...ENTREPRENEUR WORKBOOKS Business Planning and Financing Management Series Building Block 2 The Business Plan and Executive Summary MaRS is a member of MaRS Discovery District, © December 2009 See Terms and Conditions MaRS – Business Planning and Financing Management Series THE BUSINESS PLANNING AND FINANCING MANAGEMENT WORKBOOK Introduction: What to expect In his book Outliers, Canadian author Malcolm Gladwell looks at the relationship between statistical probabilities and the chance of success in your chosen field of work or sports. His essential claim is that you need around 10,000 hours of practice to become really good in a particular field. This workbook guide will not take 10,000 hours to complete, so you should not expect that you will become an expert in business planning and financing management by going through the activities outlined within. Rather, the purpose of the workbook guide is to help you understand and focus on the key issues in the field of business planning and financing management, and to introduce you to frameworks within which to think and discuss essential areas of your business. The process offered will provide sufficient grounding in the topic so that you will know what questions to ask advisors and consultants, and, in the case of consultants, how to evaluate their work. Additionally, this workbook guide provides a launch point for a number of vital business decisions you will have to make to develop your start-up. As a best practice, it...
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...BIO INSPIRED NEURAL NETWORKING AMONG MULTI-ROBOTS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Transportation is one of the most important economic activities of any country. Among the various forms of transport, road transport is one of the most popular means of transportation. Transportation has an element of danger attached to it in the form of vehicle crashes. Road crashes not only cause death and injury, but they also bring along an immeasurable amount of agony to the people involved. Efforts to improve traffic safety to date have concentrated on the occupant protection, which had improved the vehicle crash worthiness. The other important area where research is currently being done is collision avoidance. Technological innovations have given the traffic engineer an option of improving traffic safety by utilizing the available communication tools and sophisticated instruments. Using sensors and digital maps for increasing traffic safety is in its infancy. Systems are being developed to utilize the available state of the art facilities to reduce or possibly prevent the occurrence of crashes. Total prevention of crashes might not be possible for now, but the reduction of crashes could easily be achieved by using the collision avoidance systems. 1.1 NEED FOR COLLISION AVOIDANCE The development of collision avoidance systems is motivated by their potential for increased vehicle safety. Half of the more than 1.5 million rear-end crashes that occurred in 1994 could have been prevented by...
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...addressing social problems. NGO are of great importance and value for the modern society and hence comes the need of having a marketing strategy for the NGO. This would help the NGO reach the masses and make the common man aware of the work it does. NGOs are organizations that work in many different fields, but the term is generally associated with those seeking social transformation and improvements in quality of life. Development NGOs is the most highly visible sector, and includes both international and local organizations, as well as those working in humanitarian emergency sector. Many are associated with international aid and voluntary donation, but there are also NGOs that choose not to take funds from donors and try to generate funding in other ways, such as selling handicrafts or charging for services. Some NGOs are highly...
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...Australian Education Regulation 2013 Select Legislative Instrument No. 195, 2013 I, Quentin Bryce AC CVO, Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Council, make the following regulation under the Australian Education Act 2013. Dated 25 July 2013 Quentin Bryce Governor-General By Her Excellency’s Command William Richard Shorten Minister for Education OPC50306 - A Federal Register of Legislative Instruments F2013L01476 Federal Register of Legislative Instruments F2013L01476 Contents Part 1—Preliminary Division 1—Preliminary 1 2 3 4 5 1 1 Name of regulation ............................................................................ 1 Commencement ................................................................................. 1 Authority ........................................................................................... 1 Definitions ......................................................................................... 1 Meanings of approved system arrangement and approved system authority ................................................................................. 4 6 6 Overseas students .............................................................................. 6 6 Levels of education that constitute primary education for schools other than special schools ..................................................... 6 Levels of education that constitute secondary education...
