Posted: September 16th, 2017

business venture

business venture

Report Structure
Use the appropriate business report style (Intro, main body, conclusions, recommendations, references, bibliography); Referencing is mandatory!!

Research is required – use the LRC – access to appropriate reports on retail (how shops are laid out, service costs for units within retail malls, sources of stock, quality standards, etc.

Use models/tools/academic sources from the first 4 lectures & your research (eg transformation process, Gantt chart, recruitment processes, quality standards, etc ),

Word count is strictly +/- 10% – You only have 500 words per section, therefore appendix financial documents, job descriptions, gannt chart, etc., use the word court for your report text.

Some notes on Task 4: Financial forecast

Projected vs Historic Financials

As YOU are going to be forecasting Cash Flow, P&L, Balance Sheet, YOU NEED to make assumptions as they won’t have any real historic data.  We want them to be as realistic as possible so we do expect some research to be undertaken.

Some ideas for guidance are below.  They won’t include everything and bearing in mind they are only level 1, we will have moderate expectations as to what they will include.

•    Turnover – Can be estimated from ratios of existing jewellery chains (total turnover / number of branches) and consider different locations ie. Bond street vs local will vary the footfall & sales.

•    Staffing costs – They can research various job advertisements and make a realistic estimate.

•    Overheads – will include service costs charged by the landlord over and above the cost of leasing their unit.  This is for communal services, rubbish collections, etc.  There will be utilities, insurance, banking fees (rental of card processing machine), annual stocktaking, etc, to be considered.

•    Taxation – rates are available on HMRC website

•    Financing – they will need to decide how to finance their businesses and relevant interest rates are available on various business banking websites (there might even be government start up schemes available).

•    Set up costs (some thoughts below):
•    Shop fittings including counters, safes, mirrors, etc – they will need to be find shop fitting specialists and make assumptions
•    Security systems – there is a variety of options; again they will need to find an online specialist and make assumptions.

•    Opening Stock – They will need to research wholesalers

Background information on The Mall (as of Feb 2012)

Size: 755, 000 sq.ft.
Car Park Capacity: 2300 cars
No of Retailers: 128
Av. Weekly Footfall: 450,000
Immediate Population Catchment: 200,000
Information on Leasing Units
Annual Cost of Lease – £25.00 per square foot
Plus service costs (security, lighting, heating, refuse collection, etc)
Do some research on service costs and make a value judgement here.

Lease terms are usually 3 – 5 years as a minimum but may be negotiable on a rolling 6 month basis if you are not having to do major changes to the unit.
Fees are paid quarterly, the year runs from 1 April, then each quarter.