Last date of amendment: 12 February 2018

BUSINESS PLAN FOR ENGINEERING PROJECT

GUIDELINES

BACHELOR OF BUSINESS (HONS.)

(ENGINEERING ENTREPRENEURSHIP)
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS INNOVATION AND
TECHNOPRENEURSHIP
UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA PERLIS

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 CONTENTS GUIDELINE

Executive Summary
This is an overview of your business and your plans. It introduces your
company, explain what you do, and lays out what you’re looking for from
readers. Typically one of the main goals of the business plan is to convince
banks, angel investors, or venture capitalists to invest in your business by
providing start-up capital in the form of debt or equity financing. In order to
do so you will have to provide a solid case for your business idea which
makes your executive summary all the more important.
A typical executive summary for a start-up company includes the following
sections:
- The business opportunity - describe the need or the opportunity.
- Taking advantage of the opportunity - explain how will your business
will serve the market.
- The target market - describe the customer base you will be targeting.
- Business model - describe your products or services and what will
make them appealing to the target market.
- Marketing and sales strategy - briefly outline your plans for
marketing your products/services.
- The competition - describe your competition and your strategy for
getting market share. What is your competitive advantage, e.g. what
will you offer to customers that your competitors cannot?
- Financial analysis - summarize the financial plan including
projections for at least the next three years.
- Owners/Staff - describe the owners and the key staff members and the
expertise they bring to the venture.
- Implementation plan - outline the schedule for taking your business
from the planning stage to opening your doors.

1. Industry, Customer, and Competitor Analysis

1.1. Industry Overview

Industry analysis is important because it allows business owners to
estimate how much profit they can generate from business operations.
Business owners also assess the number of competitors currently selling
consumer goods or services in their industry. It act as a tool that facilitates
a company's understanding of its position relative to other companies that
produce similar products or services. Understanding the forces at work in
the overall industry is an important component of effective strategic
planning.

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An example of simple industry analysis tool is Porter's Five Forces
Analysis, it is a very useful tool for business strategists. It is based on the
observation that profit margins vary between industries, which can be
explained by the structure of an industry. The comparison between Porter’s
Five Forces analysis in this part is to analyse the industry attractiveness.
Students should be able to convince the reader of their respective industry
is lucrative enough to pursue their venture plan. The analysis can further
be strengthened with comparison and highlights on the industry average
score between the players of the industry.

1.2. Opportunity Analysis

Based on the analysis on industry attractiveness, student should be able to
identify a lucrative market gap in the industry. Here, student may enlighten
the reader of the potential business venture through valid facts and data
such as market size, growth, or changing trends based on the segment
targeted and current performance of the segment. Comparison of the facts
and data will help the reader to understand the significant of the business
plan proposed.

1.3. Competitor Analysis

Comparison between at least the top potential competitors through proper
competitor analysis matrix will emphasize how the business will tackle the
market they are targeting. Furthermore, this will also explain how the
business proposed by the student able to utilize their limited resources to
maximize their business potential. Student ought to identify potential
competitors in the industry and study each of the competitors
comparatively such as conducting financial data/ratios comparison or
product/business strength and weaknesses.

1.4. Critical Risks

Every new venture faces a number of risks that may threaten its survival.
Although the business plan, to this point, is creating a story of success,
readers will identify and recognize a number of threats. The plan needs to
acknowledge these potential risks; otherwise, investors will believe that
the entrepreneur is naıve or untrustworthy and may possibly withhold
investment. How should you present these critical risks without scaring
your investor or other stakeholders? Identify the risk and then state your
contingency plan. Critical risks are critical assumptions—factors that need
to happen if your venture is to succeed as currently planned. The critical
assumptions vary from one company to another, but some common
categories are market interest and growth potential, competitor actions and
retaliation, time and cost of development, operating expenses, and
availability and timing of financing.
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 For instance, for technological company there is potential of outdated
technology that might affect the investment by the company. Limited
resources or alternative use of resources may also become potential risks
that may make a dent to the business plan in the future. Student need to
examine the risk attentively to show their ability to critically assess the
business feasibility in the future and prepare necessary action to overcome
the issue.