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...Strategic Analysis and Recommendations 1 Memo Date: March 26, 2015 To: Harlem Children’s Zone Executive Committee From: MITA Consulting Group Re. Strategic Analysis and Recommendations: Per your request, MITA Consulting Group has prepared the following analysis of The Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) strategies. HCZ’s main strategic focuses’ have included penetrating the zone, tracking performance, building the organizational team, expanding boundaries, and informing the field through governance and open communication to other organizations and policy-makers. The imperatives have enabled HCZ to continue to focus and build upon its set vision of actively helping children while building a scalable and replicable model. Although we agree with this holistic approach, our analysis indicates that three major strategic issues exist that are hindering long term growth capitalization. The issues are: 1. HCZ is struggling to create a culture of effective measurement and analysis. They are plagued with information silos and technology gaps that make it difficult for program directors to create any significant actionable insights through the data. 2. HCZ’s ten year vision is to reach $46 million in revenues, serve 24,000 people, and expand to an area three times the size of its current zone. However, a growth strategy solely focused on zone expansion will not allow them to reach this vision. Tigist’s suggestion to reword: 2 HCZ’s growth strategy solely focused on zone expansion...
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...(Author Speak: Search Magazine) The growing case for group collaboration for SMEs in India R. Narayan, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Power2sme, examines how group procurement of supplies for manufacturing can jumpstart growth for the SME sector in India. Imagine a scenario where you can easily procure the best price for the raw material you need to manufacture automotive OEM parts or for construction needs or for manufacturing or raw material for precision engineering. Maybe you need Chemicals & Additives or Inks or Paints, or Polymers or Cement. Whatever your requirement, Buying Clubs that collect buyers and suppliers on the same platform can help manufactures fight several problems at the same time. This includes the acute problem of economical and quality supply of raw material for the manufacturing sector, putting in place a consistent and sustainable supply chain and freeing yourself from the constant worry of ensuring supply of raw material. You could ask, how will buying clubs help the SME sector overall to grow. First let’s take a quick look at where the SME sector is at today. Today, there are an estimated 35 million SMEs in India (Source: firm Zinnov Management Consulting). Together they employ 42 million people and contribute to a stunning 45 percent of our industrial input and 40 percent of India’s total manufactured exports . (Source: SME Chamber of India). All this adds up to a sector that contributes upto 8 percent of India’s GDP (Source: SME India.net)...
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...education have entered the U.S. The combination of these factors have resulted in approximately 20% of our country’s children living in poverty, which is 50% higher than 1969. Historically, the foundational basis for lifting the disenfranchised out of poverty is education. One of the first steps of the civil rights movement was a grassroots movement educating the poor and disenfranchised to a level of literacy that would enable them to register to vote. This strategy was led by Stephen Currier and his wife, Audrey Bruce, the granddaughter of Andrew Mellon, during the early 1960s. Their Taconic Foundation brought the leading civil rights groups together with other foundations including the Stern, Rockefeller, and Norman foundations. The funding to civil rights advocacy associations was matched with volunteers throughout the South who tutored prospective voters in literacy and then sent them back to their own communities to teach others. The Currier’s Taconic Foundation also funded a program in Harlem that had been developed at New York University. The goal was teaching disadvantaged children concepts and skills needed for school, while developing motivation and self-confidence. It was possibly the first project to focus on...
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...Alternatives to oil, coal, and natural gas only provide a small proportion of the electricity needed to power U.S. factories, businesses and homes. However, as worries increases over the high costs and environmental effects of reliance on limited natural resources, more Americans are looking to alternative energy for the future. The burning of these fuels causes severe air pollution and thus contributes to the “greenhouse effect.” This enormous amount of consumption will be the ultimate cause of the scarcity of oil in the future and of environmental pollution. If people do not develop any substitutes to burning fossil fuels in the next few decades, people will experience a new and large-scale energy crisis. In the U.S., there is a high demand for gasoline. However, if people start to use alternatives fuel vehicles, it can lower the demand of oil, which will in turn minimize the oil-dependence and potential environmental problems. Jim Motavalli, the editor of E: The Environmental Magazine, once said in his book Forward Drive, that “At long last, technological wizardry is being applied to the automobile, with the result being a new generation of cleaner cars. The gasoline engine represents yesterday’s solution to our transportation problems” (Motavalli, XIII) Today, hybrid cars are the best solution for America’s addiction to fossil fuels because they use clean energy to power vehicles, have compatible performance compared to conventional gasoline and diesel cars, and provide economic...
