little time is given for a careful and thorough examination of the merits of the idea before the business plan is written or the enterprise is launched, and although research is largely lacking regarding the outcomes of this lapse, this may be especially true for nonprofit enterprises. For ease of concept and argument, this article is focused only on the nonprofit new venture, and not more generally on social enterprises, which could include both for-profit and nonprofit new ventures. The major distinction between for-profit and nonprofit enterprises is that they are two distinct forms of legal incorporation, defined by tax implication, financial considerations (including access to start-up and working capital), and ownership and governance structures. For-profit ventures seek to create economic wealth for their owners and investors, while nonprofits are banned from having profits even while having revenues, and so all revenue in the non-profit is re-invested into the enterprise.
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Research Article: Techno Entrepreneurship Adoption: An Intention Based Assessment Study Of Start-Ups In The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia
Abstract
Establishment of Start-up firms is providing great solutions to the important problems of unemployment and underutilization of resources across the economies. As such they have assumed a great significance and function in the economic growth policies and strategies of the nations throughout the world. Recognizing this reality, Saudi Arabia has given high priority in their vision 2030for the development of Start-ups across the Kingdom. However, in today ‘s start up development paradigms, it is not only the establishment of start-ups but the pace of techno adoption of these start-ups that significantly determines their success and sustenance. It is in this context that this paper explores to assess the levels of intention related to technology adoption among the start-ups in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The results of this research are expected to contribute towards the development of a country level start-up techno-entrepreneurship adoption policy framework. For this research, stratified random sampling survey method was used and the data collected was put to different statistical tests like “Descriptive Analysis” like “Correlation” and “Predictive Analysis” like “Ordered Logistic Regression” etc. The results obtained depict that start-ups in Saudi Arabia show a high-level of intention towards technology adoption in their enterprises, as they believe that it enhances the basic start up entrepreneurial process capabilities and efficiencies like business-ideation, concept & prototype development, feasibility analysis etc. However, as per the data results there are certain limitations that come in the way of techno-entrepreneurship integration for the start-ups in Saudi Arabia. Among these limitations “Financial Support” and “Techno skill/expertise” serve as the key constraints. The resultant empirical information will be of high use to enhance a Start-up Techno entrepreneurship adoption modular framework that could facilitate the easy adoption and utilization of technology by the start-ups in the country.
Keywords: Techno Entrepreneurship, Start-Up Firms, Adoption Model, Start-Up TechnoEntrepreneurship Framework, Saudi Vision 2030.
Introduction
Techno-entrepreneurship is generally described as the entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial activities of both existing and embryonic companies/organizations functioning in technologyintensive atmospheres. The expert contributors originally discover the fundamentals of this area, obviously defining the parameters of techno-entrepreneurship. Commercialization emphasized on strategies of equilibrium between exploration and exploitation of new competencies, radical innovation, corporate venture, capital investment and the mentoring of high techno entrepreneurs (François, 2009).
The factors derived for adoption in technology in techno-entrepreneurship inferred from the theory of Diffusion of innovations. It is a theory that looks for to explain how, why, and at what pace new ideas and technology propagation. Rogers (2003) claims that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is conveyed over time among the participants in a social system. Moreover the four main rudiments influence the spread of a new idea: the innovation itself, communication channels, time, and a social system. The classifications of adopters are innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards (Rogers, 2003)
The objectives of the paper are:
a) To assess the levels of techno entrepreneurship intentions among the start-ups in Saudi Arabia.
b) To examine the factors responsible for start-up technology adoption and their impact.
c) To contribute towards the development of Start-up Techno entrepreneurship framework in Saudi Arabia.
The scope of the paper is limited to the adoption model of techno-entrepreneurship with respect to availability of finance, availability of skills/expertise, institutional network support and other related factors intrinsically. The paper is organized as Literature Review in section 2. Section 3 reveals about the Methodology of adoption model while section 4 exhibit a preliminary results and discussion of its test survey. Results and discussion section is followed by Conclusion, Acknowledgement and references sections. In our research the main focus was on the importance of technology adoption in techno-entrepreneurship start-ups in Kingdom Saudi Arabia in comparison with variables of business idea generation, prototype development, market feasibility analysis, product process feasibility analysis, financial feasibility analysis, availability of finance, availability of skills/expertise and institutional network support etc.
Literature Review
The project under reference aims to work in the direction and contribute towards the Saudi Arabian Vision 2030, “Focus on innovation in advanced technologies and entrepreneurship” (Vision 2030, 2016). According to (Aderemi et al., 2008), technological entrepreneurship is concerned with utilization of the knowledge of science and technology currently available so as to meet market needs, thereby making the country in question more productive and more competitive internationally. Furthermore, TE involves a process of industrial innovation, technology transfer and the commercialization of innovative ideas. According to Schumpeter (1975), technology entrepreneurship is concerned with the process whereby successful ‘new combinations’-which are new products, processes, organizations, markets and sources of inputs-are introduced, leading to new economic activities termed ‘creative destruction’. It is also refer to the style of business leadership that involves identifying high-potential, technology-intensive commercial opportunities, gathering resources such as talent and capital, and managing rapid growth and significant risk using principled decision-making skills (Dorf & Byers, 2007). The benefits inherent in science and technology would remain unrealised until such is transformed to products and services through innovation and diffusion. Start-up firms which start as small-and-medium sized enterprises are considered to be the driving force of the economy, both in developing and developed countries. However, without proper business strategy, creativity, innovation and support, new start-up companies often fail to survive in the highly competitive market. Hence, start-up techno entrepreneurship support is considered as one of the important support mechanisms for start-up enterprises (Munkongsujarit, 2016).
Facilitation and providing support to the existing and would be start-ups on different fronts such as financial, technical, promotional remains the main strategic economic growth and development focus of the economies across the globe (Maryeni et al., 2012). As such, in this background and in line with Saudi Arabia Vision 2030, boosting the small businesses and productive families’ small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are among the most important agents of economic growth; they create jobs, support innovation and boost exports. SMEs in the Kingdom are not yet major contributors to GDP, especially when compared to advanced economies. Therefore, there is need to create suitable job opportunities for the citizens by supporting SME entrepreneurship, privatization and investments in new industries (Vision 2030, 2016). This proposed project which will begin with establishment of a scientific theoretical framework and in the second stage of the project, this framework will be then modelled into a scientifically workable ‘Saudi Arabia Start-up Techno entrepreneurship support Model’.
Furthermore, the methodical analysis of the supplementary references given at the references column clearly provides the element of genesis’s in support of our argument that there is a pressing need for the design and development of the ‘Saudi Arabia Start-up Techno entrepreneurship support Model’. As such, this forms a main proposition of the project, especially for the achievement of the Saudi Arabia Vision 2030.
Sample, Measurements And Method
The data used in this study were obtained from the existing and potential starts-up in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia between January and February, 2018. The survey sampled 250 Start-up out of which 159 successfully filled and returned the survey instrument. This corresponds to a response rate of 64%. The sampling techniques involve both purposive and random techniques whereby the newly established firms are purposively selected in the first instance and then the instrument was randomly issued to them. Although one of the objectives of this study is to develop a techno-entrepreneurship framework for the start-ups, but this paper concentrates only on constraints and the outputs of technology adoption of start-ups.
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Course Manuals 1-12
Course Manual 1: Feasibility Importance
What are the Benefits of a Feasibility Analysis for a Business?
A feasibility analysis considers whether a project, business initiative, or idea is feasible. This is mostly used to determine whether or not the project will be continued. Feasibility studies are useful in business for several reasons.
The feasibility report will look at how a particular idea will operate in the long run and how it will withstand any financial concerns that may arise. It also aids in the identification of possible cash flow. Another significant function is to assist planners in focusing on the project and narrowing down the options. As a result, a feasibility analysis can provide reasons why a project or idea should not be pursued. In terms of the operational element, the analysis analyzes whether the plan has the resources required to make it a reality.
Feasibility studies are used in almost every industry. Whether it’s a hotel, a restaurant, a piece of real estate, a medical facility, an office, or a factory. Getting a head start on a Feasibility study with will save you time and money on the project.
The Importance of a Feasibility Analysis
Uncertainty is a constant that all businesses encounter on a daily basis. Getting consumers in the door, persuading them to spend, and eventually making a profit are all basic goals that might be tough to execute at times. Changing, adapting, and introducing new products and ideas into your business mix are all ways to mitigate some of the risks, but without adequate foresight and planning, those activities can be quite risky. Enter the feasibility study: an opportunity to ask and receive answers to questions that will help you evaluate potential and predict success or failure.
For years, many businesses have questioned the value of conducting a feasibility study. The argument has revealed that there are people who believe they know what the public wants and those who genuinely check to see whether their assumption is correct.
The target audience, as well as their purchasing power, may be readily defined by completing a thorough feasibility study. The economic prowess of a business concept will be determined through this approach. This is an important aspect of a business case that should be completed after a business idea has been conceived but before it is technically developed or any product production begins.
A feasibility study is used to assess the viability of a business initiative in a certain industry or sector. This is the procedure for identifying any potential issues that may arise in the relationship between consumer acceptance of the product and the profitability of the business enterprise.
Just because a company has a fantastic and necessary product for a certain region does not mean it is a solid business prospect. Not all good business ideas are good business possibilities. It sounds like a wonderful idea to sell water in a desert when there is a scarcity of water. This is not a good and viable business endeavor because there is very little water present, there is no population that can sustain a living there, and sales would not cover the expense of importing the water to the arid region.
What a feasibility study reveals can better assist a firm and a project manager in determining whether or not a business venture will be lucrative. The logistics of the business should be determined during the research. Is it possible to solve a problem in a cost-effective manner?
A feasibility study can also help you choose the best marketing plan. Identifying how to reach the tragic audience is a crucial step in establishing a sustainable business in any country. The business’s location and how accessible it is to the target audience will also play a role. If a late-night pizza delivery service is headquartered in a mall that closes at 9 p.m., it is unlikely to succeed.
A feasibility study can evaluate if your product or service is wanted, if the consumer is capable and willing to spend money on it, and if they will have access to it when they want it. If a company ignores this step in the development of their product, they might as well be squandering their money.
Definition
The phrase “feasible” refers to an action or event that is “likely,” “likely,” or “possible” to occur. A feasibility study is a collection of actions and questions used to establish whether an idea, thinking, or strategy has a good chance of succeeding. An effective study can help you decide if you should pursue your idea, refine it, or abandon it entirely and return to the drawing board.
Specific
Feasibility studies are specific and targeted. They start with a single question — if the concept, event, or action is a feasible solution — and compel you to focus entirely on that subject, drilling down to investigate various outcomes. A feasibility study and a business strategy are not the same thing. A feasibility study is a tool for research that may lead you to dismiss an idea, whereas a business plan is a call to action. In fact, a feasibility study can be used as a precursor to writing a business plan.
The Big Picture
Feasibility studies are useful because they push you to think about the large picture first and then think top-down. As a result, one or two broad starter questions lead to a slew of more specific follow-up questions that become increasingly focused as you approach closer to a final answer. Asking whether anyone will buy your new-and-improved product and whether it will make a profit, for example, raises further questions that require you to think about customer need, potential competition, and potential hazards. You must also define your target market, describe your product and its merits, and determine cost, break-even, and profit points.
Alternative Solutions
Feasibility studies allow you to “get it right” before investing time, money, and company resources into a concept that may or may not work out as you had hoped, forcing you to invest even more to repair defects, remove limits, and then try again. Feasibility studies can also help you see fresh options, opportunities, and solutions that you might not have explored otherwise. There are no right or incorrect answers to your queries, but a response you didn’t expect or want can open up new earning opportunities.
Determine the best time to launch/execute. Production cycles, supply chains, cash flow, and finance operations are all operational aspects of a corporation that might affect project performance. A feasibility analysis considers these aspects as well as the time of year, allowing you to identify the best timeline for implementing a project. You can also see how the project’s outcomes may change based on when you decide to complete it.
Analyze the demand. The majority of company concepts begin with a “gut sense.” That feeling, however, should be backed up by hard data. Feasibility studies (also known as market analyses) are used to determine the level of demand for a product or service. This is true for internal projects as well as external customer offerings.
Improve your cash flow forecasting. A feasibility study will assist you figure out if you have enough funds on hand to fund the project properly.
Improve your supply chain management knowledge. Your plan may appear to be sound on paper, but if it places undue strain on one or more aspects of your organization, it will do more harm than good. Your go-to-market plan, for example, suggests that releasing a new product right now will be profitable. If your sales and marketing teams have already been switched, you’ll either need to re-assign or hire extra individuals. Accept a launch result that falls short of your expectations. A project feasibility study will help you figure out if that new product or service will put a strain on your sales, production, billing, warehousing, and shipping processes, as well as what kind of load your company can handle.
Here are a few more advantages of performing a feasibility study:
• Aids in the development of a compelling business case
• Assists with decision-making during the project
• Improves project teams’ focus
• Identifies potential hazards and grounds for not progressing with the project
When Should a Feasibility Study Be Conducted?
