Scenario for the simulation An entrepreneur, Mr Rich has bought a company that has been established for a year. During this time the foundations of the business - a decent product, a workable marketing strategy and a sound financial position has been put in place. Turnover up to now has been fair but not spectacular. The founder has been operating from his own home. You have been appointed together with other advisers (other members of your group) to form the management team. You are expected to grow the business. Your goal is to increase monthly turnover to 10,000 and monthly profit to 3,000 within 12 months. You must stay with the market segment currently targeted by the company; Solo Businesses.

Requirement for the assignment:

i) You are to create a business plan before you start to run the company. The business plan is to be used as the basis for running the company and assessing performance. The content of this plan should be appropriate for someone who has knowledge of the business and the management team, but wishes to reassure themselves that your team is competent to take control of the business. Your business plan must be included in the appendix of your report.

ii) You are then required to run the business for 12 months. You should hold a board meeting after each month in which you will review the results of the previous months decisions and make decisions for the next month. You are required to:

a. Design a reporting package with relevant key performance indicators (kpi), which contains details of the information that you have used in order for you to make informed decisions. You should then provide an explanation of how you have used the information in your reporting package to make informed decisions. For illustrative purposes in the example of the reporting package you can use information from one of the trading periods. This reporting package may contain financial, marketing, operational or other information.

b. Minutes of the monthly meetings which show evidence of decisions made and reasons for them (and where alternatives have been considered, why you consider that the decision that the board has taken is the right decision). You should show evidence of consideration of marketing, financial and operating decisions. (Minutes of your management meetings are to be included in the appendix of your report).

A 2,000-word report require