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...Is Kenya ripe for securitization of real estate? Defination of securitization Securitisation is the issuance of debt certificates that are secured by cash flows from different kinds of assets. The issued securities are called Asset-Backed Securities (ABS). In essence a pool of payment claims are packaged and are made to securities in order to create a secondary market for the underlying receivables or other various illiquid assets. Securitisation is the financial practice of pooling various types of contractual debt such as residential mortgages, commercial mortgages, auto loans or credit card debt obligations and selling said consolidated debt as bonds, pass-through securities, or collateralized mortgage obligation (CMOs), to various investors. The principal and interest on the debt, underlying the security, is paid back to the various investors regularly. Securities backed by mortgage receivables are called mortgage-backed securities (MBS), while those backed by other types of receivables are asset-backed securities (ABS). Therefore, securitization of real estate is the pooling of real estate assets as underlying assets securing a debt, which is issued to investors in return for cash flows from the underlying real estate assets. The illiquid real estate assets that generate a constant cash flow are formed into a tradable security and are floated on the debt market. Securitization process In its most basic form, the process involves two steps. 1. A company with loans...
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...ACCA P3 – PROFESSIONAL LEVEL Business Analysis SMART Notes Prepared by Darren Sparkes Email: darrensparkesnotes@sky.com ACCA P3 - Business analysis These notes are not intended to cover the whole of the ACCA P3 syllabus ©Darren Sparkes, 2010 1 Contents Page no. Paper 3 Examiners Approach…………….….... 3 Extracts from the Examiners report ……….…...4 Examination Technique……………….…..……..7 Background and examination format..…............9 Syllabus Overview………………………...........10 Strategic Planning………………………...….....11 Mission and Objectives…………………………12 Business & Professional Ethics..………….…...13 Internal Analysis……………….……………..…14 External Analysis……………..………………....15 Strategic Options……………………….……….17 Method of Growth………………………............18 Portfolio Analysis…………………………….….19 Strategic Choice & Change Management…....20 Marketing………………………………………...21 Organisational Structure…………………….….22 International Market Place.…………….……....23 Business Process Change…….…..…………..24 Information Technology……..…….……..........25 Quality………………………………….……......26 Project Management………………………...…27 Role of Finance………………………………...28 Review and Control………………………..…..29 Strategy and People……………………………30 ACCA P3 – Business Analysis These notes are not intended to cover the whole of the ACCA P3 syllabus © Darren Sparkes, 2010 2 Approach Required ‘Differentiation is important to individuals seeking to pass a management and strategy examination. It is the ability to link strategic and financial...
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...Process of Making Go or No-go Decision on Save Valley Irrigation Project Executive summary First, we collected history data of BLL's previous work in infrastructure and water facility field as well as potential competitors. Meanwhile, we broke down the Save Valley irrigation project according to function. Based on OBIA's information model, we analyzed working environment in the host coutry, Mozambique, including nature and social environment Next, we used IPRA model to analyze potential risk of this project based on feasibility of the project and BLL's strength. Finally, taking all factors in to consideration, we made our decision that Bovis Lend Lease would notperform the Save Valley Irrigation Project. Information considered 2.1 Organizations Several different organizations are considered throughout the evaluation process. These include the evaluating organization, the owner, and the competitors. Each organization has goals and controls resources. Evaluating Organization: Bovis Lend Lease (hereinafter referred to as BLL) is one of the largest international project management and construction service companies in the world, as well as an international leader in property and infrastructure field. BLL provides a full range of project services, including several water projects（forming alliance with other companies). BLL has rich experience...
