Development proposal for UK Fashion footwear retailer

Development proposal for UK Fashion footwear retailer
In this assignment, you are required to write a report (not an essay) for your client company Light Feet Ltd who are considering launching a new shoe retail business in the UK. They are interested in selling brands such as Converse, Vans, Ugg, Timberland etc and this will mean competing with the UK fashion footwear retailer ‘Office’ and other retail outlets.  Your client is going to promote itself as ‘an environmentally friendly and ethical company’ to differentiate itself in the market.

Your report should be based on your selection and analysis of relevant reliable facts and figures that are referenced so that the reader can see where the information has come from. It is likely that market reports such as Mintel, Keynote, Frost and Sullivan, Government department reports and statistics will be referenced. The majority of marks are for your reasoned and logical analysis of information. It is not acceptable simply to state facts and figures, leaving for your reader to work out their relevance.

The report should be structured using the main headings indicated below.

Porter’s 5 Forces Analysis
Use Porter’s Five Forces model to analyse the UK fashion footwear retail business sector. Address the following key issues:

Substitutes to retail shops: What are the main substitutes for traditional footwear retail shops?

Supplier power: What power do footwear manufacturers have in relation to each of these UK footwear retailers?

Buyer power: What power do individual shoppers for footwear in the UK have over the retailer?

Rivalry intensity: How fierce is competition between the various retailers of UK footwear?

New entrant barriers: How easy would it be for a new fashion footwear retailer to enter the UK market?

Business risk analysis
From the previous analysis and using appropriate model(s), identify three separate business risks that the new company Light Feet Ltd will face in the UK market. For each risk identified, explain a way of minimising the risk for Light Feet Ltd.

Charitable activity stakeholder analysis
As part of their ethical and environmental activities, Light Feet Ltd, believe that they can encourage their customers to donate their worn and used shoes to a charity that transports shoes to people in developing countries. Explain the key stakeholders that Light Feet Ltd will need to engage with to develop this aspect of the business.

Length and Structure of Report

An electronic copy (PDF file) must also be submitted to BlackBoard MSEC42101 External Environment for routine plagiarism checking by the same deadline.

Postgraduate Assignment Standard Instructions

Assignments are designed to allow you to present a piece of work which shows your depth of understanding of the topics being assessed.  A generous time period has been allocated to allow you to undertake the research and composition of this piece of work.

Late Penalty
Work handed in after the deadline will receive a mark of zero.

Hand in Deadline

Assignments are designed to allow you to present a piece of work which shows your depth of understanding of the enterprise topics being assessed.  A generous time period has been allocated to allow you to undertake the research and composition of this piece of work. A printed copy of your completed assignment work must be handed in to the MEC office, 8.32 Harold Hankins Building, [The Harold Hankins building is through the shopping precinct (above Blackwells), enter the Precinct Centre via the escalator or the ramp on Oxford Road.  Go through the precinct and towards the photo booth. The entrance to Harold Hankins is up the stairs opposite the Legal Advice Centre].
Extensions for Exceptional Circumstances
Extensions to the hand in deadline may be requested in exceptional circumstances only (such as lengthy illness or bereavement). Any event which could reasonably have been predicted to occur within the assignment period is not legitimate ground for an extension (going to parties, days off, working, religious observance, minor sickness and event attendance).

Your request must be in writing (e-mail) to the unit lecturer and copied to [email protected] giving the reason why an extension is required.  The request must be submitted as soon as you identify the need for an extension.  Requests received after the hand in deadline will not be considered.

Submitting
All marking is anonymous. Therefore, your name should not appear on your work.  Rather, you must enter your University registration number on the front cover sheet and at the top of each page of your coursework. Your coursework should be submitted to the MEC office along with a ‘coursework submission form’. You may find details of the University’s anonymous marking policy at:

http://www.campus.manchester.ac.uk/tlao/map/teachinglearningassessment/assessment/sectionb-thepracticeofassessment/policyonmarking/

An identical copy of this assessment should also be submitted via Blackboard prior to handing a copy to the above office.  Please ensure the copy you hand-in is identical to the copy you have submitted to Blackboard.

