Final Degree Project: Business Plan

Group	Teacher	Department	Language
Year 4	Mª Jose de la Maza Peiro	Dirección General y Estrategia	ENG

2. Application of knowledge to achieve results
4. Conveying information and/or knowledge
9. Creativity and innovation
10. Intellectual curiosity (`enlightened professionalism')
15. Comprehension of relational networks

CONTENT

1. Introduction This course is different from others because it is not organized in terms of content or thematic sections, but rather into phases that will unfold as the work is completed for each of thr three modalities. Essentially, the three Final Degree Project options are as follows: - Final Degree Project: Business Plan (TFG:BP), consisting of a new organization (company or Social business) project, from a global and multi-functional perspective. The student is expected to create a Business Plan under the supervision of an academic tutor from ESADE. In this modality, the BP can be developed individually, in pairs, or exceptionally in groups of 3. - Final Degree Project: In-Company Business Project (TFG: IP), consisting of a project to develop in accordance with the proposal made by the company promoting the project. The student is expected to write up a report on the project under the supervision of an academic tutor from ESADE. - Final Degree Project: Bachelor Thesis (TFG: TG), consisting of a tutor-guided research project. The completion process will allow students to learn the relevance of aspects such as the formulation of a problem, the methodology to be used, the importance of a rigorous treatment of data, the importance of bibliography, etc. In the following sections, specific information is provided on each of the TFG modalities with regard to available resources, schedule, and feedback components for tutorials and the completion of the project.
2. Final Degree Project: Business Plan (TFG: BP) As mentioned above, the BP can be developed individually, in pairs or exceptionally in groups of 3. The choice of the project, as well as the Team composition, must be proposed by the students at the moment once the BP modality has been chosen. If the student does not have a business idea to develop, Esade will propose several ideas to choose from. What does the TFG Business Plan modality consist of? The Business Plan (TFG:BP) modality offers students the opportunity to put into practice and consolidate the knowledge acquired during the BBA programme through the creation of a Business Plan (BP), for which they should use the aforementioned content and select the appropriate tools to: - seek out and find a business idea, - evaluate it and demonstrate that it is a real opportunity, - design a business model that allows the identified opportunity to be exploited and finally, - quantify and plan the deployment of the new organization through the implementation of a range of functional strategies. Additionally, both the writing of the Business Plan as well as its final public presentation are considered part of the learning aims and as course assessment activities. To create the Business Plan students will be given support from a tutor throughout the aforementioned search, evaluation, modelling and planning processes of the new company or business. The tutor will be a business expert, primarily with broad experience, as well as an expert in preparing and giving guidance on Business Plans. The project will be written up in a report, the Business Plan, which the student will present. The writing and presentation of the Business Plan requires: a. A document of no less than 5,000 words and no more than 8,000. The business plan is developed in a progressive manner, whereby, in accordance with a predefined schedule, the student will submit tree deliverables before submitting the final version. The Dates and contents of each of the deliverables are described in detail on the TFG-BP course website. Uploading all the deliverables is compulsory to submit and defend the final version. For the presentation of the Business Plan the student should take into account the instructions received from the course coordinator and/or tutor. The documents must be submitted via the course website. b. Present the business idea, through a pitch for investors, taking into account instructions received from the course coordinator and/or tutor. c. Submit partial & Final submissions as stipulated in the Business Plan schedule in order to monitor the progress made and the drafting of the business plan. What content should be covered by the report? The basic structure of the report is the following: - Identify the business idea for the business plan. - Evaluate the idea in terms of it being a good opportunity. - Design a business model that allows for the viable exploitation of the identified opportunity. - Market analysis and study of the stakeholders involved in the business model to consider its viability and scalability. - Prepare a marketing plan for the deployment of the new business, including a sales forecast and sales plan. - Create an operations plan that enables the efficient implementation of the project. - Create a human resources plan that helps provide the project with adequate personnel. - Prepare a financial plan that allows the new company's economic financial viability to be checked as well as show its possible appeal as an investment opportunity in addition to helping to "sell" the project. - Risk and contingency Plan In addition, the course seeks to provide students with the possibility of integrating the knowledge and skills acquired during the BBA degree programme in a practical manner and with a high degree of independence. This is undertaken through the application of these skills and knowledge to the new company creation project, the study of its viability and the creation of a plan to launch it that takes into account both operational aspects as well as the project's necessary legal framework. How is the idea for the Business Plan and assignment tutor chosen? The identification or definition of the business idea can arise in two ways: - Students already have an idea they wish to develop in their Business Plan; - Students do not yet have an idea or are considering various options. In this second scenario the responsible of the BP option course and/or the assigned tutor will all be devoted to helping students find and configure a business idea. Each student will receive support from a tutor for the search for and development of the idea, as well as the drafting of the Business Plan. The assignment of a tutor for each project will be made by the course coordinator from amongst the team of tutors collaborating with ESADE in this kind of projects. What resources are available? A presentation will be given on the Final Degree Project: Business Plan, which includes detailed instructions on the format and characteristics the assignment must have. Furthermore, students will be provided, through the website, with focused yet sufficient information on both the content as well as the formal and discursive characteristics a Business Plan must include.