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...Valley Initiative for Development and Advancement D i s t i n gu i sh i n g f e a t u r e s – Rio Grande Valley, Texas Organizational Background – – Substantial financing from local sales tax, bridge receipts and general revenue Regional collaboration and impacts Outcomes measured through Return On Investment The Valley Initiative for Development and Industries Advancement, or VIDA, is a nonprofit organization – Allied Health founded in September 1995 by Valley Interfaith,1 a – Manufacturing grassroots organizing group, working in partnership with community and business leaders in the Rio Grande Valley at the southern most tip of Texas. VIDA’s mission is “to formulate new institutional relationships in the Rio Grande Valley that simultaneously address employers’ needs for skilled workers” and help low-income, unemployed and underemployed residents in the Valley get the skills necessary to secure a high-skilled, high-wage job. VIDA works with employers, education institutions and community-based nonprofit organizations to provide services in six locations, and its work spans four counties. Today, its board of directors consists of five leaders from Valley Interfaith and five local business leaders. The Valley has a diverse economic and employment base, with the mainstay agricultural and livestock sector interspersed with urbanized centers that have developed, along with the manufacturing and assembly industries. Much of the manufacturing...
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...Entrepreneurial Ventures Lecture 10: Pre-start Analysis, Part 3: Assessing Business Model 胡秋江教授 1 What We Shall Discuss This lecture is Part 3 of our discussions on pre-start analysis. In this final part, we shall discuss the following: What business models are and what they are not The elements of a business model Assessing new venture business models: What makes a good business model Examples of effective and flawed business models 2 Business Opportunity & Business Model On recognizing a promising opportunity, an entrepreneur will formulate hypotheses relating to the following: The likely customers that the venture should target How the opportunity can be exploited to develop and deliver products/services that target customer need or want at an appropriate cost, allowing the venture to make a good profit The resources required to pursue the identified opportunity In formulating these hypotheses, the entrepreneur is essentially formulating the underlying premises for a business model. 3 What Is a Business Model, Really? ‘Business model’ is a widely used but remains a fuzzy concept with no universally accepted definition. Nevertheless, a good business model is essential to every successful enterprise, new or established. It is… A valuable analytical and communications tool Tool for realizing value from technological innovation Our working definition of business model: A representation of (1) what value a new venture proposes to offer to customers...
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...fight something that has the potential to help so many. Body Problem Marijuana, also known as Cannabis, comes from the plant Cannabis Sativa. The main active ingredient is THC or tetrahydrocannibol. When cannabis is consumed for recreational purposes it creates a euphoric and relaxing high that according to "Medical News Today" has both physiological and psychoactive effects. Marijuana is hands down the the world's most popular drug. According to Attorney Bruce Block, "Marijuana use dates all the way back to 7,000 B.C. however widespread use of it recreationally didn't become popular until alcohol was banned during the Prohibition Era. In 1937 the government used fear, and false stories of violence to completely outlaw it. Since then, almost all of the theories used to ban marijuana have been proven false. By making marijuana a legal, taxed, and regulated product, it will result in a sharp decrease in drug related crime and a sharp increase in government income. Solution The Plan: My proposed solution is to model new laws in all states after Proposition 19, also known as the Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act which is already in affect in California. These laws include things like: allowing adults 21 and up to possess up to an ounce, own up to 6 plants, no child marketing, growing and purchasing limits, and Regulations on how much THC products can contain...
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...It will then analyze the lead additives industry in the U.S. using the Five Forces of Competition Model. The Five Forces will display the impact it has on the industry based on the analysis, in which it can then be determined if the industry is attractive or unattractive. Next this essay will describe who Great Lakes’ immediate, impending, and invisible competitors are and how Great Lakes measures up against these competitors. For the conclusion it will describe the main capabilities of Great Lakes. Great Lakes: Great Decision Perform an analysis of the social/demographic, technological, economic, environmental/geographic, and political/legal/governmental segments to understand the general environment facing Great Lakes. Describe how Great Lakes will be affected by each of these external factors. Social/Demographic Social/Demographic: Great decisions are constantly being debated for the Great Lakes as to what factors tend to affect the Social and Demographic segment. Socially our society determines the affects that is make on the Great Lakes. Recently a study of the people migrating in and out of these states indicated a decrease in population for the lakes. Migration can be a key source of population information. It can provide information for determining economic growth for housing, and market opportunities. The market for such a large region has its advantages and a...
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