When you have one or more different business models or scenarios that you wish to investigate, Prof. Don Hofstrand of Iowa State University recommends doing a feasibility study.
A feasibility study, in a nutshell, is a more in-depth “follow-up” on your business strategy and market research. A feasibility assessment, unlike the latter, takes a more comprehensive look at your company as a whole, including its structure, operations, existing offers, and target market (s).
Feasibility studies can include details on how you’ll deliver the product and what resources you’ll need to complete the project/run your company. Furthermore, feasibility studies are frequently required when:
• you intend to obtain finance from financial institutions or attract equity investors.
• You want to relocate your firm or start a new branch;
• You want to invest in new, expensive equipment or software that will alter your operations.
• However, because feasibility studies are time and money intensive investigations, there is no need to do one for every project. Here are a few compelling reasons to avoid it:
• Based on previous projects, other research, or competitor data, you already know the idea is practical.
• If your project is predicated on a regulatory requirement that you must complete anyway.
• Another division just completed a feasibility analysis that proved whether or not a similar project could be completed.
Course Manual 2: How it works
Introduction
Feasibility analysis is a tool that business owners can use to assess the feasibility of a proposed change in their company. This change could include the creation of a new product, the enhancement of an existing product, a shift in marketing strategy, or the expansion or contraction of the company.
“Capability of being employed or dealt with successfully,” according to one definition. It is the word “success” that gives feasibility analysis its true worth as a tool for planning and risk management. Success is frequently measured in terms of profit or enhanced value in the business world. Other ambitions that an entrepreneur may have include developing the business to allow a family member to join the company. Even in such a case, the expansion must generate enough new revenue to cover the additional costs. If the feasibility analysis shows that the target will not be attained, the entrepreneur might drop the project rather than investing considerably in the expansion. In other words, the feasibility analysis allows the entrepreneur to justify whether or not to pursue or abandon a company idea.
Any company move entails some level of risk. A thorough feasibility analysis highlights risk variables, the likelihood that they will occur, and their impact on the proposed business opportunity and entrepreneur. This study enables the creation of a comprehensive strategy to manage risk factors and provide appropriate contingencies, such as insurance or alternative marketplaces.
The Mindset of Feasibility Analysis
There are various steps to a feasibility analysis. The more complicated the company proposal, the more analysis phases are required. The business planner must perform two things at the end of each stage:
• establish criteria for whether or not the project will advance to the next planning step.
• Decide whether to move on to the next level or abandon the idea at this moment.
These criteria are determined by the objectives laid forth at the outset.
Case Study
Example 1:
If an entrepreneur sets a target of increasing profit by $50,000 each year, the criteria can be that profit must increase by at least $25,000 or the venture isn’t worth it. However, a market analysis suggests that the business is unlikely to earn more than $10,000 in additional sales, so the entrepreneur abandons the project in search of a better opportunity.
Setting Objectives
Frequently, a single target is set against which a new company’s success expectations are judged. A long-term goal and one or two shorter-term goals for measuring start-up performance are sometimes defined. These objectives should be S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely), as the decision to advance or abandon will be dependent on the proposed enterprise’s capacity to achieve these objectives.
The capacity to remain objective during the goal-setting process and throughout the feasibility study is crucial. Every step in the process is intended to bring the entrepreneur closer to his or her objective. It is critical that the goal be obvious and constant, and that the entrepreneur be able to clearly identify whether or not a particular activity will achieve the goal.
Two sets of objectives are required in a feasibility study. The first set of criteria describes what the firm is expected to achieve in a certain time period, while the second set of criteria establishes the minimum acceptable criteria that must be met if an analysis reveals that the business plan will not achieve its initial aim.
Case Study
Example 1:
An entrepreneur may decide that a new business should make $50,000 in its first year of operation, $125,000 in the second year, and $200,000 in the third year. At these rates of return, it is predicted to lose $50,000 in the first year, break even in the second year, and net $50,000 in the third year.
These financial targets would be met if the company could sell 10,000, 25,000, and 50,000 widgets at $5 apiece in the first three years. These are the company’s production objectives.
These objectives are explicit, measurable, and achievable. The study will determine whether they are feasible and feasible. .
Developing Criteria
Setting the criteria against which the outcomes of the analysis will be examined is the final task in each step of analysis. These criteria are based on the project’s objectives, and they help the entrepreneur decide whether to pursue the idea further or to quit it entirely.
Continued from Example 2
Returns of $25,000 in year one, $75,000 in year two, and $150,000 in year three may be acceptable to the entrepreneur. These are the bare minimal standards against which the company is judged. The entrepreneur will leave the project if the planning procedure fails to justify these findings. Any combination of sales volume and pricing that results in a lower gross income would be considered a minimum marketing criteria.
The entrepreneur should re-examine the procedures employed to attain the outcomes at this point. Here are some questions to consider when evaluating the results.
• Was the method utilized effective in obtaining accurate results?
• Were the people polled representative of the client base?
• Do these cost estimates adequately reflect the production and delivery costs?
“Continue” or “Abandon” decision
The decision-making process is aided by the establishment of “minimum acceptable” criteria for each stage. Either the project meets or does not meet the minimum requirements. If it doesn’t, the project will be shelved. If the project fulfills or exceeds the requirements, the entrepreneur can move on to the next step of analysis.
It’s vital to stay focused and objective at this point. When a “maybe” appears in a choice, it indicates that the aim or information is not properly defined. It may be essential to re-define the aims and begin over, or to go over the activity again.
Evaluation Processes
Feasibility analysis is a useful tool. It forces the entrepreneur to consider the actual situations that the business will face. This is the point at which the entrepreneur’s knowledge of business management is tested. The more carefully he or she can investigate the numerous business issues, the more reliable the feasibility study’s conclusions will be.
Feasibility Analysis Stages
1. Consider the concept.
2. Examine the entrepreneur’s management talents.
3. Examine the organization’s technological skills.
4. Evaluate the product or service’s marketing potential.
5. Consider the pricing and finance requirements.
Because the information obtained during the feasibility study may be directly transferred to the business plan, resulting in a more effective and accurate business plan, these stages are the same as the components of the business plan.
Feasibility Process
A process for conducting a feasibility analysis is depicted in Figure 1. It may be adjusted to fit the project’s complexity and risk level, and it can be applied to any company growth circumstance.
Figure 1. Feasibility process flow chart.
The Concept
Every concept has advantages and disadvantages. The entrepreneur will focus on the obvious benefits and limits at this point.
Is it clear that the concept will help you achieve your objectives?
• What elements would make it difficult for it to succeed?
• Is the entrepreneur’s family willing to make the required sacrifices for this enterprise to succeed?
It’s impossible to remain completely objective at this point. A healthy dose of skepticism permits the entrepreneur to spot the red flags and dangers that can derail even the best-laid plans.
Consider the following criteria:
• Are the financial, personal stress, and family sacrifice benefits of this proposal adequate to offset the cost in terms of finances, personal stress, and family sacrifice?
• What is the lowest benefit-to-cost ratio that can be tolerated?
Capabilities in Management
The most crucial aspect for success in every firm, according to management experts, is the management team that takes the decisions, yet it is the factor that is most often disregarded when analyzing the feasibility of a venture. Consider the following while starting a feasibility study:
• What management abilities are needed to maintain effective control over this business?
• Can these abilities be learned?
• How will participation in this project affect the family and other businesses?
• Will this new business enable me and my family to live the lifestyle we desire?
Consider the following criteria:
• What specific skills must be developed or hired?
• When does a lack of available talents become an impediment?
• On a scale of one to ten, how supportive is your family of your decision to pursue this opportunity?
Course Manual 3: Financial Feasibility
What role may a feasibility study play in protecting your company’s financial position?
New ideas and projects are critical to a company’s expansion, growth, and profitability.
Businesses, on the other hand, frequently discuss the project’s tactics, promotion activities, and implementation without analyzing and evaluating whether the new project idea is technically possible, within a manageable cost range, and, most importantly, lucrative.
When substantial sums of money are at stake, it is prudent for firms to hire a feasibility study to see if the new project proposal is technically feasible, manageable, and profitable.
Since its major objective is to identify potential risks, recommend risk mitigation strategies, and assess if the idea/project is viable to advance, a feasibility study can aid entrepreneurs in making decisions.
Important estimates included in a feasibility study
• Examine the company’s line of business, key values, goals, vision, and market positioning.
• Financial study of the company
• A thorough description and analysis of the project’s concept, objectives, and aims
• Market study
• Rules and regulations requirements based on the legal environment in which the company operates
• Tax obligations and duties
• Business and Marketing Plan
• Accounting Statements with 3 to 5 year predictions, including financial planning
• Time Estimation of Equilibrium, etc.
Role and Methodology of RSM
RSM has broad experience in auditing, taxation, financial services, and consulting.
As a result, by answering the following crucial questions, we can assist you in making the best financial selections possible:
• Is this project concept feasible, controllable, and financially viable?
• What is the maximum amount, source, and type of capital that the company can use?
• According to market trends, which strategies will be the most efficient and effective?
• How long do you think it will take for the investment to break even and start generating profits?
We have evaluated ideas and projects in all areas of business development over the years, including start-ups in all market sectors, specialized initiatives such as national and international business expansion projects, new product and service lines, new divisions in industrial manufacturing, energy projects, and so on.
Our guiding philosophy is to gain a thorough understanding of our clients’ needs and business requirements in order to deliver the best available advice and solutions based on their industry behavior and conditions, national and worldwide market trends, and business objectives and strategies.
As a consequence, we will collaborate with you and support you throughout the project implementation process in order to fulfill your project’s vision, reduce risks, and achieve the best potential outcomes.
As a result, we will communicate with financial institutions and oversee all funding resources in order to obtain the best available terms and conditions on the market and to determine the repayment time based on business capabilities.
Furthermore, we will establish a number of short-term evaluation intervals to act as a benchmark for the project idea’s performance. These evaluation intervals are crucial because they allow for prospective readjustments to strategies and methods in response to market behavior and global business trends.
Financial and Cost Factors
Each of the previous evaluations yielded estimates of anticipated costs and profits. Three statements can be made once the data has been moved to a ledger:
• income and expense statement (pro forma)
• cash flow statement
• opening balance sheet
These statements are necessary for constructing a strong business case to support the proposed endeavor. Return on investment (ROI) may have been stated in the original goals. An anticipated return on investment can be calculated.
The following are the questions that the entrepreneur is looking for answers to:
• Is the profit level meeting or exceeding the stated targets?
• Are the startup expenditures within your budgetary constraints?
• Is this idea likely to generate a sufficient return on investment?
• What impact will this investment have on your net worth?
Consider the following criteria:
• Is the cost of sales reasonable in comparison to the price of the product?
• Is the business meeting or exceeding its earnings targets?
• Is the predicted return at or above the required minimum level?
• Is there a more efficient approach to achieve my financial objectives?
How to Conduct a Financial Feasibility Analysis (Guide)
What distinguishes a successful startup from an unsuccessful one is the capacity to see into the future with hindsight. An oriented entrepreneur goes through the trouble of doing a financial feasibility study for viability confirmation before investing a cent in a project.
You can do so in this manner;
• Examine the market
• determine the potential launch costs
• create a cash flow and profit plan, calculate the return on investment
• forecast future performance
• provide intelligent statistics to the management team
• identify development opportunities
• and much more…
Fortunately, you don’t have to sift through the internet or read a 200-page book to figure out how to prepare financial feasibility.
Steps to Conduct a Financial Feasibility Analysis
Step 1: Calculate Your Startup Costs
The first stage in conducting a financial feasibility study is to establish a precise definition of the cost of your startup business. And, while you are the only one who can fully determine this, here are some typical initial fees to consider:
• Utilities and advertising
• Supplies and office furniture
• Utilities and advertising
• Permits and licenses are required for some activities
• Initial material procurement costs
• Wages for employees
• The cost of acquiring new equipment
• Incorporation costs include accounting and legal fees
• Marketing research costs
• Premiums for insurance
You can continue on to the following phase if you’ve agreed on an adequate sum. However, keep in mind that the initial cost must be available because the majority of the items stated above must be delivered before you can proceed.
Step 2: Projection of Cash Flow and Profit
According to research, 30 percent of firms fail due to a lack of funding. You can avoid this with a laser-focused estimate of future cash flow and profit. Cash flow, by definition, is a complete picture of the money that is expected to flow out and into your enterprise. As a result, quantifying all of your expenses and income is a necessary. First, examine your account receivable box, which includes rebates, customer deposits and payments, government grants, and bank loans, in order to be realistic with your cash flow estimate. After that, you analyze and calculate your account payable box, which covers inventory, taxes, overheads, payrolls, rents, payments to suppliers and vendors, and your personal income as the business owner.