3. Final Degree Project: In-Company Business Project modality (TFG: IP) The modality of In-company Project allows students to take advantage of their experience in carrying out or participating in a project undertaken for an organization, and to use this experience to do their BBA Final Project (TFG). There are some requirements that should be met in order to be allowed to use this project-related experience as the student¿s TFG. Specifically, the project must: - Be authorized by the organization for which it is done. - Require the application of relevant knowledge acquired by the student during their BBA studies - e.g. knowledge from specialties such as marketing, operations, strategy, accountancy, finance, etc. - Be supervised by an academic tutor of Esade, who will advise the student and assess their work. Based on their experience of the project, students are expected to produce two main academic outputs: (1) Write a report on the project, with a length ranging from 6000 to 10000 words and with the content and layout that will be spelled out below. (2) Deliver a 10-minute presentation of their work made to an examination board, explaining the main characteristics of their project in a concise, clear and engaging way. The layout and content of the project report will be as follows: - Executive summary of the project - Explanation of the project's raison d'être: what need and/or opportunity does it seek to address, why and what are the desired results (the WHYs and WHATs of the project). - Detailed description of the activities to be undertaken in order to achieve the project's intended results (action plan), the schedule for these activities (project phases), the organization of these activities (who will do what and with what resources), the monitoring system to verify the project's progress (HOW), possible contingency plan/s, and an overall estimate of the cost of the project - Outcomes of the project (if the project has already been completed) - Justification of the project design, including a review of its pros and cons. - Relevant appendices: bibliography and information sources, graphs, etc. Students are expected to submit a draft of their project report (preliminary report) halfway through the course. Uploading the draft is compulsory to submit and defend the final report.
4. Final Degree Project: Bachelor Thesis (TFG: TG) What does the bachelor thesis modality consist of? The Bachelor Thesis (TFG: TG) modality offers students the opportunity to pursue a learning process based on a short research project. Therefore, you are required to: a. Write a document of no less than 8,000 words and no more than 30,000. The thesis is to be developed in a progressive manner, whereby, in accordance with the tutors' instructions, students will have presented 2 intermediary draft versions of the project (February & April) before the final submission (The day before the beginning of the final presentations in June). The documents must be submitted via the course website. Uploading the intermediary drafts is compulsory to submit and defend the final document. b. Give a 10-minute presentation on the project at a set time on the date established. To this end, the student will upload the document (ppt) for the presentation together with the final Thesis. c. Actively and responsibly, collaborate with the tutor and comment on the draft versions submitted in order to monitor the progress made and the drafting of the thesis. What is meant by a "research project"? The research project can take a range of forms. The most common types are set out below, ranging from the most conceptual to the more applied and practical: - Conceptual Bachelor Thesis: a clearly organised review of the literature on a specific area. It implies identifying and reviewing research articles on this area. - Empirical Bachelor Thesis: This implies the analysis and interpretation of data gathered through an empirical study and presenting the process and the conclusions that can be derived from the analysis and interpretation of the data. - Applied Bachelor Thesis (or case-study): Consists of the analysis and interpretation of how things are done in a specific company or sector regarding any issue that may be relevant for the improvement of managerial performance. Students can choose between one of these research formats, but this depends to a large extent on the area of research and the selected tutor. How are the research area and assignment tutor chosen? To ensure that the learning process is as efficient as possible the students will work on their Thesis under the supervision of a tutor. There are two ways the tutor may be chosen: - Students can choose a topic that interests them from a specific range of research projects that are already underway (the list is published on the website). Researchers, who are either ESADE lecturers or academic collaborators, or students in the ESADE PhD Programme in Management Sciences, will lead these projects. They will act as tutors to the students that wish to undertake research for their Thesis in their area of expertise. The list of available projects and the deadline to choose the topic and the tutor are published on the track website course. - As an alternative, if a student has a clear idea of what topic he or she wishes to research, and there are no related topics on the list, he or she should inform the track coordinator. To opt for this modality we recommend that the student contacts and obtains prior agreement from a lecturer who is prepared to act as a tutor for their Thesis. What resources are available? Information on both the content, as well as the formal and discursive characteristics academic texts must include, is provided on the track website. This information will be found both from a macro perspective (which is to say, attending to the characteristics of the different sections the text must be organised into) and from a micro perspective (which refers to the discursive resources that enable an author to present an academic text). Students will find links and documents, on the website, to help them successfully write up their work, among them: - Templates for the different types of research projects. - Resources to search information. - Information to organise references. - Requirements for the submission of the versions of the Thesis Furthermore, students will be offered advice from their tutors on how to successfully write up an excellence final project in terms of quality and within the time available for the project's completion.

