You are required to produce a Strategic growth plan for an existing small/ medium sized business of your choice.
Your first task is to select a suitable small or medium sized business to base this growth plan on. Ideally the company should be independently owned and employing between 10 – 50 people (250 is the maximum within the definition of an SME) & seeking to grow.
This can be a company that you have some contact with or knowledge of; alternatively, you can select an existing organisation that you are able to gather secondary data on in order to complete the growth plan.
You need to start identifying possible suitable small firms to base your strategic growth plan on, your tutor will discuss the suitability of these with you at the start of the module; please be aware that this can take several weeks to finalise, so you need to start the process of identifying & carrying out some initial background research now!
For the purposes of this assessment you will have to write the report based on an assumption that the organisation is actively seeking substantial growth over the next 1-5-year period. This may of course not be a realistic aspiration of the actual owner(s)/ managers but you are to assume that the long-term goal is to achieve high levels of growth.
The strategic growth plan is divided into four sections for which the recommended word length of the entire plan is approximately 5,000 words. This does not include appendices to support the main report; tables/ charts/ diagrams etc and a short reflective learning experience statement having completed the module.
Section 1 of the report requires you to produce a summary of the strategic position of the organisation (10% overall grade)
Section 2 of the report requires you to complete a critical analysis of the industry/ sector/ market & competitive positioning (30% of overall grade)
Section 3 of the report requires you to produce a comprehensive growth strategy for the business. (40% of the overall grade) It is recommended that you present this in three integrated stages:
Stage one discussing/ explaining your rationale for short term strategies over the next 12-month period
Stage two from the end of year 1 to end of year 3 Stage three end of year 3 to year 5.
It is important that these growth strategies demonstrate clear connections from one stage to the next & make sense considering the analysis given in the previous sections of your plan i.e. capitalising on what the organisation is good at, responding to market changes, looking to take advantage of new opportunities, overcoming looming threats or developing new innovative services or products.
Section 4 of the report should detail the different issues that will be involved in managing the growth (20% of overall grade)
Additional briefing notes on the content of your 5000-word report – please note the different weightings assigned to each part of the strategic growth plan.
The plan will require a great deal of information gathering.