2. Company Description

2.1. Company Description

Describe the proposed company name, address and commencement date.
Then, describe about the company legal structure. It can either be ‘Sole
Proprietorship, Partnership or Sdn. Bhd.’ company. The students should
also highlight the shareholding percentage if the company will be owned
by more than one (1) person. In summary, this subsection should consist
of the followings:
- Proposed company name, address and commencement date
- Legal structure of the company: Sole Proprietorship, Partnership
OR Sdn. Bhd.
- Shareholding percentage, if it is more than one (1) partner

2.2. Nature of Business

Describe about the proposed business type/category and the product or
service to be offered to business customer OR end user. It is also
recommended to highlight the company vision and mission.
- Vision – this company/business in five (5) years’ time and more
from the commencement date
- Mission – the main objective/purpose of this business

2.3. Management Team

List down key personnel to be involved in running this start-up company.
State their academic background and previous employment experience, if
any. Indicate their position as well as job description in this company.
Outline the company structure in the organizational chart.

2.4. Company Strategy

Highlight the strategies that will assist in achieving company’s vision and
mission. The strategies can either be expansion, growth or diversification
plan of the company.

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3. Marketing Plan

3.1. Overview
Describes your target customers in general and tools used to reach /
approach them. Explain your distribution, promotion planning, and
detailed cost involved.

3.2. Customer Analysis

Describe who your targeted customer is. Explain Reasons why they need/
should buy your product. Elaborate your targeted customer profile to
further justify why they own purchasing power and to clarify their needs
towards your products.

3.3. Pricing Strategies

Describe your product pricing structure. Explain reasons on your decision.
Present summary of cost involved in determining your products price. State
and elaborate your pricing strategies and planning for future use, e.g. 1st;
2-3 years; >4 years. (Need to be synchronised with your financial section)

3.4. Distribution Strategies

Decide where and how to sell your products. . Explain reasons on your
decision. Present summary of cost involved in determining your
distribution decision. State and elaborate distribution strategies and
planning for future use, e.g. 1st; 2-3 years; >4 years. (Need to be
synchronised with your financial section)

3.5. Marketing Communications

Describe how to deliver information to your targeted customer by selecting
proper marketing channels. Explain reasons on your decision. Present
summary of cost involved in determining your marketing communication
decision. . State and elaborate marketing strategies and planning for future
use, e.g. 1st; 2-3 years; >4 years. (Need to be synchronised with your
financial section)

3.6. Sales and Marketing Forecast

Explain your projected number of customer for three consequences
period; 1st year, 2-3 years and >4 years. State your sales forecast for
three consequences period. Present summary of pricing, distribution and
marketing communication cost and strategies for three consequences
period. (Need to be synchronised with your financial section)

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 Example
1st year 2-3 >4 years
years
New Customer
Sales Forecast
Pricing
Distribution
Communication

4. Operations

4.1. Overview
In this section, students should be able to explaining the operational
activities of the business such as process of production, location, supplier,
inventory, equipment and tools, manpower and surrounding environment
in operations.

4.2. Production Process

Explain the key processes in producing the products. Should include
production techniques, quality control and coordination of required
materials in producing final products. Students can use the flow chart or
process chart to explain in detail the key processes.

4.3. Materials Requirements

List of materials requires for each of the processes describe in 4.2 and its
suppliers. The list must also include price or cost of the materials and
requirement in producing 1 unit of final product. Must also explain the
requirement of materials in order to produce in one month or one year as
part of materials cost and must reflect to the sales forecast.

4.4. Machines and Equipment

List down the machines and equipment used in the production process and
the suppliers of these machines and equipment with the prices. Need to
determine the number of machines and equipment required to fulfill the
forecasted production.

4.5. Workforce Requirements

List of workforce required in producing the final product. Explain the task
or responsibilities for each worker and must be in accordance the
production process. List down the wages paid, KWSP, PERKESO and
others. Number of workforce will influence the operations time for
productions.