Step 3: Deal with Negative Cash Flow Right Away
When you look at the patterns in your cash flow statement, you’ll notice that each of the two sides of your cash (account receivable and account payable) is broken down into three categories: finance, operations, and investing cash. If the three breakdowns of your account payable are higher than the three breakdowns of your account receivable, you may have negative cash flow in the future. Isn’t that bad for your health? The best thing you can do is control your negative cashflow ahead of time and build up your balances to the point where the amount of money moving out of your enterprise is less than the amount moving in. Take these simple steps to get started:
• Find out where and how you have a negative cash flow.
• Create and negotiate new payment conditions with consumers and vendors
• Talk to lenders to make up for low sales
• Reduce your running costs.
• Learn how to boost your sales.
Step 4: Extend the Time You’ll Need More Money
You can predict where and how negative cash flow will appear based on your cash flow prediction, sales, and earnings. Right? However, this is insufficient. Because getting additional capital from the outside to get ahead of negative cash flow isn’t always the best option. So go ahead and stretch out the conditions that will determine when more money is required. These circumstances can only be determined by you and your team, as they will remain constant throughout the life of your company.
Step 5: Calculate Your Return on Investment
Even though it was noted to be discussed, I didn’t go into earnings in step 2. This is where I’ve been putting it aside. It makes sense to handle your predicted profit differently because it influences the viability of your firm and the financial feasibility of the project. The overarching goal is to figure out how far your company can go in terms of attracting equity investors. What motivates a prospective stock investor?
Short payback period; you must anticipate how long it will take for your business investment to be repaid, as well as profit. A project with a short payback period will, as expected, attract more equity investors.
The NPV (Net Profit Value) is a statement that shows the difference between the current cost and the predicted profit. If your project’s NPV is hugely positive after calculation, it’s considered practical enough to attract investors.
Internal Rate Of Return (IRR): Simply explained, the IRR is a balanced net present value. When your expected cash outflow equals your current cash inflow, your firm has a lot of potential. As a result, astute investors have their eyes peeled for opportunities.
Consider These Elements For A Rock-Solid Financial Feasibility
• Revenues include sales returns and discounts, interest, dividends, and interest, as well as sales.
• Assets, both current and long-term.
• Bank account overdraft, accounts payable, accrued costs, bills payable, interest payments, and more are all examples of current and non-current liabilities…
• Intermittent expenses, discretionary spending, variable expenses, and fixed expenses are all examples of company expenses.
• As previously said, cash flow is important.
Conclusion
Great ideas may ultimately prove to be the worst. If a fresh company concept simply popped into your head out of nowhere, you don’t want to jump into it straight away. That’s where putting together a financial feasibility analysis comes in. A well-thought-out and meticulously constructed financial feasibility report can save a touching story. So far, I’ve provided you the whole blueprint for a guided walk-through into building the financial feasibility of your new firm. I can only hope that this information aids you in your quest to build and operate a prosperous business.
Course Manual 4: Economic Feasibility
The study of costs and benefits is known as economics. In terms of the study’s feasibility, the entrepreneur is concerned about whether the capital cost as well as the cost of the product are justified in comparison to the price at which it will sell on the market. Technically, silver can be extracted from silver bromide (a chemical used in the processing of X-ray and picture films); but, the expense of extraction is so high that it is not commercially viable. Similarly, the cost of harvesting solar electricity was prohibitively high until recently.
This cost-benefit analysis feeds into the financial calculations for profitability analysis that we talked about in the financial analysis section. It’s also important to distinguish between economic and commercial feasibility at this stage; whereas economic feasibility leads to the product’s unit cost, commercial feasibility tells you whether enough units will sell. Aside from the cost-benefit analysis described above, also known as private cost-benefit analysis, it is also beneficial to do a social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA).
For example, if the entrepreneur receives subsidized power, the private cost would be lower than the social cost. Similarly, exporting units gain valuable foreign currency, resulting in social benefits exceeding private revenues. A project that is worthy on SCBA may find favor with the support agencies more often than not.
Evaluating The Financial Viability Of A Project
To determine if a proposed project is a good use of public resources, many governments conduct an economic viability analysis (also known as socio-economic viability). When seen in the context of society as a whole, a project is economically viable if its economic advantages outweigh its economic costs.
The project’s economic costs are not the same as its financial costs; externalities and environmental implications must be taken into account. Externalities (both positive and bad) are economic effects that affect people who aren’t directly involved in the enterprise. The economic benefits are a measure of the overall value that the project will provide to society. Revenue is usually a lower-bound estimate of a project’s economic advantages; nevertheless, benefits might be significantly larger than revenues.
For drivers, for example, the benefits of enhanced mobility may significantly outweigh the tolls paid on a highway—faster connections, lower car upkeep, and lower accident rates may all be significant factors. Furthermore, the project has the potential to boost regional economic activity and improve the quality of life for those who live in the project’s proximity. Similarly, even if no school fees are charged, the worth of a high school education should be judged by the improvement in the lives and prospects of the children who attend that school. A cost-effectiveness analysis can be included in an economic viability analysis to see if the project is the most cost-effective way to accomplish the desired outcomes.
On project assessment and economic cost-benefit analysis, there is a wealth of literature and advice material available. The basic goal of assessment, according to the United Kingdom Green Book on Appraisal (UK 2011a), is to ensure that no project, program, or policy is implemented without first answering two major questions: Is there a better approach to accomplish this goal? Is there a better way to put these resources to use?
It’s time to determine economic feasibility when the technical feasibility and market investigations are completed. The initial goal of this project is to develop a financial model for the business potential and conduct a break-even analysis. In other words, how much income earned from units sold is required to break-even, and over what period of time, depending on expenses of products sold, capital costs, and management and administration?
Following the development of a break-even analysis, the entrepreneurs can create accurate financial estimates for best and worst case situations. Strategic planning, milestone development, and venture valuation research will all benefit from these scenarios. The simple goal is to figure out how much revenue is needed to meet the founder’s and/or investors’ expectations for a return on investment.
Definition: The economic feasibility stage of business development is the time when a break-even financial model of the business endeavor is produced based on all costs connected with bringing a product from concept to market and producing sales sufficient to meet loan or investment requirements.
Objective: The goal of the economic feasibility study is to create a financial model for the business enterprise.
Product: This step’s output is a thorough integration of technical product information and market research into one or more break-even financial models.
PPP Application
PPP projects must meet feasibility and economic viability standards in many countries.
• In the Philippines, for example, all large infrastructure projects must go through a feasibility and viability assessment procedure, which is detailed in a reference handbook (NEDA 2005a).
• In Chile, the 2010 Concessions Law stipulates that a possible PPP project’s social effect review must be approved by the Ministry of Planning. Before a project may be implemented as a PPP, the Concessions Council must review this document.
• In Indonesia, the state-owned Indonesia Infrastructure Guarantee Fund has established guidelines outlining the methodology for determining the opportunity cost of giving guarantees to PPP investors. Technical feasibility, economic viability, and environmental and social desirability are among the factors.
Optimism bias is a systemic problem that affects all infrastructure projects, including public-private partnerships (see Poor Planning and Project Selection). It must be addressed during the assessment process because it is frequently the source of project renegotiation. Furthermore, overly optimistic demand assessments may persuade governments to accept projects that end up costing more than they save. The UK Treasury has produced advice material on reducing optimism bias (UK 2013).
Implementing agencies should remember that the work done to assess project feasibility also serves as a foundation for the rest of the PPP evaluation. The project concept serves as the foundation for creating the PPP financial model, as well as any commercial and fiscal viability analyses and quantitative value for money analyses. The risk analysis will be based on a review of technical feasibility, as well as environmental and social sustainability. The cost and demand estimates provided for the economic feasibility evaluation will also serve as preliminary inputs for financial modeling and PPP value for money analysis.
Entrepreneurial Activities
This step includes all of the business activities required to establish a conceptual plan for a new endeavor based on one or more economic scenarios.
The following tasks must be done at the economic feasibility stage:
• Conduct a financial analysis to determine break-even scenarios based on unit prices, sales volume, and expenses.
• Evaluate the pros of licensing the potential vs venturing
• Determine whether the business opportunity has sufficient profit margins to sustain a business venture
Milestones: A financial model that accurately represents the business possibility is a milestone.
Sources of funding: Friends and family, personal money
Information about the company: When the economic feasibility process is completed, a go/no-go decision about the business endeavor is usually made, and if the judgment is positive, sources and uses of seed cash for the development phase are identified.
Important Questions
• Does the venture have a good chance of succeeding financially?
• Have you done a financial study of the venture’s break-even point?
• Is the venture profitable enough to justify your investment?
• Have you weighed the advantages of licensing against venture capital?
Risks Associated With Climate Change And Natural Disasters Are Being Assessed
Practitioners should be able to establish private investor contractual duties and sufficient contract management systems when policymakers and project developers gain a better grasp of the risks posed by climate change. The life cycle approach allows for the creation of incentives for all parties involved in the PPP process as well as the reduction of investment risks. Principles for Project Managers (CLIMATE-ADAPT 2012, 17–53), a European Commission research, gives guidelines for integrating climate resilience into the asset lifetime.
Models that are downscaled employ macro data to forecast climate outcomes at the local level. Although data on climate and disaster risks is becoming increasingly reliable for downscaled models, the spectrum of uncertainty surrounding these risks and their consequences remains a difficulty. Instead of focusing solely on the project implementation phase, good practice involves incorporating the idea of resilience into the risk allocation matrix and whole-asset-life-cost optimization methodologies.
Procurement experts must devise incentive structures for PPP procurement in order to stimulate climate mitigation and adaptation innovation while remaining competitive. For example, using the asset life costing approach, resilience evaluation criteria could be included in tender documents, with bidders being asked to demonstrate how their proposals address risk resilience, highlighting both costs and benefits, as well as how they will manage the project when the risk changes.
Non-specialists can examine the effects of disasters on new development projects using two essential resources. These are the following:
• Think Hazard (GFDRR), a web-based program developed by the World Bank and other partners
• The Climate Change Knowledge Portal (WB-Climate)
Other innovative technical assistance available to procuring authorities are:
• The Society for Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU) , an interactive platform that facilitates learning and conversation about critical aspects of long-term investment under uncertainty.
• Bonzanigo and Kalra’s Making Informed Investment Decisions in an Uncertain World: A Short Demonstration aims to motivate and empower analysts to better manage uncertainty in investment decisions.
• According to a World Bank study: Kalra et al. (2015) used state-of-the-art decision-making approaches for decision-making under profound uncertainty to enable SEDAPAL, the water utility serving Lima, Peru, make prudent investments to assure long-term water reliability. The decision tree used in South Asia to acquire climate resilient hydropower is outlined in a World Bank paper (WB 2016d).
Course Manual 5: Market Feasibility
Market/Industry Feasibility
Market Feasibility is an evaluation of the market’s overall appeal for the product or service being proposed. There are three key problems that a proposed business should address when conducting an industry/market feasibility analysis:
• Industry Attractiveness
• Market Timeliness
• Niche Market Identification
1. Attractiveness of the Industry
The appeal of a new venture is a major predictor of its viability of the chosen industry. The rate of growth in various industries varies greatly.
The following are some of the most appealing characteristics of industries in general:
(a) Are huge and expanding;
(b) are significant to the client;
(c) are relatively young rather than older and more mature;
(d) have high operating margins rather than poor operating margins
(e) They aren’t overcrowded.
The amount to which a new business’s prospective industry’s growth potential meets these requirements should be taken into consideration.
A new venture will want to learn more about the market it seeks to enter, in addition to evaluating its growth prospects. Both primary and secondary research can be used to accomplish this.
3. Niche Market Identification
A niche market is a subset of a bigger market sector that caters to a smaller group of clients who share common interests. Industry/Market Feasibility refers to a smaller set of clients who share common interests. Selling to a niche market makes sense for a new company for at least two reasons:
• It enables a company to establish itself inside an industry without having to compete directly with major competitors.
• A niche approach allows a company to focus on providing excellent service to a specific market rather than attempting to be all things to all people in a large market, which is almost impossible for a new entrant.
Another effective approach to thinking about this is to distinguish between vertical and horizontal markets: A vertical market concentrates on similar enterprises with specialized demands. Vertical markets are where most start-ups sell their first products. Rather of serving a single industry, a horizontal market serves the demands of a wide range of sectors.
A market, whether it is a physical location or not, is a gathering place for buyers and sellers. Market analysis is primarily concerned with the aggregate demand for the proposed product/service in the future and the market share projected to be acquired from the seller’s perspective. The proposed project’s success is plainly dependent on the consumers’ continued support. However, determining the market for one’s product or service is extremely difficult. After all, you can’t sell to the entire universe. You must divide the market carefully based on factors such as geographic scope, demographic and psychological profiles of potential customers, and so on. It’s an investigation of who makes up your consumer base; to do so, you’ll need information on:
• Consumption patterns
• Supply situation in the past and present
• Supply situation in the past and present
• Imports and Exports
• Consumer behaviour, intentions, motivations, attitudes, preferences and requirements
• Currently used distribution methods and marketing policies
• Administrative, technological, and legal limits on product marketing
Market Feasibility
This section is crucial because it introduces the concept of market feasibility for a startup. The feasibility study’s market stage is directly linked to the finance stage. The market section of a feasibility study is critical for determining demand.