1. Introduction

This course is different from others because it is not organized in terms of content or thematic sections, but rather into phases that will unfold as the work is completed for each of thr three modalities.

Essentially, the three Final Degree Project options are as follows:

- Final Degree Project: Business Plan (TFG:BP), consisting of a new organization (company or Social business) project, from a global and multi-functional perspective. The student is expected to create a Business Plan under the supervision of an academic tutor from ESADE.
In this modality, the BP can be developed individually, in pairs, or exceptionally in groups of 3.

- Final Degree Project: In-Company Business Project (TFG: IP), consisting of a project to develop in accordance with the proposal made by the company promoting the project. The student is expected to write up a report on the project under the supervision of an academic tutor from ESADE.

- Final Degree Project: Bachelor Thesis (TFG: TG), consisting of a tutor-guided research project. The completion process will allow students to learn the relevance of aspects such as the formulation of a problem, the methodology to be used, the importance of a rigorous treatment of data, the importance of bibliography, etc.

In the following sections, specific information is provided on each of the TFG modalities with regard to available resources, schedule, and feedback components for tutorials and the completion of the project.

2. Final Degree Project: Business Plan (TFG: BP)

As mentioned above, the BP can be developed individually, in pairs or exceptionally in groups of 3. The choice of the project, as well as the Team composition, must be proposed by the students at the moment once the BP modality has been chosen. If the student does not have a business idea to develop, Esade will propose several ideas to choose from.

What does the TFG Business Plan modality consist of?

The Business Plan (TFG:BP) modality offers students the opportunity to put into practice and consolidate the knowledge acquired during the BBA programme through the creation of a Business Plan (BP), for which they should use the aforementioned content and select the appropriate tools to:
- seek out and find a business idea,
- evaluate it and demonstrate that it is a real opportunity,
- design a business model that allows the identified opportunity to be exploited and finally,
- quantify and plan the deployment of the new organization through the implementation of a range of functional strategies.

Additionally, both the writing of the Business Plan as well as its final public presentation are considered part of the learning aims and as course assessment activities.

To create the Business Plan students will be given support from a tutor throughout the aforementioned search, evaluation, modelling and planning processes of the new company or business.

The tutor will be a business expert, primarily with broad experience, as well as an expert in preparing and giving guidance on Business Plans.

The project will be written up in a report, the Business Plan, which the student will present.

The writing and presentation of the Business Plan requires:

a. A document of no less than 5,000 words and no more than 8,000. The business plan is developed in a progressive manner, whereby, in accordance with a predefined schedule, the student will submit tree deliverables before submitting the final version.

The Dates and contents of each of the deliverables are described in detail on the TFG-BP course website. Uploading all the deliverables is compulsory to submit and defend the final version.
For the presentation of the Business Plan the student should take into account the instructions received from the course coordinator and/or tutor. The documents must be submitted via the course website.

b. Present the business idea, through a pitch for investors, taking into account instructions received from the course coordinator and/or tutor.

c. Submit partial & Final submissions as stipulated in the Business Plan schedule in order to monitor the progress made and the drafting of the business plan.