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 4.6. Layout of operations
Explain the layout requirements of the operations space. Draw the sections
to show the main activities in the business.

4.7. Location
Explain where the business will be operated. The status of the building
whether rental or own, renovations cost and other costs involved.

4.8. Operation Cost

The amount of operational expanses monthly or yearly. Need to identify
Unit cost of the final product in order to determine the price.

5. Product Design and Development Plan

5.1. Product Overview

This section can be used to generally describe your product and its purpose,
current pricing structure, current distribution channels, positioning within
the market, current promotions and advertising, and current packaging.

5.2. Product Design and Development

The purpose of this section is to provide a description of the product's
design, chart its development within the context of production, marketing,
and the company itself, and create a development budget that will enable
the company to reach its goals. The product design and development
timeline should be presented in this section as well.

5.3. Product Features and Characteristics

You may details out the product/services features in this section. Includes
a comparison of the products or services your competitors offer in relation
to yours.

5.4. Growth Plan

Describe the future products or service you plan to offer.

6. Financial Plan

6.1. Introduction
This section represents of conservative, achievable and management
projections of revenue, cost, expenses and cash flow. For convenience, you
are suggested to use the sample financial template given to you. The
purpose of writing this business plan is to apply loan from financial
institutions or banks.

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 6.2. Projected profit & loss
This section should include sales revenue (RM), sales volume, selling
price of a product, how do you mark-up the selling price from the cost.

6.2.1. Cost of sales

This section should detail out the cost of product/cost per unit, and other
related costs such direct material, direct labour and manufacturing
overhead cost. The average cost of sales will be certain percentage of sales
revenue. Cost of sales is estimated based on manufactured units.

6.2.2. Expenses
Expenses for company are centred on three main areas which are sales and
marketing area, general administration expenses area and research and
development (R&D) area. This section should include the other cost of
overhead, wages/ personnel cost, revenue expenditures, capital
expenditures. Other expenses includes legal expenses, insurance, which
might be based on industry average.

6.3. Capital Financing

This section should include the use of fund and source of fund for your
business proposal. Plan out on how the business is using the funds. Show
the major areas where the investor’s funds will be spent. These could
include marketing, R&D, sales or perhaps purchasing inventory.

6.4. Projected Statement of Comprehensive Income (SOCI)

Previously, Statement of Comprehensive Income is known as Income
Statement. This section should lay out three (3) year of SOCI, net profit.

6.5. Projected Statement of Financial Position (SFP)

Previously, Statement of Financial Position is known as Balance Sheet.
This section should lay out three (3) years of SFP. This section should
detail out the following:
i.) Assets
ii.) Liabilities
iii.) Owner’s equity/capital

6.6. Projected Cash Flows

This section should include three (3) years of projected cash flows of
business.

References
Appendix Business Model Canvas
Other Appendixes (if any)
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 OTHER GUIDELINES

Number of words (excluding appendixes)

Minimum: 10,000 words
Maximum: 35,000 words

Printing
All copies must be clean and legible.
Use 80gsm paper, A4 size (210 x 297mm) white paper.
One sided printing.

Cover
The cover must contain the following:
- Full thesis title
- Your full name
- School and University name
- Year of submission
Please refer to appendix 1 for a sample.

Binding
Students must prepare the hard cover binding in ‘BLUE BLACK’ colour for
degree dissertation purposes as follow:
1 copy – School (compulsory)
1 copy – SV (if required by the SV)
1 copy – Your own copy (recommended)

Typing format
- Font: Times New Roman
- Font size: 12
- All narratives, tables, and graphs must be typeset and NOT
handwritten.

Spacing
- Double spacing for text
- Single spacing for long tables, table titles, long quotations, notes,
footnotes, multiline caption and bibliographic entries

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Margins
All text, tables, figures and their captions must conform to the following
margins:
- Top edge : 2.5 cm
- Bottom edge : 2.5 cm
- Right side : 2.5 cm
- Left side : 4.0 cm

Subdivision
- Text in each chapter may be divided under headings and sub headings
such as 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc. and 1.1.1, 1.1.2 etc.
- All subdivisions begin from the left margin.