Demand Studies
Three factors must be determined before the market portion of a feasibility study can be adequately assessed. Market potential is the most important criterion in determining market feasibility; other considerations include industry overviews and competitive studies. Other elements aren’t necessary for establishing market feasibility for a business start-up, but they can help when making a decision (Stevens & Sherwood, 1982; Capps & Love, 2002).
When establishing whether or not a project is practical, the demand analysis aspect is critical. Setting market segmentation, assessing market potential, and setting market parameters are some of these points (Stevens & Sherwood, 1982).
Market Segments
A product or service’s market is made up of multiple smaller markets, each with distinct features, and this is one of the most essential notions on which demand assessments are founded.
The automobile industry is a good example. The vehicle market is a vast market with numerous smaller segments. The vehicle market can be divided into many divisions, such as the kind of automobiles desired by different buyers. These characteristics can be grouped into four categories: family cars, sedans, sports cars, economy cars, SUVs, and so on. Market segmentation is the method of dividing a market into segments (Stevens & Sherwood, 1982; McDonald et al., 1995; Baloglu & Uysal, 1996).
Because large markets are complex and varied, the premise behind market segmentation is to separate them into submarkets in order to identify all of the consumers in these markets as comparable consumers. When breaking a large market into smaller market segments, the smaller market segment must be researched separately. The major market is divided into numerous market segments, with different customer characteristics in each category.
There are a few major biases that marketers commonly segment. Demographic, geographic, product benefits, and product usage can all be used to segment a market (Stevens & Sherwood, 1982).
Analysis Of Competitors And An Overview Of The Industry
A competitor is a brief description that may be defined as detecting competitors and estimating their techniques to help assess their strengths and weaknesses (Competitive Analysis, 2017). This information can also be used to compare and contrast the competitor’s strategies to your product or service. Many different tools and styles of competitor analyses are utilized (Chen, 1996; Bergen & Peteraf, 2002). For a start-up, tools are not the most effective technique to do a competitor study.
It will be more efficient to do an accurate and effective competitor analysis that provides enough information about the rival to compare their service or product (Competitive Analysis, 2017). Industries evolve over time, and it’s important to think about the dangers that are pushing them to change. Competition intensification, technical evolution and innovation, regulatory changes, globalization, and customer needs are all potential concerns. (Abraham and colleagues, 2012).
Market Factors
Any business’s success hinges on its ability to provide the right product to the right market at the right time and at the right price. There are numerous failed goods in the marketing world that could have been successful if the success formula had been different. The most critical thing an entrepreneur can do to mitigate risk is to conduct effective market research.
Important Areas To Investigate
• the product or service’s characteristics and benefits
• target market (which customers are most likely to purchase?)
• Various possibilities for distribution (best way to reach the target buyers)
• market demand (how many buyers are there, what is the volume, and what is the price?)
• Competitive competition (What items and businesses are in competition?)
• trends (How long do you think the product will last?)
• the anticipated cost (highest, lowest and most often prices)
• anticipated sales (volume and market conditions)
It’s critical to remember that the marketplace is ruled by customers. They are the only ones who can tell if the product will sell in sufficient quantities and at a profitable price. Market research can help determine the likelihood of a product’s success.
• What are the bare minimums in terms of sales volume and pricing that must be met in order for a business to be viable?
• Is there enough room for sales to grow?
• Is this the best product on the market?
Course Manual 6: Technical Feasibility
Because it’s too expensive to comply with regulations, many entrepreneurs avoid implementing capabilities like access to EHR systems in mHealth apps or cryptocurrency activities in FinTech apps.
The viability of a project’s schedule is determined by the amount of time it will take to finish it. Time is a valuable commodity for every business, and failing to complete a project on time might endanger its success. If you’re planning to construct an application for a certain event, for example, you’ll want to make sure you’ll be able to do it before the event. Otherwise, all of your efforts will be for naught.
Lets focus on technical feasibility in this piece because that’s exactly what your outsourcing vendor can assist you with. They can, however, advise you on all other sorts of feasibility, such as operational and legal feasibility.
Let’s take a closer look at technical feasibility in the software development life cycle.
What do they mean by technical feasibility?
Technical feasibility takes into account your company’s or development team’s current resources, which include:
• Specialists in hardware and software technology
• Software development tools
• Knowledge and abilities
• Development time and budget
Technical feasibility considers the technical skills of development team members and ensures that the technologies chosen for a given product are adequate, dependable, and marketable.
Here is an example of the considerations you should make while evaluating a technology’s technical feasibility.
Some technologies may appear practical at the time, but they may not be the greatest option for you in the long run.
A wide range of technologies, including novel ones, are available for development. While certain technologies may be more technically viable for your project, they may not have adequate support in the development community. This means that finding new developers will be difficult, potentially jeopardizing your budget, timelines, and other priorities.
Some technologies may appear practical at the time, but they may not be the greatest option for you in the long run.
How do you determine the technical feasibility of your project? Let’s get started.
A step-by-step guide to conducting a technical feasibility study
A technical feasibility study in software engineering occurs at the planning stage of a project and determines the technical possibility of successful software implementation.
A technical feasibility study can’t be completed in a few days because it necessitates a thorough examination of all areas of your project. As a result, before you begin this research, you should be aware of the following:
• Functional requirements, A business analyst gathers functional requirements, which are then converted into a technical specification.
• Non-functional requirements, such as scalability, performance, and localization, that are set by a software architect and determine the product’s technical properties.
Determining the project’s technical needs is a “zero stage” that must be completed before the technical feasibility study can begin. Aside from that, you must be aware of the following:
• To complete the project, you’ll need all of the necessary hardware and software.
• Constraints and risks
• Compatibility with currently installed software
• Your technical team’s strengths and skills
After you’ve gathered this data, it’s time to examine the project’s feasibility.
Step 1: Consider ways to implement your project
There are numerous approaches to obtaining software for your company, and your decision will be based on the findings of your feasibility study. However, it’s critical to consider these possibilities from the start. What exactly are they?
Avoiding the use of software at any costs. This is a reasonable option that isn’t all that uncommon. After assessing the feasibility, you may discover that the costs of deploying new software aren’t worth it, and it’s advisable to stick with your current system for the time being. To make the switch to new software, you may need to wait for the proper time or situation.
Choosing a ready-to-use solution that can be customized further. This is an excellent alternative if you don’t have the time or money to design your own bespoke software and your project requirements aren’t so complex that a ready-to-use solution isn’t adequate.
For CRMs and other complicated systems with extensive architecture that is too costly for a single organization to design and maintain, choosing an off-the-shelf product is the best alternative. You often get 24/7 support and maintenance with a SaaS solution, in addition to a product that is ready for customization. When selecting a third-party solution, keep the following aspects in mind:
• Performance
• Reliability
• Options for personalization
• Cost per month or per year
• Compatibility with the program you’re using now
• Licensing and adherence to legal obligations
• Support is available.
• Scalability
• Learning and implementation are simple.
Even if you purchase ready-to-use software, you must still develop and test APIs, ensure that your new software is compatible with your existing system, and tweak the code to meet your specific requirements. You should also invest in your employees’ training.
Limited customization, reliance on a third-party corporation, and the necessity to adapt your internal business processes to the software you’re using are all disadvantages of off-the-shelf software.
Third-party solutions frequently need too much customisation, have too many unnecessary features, or lack features that a firm requires. It’s advisable to create a custom solution in this scenario.
Creating a one-of-a-kind solution. After reviewing all of the available SaaS options, you may determine that developing a custom solution is the best option for your company. You have complete control over custom software, which matches your own business procedures and requirements. You don’t have to follow another company’s judgments, and you can change your software at any moment.
The manner you create your custom software has an impact on the project’s feasibility. You can, for example, decide whether to hire in-house developers or outsource your project. Instead of outsourcing, some organizations engage freelancers or outsource their development.
While one alternative may not be practical due to the increased cost and length of the hiring process, another choice may be ideal for your budget and time constraints.
It’s critical to explore all of your development alternatives and do a feasibility analysis that weighs the costs of each option.
Step 2. Create multiple options for your software architecture
It’s a good idea to discuss numerous technical solutions that can help you achieve your business goals so you can choose the best realistic alternative for your project. These blueprints include the following:
• Third-party solutions and integrations
• architectural pattern.
• The structure of the database and the logic of data transfer across servers
• Security precautions
You must conduct all five types of feasibility studies for each alternative before deciding on the best solution for your company.
Who can come up with those technological options for you? The best candidates for this position are a tech lead or a solution architect. If you don’t have a development team and are only thinking about it, you can hire a third-party IT consultant to give you with technical solutions based on your needs.
Step 3. Consider technical risks and constraints
Risks and restrictions should be included in any feasibility study because they can affect development time and budget. These are some of the common dangers associated with software development projects:
• Third-party integration problems
• Issues with upkeep
• Issues with scalability
• New technology with few specialists and/or minimal support on the market
• Existing software compatibility issues
• Long-term difficulties integrating new features
• inflexible infrastructure
Your development team should inform you of all the dangers associated with various technologies and make every effort to mitigate them.
Step 4. Choose the most suitable solution
Now that you know what you need, what options you have, and what risks you face, it’s time to choose the best solution for your company based on the following criteria:
• Performance
• Scalability
• Cost
• Timeline
• the size of the team
• Requirements of law
• Risks
• Mechanisms of security
• Maintenance efforts are made
• Efforts to implement
Assess and rank each of your implementation alternatives based on these characteristics. You can design the most effective and scalable solution, but it may cost twice as much as you can afford. When making a decision, it’s critical to strike a balance between all of these elements.
Step 5. Create a feasibility report
It’s now time to write a full feasibility study for the implementation you’ve chosen. Let’s take a closer look at how a feasibility report should be formatted.
A Feasibility Report’s Structure
The sections of a feasibility report are as follows:
Overview. This is the report’s introduction, which outlines what the report is about and what information it contains.
The report’s purpose. Describe the goals of your software development project in this area.
The scope of the project. Here you should explain the project’s scope, which comprises the features that must be developed in order to meet your business objectives.
The current prognosis. You must describe the current IT infrastructure and explain what obstacles are preventing your company from attaining its objectives in this area. A current diagnosis describes all aspects of the present program, including its version and architecture as well as where it is used. It’s critical to provide comprehensive information on all concerns and to explain them with reports, images, spreadsheets, and other visual aids.
Requirements. This section offers a full description of all the new software’s needs.
Options for implementation. All of the software implementation choices you were considering should be listed here. Show all of the current alternatives on the market, including SaaS solutions.
Option that is highly recommended. Compare the choice you offer to all of the above-mentioned options, highlighting both the pros and hazards of your preferred option. Cost, time, ease of implementation, and the other aspects described above should all be considered in the comparison.
Benefits. Show how your proposed solution will help the company and what objectives will be met with the new software. In your report, provide both tangible and intangible benefits.
Costs. Your feasibility study should include a full project estimate that covers the cost of development professionals’ time as well as all associated costs, such as the cost of third-party integrations. Compare the prices of all the options you evaluated previously.
Risks. Describe all of the potential dangers associated with each option and suggest ways to avoid or mitigate them. Remember to think about risks involving people, your organization, needs, and tools in addition to technical concerns.
Timeline and road map . According to the level of software development, provide a clear development plan with milestones, a deadline, and the resources required. Preparation, design, development, testing, and deployment are all stages.
Final stage: Feasibility testing
Now that you have all of the theoretical information on the feasibility of your project, it’s time to put it to the test in the technical feasibility process. There are three major techniques to determine whether a software project is worthwhile to invest in when it comes to software development:
• A proof of concept, or PoC, is a completely theoretical test used to determine a product’s technological feasibility. A proof of concept (PoC) is a technical specification, presentation, or other deliverable that demonstrates how a product will assist achieve certain goals in a given setting.
• A prototype demonstrates the quality of a product’s design and the ease with which it may be used. It’s usually offered as low-functionality software that merely illustrates how the product would look without any complicated business logic.
• An MVP is a fully functional software product that has all of the essential elements for a user to achieve their goal. The main purpose of an MVP is to determine whether a product is relevant in the market and to get user feedback so that you may build it to its maximum potential.
Technical Factors
The question of “Can it be done?” must be considered when evaluating an idea. To put it another way, is the entrepreneur and organization capable of developing the product and bringing it to market? Some examples of specific inquiries are:
• Is it possible to obtain the necessary raw materials?
• What kind of technology, equipment, and procedures are necessary?
• Do your employees know what technology, equipment, and procedures are required?
• Does the production system appear to be feasible and affordable?
Consider the following criteria:
• How much time may be spent on this project at the expense of other projects?
• To accommodate this project, how much change is required?
• When does it become unworthy of your time and effort?
