Unit Details	Name	Business Acumen
Code	HI5000
Year, Trimester	2023, T1

Individual Assessment Cover page

Assessment Details	Name	Journal Article Review
Due Date and Week	02/ 06 / 2023, Week 11

Individual Student Details	Student Number
First Name
Family Name

Submission Declaration	Integrity Declaration	I have read and understand academic integrity policies and practices and my assessment does not violate these.
Full Name
Submission Date

Instructions

Academic Integrity Information	Holmes Institute is committed to ensuring and upholding academic integrity. All assessment must comply with academic integrity guidelines. Important academic integrity breaches include plagiarism, collusion, copying, impersonation, contract cheating, data fabrication and falsification. Please learn about academic integrity and consult your teachers with any questions. Violating academic integrity is serious and punishable by penalties that range from deduction of marks, failure of the assessment task or unit involved, suspension of course enrolment, or cancellation of course enrolment.
Format Instructions	Most assessments must be in MS Word format with no spacing, 11-pt Calibri font and at least 2cm margins on all four sides with appropriate section headings and page numbers. You must name your file with the Unit Code and Student ID (e.g. HI5000 - GWA1995). Check that you submit the correct document as special consideration is not granted if you make a mistake. Student ID needs to be indicated on the cover page.
Penalties	All work must be submitted on Blackboard by the due date and time along with a completed Assessment Cover Page. Late penalties apply. Reference sources must be cited in the text of the report, and listed appropriately at the end in a reference list using Holmes Institute Adapted Harvard Referencing. Penalties are associated with incorrect citation and referencing.

