You are required to produce an individual report analysing the performance and manner of operations of an organisation / individual in terms their entrepreneurial and / or innovative capability. You will need to choose an entrepreneur / innovator or an organisation that fits those categories. You do not have to choose a famous person or organisation – but you would be wise to choose one where there is a significant quantity of information about their performance and means of operating available to you. This could be someone you know who is willing to help you or it could be that there is a lot of media coverage about that person / organisation available to you – possibly through FAME & FACTIVA. Finding, and justifying, a suitable target will be an important part of the assignment – it carries 20% of the assignment mark – start looking early! If you have any doubts about the suitability of the person you select – please check with your Team Coach – you should aim to do this not later than week three.
Decide how you are going to measure performance – it will not ‘just’ be financial ratio analysis. If you only use financial analysis and ratios you will score very badly for his component of the assessment.
How are you going to judge the way the subject operates? What have you learnt about entrepreneurship and innovation from the module and elsewhere that you can use to make the assessment? There are many ways to assess performance read widely and find ones that suit the nature of your chosen individual / organisation.
Are they doing well? Could they do better? How? This is where you make, and justify, recommendations for improvements or changes that the subject could sensibly make.
As you are making recommendations for improvements it is not a good idea to select an historical individual / organisation. So, please do not chose Steve Jobs! Bearing in mind that you will make recommendations for their next steps it would be unwise to choose someone who is dead. If you must choose Apple then you need to be considering the performance of the company and the current leadership team.
remember that this is a report and should be structured as such. The executive summary is part of the word count and the only appendices allowed are the references – no other appendices will be read or considered in marking your work.
