Sep-Dec 2011 International Business Student Collaboration Project Instructions Task Your team represents a consulting company that

specializes in finding business opportunities and developing initial business plans for prospective ventures. In the light of the raging economic turmoil, many international companies try to stay afloat by carefully planning their next steps. The following large corporations approached your consulting company with a request to conduct a market analysis and provide suggestions for their next big idea: 1. ALDI Einkauf GmbH & Co. oHG., one of the worlds largest retailers, www.aldi.com 2. BP p.l.c., one of the worlds leading oil and gas companies, www.bp.com 3. Google Inc., worlds largest IT company, www.google.com 4. HSBC Holdings p.l.c., the worlds second largest banking and financial services group, www.hsbc.com 5. McDonald's Corporation, worlds largest restaurant chain, www.mcdonalds.com 6. Toyota Motor Corporation, worlds largest automobile manufacturers, www.toyota.com 7. VF Corporation, worlds largest clothing company, www.vfc.com 8. Walt Disney Company, worlds largest media conglomerate and entertainment company, www.disney.com Each of the companies offers a wide range of products and has clients in just about any country on the planet. All these companies are public and details on their history, products, corporate structure and earnings are readily available on the Internet. Your team has to choose one of the companies and develop a business proposal for a product or service that the company of your choice should invest in. You need to submit only a tentative business plan that provides a general description of the product/service and its development and marketing strategy. You are free to choose any product or service that has the greatest economic potential for your client. The product or service can be produced or offered in any location and is not limited to the countries represented on your team. Working as a team, please develop a report that details the following areas: 1. Product/Service: Describe the specific product or service that your Client should invest in and provide an economic justification for your idea. 2. Target Market: Describe the target market for your product: explain what consumer segment is targeted, if the product or service should be offered globally or in a specific location only, what type of strategy (e.g., differentiation, focus, low-cost, etc.) would be most appropriate in this case, etc. and provide justification for your recommendations. 3. Production site or service personnel location: Explain where the product should be manufactured or the service personnel should be located and operate from and provide a justification for your suggestion. 4. Entry mode: Suggest most suitable entry mode (e.g., green field, purchase of an existing company, joint ventures between the IJV and other local companies, franchising, licensing, management contract, wholly owned subsidiaries, etc.). If you feel the product or service should be developed and/or distributed in a partnership with another company, provide additional details on how the partnership should be set up (what would be the contribution of each company and how the partnership should be governed). If applicable, also explain how the product/service should be delivered to and distributed in each market (e.g., freight forwarders, direct/indirect exporting, sales representatives, over the Internet, etc.).

5. Staffing: Outline how development and distribution of the product or service should be staffed, should the company hire new personnel or use current employees, should the company use locals, expatriates, or third-country nationals, etc. Provide additional details if you feel that the staffing choices should differ across positions, functions, or regions. Explain your suggestions. 6. Marketing: provide a brief summary of the suggested marketing strategy for the product/service, comment on expected marketing challenges and suggest solutions. 7. Payment arrangements: Provide details on payment arrangements with local customers and/or retailers and distributors if applicable (e.g., advance payment, open account, documentary collection, letter of credit, etc.) and explain why these payment arrangements are most viable. 8. Capital: Explain whether the company should invest in the product or service using its own cash or whether it should seek external funding; if applicable, review possible sources of additional funding (e.g., local financial institutions, international financial institutions, venture capitalists, issuing equity, etc.) to finance possible future expansion of the business. Briefly explain your suggestions. 9. Likely challenges: Summarize other challenges the newly formed company is likely to encounter and offer your solutions. Team Composition and Collaboration Each team is comprised of about six students from different countries. The names of the students on each team can be found here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjNhzzXMdGmCdDkydWNBdzd5cjdu UXN6OURVREV2TEE&hl=en_US#gid=0. Since this is a shared file, for privacy concerns it contains only names of the students on each team, but not their contacts. The contacts (email addresses) of your teammates will be provided by your instructor by the start date of the project. IMPORTANT: With so many students involved in the project, dropouts and late enrollments are inevitable. Expect changes in your team composition: it is very likely that you team will lose at least one team member and it is possible that another team member will be added to your team over the course of the project. If such changes occur, your team members will be informed immediately. Please do not worry if a person drops out or is added to your team simply carry on with the project working with the people assigned to your team. Communication Mode Once you receive names/emails of your teammates from your Instructor, you will have to initiate the contact with your teammates by sending an email to all of your teammates, or reply to their emails if they contact you first. It is critical that you attempt to initiate contact with your teammates as soon as you receive their names. While the initial contact will have to be made via email, each team is free to use the collaboration tools that work best for its team members. Free collaboration tools, such as email, Google Docs, Dropbox,, Skype, Facebook Groups, or Google+ should be sufficient to complete the project, but you are free to choose a different communicating mode. Report Formatting and Submission Guidelines Your team must collaboratively produce one business proposal that all teammates agree upon. Identical copies of the report must be submitted to each corresponding Instructor. Consult