Course Manual 7: Organizational Feasibility
Organizational feasibility analysis aids in the identification of managerial skills required for the start-up and subsequent management of a new enterprise. Even if the market, industry, and financial feasibility analyses are all good, the venture will most likely fail if the entrepreneurial startup team has the competence or experience to implement the plan and make the many elements function together.
The two fundamental concerns of organizational feasibility study are:
• resource sufficiency and
• management expertise/prowess
Attention to both areas is vital, because management success without resource success, and vice versa, will almost certainly lead to failure. This is a challenging subject to study because many entrepreneurs prefer to exaggerate their own abilities in terms of talent and skill while underestimating their competitors’ capacity to adapt and compete (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000).
The entrepreneur’s ability to grasp the markets the new firm aims to service, entrepreneurial and managerial expertise, and the depth of professional and social networks are all common features when evaluating management prowess (Barringer, 2009). According to some research, essential human attributes of the entrepreneurial team, such as love for the new enterprise, motivation and tenacity, integrity and reliability, should also be considered when evaluating management prowess (Kurato and Hornsby, 2009). Tolerance for ambiguity, as well as the ability to deal with uncertainty and risk, is also valued (Teoh and Foo, 1997).
Entrepreneurs frequently have substantial difficulties in determining their resource requirements and determining how to meet them, as well as attracting and locating resources to assist their fledgling firm (Yusuf, 2010). The ability of a company to locate nonfinancial resources, such as important personnel and others such as consultants, lawyers, and accountants, is also considered during the organizational feasibility analysis (Barringer, 2009). Entrepreneurial time availability and energy, as well as intellectual property and knowledge unique to the new firm, are all considered here. An understanding of the human resources and talent required for business expansion as the new venture scales up is sometimes overlooked in the organizational feasibility analysis. A future perspective is desperately needed in this situation.
The similarities between opportunity recognition, feasibility study, and business model are generally the result of necessary research aimed at reducing ambiguity and uncovering beneficial insights. Research also necessitates a thorough examination of assumptions, all of which leads to increased confidence in decision-making and a reduction in risk (Raffaelli et al., 2019).
1.Skills in management
a) A company should analyze its management Feasibility Analysis team’s proficiency (ability) to ensure that management has the:
I. required passion and
II. required knowledge to begin the business.
b) In this area, the most significant criteria are:
I. The solo entrepreneur’s or founding team’s passion for the business idea.
II. How well the sole proprietor or founding team understands the markets in which the company will compete.
c) Solo entrepreneurs or starting teams with established social and professional networks have a competitive edge.
2. Resource Sufficiency
a) This topic is about determining whether or not an entrepreneur has the resources to establish a proposed business.
b) In this case, the focus should be on non-financial resources, with financial feasibility taken into account separately.
c) To determine resource sufficiency, a company should make a list of the 6 to 12 most important nonfinancial resources that will be required to successfully advance the business idea.
d) It may be impractical to pursue the business plan if necessary resources are unavailable in some places.
Non-financial resources that may be crucial to the success of a new business’s debut
a) Access to reasonably priced office or lab space.
b) The likelihood of local and state government assistance to the company.
c) The available labor pool’s quality.
d) Proximity to important suppliers and clients.
e) Desirability of high-quality employees to join the company
f) Possibility of forming beneficial strategic collaborations.
g) Proximity to similar businesses for the purpose of information sharing.
h) Intellectual property protection in critical sectors is a possibility.
Stakeholder Consultation To Determine Project Viability
Stakeholder engagement is a useful method for determining a project’s viability and detecting dangers.
Stakeholder participation should begin as early in the project cycle as practicable. According to the IFC stakeholder guide (IFC 2007, 4) many private operators begin their engagement process during the project’s pre-feasibility stage. According to the IFC manual, consultation should begin at the concept stage of the project.
There are benefits and drawbacks to early engagement. It enables the government to present the project in a favourable light, to publicly explain its development logic, and to strike a balance between promoting the project and moderating expectations. Every undertaking has potential benefits as well as risks. Stakeholders are also reassured that their needs and opinions are being considered early on. Early on, establishing a favorable relationship builds social capital and establishes a foundation of credibility among stakeholders in the event of a problem.
The potential of disseminating disinformation is one of the disadvantages of early engagement. As soon as details about the project are made public, the door to disinformation and rumors opens. The ability to dispel these rumors in the early phases of the project cycle is restricted, as highlighted in the IFC stakeholder engagement guide, because many aspects will only become known toward the conclusion of the appraisal phase. In the absence of precise details, it may be difficult to reassure stakeholders or reply to questions. Due to a lack of information, stakeholders may speculate and criticize a project early based on unproven facts or erroneous assumptions.
As a result, stakeholders for the initial engagement should be carefully identified. During the project idea stage, limited consultation with specific stakeholders can be performed to obtain crucial stakeholder input; but, care must be taken to avoid the spread of unneeded and potentially damaging misinformation that will raise alarms before a project is even approved. When more project specifics are understood, stakeholders can be identified and consulted more broadly after this initial consultation. The Delhi Water Project is an illustration of what happens when disinformation goes unchallenged.
Case Study
The Delhi Water Project
With the help of the World Bank, the Delhi government sought to modernize its water industry in 2004. Delhi had enough water to meet its population’s needs, but it lacked proper transmission and distribution systems. These flaws were mostly due to political, institutional, and governance concerns, which resulted in the system’s sub-optimal performance. The project aimed to improve sector accountability by separating ownership, policy-making, and service delivery duties and developing a transparent framework between them.
The Delhi administration met with stakeholders at all levels to learn about their concerns and develop a plan of action. A willingness to pay survey was also done, with consumers indicating that they were willing to pay more for better service quality. Water rates were raised for the first time in six years as a result of this.
A pilot project was suggested to be run under a management contract in two of Delhi’s 21 zones. A local NGO, Parivartan, made its objections to the pilot project public in July 2005, before the consultation on the project could be concluded.
It made a number of accusations regarding the project, including that it will raise tariffs even more, make water inaccessible to the poor, and gradually privatize the water sector. Parivartan also claimed that the World Bank was influencing the Delhi Water Board, which is in charge of water and sanitation services in the city. It disseminated these allegations widely through the media and by attempting to sway key figures in civil society, government, and academia.
The allegations made by Parivartan against the project were false. No one from the Delhi Water Board or the Delhi government, however, has come forth to deny them. Furthermore, there was already a public outcry about power privatization, adding to the project’s aversion. Because to the unmet public opposition to the project, it was eventually suspended in November 2005 and put on hold indefinitely.
Having a strong project story in place can help to counteract such rumors. The following are some helpful measures to take when writing a story:
• Identify the present problem that the population is facing
• Describe the problem’s impact on the lives of individuals impacted
• Describe how the government is dealing with the problem
• Describe why the government is using a PPP to deal with the problem
The European Commission’s stakeholder consultation guidelines (EC 2015) recommend a maximum of 12 weeks for this exercise. This time frame will vary depending on the project’s size and scope, with only major projects requiring the whole 12-week consulting period.
Course Manual 8: Legal Feasibility
Legal Feasibility: First, examine whether the proposed project clashes with legal requirements and whether the planned business is legal. The project team must do a detailed review of the legal concerns that surround the project on multiple levels.
A thorough legal due diligence should be performed to guarantee that all expected legal requirements are met for the project’s development, which have not or will not be addressed in earlier appraisal procedures.
The following are the major goals of the legal feasibility analysis:
a) To ensure that the project is legally feasible;
b) To aid risk management by identifying the risks and obstacles that must be addressed in the technical analyses, financial model, and/or Value for Money analysis; and
c) To avoid major problems in the project’s development and implementation, to the extent possible, by specifying the requirements that must be considered at later stages of the PPP process, [public-private collaboration]
Example
An example of requirements needed to propose a construction project are architect contract, bid bond, bid form, equipment lease, guarantee agreement, construction agreement, warranty bond, certificate of final completion, change order, contract extension agreement, and many more. These documents should be able to provide once the project will be started.
The due diligence procedure should guarantee that the project is procured in compliance with current legal standards, both domestically and internationally, and that essential components of the project have been legalized. Legal due diligence should involve at least three critical processes, as outlined below, in order to analyze the project’s legal feasibility.
The first step is to examine the legal framework in place. This includes locating and analyzing relevant legislation and regulations that may have an impact on the project. The following are some of the legal and regulatory issues that must be addressed.
• The enabling PPP legislation, particularly in search of specific project requirements such as a minimum capital value and maximum contractual duration;
• The public procurement law, which may be partially applicable, particularly in search of general contractual and procurement guidelines;
• Legislation relating to foreign investment, property, and labor issues;
• Legislation relating to land use planning and environmental laws;
• Sector specific legislation
First and foremost, these assessments must give a thorough list of project requirements that will feed further feasibility exercises such as technical requirements and commercial feasibility analyses. Second, they should state the necessity for any change in legislation or regulation, where necessary, and, if this is the case, identify the procedure by which this change can be implemented, as well as the time and resources required to implement the change.
The second step is to evaluate the procurement authority’s legal readiness. Although this particular issue may have already been checked, it is crucial to review whether the promoting authority and other institutions involved have the legal authority to launch the project or proceed with the necessary approvals at this time. In some nations, legal empowerment issues also apply to the formal duty for appraisal exercises. Some governments require official feasibility studies to be completed. There may be requirements in this scenario as to which governmental agencies should be included and how they should be included. As a result, legal due diligence must determine which agencies should be involved in each instance and to what extent.
The third duty is to do a thorough legal analysis of the project’s major challenges. Large infrastructure projects frequently have unique characteristics that have substantial legal ramifications. As a result, it is critical to analyze the project’s conformance to the overall legal framework during the assessment process. It’s important to pay close attention to the legal viability of:
• The project’s financial aspects;
• Issues relevant to commercial viability, such as the project’s bankability;
• The project’s use of land and existing assets;
• Alternative ownership claims on the land (common in countries with complex or undocumented property ownership systems);
• Rights of other users (for example, a state oil company that owns pipes buried beneath the land, a road route crossing under electricity transmission wires, and so on)
Specific Project Issues to Consider During Legal Due Diligence Examples
a)Financial aspects
• Legal feasibility of the chosen sort of public assistance or guarantees, if any are required.
• Process for obtaining public support and the authorities involved.
• If relevant, there are legal limits and constraints on charging private sector end-users.
• Ability to build ancillary enterprises legally (advertising, retail, leisure, and so on).
b)Commercial feasibility
• Legal feasibility of the chosen sort of public assistance or guarantees, if any are required.
• Process for obtaining public support and the authorities involved.
• If relevant, there are legal limits and constraints on charging private sector end-users.
• Ability to build ancillary enterprises legally (advertising, retail, leisure, and so on).
c)Land and property assets issues
• Land availability (which can take the form of right of way or clearance for transportation projects and/or site ownership for facilities) is a country-specific issue.
• The ownership of assets is governed by a set of rules.
• The kind of rights that the private sector can be given.
• Responsibilities include moving people who are living in the right-of-way.
d)Foreign investment and currency exchange
• Foreign direct investment (FDI) restrictions and currency exchange controls are in place.
• Dividends and capital invested cannot be repatriated.
• Foreign personnel are subject to restrictions.
• Benefits for international investors
e)Employment issues
• If existing assets are taken over by the private sector, there will be consequences for public sector employees.
f)Taxation and accountancy
• The project’s relevant regime.
• Imports are subject to a special regime (when significant equipment is included in project Capex).
• Exemptions from taxes and the possibility of unique tax incentives for FDI.
• Other issues to think about in the financial model.
g)Environmental issues
• Is there a legal requirement for specific environmental approvals for the site or project type, or are there exemptions that apply to the site/project?
The legal classification of the land and any existing assets is an important consideration during the study of the key difficulties. Even if the procurement body already has the assets, they may not be ready to be handed to the concessionaire. In some countries, a change in the asset’s type of use from “public use” to “disposable use” is required. In certain nations, transferring ownership of public assets to the private sector requires legal approval. In any instance, the property or asset’s availability must be properly acknowledged, as well as the challenges that surround it.
Case Study
Consider the suffering of the entrepreneur who devised a laundry service for hotels and hospitals, finds it extremely practicable, only to discover later that ‘laundry’ does not qualify as an industry under the SSI administrative definition in effect at the time. Another entrepreneur in Kalyani (West Bengal) constructed an Ayurvedic preparation only to discover that the DIC office lacked an expert to verify the concept, forcing the product to be promoted as a confectionery item! The entrepreneur must be certain of the administrative and legal concerns involved in the project, as implied by these instances. These factors include the choice of corporate structure, registration, and permissions and approvals from various agencies.
Organizational Structures
Sole Proprietor: During the starting phase, the entrepreneur is normally responsible for all functional aspects of the business, including production, marketing, staff, and financing. As a result, single proprietorships account for the great majority of new enterprises. This structure also has the advantage of not requiring any formalities such as incorporation, accounting, or auditing.