What content should be covered by the report?

The basic structure of the report is the following:
- Identify the business idea for the business plan.
- Evaluate the idea in terms of it being a good opportunity.
- Design a business model that allows for the viable exploitation of the identified opportunity.
- Market analysis and study of the stakeholders involved in the business model to consider its viability and scalability.
- Prepare a marketing plan for the deployment of the new business, including a sales forecast and sales plan.
- Create an operations plan that enables the efficient implementation of the project.
- Create a human resources plan that helps provide the project with adequate personnel.
- Prepare a financial plan that allows the new company's economic financial viability to be checked as well as show its possible appeal as an investment opportunity in addition to helping to "sell" the project.
- Risk and contingency Plan

In addition, the course seeks to provide students with the possibility of integrating the knowledge and skills acquired during the BBA degree programme in a practical manner and with a high degree of independence. This is undertaken through the application of these skills and knowledge to the new company creation project, the study of its viability and the creation of a plan to launch it that takes into account both operational aspects as well as the project's necessary legal framework.

How is the idea for the Business Plan and assignment tutor chosen?

The identification or definition of the business idea can arise in two ways:
- Students already have an idea they wish to develop in their Business Plan;
- Students do not yet have an idea or are considering various options. In this second scenario the responsible of the BP option course and/or the assigned tutor will all be devoted to helping students find and configure a business idea.

Each student will receive support from a tutor for the search for and development of the idea, as well as the drafting of the Business Plan. The assignment of a tutor for each project will be made by the course coordinator from amongst the team of tutors collaborating with ESADE in this kind of projects.

What resources are available?

A presentation will be given on the Final Degree Project: Business Plan, which includes detailed instructions on the format and characteristics the assignment must have.
Furthermore, students will be provided, through the website, with focused yet sufficient information on both the content as well as the formal and discursive characteristics a Business Plan must include.

3. Final Degree Project: In-Company Business Project modality (TFG: IP)

The modality of In-company Project allows students to take advantage of their experience in carrying out or participating in a project undertaken for an organization, and to use this experience to do their BBA Final Project (TFG).

There are some requirements that should be met in order to be allowed to use this project-related experience as the student¿s TFG. Specifically, the project must:

- Be authorized by the organization for which it is done.
- Require the application of relevant knowledge acquired by the student during their BBA studies - e.g. knowledge from specialties such as marketing, operations, strategy, accountancy, finance, etc.
- Be supervised by an academic tutor of Esade, who will advise the student and assess their work.

Based on their experience of the project, students are expected to produce two main academic outputs:
(1) Write a report on the project, with a length ranging from 6000 to 10000 words and with the content and layout that will be spelled out below.
(2) Deliver a 10-minute presentation of their work made to an examination board, explaining the main characteristics of their project in a concise, clear and engaging way.

The layout and content of the project report will be as follows:

- Executive summary of the project
- Explanation of the project's raison d'être: what need and/or opportunity does it seek to address, why and what are the desired results (the WHYs and WHATs of the project).
- Detailed description of the activities to be undertaken in order to achieve the project's intended results (action plan), the schedule for these activities (project phases), the organization of these activities (who will do what and with what resources), the monitoring system to verify the project's progress (HOW), possible contingency plan/s, and an overall estimate of the cost of the project
- Outcomes of the project (if the project has already been completed)
- Justification of the project design, including a review of its pros and cons.
- Relevant appendices: bibliography and information sources, graphs, etc.

Students are expected to submit a draft of their project report (preliminary report) halfway through the course. Uploading the draft is compulsory to submit and defend the final report.

4. Final Degree Project: Bachelor Thesis (TFG: TG)

What does the bachelor thesis modality consist of?

The Bachelor Thesis (TFG: TG) modality offers students the opportunity to pursue a learning process based on a short research project. Therefore, you are required to:

a. Write a document of no less than 8,000 words and no more than 30,000. The thesis is to be developed in a progressive manner, whereby, in accordance with the tutors' instructions, students will have presented 2 intermediary draft versions of the project (February & April) before the final submission (The day before the beginning of the final presentations in June). The documents must be submitted via the course website. Uploading the intermediary drafts is compulsory to submit and defend the final document.

b. Give a 10-minute presentation on the project at a set time on the date established. To this end, the student will upload the document (ppt) for the presentation together with the final Thesis.

c. Actively and responsibly, collaborate with the tutor and comment on the draft versions submitted in order to monitor the progress made and the drafting of the thesis.