We reserve the right to submit any work handed in by students for assessment to electronic systems for detecting plagiarism or other forms of academic malpractice. This includes the JISC plagiarism detection service (TurnitinUK), details of which can be found at:

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/services/as_pas.aspx’

Planning Your Time
Please note that part of the skill in undertaking an assignment is the planning of your personal time. It is strongly recommended that you produce a work plan when the assignment is first issued to you.  Make a note of commitments such as religious observance, weekends away, part time jobs etc and plan your work around these dates.

Keep a constant back up of your work in case your PC should break down or be stolen.  Print out your final version at least a day before the deadline to allow time for minor corrections and printer failures.

Plagiarism and Referencing
Your assignment demonstrates your understanding of the subject. It is important that the assignment which you hand in is written in your own words.  If you do use even a few words from another source, then you must reference exactly where the quotation has come from.  A quotation must appear inside ‘quotation marks’ and be followed by the reference.

Information must never be ‘cut and pasted’ into the body text of your assignment. Each and every table, graph, chart, photograph and diagram, unless created by you, must be clearly and fully attributed to the original source.

Unless otherwise indicated, you are expected to work individually on your assignment.  Any assignments which appear to have similarities with each other will lead to disciplinary action under the University rules.  Allowing your own work to be copied is treated as severely as the act of copying from someone else’s work.

You will be asked to sign a form when handing in your work stating that it is all your own material.  Your attention is drawn to the University policy on plagiarism:  http://www.campus.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/tlao/plagiarism-guidance-for-students.pdf

Feedback

Formative assessment tasks are designed give you an early indication of how well you are working in the subject area. You will receive feedback, however the mark for formative work does not get used in calculating the unit final mark.

Summative assignments are marked and feedback is given. The summative mark is used in calculating the final unit mark.
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All assignments which are handed in before the deadline will be marked within a target time of 15 working days from the hand in date. Individual feedback comments sheets and marks will be made available for collection from Room 8.32, Harold Hankins Building. General feedback points may be given to the whole class group as a hand out or within a lecture/ tutorial.  These feedback comments are intended to help you to improve your approach to future work tasks.

It is important to note that the mark awarded is not negotiable. The mark you are given has been through a first and second marking process. The mark is subject to further checking and moderation by the external examiner and exam board. You cannot re-attempt and re-submit an assessment to try to get a better mark a second time round.

All Manchester Enterprise Centre staff are willing to meet with students, on request by e-mail, to give brief personal feedback. This is additional to the written feedback for the assessed work.

If you believe that there has been a numerical mistake in the marking of your work you can e-mail [email protected] to request that the assignment be re-checked stating where you believe the mistake has occurred.

Note: The University of Manchester issued new guidance on feedback (April 2010). If you wish to find out more, please see: ‘Policy on Feedback to Undergraduate and Postgraduate Taught Students’
http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=6518

Assignment Hints
•    Start early, plan your time and keep a back up copy of your work.
•    Plan to finish at least 24hrs ahead of the deadline to allow time for printer failures etc
•    Work must be word processed using a clear typeface such as Ariel, 12pt.
•    Use diagrams, tables and charts and appendices where appropriate to help explain the text.
•    Use a header or footer with your student ID number and page number to help identification of any page should it become separated from your report.
•    Please state a total word count for the main text.
•    Use a spell checker and proof read everything to make sure it hasn’t changed words to give the sentence the wrong meaning.
•    Check all the pages are in order with nothing missed out.
•    Staple all sheets of the report together.
•    Please do not use plastic covers and binders, they are harder to open fully when marking and cost you more.
•    Spell check and proof read all work and make corrections before handing in the final copy.