Partnership: As the company grows, the need for cash and management will grow as well, prompting him to form a partnership with one or more others. It is always ideal to have a written agreement in the form of a partnership deed that explicitly states the partners’ names and addresses, as well as their ages, capital contributions, profit sharing ratios, and so on. This structure also allows for the pooling of skills and duties, as well as the spreading of risk.
Company: A company can be a private limited company with a minimum of two and a maximum of fifty members. It can be a public limited company, 69 with a minimum of seven members and no upper limit. This type of business may raise a lot of money since, unlike a private limited company, it allows the general public to subscribe to its shares and has limited liability. Companies are governed by the Companies Act of 1956.
Co-operative: A co-operative is a business that is owned and governed by its employees. In most cases, they are created for a specific purpose, such as forming a housing cooperative organization.
Clearances and Approvals: Establishing an industrial unit necessitates obtaining a number of clearances and approvals in the areas of land use, pollution control, and safety. You would be necessary to communicate with local government bodies such as municipalities, village panchayats, and state pollution control boards in this regard. If you want to take advantage of the benefits available to companies that are registered as an Export Processing Zone/Special Economic Zone (SEZ), Software Technology Park (STP), or 100 percent Export Oriented Unit, you must first register. Furthermore, specific clearances from relevant departments/authorities may be required for certain products.
Course Manual 9: Scheduling Feasibility
The chance of a project being completed within its specified time limitations and by a planned due date is characterized as timetable feasibility. A project’s timetable feasibility is assessed as high if it has a high possibility of being finished on time. In many circumstances, a project will fail if it takes longer than expected: external environmental conditions may change, and the project’s benefits, expediency, and profitability may be lost. A timetable is impracticable if the work to be completed at a project does not suit the timescales requested by its clients (amount of work should be reduced or other schedule compression methods applied).
If project managers want to see their projects completed before they lose their utility, they must pay close attention to scheduling feasibility: calculating and continually reexamining whether it is possible to complete all amounts and scopes of work ahead of schedule, using the available resources, within the required time frame. The following items are included in the feasibility study schedule:
• CPM (Critical Path Method);
• Change Management;
• Project Estimation;
• Gantt and PERT charts;
How Long Will A Project Take To Complete, As Determined By The Timetable Feasibility Study?
A feasibility study not only gathers all of the requirements and evaluates the cost, but it also determines the total time required to complete any project. When a customer provides a timeframe for the project’s completion, you must plan all of the development around that timeline. The timetable feasibility investigation is then aided.
This phase will be beneficial in a variety of ways. For example, if you discover in the middle of a project that it is not progressing at the pace you desire, you can recruit more workers to enhance the effort and finish the project on time. If your budget does not allow you to hire new employees, you can retrain your current ones to help you complete your task more quickly.
You can also conduct a risk assessment. For example, if the project will be completed within the estimated time frame. What difficulties will arise if this does not happen, and what will be the answers to these problems? To avoid any problems in the middle of the project, the analyst can list all probable risks and their solutions. These will be completed as part of the feasibility study timeline.
Also included in this assessment should be some extension options, such as whether or not the project can be completed in the predicted time frame and whether or not the time frame can be extended. And, if that’s doable, what will the additional costs be, and are we on budget or not?
We can also offer it as an alternative for the timelines so that we can avoid providing the personnel with holidays. That means that if a project is nearing completion and there isn’t much time left, you can avoid taking unwelcome or unnecessary vacations and finish the assignment on time. Experts should have effective communication and understanding between personnel and senior executives in order to achieve this.
People who did not want to be project managers frequently take on the role of project manager. These folks are dedicated, well-organized, and just good at what they do.
It can be difficult to transition from organizing your own work to scheduling a complete project, but learning about project management and how to create a project schedule doesn’t have to be difficult.
In Project Management, What Is Scheduling?
A project schedule, as you might expect, contains more information than your typical weekly planner entries. Project scheduling entails the creation of a document, which is usually a digital document these days, that outlines the project timeframe as well as the organizational resources needed to fulfill each task.
Every team member must have access to the project schedule. Its goal is to convey vital information to the team, thus it must be thorough and simple to comprehend.
What Is The Difference Between Project Scheduling And Project Planning?
These two phrases are sometimes used interchangeably, yet they play different roles in a project’s successful completion. The project plan, on a higher level, is the overall blueprint, whereas the project schedule details the specific activities.
Project planning entails deciding on the policies, project methodologies, and procedures needed to complete the project on time, whereas project scheduling entails converting the plans, scope, and cost into an operational timeline.
What Are The Benefits Of Creating A Project Schedule?
The importance of project scheduling cannot be overstated because it is crucial to the project’s success. The following are some of the benefits of effectively scheduling your project.
• When done correctly, project scheduling makes the entire project go more smoothly.
• Starting your project with a commitment to the project scheduling process will offer you a clear view of the requirements.
• It also allows you to spot problems early and notify clients if a deadline isn’t achievable. Project scheduling is beneficial for managing project teams as well as for you as the project manager.
• Everyone is aware of what to expect and when to expect it. Everyone is held responsible for the same deadlines.
• Other managers will be able to efficiently assign resources for your project and anticipate when resources will be available for other initiatives.
What Are The Steps Involved In Project Scheduling?
What’s the best way to make a project schedule? The project scheduling process, on the other hand, may be broken down into eight simple parts. If you follow these steps, you’ll be a scheduling guru in no time.
IMAGE
1. Make a schedule management plan.
Establishing the methods, company policies, and documentation guidelines that will govern your project provides the foundation for a healthy project timeline. The schedule management plan outlines the project’s resources as well as any contingencies that may develop.
It also includes a list of project stakeholders, those who must approve the schedule, and others who need a copy.
This document also outlines who has the power to make schedule modifications, the procedure team members should follow to seek a change, and a project communication plan to keep the team informed of any changes made during the project.
2. Make a list of the project’s activities.
This can be as basic as making a list of tasks that must be done before your project can be delivered. It may be beneficial to organize these activities in the form of a chart depicting project tasks and their sub-tasks and to keep organized at work in the event of complex projects.
Knowing how to separate activities is a challenge in this portion of the project scheduling process. Consider the 8/80 rule, according to which a single activity should require between eight and eighty hours of labour.
Jobs that require less than eight hours could be grouped with others in team task management, whereas tasks that require more than eighty hours are likely too heavy and should be broken down further. Activities should be measurable, easy to estimate, and linked to a project outcome as well as a budgeted cost.
3. Determine dependencies
Once you’ve compiled a list of all the project activities, go over each one carefully to see which tasks are dependent on the completion of others. For example, if you’re building a house, you can’t put the roof on until the frame is finished. It’s critical to specify all of your project dependencies appropriately so that you can schedule accurately and minimize delays.
By engaging with stakeholders and exploring restrictions linked to dependencies, you may use the best project management software to tackle project task dependencies.
4. Arrange activities in a sequence
You can sequence your activities after you’ve established dependencies between them. You haven’t assigned any time to your activities in terms of work hours or deadline dates at this point. Instead, you’re concentrating on the sequence in which all project activities should be completed in order to achieve the most efficient flow.
5. Make a resource estimate
Personnel, subcontractor fees, tools (physical and/or digital tools like software programs), and workspace are all required for each action in your project. Other resources related to your sector or project should be considered. Estimate how much time and money each project activity will take.
Remember that resource allocation has an impact on your timeline; if one team member is in charge of numerous project activities, they can’t all be accomplished at the same time.
6. Calculate timeframes
This step is self-evident, yet it is crucial. What is the estimated duration of each project activity? Of course, underestimating will put you behind schedule and annoy your customer.
Overestimating could result in team members or other resources sitting idle while awaiting the completion of antecedent work. Using data from similar previous operations is the best technique to estimate duration.
If you don’t have any data and no industry standard to go to, make an educated guess based on the average of the best, worst, and most likely circumstances.
7. Create a project schedule.
You should now have all of the information you require to create your project schedule. You can designate start and due dates for each activity by taking into account the duration and resource requirements of each activity, as well as their dependencies and proper sequencing.
The project schedule can be created using a variety of models and formulas, including critical path, critical chain, and resource leveling, among others. We won’t go into each of those ways because each is deserving of its own post. Take your time to find a method that suits you.
For instance, don’t disregard the calendar! Examine team members’ vacation requests. Remember to account in things like national holidays, company activities, stakeholder events, and other events that could disrupt your calendar. If your entire organization closes for a holiday week, you’ll need to adjust your deadlines and manage client expectations accordingly.
8. Keep an eye on things and keep control.
Step 8 is different from the other project scheduling steps in that it is ongoing. You’ll be monitoring and directing your project schedule as a project manager throughout the life of the project. This step entails analyzing project reports and comparing project progress to the timetable, as well as controlling performance and interacting with the team.
When schedule adjustments are required, you must ensure that they are implemented and communicated in accordance with the approach outlined in Step 1. Ensure that each activity is completed on time throughout the project and evaluate whether any remedial action is required if delays occur.
There are three primary types of project scheduling techniques
There are a number of project scheduling approaches that might assist you in breaking down your project into smaller, more manageable chunks.
• Task lists
• Calendars
• Gantt charts
1. Task lists
This is the most basic scheduling method, and it works well for small projects with few interdependencies. However, for larger projects, it may not be the best option because tracking progress might be difficult.
The task list comprises a list of tasks and subtasks, as well as the team members who are responsible for completing them. When using task lists, an online project management software can come in helpful.
2. Calendar
The calendar can be used to show the project timelines for all of the tasks during the project’s duration. It’s a reasonable method for observing activity overlaps. However, this method lacks the ability to assign tasks and view dependencies.
3.Gantt charts
The most frequent tool used by project managers to represent timeframes and dependencies in a project is a Gantt chart. You may get a fast estimate of how long each task will take to finish.
The graph depicts all of the tasks, which are represented by bars, along with their start and end dates, durations, task dependencies, and overlaps.
Course Manual 10: Project Durability
Durability refers to having the confidence, initiative, and perseverance to see your project through to completion. It’s about ignoring the skeptics and listening to the wise. Then carefully planning and implementing the actions that will give your company a realistic chance of success. doesn’t mean you’ll make it; many small businesses are only performing well enough to keep their cash flow positive, and they don’t build long-term capital value for their owners. You may as well work for someone else and receive a salary with benefits if you are not creating money above the worth of your time.
Entrepreneurship is a system of risk and reward. Those who are willing to take chances should expect to be rewarded. But only if you are patient and persistent. Examine yourself carefully in three areas: courage, initiative, and perseverance. Do you think you’ve got what it takes to be an outlier? That your company will survive the two-year failure period and grow into a valuable asset for you and your successors?
Preparing for a Project Pre-Mortem
Projects fail at an alarming rate. One factor is that too many people are hesitant to express their concerns during the crucial planning stage. You can boost a project’s chances of success by making it safe for dissenters who are informed about the initiative and concerned about its flaws to speak up.
Deborah J. Mitchell of the Wharton School, Jay Russo of Cornell, and Nancy Pennington of the University of Colorado discovered in 1989 that prospective hindsight—imagining that an event has already happened—improves the capacity to properly identify explanations for future events by 30%. We developed a process called a premortem using projected hindsight to assist project teams in identifying hazards early on.
A hypothetical premortem is the polar opposite of a postmortem. In a medical environment, a postmortem allows health experts and family members to learn what caused a patient’s death. Everyone benefits, with the exception of the sufferer, of course. In a commercial setting, a premortem occurs at the start of a project rather than at the end, allowing the project to be improved rather than autopsied. Unlike a conventional criticizing session, where project team members are asked what could go wrong, the premortem assumes the “patient” has died and then asks what went wrong. The members of the team must come up with believable reasons for the project’s failure.
After the team has been briefed on the plan, a standard premortem will begin. The exercise begins with the leader telling everyone that the initiative has failed terribly. Those in the room jot down every explanation they can think of for the failure over the next few minutes, especially the kinds of things they wouldn’t normally consider as potential difficulties for fear of appearing impolitic. In a meeting at a Fortune 50 business, for example, an executive claimed that a billion-dollar environmental sustainability project had “failed” because interest decreased after the CEO retired. Another blamed the failure on a weakening of the business case as a result of policy revisions by a government agency.
The leader then invites each team member, beginning with the project manager, to recite one reason from their list; everyone then states a different reason until all of them have been recorded. After the meeting, the project manager goes over the list and looks for ways to improve the plan.
During a session about a project to make cutting-edge computer algorithms available to military air-campaign planners, a team member who had remained silent during the previous lengthy kickoff meeting volunteered that one of the algorithms wouldn’t fit on certain laptop computers used in the field. As a result, when users needed speedy results, the software would take hours to run. He claimed that the project would be impracticable unless the team could find a solution. It turned out that the algorithm’s creators had already devised a strong shortcut that they had been hesitant to reveal. Their shortcut was replaced, and the project ended up being a huge success.
A senior executive indicated that the project’s “failure” occurred because there was not time to produce a business case prior to an impending corporate assessment of product efforts during a session examining a research project in another organization. No one mentioned any time limits during the whole 90-minute kickoff meeting. The project manager made a quick revision to the plan to accommodate for the corporate decision cycle.