Notes and Footnotes

- Font sizes for notes and footnotes must be smaller than general text
- Footnotes are not encouraged; and should be kept to a minimum.

Tables
- All tables must be numbered in relation to chapter, e.g. in chapter 1,
tables should be numbered table 1.1, table 1.2 and so on.
- Place tables near to related discussion in text.
- Use single space for all tables.

Language
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted,
but not a mixture of both).

References
Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic citations lies entirely with the
authors.

Citations in the text

Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the
reference list (and vice versa). Avoid citation in the abstract. Unpublished
results and personal communications should not be in the reference list, but
may be mentioned in the text.

Citing and listing of web references

As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if
known (author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should

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also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference
list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference
list.

Text
Citations in the text should follow the referencing style used by the American
Psychological Association. You can refer to the Publication Manual of the
American Psychological Association, Fifth Edition, ISBN 1-55798-790-4,
copies of which may be ordered from http://www.apa.org/books/4200061.html
or APA Order Dept., P.O.B. 2710, Hyattsville, MD 20784, USA or APA, 3
Henrietta Street, London, WC3E 8LU, UK. Details concerning this
Referencing style can also be found at
http://humanities.byu.edu/linguistics/Henrichsen/APA/APA01.html.

List: References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted
chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s)
in the same year must be identified by the letters "a", "b", "c", etc., placed after
the year of publication.

Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
McGuiness, P. 1992, An Examination of the Underpricing of Initial Public
Offerings in Hong Kong: 1980-1990, Journal of Business Finance and
Accounting 19(2), January, pp. 165-186.

Reference to a book:
Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (1979). The elements of style. (3rd ed.). New
York:
Macmillan, (Chapter 4).

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (1994). How to prepare an electronic version
of your article.
In B. S. Jones, & R. Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the electronic age
(pp. 281-304). New York: E-Publishing Inc.

Reference to a web source:

Smith, Joe, (1999), One of Volvo's core values. [Online] Available:
http://www.volvo.com/environment/index.htm (July 7, 1999)

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(APPENDIX A: FORMAT OF SPINE AND COVER OF REPORT)

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN QUALITY

MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND
ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: THE
MODERATING ROLE OF SUSTAINABLE
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT.

18 point, bold,
upper case

18 point, bold,
MUHAMMAD ABDULLAH upper case

BACHELOR OF BUSINESS (HONOURS) 18 point, bold,

upper case
(ENGINEERING ENTREPRENEURSHIP)

UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA PERLIS

JUNE 2018

12
 (One tab) (centered) June 2018

13
Muhammad Abdullah TITLE (font 18 point, bold, upper case)
 (APPENDIX B: FORMAT OF SECOND TITLE PAGE)

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN QUALITY

MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND
ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: THE
MODERATING ROLE OF SUSTAINABLE
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT.

18 point, bold,
upper case

14 point, bold,
MUHAMMAD ABDULLAH upper case

Business Plan Report submitted in fulfilment of the requirements

for the degree of
14 point
Bachelor of Business (Honours)
(Engineering Entrepreneurship)

14 point, bold,
Capitalize Each
Word

14 point, bold,
Universiti Malaysia Perlis Capitalize Each
Word

June 2018

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 (APPENDIX C: AUTHOR’S DECLARATION)

AUTHOR’S DECLARATION

I declare to the best of knowledge that, this work is original and have not been
published and/ or submitted for any other degree award to any other university.

Name of Student : Muhammad Abdullah

Student I.D No : 131220120

Programme : Bachelor of Business Administration

(Honours) (Engineering Entrepreneurship)

Project Title : The Relationship between Quality

Management Practices and Organizational
Performance: The Moderating Role of
Sustainable Product Development

Signature of Student : ……………………………………………..

Date : May 2018

This report has been submitted for examination with approval of the following
supervisors:

Signature of Supervisor : ………………………………………………

Name of Supervisor : ………………………………………………
Official Stamp : ………………………………………............

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