Scenario Analysis The purpose of this assessment is to assure learner capability to: identify issues, gather data, analyse the forces at play in two of the five mini cases below and recommend appropriate courses of action. Below you will find five business scenarios explained in mini cases. You are required to select any two of the mini cases and craft your analysis based on the tools/topics/skills you have been taught in HI5000, lectures 3 to 8. Think carefully about; entrepreneurship, risk analysis, external environment analysis, leadership, digital business & artificial intelligence, empowerment, development of core business processes, career choice, foreign direct investment and ethical standards. Word count should be 1000 to 1200 words for EACH mini case. Scenario 1 Inadequate Communication/Coordination Persist PLC (Persist) has been established for five years. It has succeeded, as a manufacturer of affordable domestic furniture, and has captured a small but significant market share of the retail market. Persist is, and has always has been, managed by a tightly-knit four-person team consisting of: Peter (sales manager), Rick (production manager), Russel (despatch manager), and Simon (production foreman). The firm employs some 120 people and prides itself on being seen as very responsive to its customers needs. This responsiveness comes at a high price and leaves little time for internal communication and much-needed coordination. The following is an extract that mirrors a fairly common occurrence at Persist. Customer (PQR retail store): Peter, you havent delivered my order yet. Its late again! Peter (Sales manager at Persist): Ill look into it right away. Peter phones Rick (production manager): Rick, where is the order for PQR? Production Manager (Rick): I told Russel not to be late again. Let me check. Rick phones Russel (despatch manager): Russel, why havent you delivered the order to ABC yet? Despatch Manager (Russel): Im still waiting for Simon to send it over to our warehouse Rick phone Simon (production foreman): Simon, where is that order for PQR that the need urgently? Foreman (Simon): You didnt tell me it was more urgent than the UST order, and theyve been on my case since last week. I havent even started PQRs. Rick: Oh come on Simon, cant anyone get a job done on time in this place? What do you guys think you get paid for? Evaluate the verbal communication, specifically try to isolate and evaluate any dysfunctional statements. Assess how you would advise this firm to deliver on time for its clients, build a better reputation and be more profitable. Scenario 2 Inadequate Business Processes Resilience PLC (Resilience) is a component design and supply company which is at the cutting edge of the high-tech IT industry. It is managed by Ian (sales), Connie (production) and Ivan (research and development). The firm has been operating for 15 years and has endured significant peaks and valleys. Resilience thrives on innovation and diversity. One might say, there is never a dull moment. The following dialogue represents the start to a typical day in the life of Resilience. Customer (RUV Institute of IT Innovations): Ian, I want to re-order more of model C. I need the same design as last time but twice as many quantities of model C. Sales Manager of PLC (Ian): Fabulous, Ill get the team onto it. Ian phones Connie (production manager) Connie, can we do more of those model C parts for RUV? They want to double the quantity Production manager (Connie): Cant do. Unfortunately, our supplier changed their specs and the material is no good for model Cs. Ivan hasnt yet sent the specifications to our new potential supplier though Assess where there may be a deficiency in the manufacturing/raw material inventory of Resilience. Would it have been reasonable for Connie the production manager to have expected Ian the sales manager to have been more proactive by enquiring of Customer RUV at the time of their last order delivery whether they would be ordering any more model C product in the near future or not, so as to ensure that Resilience had components at the ready. Recommend what changes would be needed in order for the manufacturing process to be more responsive in future. Scenario 3 Strategic Priorities Resistant PLC is an investment property management firm of two years standing. It is run by a managing director (Ray) and a financial director (Neville), and supported by a team of administrative officers. It has a reputation for being trust-worthy and risk-averse. In a volatile property market, Resistant PLC has been slow to expand its market share and finds itself increasingly losing clients to more agile competitors. In typically reflective Monday morning fashion, Ray and Neville began their week with indecision about the next strategic step for their business: Managing Director (Ray): Neville, have you thought about the proposal I put to you last week? Are you ready to move ahead with it now? Financial Director (Neville): Not yet Ray, Im head down on the end of year audit and havent had time to think about the future, as usual Ray: Why is it that we always seem to be looking in the rear-view mirror? We need to drive this business forward Neville: Well, its imperative that we do things perfectly before trying anything new. Do you agree? Assess what obstacles are holding the business back. If you were asked to advise the owners of the business organizations what observations would you make? Scenario 4 A Question of Ethics Semaj-Eworc Inc. (SEI) expanded into the Indo Pacific Region in search of increased profit resulting from anticipated opportunities for greater economies of scale in an area of the world with the greatest long-term growth potential. SEI established a greenfield operation in Hong Kong. From this power base executives weighed up their competitors after developing networking relationships, which ultimately led to discussions about potentially acquiring a controlling interest in each of several domestic competitors. Hopes, held by the domestic competitors, for a major cash windfall were dashed when SEI offered only a fraction of the amount the domestic shareholders were expecting. SEIs ultimate response was, accept our offer and keep your jobs or we will set up in opposition and drive you out of business. Those domestic competitors who capitulated faced an avalanche of restructuring to implement SEIs established (foreign) policies and procedures. The restructuring exercise included retrenchment of relatives of senior executives, elimination of domestic influence on investment choices, activation of a merit-based promotion system, new guidelines regarding gender neutrality in recruitment, pursuit of more stringent quality standards, and replacement of the local auditor with one of the global Big 4 firms. Explain what potential societal benefits might accrue as a result of the SEI take-overs. And what the disruptions to the old ways of working might mean to the local community. Comment on the ethical behaviour of SEI. Scenario 5 In Search of Economies of Scale and Scope Davro Insurance, a leading European insurance company operating several subsidiaries in Asia, had been experiencing unacceptably high operating costs there (i.e. in the Asia subsidiaries). The regional CEO formed a strategy committee to investigate and search for economies of scale. Head office in Europe sent a consultant to assist the review. The outcome of the strategic review was a proposal to centralize all 15 Asian countries back office operations into one mega regional operation centre. This centre was to handle all underwriting and claims functions across the 15 Asian countries from one centralised physical location, in Malaysia. The new centre would be responsible for new:

1. policy lodgement, underwriting, acceptance and client/agent communication
2. claims lodgement, verification, payment and client/agent communication

Departmental heads and their families of the 15 country operations were relocated to a corporate village next to the new centralised operations centre. Systems were developed so that regardless of where the policy originated it would be processed in the centralise operation centre by whichever employees had capacity. Initially the operation met expectations. Systems and processes met time, delivery and decision quality standards, and financial cost was driven down. However, after an initial honeymoon period, relationships and standards began to slip and costs increased quite sharply. The following problems were observed:

1. Underwriting and claims personnel favoured their own home-country nationals when processing documentation

1. Whereas initially there had been a sense of equivalence and camaraderie among the different nationalities, as time passed old rivalries and cultural differences began to surface, e.g. one culture being hostile to staff from another culture, or being overly accommodating, or appearing to be more efficient than others, or just being difficult.