Despite the fact that many project teams conduct prelaunch risk assessments, the premortem’s prospective hindsight approach has advantages that other techniques do not. Indeed, the premortem not only aids teams in spotting potential issues early on. It also eliminates the kind of damn-the-torpedoes mentality that people who are very involved in a project often adopt. Furthermore, team members feel respected for their expertise and experience when they reveal weaknesses that no one else has mentioned, and others benefit from them. The practice also prepares the team to recognize early warning signals of difficulties once the project begins. Finally, a premortem may be the most effective strategy to avoid a traumatic postmortem.
5 Ways to Evaluate the Success of a Project
On a project, project managers frequently wonder if they are measuring the appropriate things. It’s difficult to determine how much time to devote to reviewing previous work and how much time to devote to keeping things moving forward.
Of course, there are numerous signs of project success, but what should you be tracking while the project is underway?
You should review five factors throughout the project: schedule, quality, cost, stakeholder satisfaction, and performance against the business case. In any case, you should be doing this informally. A formal project evaluation is useful at the end of a phase or stage since it may show you how the project is progressing in comparison to the original estimates. This information can then be used to provide (or deny) permission to move on to the next phase of the project.
Let’s take a look at the five things you should be assessing.
1. Establish a baseline
Whether or not you adhered to the initial project timeline is typically a determining factor in project management success. Experienced project managers understand how difficult this is, but it can be made a little easier if you keep track of your progress as you go. You’ll update your project schedule on a frequent basis — at least once a week. You can undertake a more formal schedule evaluation towards the end of the stage or phase, or as part of a monthly report to your senior stakeholder group or Project Board. If you create your project schedule on an online Gantt chart, where tasks and deadlines are turned into visual timelines, it’s simple to change.
Examine your important milestones to see if they are still on the same dates as you promised. Determine whether or not there has been any slippage and how much of an impact it will have on your overall project timelines.
2. Quality Control
A quality assessment at the end of a project phase is an excellent idea. You can assess the quality of your project management methods (e.g., do you always follow the change management procedure, etc.) as well as the deliverables.
A quality review can determine whether what you’re doing adheres to the quality plans’ standards. It’s best to find out now, before the project goes too far, because it might be too late then.
It’s easier to ensure that you’re ticking off all you need to while reviewing quality with project management software. Utilize a high-quality instrument to assess the project’s quality.
3. Project Budget
Because many executives consider cost management to be one of their top concerns on a project, it’s critical to assess how the project is functioning financially. At this time, compare your current actual spending to your project budget. If there are any discrepancies, try to figure out why. A project dashboard can be used to track your actual spending in real time.
You should also look ahead and re-forecast the budget till the project is completed. Compare it to your original estimate and ensure that it is near enough for your management team to be confident that the project is on schedule. If your estimates increase too high, it means your expenditure will be out of control by the end of the project – something you should be aware of today.
4. Satisfaction of Stakeholders
It’s worth checking in with your larger team – your stakeholders – because they’re crucial to getting much of the job done. Find out how they are currently feeling about the project and what you could do differently.
This is a challenging statistic to quantify, but there’s nothing stopping you from asking for a score out of ten. Even if you are subjectively assessing their contentment, it is still a worthwhile practice. If you see that some stakeholders are not totally supportive, you might make preparations to engage them fully in order to try to change their minds.
5. Business Case to Performance
Finally, review the business case to see what you originally committed to. How is your project progressing? Verify that the benefits are still attainable and that the business problem that the project was created to address is still present. It occurs all the time: project teams work on amazing ideas, but by the time they’re finished, the business environment has changed and the project is obsolete. Because no one checked the business case during the project’s life cycle, no one realized the work was no longer required.
Don’t waste your time working on something that no one wants! Regularly review and analyze the business case in light of current corporate objectives.
You are free to add to this list. In reality, it should reflect what is important to you and your team — you should be assessing what matters, so feel free to add new parts or remove some of the ones that aren’t as vital to you.
Course Manual 11: Constraints
Project managers must work inside (and around) their constraints because each project and its resources are limited. One of the most important roles of a project manager is to manage project limitations to guarantee that your project is completed on time, on budget, and with the proper resources.
What Are The Constraints Of The Project?
Project constraints are limiting elements that can affect the quality, delivery, and overall success of your project.
There are up to 19 project restrictions to consider, according to some estimates, including resources, methodology, and customer satisfaction. Depending on your organization’s structure and operations, these are worth considering, but we’ll focus on the six most typical project restrictions that will affect nearly every project.
We’ll also go through how these restrictions are linked, how to handle them independently and jointly, and how to strike a balance between them all while ensuring project success.
The Six Restrictions Of The Project
Quality
As seen in the standard triple constraint triangle, quality is one of six primary constraints of every project, along with scope, time, and cost:
Because any adjustment to the other three project constraints would almost always effect quality, it sits somewhat aside from the other three project requirements appearing inside the triangle. Changing quality expectations, on the other hand, will almost certainly have an impact on the project’s time, scope, and cost.
Most crucially, all project constraints inside the traditional triangle are interconnected, so putting a burden on one will have an impact on one or more of the others. Here’s an example of a good project constraint:
• If you are unable to meet a sudden cost increase, the scope of the project may be reduced and the quality may suffer.
• If the project scope expands as a result of scope creep, you may not have the time or resources to meet the promised quality.
• If the delivery time is shortened or rushed, project expenses may rise and quality will almost certainly suffer.
Time
Project time (how long it will take to deliver) is a critical metric of project success and one of the most important stakeholder factors. Your job is to make the most accurate project time estimates feasible, which will involve a combination of research and expertise.
If you’re a newer project manager, you’ll rely more heavily on previous projects for precedent, and you’ll utilize their data to get a sense of what’s appropriate for your project’s schedule. Examine the closing paperwork and schedules from completed projects to get a feel of how long different work packages normally take. Also, look into how change orders effect delivery times.
When calculating time ranges—including probable delays, modification requests, risks, and uncertainties—rely on both research and your past performance and wisdom, if you’re a more experienced project manager. Overall, your goal is to present the most accurate range possible to stakeholders in order to minimize surprises or making unrealistic promises.
Cost
The cost of a project is equally essential to stakeholders. Budget projections must be stated in a range, just as time limitations. You’ll get accurate numbers if you do the following research:
• Calculate expenses using market rates for the items and services you require, which have been properly studied.
• Costs can be estimated using vendor quotes and ranges.
• If you’re going to provide hourly cost estimates, make sure you estimate your time correctly first.
• Consider all costs when calculating your budget: labor, materials, manufacturing, equipment, administration, software, contractors, and so on.
• Examine prior expenses and budgets for similar initiatives both inside and outside your company.
• Examine any modification orders that had an impact on previous project budgets.
Cost control will be a project management task that will be ongoing. You’ll want to stick to your projected budget as closely as possible while maintaining an open mind about modifications that could effect prices.
Scope
It’s impossible to fathom setting a range for this project limitation because a project scope is not an estimate but a confirmed set of deliverables. However, you should keep in mind that stakeholders may have a stake in the scope risk and tolerance ranges.
You could, for example, present a set of deliverables that could be developed if budget and schedule allow, as well as a wish list from which your stakeholders can choose if money and time are available after the obligatory deliverables are accomplished.
Similarly, if time or money become too tight, you can identify which deliverables on the scope can be omitted or cancelled. If a few must-have deliverables, for example, consume too much of your money, your stakeholders can inform you which of the other deliverables they will let to be eliminated in order to meet time and financial restrictions.
Benefits
During the very early stages of project planning, the projected advantages of each project should be clearly spelled out in a business case. Simply put, the worth of a project must be identified early on and thoroughly agreed upon before to commencement. As a result, your business case should explain why the project is necessary and what metrics will be used to evaluate its value to the company.
Because the impact of a project must be measured over time, estimating its benefits will most likely have to wait until after it has been completed. However, if those benefits vanish or fall below a specific level during the project, work should be halted until a more thorough assessment can be made.
Any variety of changes in circumstances can cause the anticipated advantages of a project to be drastically altered. For example, if the cost of construction materials skyrockets, the benefits of finishing a tiny structure may be completely eliminated. Alternatively, if a major supplier goes out of stock, the projected increase in sales from a new marketing effort could be cancelled out.
The advantages of a project are never totally separated from other considerations. The restrictions you must always examine include how the advantages of a particular project compare against losses, changes, damages, and escalating costs. You should decide what the benefits threshold will be at the start of a project, as well as what circumstances may lead to project cancellation, scaling back, delay, or partial completion.
Risks
When we plan for risks, we normally focus on threats—what could go wrong. A project manager must be able to predict failures at every stage of the project and plan for them appropriately. Playing out what-if scenarios and devising contingency plans are examples of this:
• What happens if a vendor fails to deliver?
• What if a number of our resources are lost due to illness or transfer?
• What if the stock market takes a sharp turn?
• What if a competitor releases a product that is similar to ours at the same time?
When using risks as a constraint, you must determine your organization’s and stakeholders’ risk tolerance zones, which entails identifying a reasonable range of responses within proper bounds. If a supplier fails, for example, you will look for another within X pricing range, Y delivery time, and Z quality range. Your stakeholders will be able to select how much risk they are willing to bear in order to enjoy the project’s proposed advantages by defining a zone of tolerance.
Another approach to look at risk is through the potential for unanticipated opportunities. It’s helpful to present your stakeholders situations and identify their window of tolerance on this end of the spectrum as well when seizing a fresh opportunity. Will stakeholders be willing to increase their investment amount if, for example, an opportunity to grab a larger market share arises? What are the limits to their expansion?
Risk Factors
Investing is done with the anticipation of a profit for the investor. In general, the higher the projected return, the more likely the investor is to invest. People differ in their ability to accept risks and their willingness to do so. The ability fluctuates depending on the magnitude of the expense and the investor’s wealth or asset value. The investor’s willingness fluctuates according to the amount of assets he or she is willing to risk. These dangers can be either financial or societal. They can have a substantial impact on the entrepreneur and his or her family in any circumstance.
Controlling the elements that lead to possible investment losses is a function of risk management. Feasibility study is a risk-management tool since it assists the entrepreneur in identifying the project’s risk elements. Practices that contribute to consistent quality and safety of the product being sold, as well as a low unit cost of manufacturing, are examples of risk management tools.
These are some of the questions a feasibility analyst might ask:
• What could possibly go wrong with this undertaking?
• Is there a way to avoid any of these scenarios?
• What are the chances that any of these variables will go wrong?
• What are the chances that two or more of these will fail?
• What impact will this have on the project and the family?
• Is it possible to limit the impact of these risks through insurance, and if so, at what cost?
• What level of ability and willingness does the entrepreneur have to take these risks?
Risk management is the application of methods to reduce the impact of a negative event.
• Programs for quality control and safety – lowering the risk of customer injury or harm
• Efficiency in production – a competitive advantage based on cheap production costs
• Market research – a better likelihood of success on the market
• Cost estimates that are more accurate – greater accuracy in estimating profit and return.
Consider the following criteria:
• Do the dangers of this undertaking outweigh the benefits?
• What are the specific dangers that need to be avoided or managed?
• Is risk reduction through prevention and insurance cost-effective?
• What is the maximum risk that can be tolerated?
Proceeding with caution and courage
We understand that no project can be planned or managed down to the smallest detail. But, within reason, you can work well within your constraints to get as much predictability as feasible. The trick is to remember what your project restrictions are, how they interact, and when they suggest that a course correction is required.
Projects alter and adapt on a regular basis, necessitating a delicate balance of planning and reaction.
Course Manual 12: Key Decisions
Many projects have fallen short at the last hurdle as a result of poor implementation planning or insufficient analysis just before go-live. It is the project manager’s obligation to ensure that the implementation has been well-planned and communicated to stakeholders, as well as that adequate due diligence has been completed before the project can move forward. The importance of the second point is sometimes neglected. Many project managers create an implementation or cutover strategy but fail to conduct the requisite thorough analysis to determine whether or not they should proceed. This course manual focuses on the ‘go-live decision’.
The decision to go live or not go live should not be taken lightly; it is without a doubt one of the most critical decisions in the project lifecycle, and doing it wrong might jeopardize the project’s overall success.
If you go live without having everything in place, you risk:
• Defects that haven’t been resolved
• Insufficient testing
• Inadequate training Business processes aren’t well-understood, and procedures aren’t documented.
• Stakeholders were left out.
• Communication breakdown
• Failure of data migration
• Interactions are not working.
• There is no system management or support in place.
• Changes are causing problems in sections of business that aren’t prepared.
• There are no backup plans in place.
• Workflows and exceptions aren’t well-defined.
• There are no backups or disaster recovery plans in place.
• Insufficient system security
• Responsibility, accountability, and ownership are all unclear.
