Video on Lego,

Today Lego is one of the most popular toys and is currently selling out this Christmas.  Several years ago, the company was in trouble.  What has Lego done to change its business, marketing and its brand?

Have a great break!

Dec 15

Read pages 156-163

Ques 1 and 2

Next carry on with part 4 DUE FRIDAY

Dec 9

Sorry that I'm away today.

Today you will be looking at a website call Feed the Pig

Once you are there, you are to pick 2 goals, such as Save for Education or Buy a Car.

For each one, summarize what steps are suggested that you do. 

When you are finished, please email me your answers. 

Next, you can work on your projects. 

Preparing a Business Plan Part 4

Financing your Business/Start up & Day to Day Costs 

Now you are getting close to opening you business.  Remember, you have $150,000 but you will probably need to obtain more money through financing.  This is the last part of your business plan and then you will be ready to put it together. 

Task One:  Start Up Costs

In task 3, you made a list of supplies that you will need.  You need to create a Start up cost sheet.  This should ONLY include ONE TIME Start up costs, not monthly payments. 

There is a good example on page 157 in your textbook.  HOWEVER, you MUST include REAL prices.  That means you will have to go on-line to find out what a cash register actually costs.  Since the Canadian and U.S. dollars are so close, you can use both Canadian and American sites.  You must include a list of sites where your information has come from. 

Helpful Hints:  You may choose to work with a partner to find some of the information.  For example, if you both need cash registers and desks, you can divide and conquer to find the costs. 

www.costco.ca will be a good starting place for most small businesses. 

Task Two: Operating Expenses

Now you must create an Operating Expenses Report, similar to the one on the top of page 158.  For your rent/lease/mortgage, you have already calculated the value in Preparing a Business Plan part 3.  You have also figured out how many people you are going to hire and roughly how much you are going to pay them in Preparing a Business Plan Part 2.  Use this information to calculate how much you will spend on salaries. Be sure to include INSURANCE costs.  The other operating expenses will vary with each business, please see the teacher for help. 

Task Three: Pro Forma Income Statements (Best and Worst Case Senerios)

Now it is time to calculate PROFIT!!!  How much money are you going to make.  You must make TWO income statements; a best case scenario and a worst case scenario.  To find out how much money you will realistically make, find the financial statements from a similar company to yours on line.  If you can find a publicly traded company, the information is usually available.  It may be called “Share Holder Information”.  Use the example on page 159 to help you.  Please do not hesitate to ask for help. 

Task Four:  Financing your Business

Now that you have an idea of your Start-up costs, Your Operating costs, and what your income will be.  How much money will you need to start you business?  Write a short report explaining the following..

• How much money do you need to start your business and keep it going?
• Where will you get the money?  Include all sources, you own money, friends, mortgages, loans, investors, partners etc..

IMPORTANT:  Remember that you will use this information again for your FINAL BUSINESS PLAN, so save it and keep your work!!

 

Worksheets on banking and credit continued. 

Next, play Financial football and the games at the following LINK

Dec 3

Time to finish the handout from yesterday and we will go over it. 

Lesson on basic banking, checking accounts and bank statements.

Hand out and discussion. 

Dec 2

Dragons den and commercials

Read section 11.1 in the textbook together

Read section 11.2 and complete the worksheet, go over as a class

Dec 1

Hand in missing assignment!!!  Last Day to work on it. 

Nov 28th

Today we will be looking at oil and oil prices.

Questions

1. What is OPEC?
LINK
2. What causes the price of oil to go up and down?
3. What are some benefits of lower oil prices
4. What are some of the negative effects of lower oil prices (for example Alberta)

Hand in any late assignments

Talk on running a business

Business Simulator JA Titan

You will need to create an account

You are to play a game of JA Titan again. This time, keep in mind the importance of Supply and Demand, the importance of Marketing, R & D Research and Development, (and capital investment {not part of the course}. This is for marks, here is the marks breakdown: If you play a Short Game and get a Performance Index Score of 60+ you get 3/5
If you play a Medium Game and get a Performance Index of 50+ you get 3/5
If you play a Short Game and get a P.I. of 90+, you receive 4/5
If you play a Medium Game and get a P.I. of 80+ you receive 4/5
If you play either a Short, Medium, or Long game and get 100+ you will get 5/5
(If you try 2 games and still can't score a high Performance Index, you will still receive a 3/5)
Good Luck

Nov 25

Dragons den

Read pages 278-281

Answer questions   1-4

Also define the following terms.