What is meant by a "research project"?

The research project can take a range of forms. The most common types are set out below, ranging from the most conceptual to the more applied and practical:

- Conceptual Bachelor Thesis: a clearly organised review of the literature on a specific area. It implies identifying and reviewing research articles on this area.

- Empirical Bachelor Thesis: This implies the analysis and interpretation of data gathered through an empirical study and presenting the process and the conclusions that can be derived from the analysis and interpretation of the data.

- Applied Bachelor Thesis (or case-study): Consists of the analysis and interpretation of how things are done in a specific company or sector regarding any issue that may be relevant for the improvement of managerial performance.

Students can choose between one of these research formats, but this depends to a large extent on the area of research and the selected tutor.

How are the research area and assignment tutor chosen?

To ensure that the learning process is as efficient as possible the students will work on their Thesis under the supervision of a tutor. There are two ways the tutor may be chosen:

- Students can choose a topic that interests them from a specific range of research projects that are already underway (the list is published on the website). Researchers, who are either ESADE lecturers or academic collaborators, or students in the ESADE PhD Programme in Management Sciences, will lead these projects. They will act as tutors to the students that wish to undertake research for their Thesis in their area of expertise. The list of available projects and the deadline to choose the topic and the tutor are published on the track website course.

- As an alternative, if a student has a clear idea of what topic he or she wishes to research, and there are no related topics on the list, he or she should inform the track coordinator. To opt for this modality we recommend that the student contacts and obtains prior agreement from a lecturer who is prepared to act as a tutor for their Thesis.

What resources are available?

Information on both the content, as well as the formal and discursive characteristics academic texts must include, is provided on the track website. This information will be found both from a macro perspective (which is to say, attending to the characteristics of the different sections the text must be organised into) and from a micro perspective (which refers to the discursive resources that enable an author to present an academic text). Students will find links and documents, on the website, to help them successfully write up their work, among them:

- Templates for the different types of research projects.
- Resources to search information.
- Information to organise references.
- Requirements for the submission of the versions of the Thesis

Furthermore, students will be offered advice from their tutors on how to successfully write up an excellence final project in terms of quality and within the time available for the project's completion.

Methodology

The TFG is designed as a learning opportunity that is essentially based on independent study for which students will be provided with what can be referred to as "milestones" to guide their completion of the task.

These milestones are the following:

- An introductory session, which will explain what the TFG modalities involve, learning objectives, study dynamics, resolution of initial queries and presentation of available resources and tools.

-Individual tutorials, during which the TFG tutors will monitor progress and offer one-to-one feedback on study progress.

-TFG presentation sessions on the dates established by Programme Management at the end of the academic year to panels consisting of three tutors.

- TFG modality websites: There is a specific website for each type of TFG with all the necessary resources to successfully carry out this project. The websites include details about the deadlines and assessment criteria for each modality. Students will also use these sites to upload the documents required to complete their respective TFGs.

-Communication with tutors
The one-on-one tutorials can be either in person or online and can vary with regard to the chosen TFG modality.

Students choose the modality they're interested in together with the registration of next academic year. The deadline to change your choice will be at the begining of December the latest. Once this deadline has passed, students will not be able to request a change. It is therefore important for students to consult the guide when making their decisions and, if necessary, contact the coordinators if they need further information.

Type:	TFP	Curs:	4	Period:	S semester
ECTS Credits:	6 ECTS

Final Degree Project: Business Plan (2225.YR.003819.1)

General information

Type:

Curs:

Period:

ECTS Credits:

Teaching Staff:

Workload distribution

COURSE CONTRIBUTION TO PROGRAM

Course Learning Objectives

Competences

CONTENT

1. Introduction

2. Final Degree Project: Business Plan (TFG: BP)

3. Final Degree Project: In-Company Business Project modality (TFG: IP)

4. Final Degree Project: Bachelor Thesis (TFG: TG)

Methodology

Assessment criteria

Bibliography

Timetable and sections

Timetable Year 4