• Implementation plan that isn’t up to par
And in the end…
• Failure of the system or application
• Impact on the company/organization
• Failure of the project
While the project manager is always under pressure to meet deadlines, it is sometimes better to take a step back and postpone go-live rather than risk the consequences of pushing through.
What kind of due diligence is required?
The project should ideally use an outside resource to do the readiness evaluation. There is a risk of bias or influence from the pressure to deploy on time if the analysis is done by the project manager or persons intimately linked with the project. Using an independent resource gives the decision-making process a level of impartiality and, as a result, credibility. Getting an outside perspective, especially from someone with years of project experience and understanding, is also beneficial. Outside consultants are frequently used by well-funded projects to conduct audits and health checks throughout the project lifetime, including go-live readiness assessments.
Unfortunately, not all projects have the resources or inclination to hire consultants, so they must rely on internal resources. It’s ideal to engage a resource with prior project expertise (e.g., another project manager) who doesn’t have a vested interest in the project’s result in this scenario. This increases the likelihood of an objective result and recommendations. Remember that it is in the project manager’s best interests to receive an accurate picture of where the project stands, as any serious flaws must be fixed or reduced before go-live. There’s no point in doing the evaluation if the outcome is pre-determined or purposefully skewed!
If an impartial internal resource cannot be found to do the readiness evaluation, the project manager can undertake it directly. They must, however, ensure that they provide an accurate assessment of the situation, ask probing questions of people, and do not conceal difficulties. These assessments should never be carried out without comprehensive engagement, as it’s critical to meet with as many project stakeholders as possible to get a true picture of the situation. Some people may try to hide their flaws or just tell you the good news. Before making a decision, it’s critical to have the “warts and all” perspective, as any major concerns or bottlenecks must be identified and handled.
Checklist for Go/No-Go Situations
What should the evaluation entail? It’s easier to use a Go/No-Go checklist rather than beginning from scratch. This gives you a place to start, based on industry best practices, and ensures that you don’t overlook any important aspects of your review. Use the information in the checklist to generate new questions and checks for the project.
To move forward, the project does not need to check all of the boxes, and there is no minimum score or pass/fail rating. If there are multiple noticeable gaps, though, the decision becomes rather straightforward. The checklist aids in the identification of critical gaps and inadequacies that must be corrected prior to go-live. It may also provide assistance for additional finances or resources if a specific need arises. Rather than serving as the basis for a choice, the checklist should be used to aid in the process. External pressures, eagerness to progress, appetite for risk, repercussions of delays, and other variables must all be considered by whoever makes the choice (often a steering committee).
If large gaps are discovered, it is usually preferable for all parties involved to postpone implementation until the gaps are filled or mitigated. The consequences and expenses of a failed or difficult go-live are frequently substantially greater than a slight timetable delay. The only exception is if a non-negotiable implementation date exists (e.g. a response to legislation changes that have to be in by a certain date). In this instance, the checklist gaps should be prioritized and addressed in order of importance and resolveability. By going live in this situation, the steering committee is effectively accepting the risks indicated in the assessment on the basis that completing the implementation deadline is more important than mitigating risks and ensuring a successful go-live.
5 Expert Tips to Improve Your Go/No Go Decisions
1. When working on a project, keep the whole picture in mind.
A strategic firmwide plan is something that many companies overlook when developing a Go/No Go decision-making process.
It’s impossible to tell which initiatives are worth pursuing without first understanding your goals and how you evaluate success.
You have a ‘Go/No Go’ procedure, and your senior staff occasionally follows it. However, you are missing a key item that would make your ‘Go/No Go’ process much more efficient: a PLAN!
“The ‘Go/No Go’ process is designed to help you say ‘no’ when ‘no’ is the appropriate answer. The hard part is determining when ‘no’ is the appropriate answer. With a Strategic Plan, Marketing Plan and/or Business Plan, this determination is much easier.”
— Bernie Siben, CPSM, AEC marketing consultant
2. Recognize where your company stands now and how you intend to expand.
Determining which projects you’re most likely to win and putting your firm’s effort into those chances is the goal of Go/No Go decision-making.
However, that is only half of the story.
It’s also critical to create a growth strategy and make Go/No Go judgments depending on where you picture your company in a few years.
“The framework of a go/no-go tool must blend strategy and historical evidence. For instance, the firm must use criteria that helps define its success, coupled with a blend of factors that enable the firm’s strategic plan.
“For example, Brand X Construction’s ‘sweet spot’ is defined at $7 million in project revenue. This is an important characteristic to understand, as it helps create a picture of the ideal customer or project. Notice this does not say ‘average project size.’ It is important to conduct a thorough study of where a firm excels and where it does not.
“The strategic growth niches also help define categories that are worthwhile targets. Without them, the firm might acquiesce and simply engage in identical work. While it may be currently profitable, it may also be myopic and fail to include a balance of long-term strategy.”
— Gregg M. Schoppman, consultant at FMI
3. Be Dedicated to the Process
Your company will never adhere to any procedure 100% of the time. And that’s perfectly fine.
There are some things that you can never plan for. Regardless of the tight standards you’ve established, you must respond appropriately to each situation.
But be cautious. It’s easy to get caught up in the mindset that every chance needs particular attention.
That is simply not the case.
In the vast majority of circumstances, you should stick to the strategic Go/No Go strategy you established to ensure your company’s success.
“Be wary of end runs around the go/no go process. Sometimes there are bona fide emergencies or other reasons to stray from the committee review process, but the odds of getting stuck with a losing, or expensive, project increase if the go/no go process requirements are too easily sidestepped.
“One example is that a business unit may delay asking for a ‘go’ decision, then claim it is too late for management to say ‘no go.’ The theory may be that commitments have been made to the subcontractors or JV partners, or that estimators have already done so much work and would be demoralized if the plug is pulled. Effective management should not allow this ‘end run’ tactic to be rewarded.”
— Tom Porter, JD, DBIA, EVP at Barton Malow Company
4. Pursue just those opportunities that excite you.
You can’t afford to make all of your Go/No Go decisions exclusively on the basis of figures.
While metrics and statistics are important, your company and clients are made up of people, which means emotions and mental states play a role in every activity and initiative.
Find out how your team feels about pursuing and working on the proposed project before making a final choice.
Their enthusiasm — or lack thereof — could affect your decision.
“Are you ALL in it to win it? Mentally, we are wired to believe we can do anything and sometimes we can climb seemingly impossible mountains. The whole team must recognize the ‘fire in the belly’—the passion and inner drive to take action—when pursuing the win. If everyone from leadership to seller/doer, PM to marketing professional has the fire, then: GO. If even one person has reservations about getting to the top of the mountain, you will likely not get to the top: NO GO.”
— Frank Lippert, FSMPS, CPSM, partner at Go Strategies
5. Look For Information From Outside Sources
Even if you have access to and can evaluate mountains of data regarding a possible opportunity, there’s probably certain information you won’t be able to learn on your own.
Take some time to find out what people outside your company have to say about the client you’re evaluating.
Working with unappreciative clients will take away time and energy that may be better spent working with wonderful clients and designing outstanding projects. You must conduct online and in-person research on the company and its leaders, as well as speak with coworkers, contractors, and furnishing suppliers.
Workshop Exercises
Feasibility Analysis Exercises
01. Feasibility Importance: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
02. ParHow It Works: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
03. Financial Feasibility: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
04. Economic Feasibility: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
05. Market Feasibility: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
06. Technical Feasibility: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
07. Organizational Feasibility: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
08. Legal Feasibility: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
09. Scheduling Feasibility: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
10. Project Durability: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
11. Constraints: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
12. Key decisions: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
SWOT & MOST Analysis Exercises
01. Undertake a detailed SWOT Analysis in order to identify your department’s internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats in relation to each of the 12 Feasibility Analysis processes featured above. Undertake this task together with your department’s stakeholders in order to encourage collaborative evaluation.
02. Develop a detailed MOST Analysis in order to establish your department’s: Mission; Objectives; Strategies and Tasks in relation to Feasibility Analysis. Undertake this task together with all of your department’s stakeholders in order to encourage collaborative evaluation.
Project Studies
Project Study (Part 1) – Customer Service
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Feasibility Analysis process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. Feasibility Importance
02. How it works
03. Financial Feasibility
04. Economic Feasibility
05. Market Feasibility
06. Technical Feasibility
07. Organizational Feasibility
08. Legal Feasibility
09. Scheduling Feasibility
10. Project Durability
11. Constraints
12. Key decisions
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 2) – E-Business
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Feasibility Analysis process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. Feasibility Importance
02. How it works
03. Financial Feasibility
04. Economic Feasibility
05. Market Feasibility
06. Technical Feasibility
07. Organizational Feasibility
08. Legal Feasibility
09. Scheduling Feasibility
10. Project Durability
11. Constraints
12. Key decisions
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 3) – Finance
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Feasibility Analysis process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. Feasibility Importance
02. How it works
03. Financial Feasibility
04. Economic Feasibility
05. Market Feasibility
06. Technical Feasibility
07. Organizational Feasibility
08. Legal Feasibility
09. Scheduling Feasibility
10. Project Durability
11. Constraints
12. Key decisions
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 4) – Globalization
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Feasibility Analysis process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. Feasibility Importance
02. How it works
03. Financial Feasibility
04. Economic Feasibility
05. Market Feasibility
06. Technical Feasibility
07. Organizational Feasibility
08. Legal Feasibility
09. Scheduling Feasibility
10. Project Durability
11. Constraints
12. Key decisions
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 5) – Human Resources
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Feasibility Analysis process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. Feasibility Importance
02. How it works
03. Financial Feasibility
04. Economic Feasibility
05. Market Feasibility
06. Technical Feasibility
07. Organizational Feasibility
08. Legal Feasibility
09. Scheduling Feasibility
10. Project Durability
11. Constraints
12. Key decisions
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 6) – Information Technology
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Feasibility Analysis process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. Feasibility Importance
02. How it works
03. Financial Feasibility
04. Economic Feasibility
05. Market Feasibility
06. Technical Feasibility
07. Organizational Feasibility
08. Legal Feasibility
09. Scheduling Feasibility
10. Project Durability
11. Constraints
12. Key decisions
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 7) – Legal
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Feasibility Analysis process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. Feasibility Importance
02. How it works
03. Financial Feasibility
04. Economic Feasibility
05. Market Feasibility
06. Technical Feasibility
07. Organizational Feasibility
08. Legal Feasibility
09. Scheduling Feasibility
10. Project Durability
11. Constraints
12. Key decisions
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 8) – Management
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Feasibility Analysis process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. Feasibility Importance
02. How it works
03. Financial Feasibility
04. Economic Feasibility
05. Market Feasibility
06. Technical Feasibility
07. Organizational Feasibility
08. Legal Feasibility
09. Scheduling Feasibility
10. Project Durability
11. Constraints
12. Key decisions
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 9) – Marketing
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Feasibility Analysis process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. Feasibility Importance
02. How it works
03. Financial Feasibility
04. Economic Feasibility
05. Market Feasibility
06. Technical Feasibility
07. Organizational Feasibility
08. Legal Feasibility
09. Scheduling Feasibility
10. Project Durability
11. Constraints
12. Key decisions
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 10) – Production
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Feasibility Analysis process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. Feasibility Importance
02. How it works
03. Financial Feasibility
04. Economic Feasibility
05. Market Feasibility
06. Technical Feasibility
07. Organizational Feasibility
08. Legal Feasibility
09. Scheduling Feasibility
10. Project Durability
11. Constraints
12. Key decisions
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 11) – Logistics
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Feasibility Analysis process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. Feasibility Importance
02. How it works
03. Financial Feasibility
04. Economic Feasibility
05. Market Feasibility
06. Technical Feasibility
07. Organizational Feasibility
08. Legal Feasibility
09. Scheduling Feasibility
10. Project Durability
11. Constraints
12. Key decisions
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 12) – Education
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Feasibility Analysis process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. Feasibility Importance
02. How it works
03. Financial Feasibility
04. Economic Feasibility
05. Market Feasibility
06. Technical Feasibility
07. Organizational Feasibility
08. Legal Feasibility
09. Scheduling Feasibility
10. Project Durability
11. Constraints
12. Key decisions
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Program Benefits
Management
- Time management
- Defined responsibilities
- Executive oversight
- Resource leveraging
- Performance accountability
- Standardized costs
- Streamlined estimating
- Streamlined purchasing
- Standardized processes
- Project tracking
Marketing
- Market research
- Value proposition
- Defined expertise
- Ideal client
- Brand awareness
- Market share
- Marketing strategy
- Streamlined sales
- Sales tracking
- Social proof
Financial
- Reducing costs
- Cash flow
- Streamlined forecasting
- Automated reporting
- Trend analysis
- Budget monitoring
- Budget controls
- Systemized book-keeping
- Systemized accounting
- Systems redundancy
Client Telephone Conference (CTC)
If you have any questions or if you would like to arrange a Client Telephone Conference (CTC) to discuss this particular Unique Consulting Service Proposition (UCSP) in more detail, please CLICK HERE.