Production cost
Landed cost

Please print or email your answers. 

Nov 24

Video on 'The Secret World of Shoplifting'

Questions

1. What are some of the reasons that people steal?
2. Why is stealing a problem for companies?
3. What can companies do to combat shop lifting? 

Nov 21

LINK on Drones

1. What are drones?
2. What are some things that drones are being used for?
3. What are some of Canada's 'advantage'
4. What are some other uses that drones can be used for in the future?  (in marketing or other businesses)

LINK on Driverless cars

5. What is (Googles) Driverless car and how does it work?
6. What are some of the legal challenges that driverless cars face?
7. What are some of the advantages of driverless cars?
8. What are some disadvantages?
9. If a person doesn't need to drive, does that create any other marketing opportunities for companies since the passengers are a 'captive audience' while in the car? Explain
10. Does the idea of companies tracking your emails, internet searches, phone calls, and your global movements worry you?  Yes or no and please explain

Dragons Den

Talk on new business technology and how it can help your business

Assignment:  You are to use chapter 13 in your textbook and the internet to research how technology can help your business.  For this assignment you can look at how technology can help business in general, as well as your specific business.  (nearfield communications, gps tracking of inventory, computer conferencing etc).

You are to create a PowerPoint presentation highlighting how NEW technology can help business.  In other words, explain how a new technology can save time, money, space, or make life easier for business. 

Your PowerPoint must touch on several different technologies, have a non-default background, include pictures, sound, and run automatically with proper timing.  Or you may make a Video, Prezi with sound or comparable equivalent. 

This assignment is to help teach you about new technology, increase your competitive edge, and help improve your proficiency with Microsoft Powerpoint.

OUT OF:  30 Marks

Due Friday

Here is a helpful link if you are having trouble finding ideas.
http://online.wsj.com/public/page/news-small-business-technology.html
http://www.gizmag.com/ecogizmo/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/03/22/business-cash-register.html
http://www.entrepreneur.com/technology/

Business Plan part 2

Preparing a Business Plan Part 2

Management/Organizational Structure & Recruiting

Employees 

Task One:  Your first task will be to create an organizational chart for your business.  It should include the following:
* Your Business Name
* ALL people/positions in the company, including yours (if you don't have the names of employees, just list the job title.
* Job positions should be divided into categories (depends on the type of business)  Examples: cooks, waitresses, managers, sales staff, etc.
* The chart should be arranged to show the management positions at the top and the part-time, low-pay positions at the bottom.
(please see me if you business will have no employees)

Task Two: Now that you have your organizational chart complete, you need to decide how you will compensate your employees.  Will they be paid salary or hourly wages?  Write what each employee will be paid next to each position on your organizational chart.

Next write a description of the other compensation/benefits/bonuses you will provide your employees.  (commission, sick days, vacation, employee cat etc.)

Task Three: Now that you know what employees you need, now it time to create some job adds. 

Using the following links for help (DO NOT COPY) create 3 job advertisements

www.monster.ca

www.workopolis.ca

www.jobloft.com

Task Four:  In paragraph format, explain your management style.  What characteristics describe you?  How will you interact with your employees? Will you be friendly, format, authoritarian?  How will you delegate? How will you deal with difficult employees?

Business Plan part 1

Preparing a Business Plan Part 1

Identifying the Target Market and your Competition 

Now that you have a great business idea, it is time to find out if you can actually make MONEY with it.   Of course, to do this, you will need to conduct some market research.  This research will be of paramount importance in completing your business plan!