your Instructor for more detailed guidelines for report submission (e.g., hard or electronic copy, in class or via Black Board or other course administration tools). Keep your reports as concise as possible and include only the most relevant and important information. The report should be 12 to 35 double-spaced pages long, including appendices with references, statistics, charts, maps, etc. Please format your report as the following: Use the template provided at the end of this document to design the title page of your team report. The title page of the report must contain the number of your team and names of all teammates. If some of your teammates never responded and did not participate in the project, list their names on the title page of the report, but add a note indicating that these students did not participate. Do not number the title page. Number all pages in your manuscript. Include a Table of Contents (separate page) Include an abstract or electivity summary max 200 words (separate page) Margins should be one inch (2.5cm) at the top, bottom, and sides of the page. Font type should be 12-point Times New Roman throughout the document. Double-space all body text. Indent first line of a new paragraph Manuscript text should be left-aligned. In-text citations should include only the name of the author(s) and the date of the publication. Full references (author, year, title of the publication, publisher, and website address, etc.) should be provided at the end of the report. Wikipedia is an excellent resource to begin your research, but it is an inappropriate source to cite in your paper. Instead, you must find the source behind the Wikipedia entry and verify its accuracy. Pre- and Post-Project Survey In addition to the team report, you are also required to complete a survey before starting to work on the project and another survey after the project is completed. You will receive an email invitation to complete the survey from Qualtrics.com simply click on the link in the message and it will take you directly to the survey. In the pre-project survey, you will be asked to share your thoughts about the challenges you expect to experience when working with your international teammates and answer a few questions related to your perceptions about differences among the participating countries and your personal working style and values. In the post-project survey, you will be asked to comment on challenges you encountered during the project, as well as evaluate the performance of your teammates. The survey has been approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Institutional Review Board. Your identity will be kept strictly confidential and your answers will not be shared with your teammates or other students. Only a country-level summary of the results (national averages, most common or most interesting comments and observations) will be distributed to all students so that students can compare their personal experiences and impressions to those of other students. The pre-project survey must be completed before you start working on the project, but no earlier than October 1. The post-project survey should not be completed until your team report is submitted but no later than December 4.

Project Evaluation The quality of your business proposal will be evaluated based on the - Economic viability of your business proposal - Innovativeness of your ideas - Thoroughness and depth of analysis - Clarity, readability and formatting quality of your report - Timeliness with respect to deadlines The project grade will depend on the timely completion and quality of the following components:
Task Deadline 1. Pre-project survey: Each student must complete the Pre-project survey. Please note, all questions must be answered. The software checks for random response pattern surveys with random answers will be disqualified. You will receive an email invitation to complete the survey from Qualtrics.com simply click on the link in the message and it will take you directly to the survey. If you miss the invitation, you can access the Pre-project survey by following this link: https://uncg.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_agACjVtdWtE95Gc. Deadline 2. Established contact with teammates: By this date, you should exchange at least a few messages with your teammates. If some teammates are not responding, you are expected to send at least three email reminders to them by this deadline. You must report your progress with establishing contact with your teammates by filling out this form: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGNQQUc4NTVabF NBalkxZUlqajVJdmc6MQ To view responses received from other students, go to https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjNhzzXMdGmCdGNQQUc4 NTVabFNBalkxZUlqajVJdmc&hl=en_US#gid=0 Deadline 3. Agreed on Company and Idea: By this deadline, your team must choose the company from the list and agree on the product/service that your team is writing the proposal for. One of the teammates must then provide a brief description of the product/service using this form: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFlEOEdjTHV6Ry1 4TmhhTDZiRTZxbGc6MQ To view responses received from other students, go to https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjNhzzXMdGmCdFlEOEdjT HV6Ry14TmhhTDZiRTZxbGc&hl=en_US#gid=0 Deadline 4. Business proposal report: Each member of your team must submit an identical copy of your team report to his/her instructor. Deadline 5. Post-project survey: Each student must complete the Post-project survey. Please note, all questions must be answered. The software checks for random response pattern surveys with random answers will be disqualified. You will receive an email invitation to complete the survey from Qualtrics.com simply click on the link in the message and it will take you directly to the survey. If you miss the invitation, you can access the Post-project survey by following this link: https://uncg.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_di2AblmtZoi6LyY. Deadline Weight Must be completed to receive a grade for the project