Eventually, all quality standards and relationships slipped so badly that the entire centralised operation was closed down and Davro reverted to the original decentralized model. Explain how the head office consultant and the CEOs strategy committee could get it so wrong? Can you suggest a 3rd alternative combining the best of both a centralized and a decentralized structure, but without the conflicts? Assignment Structure Required Front Cover Page: Official Holmes Institute Cover Sheet for Group Assignment, fully completed and accurate in all respects. Title Page, clearly stating which TWO scenarios you selected to demonstrate that you know how to apply the model). Section 1a. Title of your first chosen Scenario and your Reason for choosing it Section 1b. Identification and evaluation of the business acumen issues in the chosen case that require attention Section 1c. Your recommendations Section 2a. Title of your second chosen Scenario and your Reason for choosing it Section 2b. Identification and evaluation of the business acumen issues in the chosen case that require attention Section 2c. Your recommendations Marking Rubric

	Excellent	Very Good	Good	Slightly deficient	Unsatisfactory
	5	4	3	2	1
Structure of the report Max 5 marks	The report structure is fully compliant in all respects	The report structure is mostly compliant	The report structure is compliant but contains minor shortcomings	The report structure is somewhat deficient	The report structure is non- compliant or unsatisfactory
Section 1a. Title of Scenario and Reason for your choice Max 5 marks	Strong evidence of Business Acumen in choosing this scenario	Evidence of Business Acumen in choosing this scenario	Acceptable reasons are provided	Present but deficient	Not present
Section 1b Identification of Business Acumen issues in the chosen case Max 5 marks	Strong evidence of understanding of Business Acumen issues in this scenario	Good evidence of Business Acumen issues in this scenario	Acceptable evidence of Business Acumen issues in this scenario	Issues identified are only somewhat relevant to Business Acumen	Issues identified are not adequately relevant to Business Acumen
Section 1c Recommendation s	Recommendation s are excellent	Recommendation s are very good	Recommendation s are good	Recommendation s are slightly deficient	Recommendation s are unsatisfactory
Section 2a. Title of Scenario and Reason for your choice Max 5 marks	Strong evidence of Business Acumen in choosing this scenario	Evidence of Business Acumen in choosing this scenario	Acceptable reasons are provided	Present but deficient	Not present
Section 2b Identification of Business Acumen issues in the chosen case Max 5 marks	Strong evidence of understanding of Business Acumen issues in this scenario	Good evidence of Business Acumen issues in this scenario	Acceptable evidence of Business Acumen issues in this scenario	Issues identified are only somewhat relevant to Business Acumen	Issues identified are not adequately relevant to Business Acumen
Section 2c Recommendation s	Recommendation s are excellent	Recommendation s are very good	Recommendation s are good	Recommendation s are slightly deficient	Recommendation s are unsatisfactory
Overall Impression Max 5 marks	This submission is considered Virtuoso and worthy of a high distinction	This submission is considered worthy of a distinction	This submission is considered worthy of a credit or pass	This submission is considered somewhat deficient	This submission is considered unsatisfactory

Penalties may reduce your actual mark, as follows:

1. Late submissions -5% per day.

1. No cover sheet OR inaccuracies on the cover sheet -10%
2. Inaccuracies in referencing OR incomplete referencing OR not in Holmes-adapted-Harvard style -10%
3. No appendix at end indicating which student wrote which section, or incomplete details entered in appendix -10%
4. Submission is not all in one single document -10%

Assessment Citation and Referencing Rules Holmes has implemented a revised Harvard approach to referencing. The following rules apply:

1. Reference sources in assignments are limited to sources that provide full-text access to the

sources content for lecturers and markers.

1. The reference list must be located on a separate page at the end of the essay and titled:

References.

1. The reference list must include the details of all the in-text citations, arranged A-Z alphabetically by author surname with each reference numbered (1 to 10, etc.) and each reference MUST include a hyperlink to the full text of the cited reference source.

For example: 8. Hawking, P., McCarthy, B. & Stein, A. 2004. Second Wave ERP Education, Journal of Information Systems Education, Fall, http://jise.org/Volume15/n3/JISEv15n3p327.pdf

1. All assignments must include in-text citations to the listed references. These must include the surname of the author/s or name of the authoring body, year of publication, page number of the content, and paragraph where the content can be found. For example, The company decided to implement an enterprise-wide data warehouse business intelligence strategy (Hawking et al., 2004, p3(4)).

Non-Adherence to Referencing Rules Where students do not follow the above rules, penalties apply:

• students who submit assignments that do not comply with all aspects of the rules, a 10% penalty will be applied.
• Students who comply with rules BUT contain fake citations will be reported for academic misconduct.

Attachments:

HI5000-2023-T....pdf