Task One:  Work through and answer the following questions to determine your target market.  Use the internet, magazines, your textbook and other Secondary sources to get your data

n  Who are your customers? (individual or businesses)

n  What demographic are they (income, location, how do they spend their time)

n  What need/want will the product satisfy?

n  How many customers, how densely packed are they? (You will need to do some digging to get REAL numbers, don’t make them up.  Look up city population levels etc)

n  Where do they buy?

n  What price are they willing to pay for your product or service?

Task Two: Now that you have an outline of who your target market is, it is time to get some Primary data

n  Come up with three questions for your target market.  They must be Yes/No questions. 

n  You must then ask 15 people your questions (preferably the people you ask will be your target market but for simplicity’s sake they can be your classmates)

n  Record their responses in a chart like the example below…..

Name:	Q1: Would you be interested in a personal servant at school?	Q2: Would you pay someone $10 to do your homework every night?	Q3: Would you pay $50 to have someone carry your books to class all year?
Bill	Yes / No	Yes / No	Yes / No
Janice	Yes / No	Yes / No	Yes / No

Do you need to make any adjustments to your business idea now that you have some data? If so what?

Task Three: Use the information from tasks one and two to create a customer profile.  To see a sample customer profile just look at page 132 in your textbook or look on-line. 

Task Four:  Create a detailed list of both your Direct and Indirect Competition and then answer the following question as best you can.  This will help determine if you are going to be successful or not.

What can be my competitive advantage (what am I offering that is different)?

 

IMPORTANT:  Remember that you will use this information again for your FINAL BUSINESS PLAN, so save it and keep your work!!

Nov 13

Here are the numbers that you will need for Part 3.  Simply multiply it by the number of square feet.  

 

Industrial Warehouse:

Rent - $15 - $20

Ops - $1.36

Tax - $1.50

Office Tower

Rent - $15 - $25 depending on size

Ops - $8.13

Tax - $4.48

Retail:

Rent - $45 (store like Marlin Travel)

Rent - $150 (food court)

Ops - $14.02

Tax - $4.02

Nov 7

Preparing a Business Plan Part 3 A

LOCATION AND DESIGN 

Task One:  Location, location, location:  Think of TWO types of locations that you would want to locate your business in (downtown, residential, industrial park etc).  Make a list of Pros and Cons for each of your TWO location types. (5 marks)

 

Task Two:  How much $.  First determine, are you going to buy space or lease? You must be realistic, so you can’t buy an office tower. 

If you choose to lease:

Go to the following link: www.space4lease.com

Next, find two or three spaces that are similar to the type that you would lease.  You must then calculate how much it would cost you to lease space per month AND per year.  You may need a little help from the teacher to calculate this so please ASK if you are stuck.

If you choose to rent:

Go to the following link: www.clslink.ca

Next find two different places that you would be interested in purchasing.  How much do they cost? 

Go to the following link to answer the next questions: www.canadamortgage.com/calculators/amortization.cgi

With a 10% down payment and 7% interest rate over a 5 year term and a 25 year mortgage, how much will the monthly payment be? 

How much of the principle will be paid off in one year?

How much will you pay in interest in one year?

How much will you pay in interest by the time you have paid off the property?

Preparing a Business Plan Part 3 B

LOCATION AND DESIGN 

                                   

Task Three:  What are the main supplies that your business will require?  Using Microsoft EXCEL, create a list of the main equipment and supplies that you will need.  Include things such as major equipment and specialty fixtures.  Examples, stoves for restaurants, fixtures for shoe stores etc.   

 

See page 203 for help

Task Four:  You are to create a rough floor plan for your business (blue print). 

The design can be similar to the one on page 198.  It must be labelled or include some kind of legend.  It should include all major fixtures and important elements. 

You must also write a paragraph explaining how your store design will help increase sales.  Your paragraph must also explain how your design takes ergonomics into account.  Is your design safe? Does it decrease shrinkage?  Increase efficiency?