October 8

October 20

25%

November 10

25%

December 1

50%

December 4

Must be completed to receive a grade for the project 100%

TOTAL

Frequently Asked Questions: What do I do if the email(s) of my teammates are not working? If you received an error message indicating that the email address is not working, inform your Instructor right away you should receive an updated email address within two-three days. What do I do if one or more of my teammates are not cooperating or simply ignoring my messages? Do you best to encourage each teammate to work on the project (introduce yourself to each teammate, try to set a meeting schedule that works for all teammates, send reminders frequently, etc.). If your repeated attempts (at least once every 3-4 days) to establish contact and exchange ideas with some of your teammates fail, work on the project with the teammates who respond to your messages. Your project grade wont be affected if one or more of your teammates will not participate and provide no input. As long as you do your best with the available resources/teammates, your high grade is not jeopardized. However, please keep sending reminders to the missing teammates from time to time. I am frustrated. My team does not work together, we cannot agree on many issues, each of us has a different understanding of whats expected, some teammates dont seem to care and some dont even reply. The project is just one big disappointment. Can I just write my own business proposal? The problems you will experience when working on the project will be very similar to what you will experience in the real business environment: communication difficulties due to language, time zone, communication technology and cultural differences, differences in expectations and understanding of what needs to be done and how, ignorance and even prejudice are all common challenges. Your future performance will be much better if you will learn how to deal with these challenges now when mistakes are much less costly. The primary purpose of the project is to give you an opportunity to gain first-hand experience in international business collaboration. The project is about the process, not so much about the outcome. That is, it is not a test but rather an exercise, a learning opportunity. Therefore, your effort matters more than the outcome. As long as you do your best and complete each component of the project (pre- and post- project surveys, persistent attempts to establish contact with your teammates, answer all questions in your report, etc.), you will receive a high grade for the project even if the quality of the team report will be mediocre. You must work as a team. If some teammates do not contribute, keep working on the project with the teammates who cooperate. If nothing works and you fail to establish contact with your teammates or produce a team report, rather than submitting your own report, you will be asked to submit a proof of your effort to work as a team. If your team fails at teamwork, your individual submission should not be your own version of the business proposal, but rather copies of the emails you sent to your teammates, other records that show your effort throughout the semester and your reflections of what did not work and why. Although it is extremely unlikely, it is theoretically possible that you are the only member of your team and despite your best efforts, no other teammate cooperated with you during the entire eight weeks. You can still get the highest grade as long as you can present evidence of your continuous effort to establish contact with your teammates and your thoughts and reflections on this experience. What is the worst mistake I can make? Your biggest mistake would be not to start working on the project early. Some students procrastinate, dont reply to their teammates calls and dont do their share during the semester. They finally try to get something done a few days before the deadline and contact their teammates just to find out that the team has already completed the project. At this stage, the procrastinators have no proof of their active effort during the semester and their team does not need them anymore. To avoid this problem, make sure to be actively involved in the project from the very beginning.

International Business Student Collaboration Project Team # ____

Client (Company):

________________________________________________

Product/Service:

_________________________________________________

Team members: Did Not Participate Name Country (please make a note if this teammate did not contribute during the project, has not replied to emails, etc.).

Please note that each team member must submit a copy of this report to his or her Instructor. Each report submitted by the members of your team must be identical.