Ondernemingsbestuur

DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 113

Practical assignment 2012

Businesses respond differently to the business environment: some of them are continuously in search of new opportunities while others follow a more laid-back approach by only responding to environmental trends that influence their specific businesses. Regardless the approach: the business environment has an effect on each and every business, and it is businesses’ responsibility to reply to these environmental trends in an accountable manner.

The aim of this assignment is to introduce you to the functioning of the business environment. You have to conduct a comprehensive environmental analysis for a specific company. This means that you have to:

1. Select a company from the prescribed list that will appear on the notice board (2nd floor Schumann building) as from the 6th of March at 08h00. Keep in mind that only FIVE groups will be allowed to conduct their analyses on a specific company.

2. Perform a literature review in order to determine which environmental trends have an influence on your company and its sector. You have to be as comprehensive as possible.

Note: This section is the theoretical component of your assignment. Each fact/thought/figure that is not your own work must have an in-text reference – of course each in-text reference should also appear in the reference list. A separate document on plagiarism will be made available during the first tutorial-l session.

3. Identify the environmental trends that provide the biggest opportunities/threats to your company, and provide practical suggestions on how your specific company should respond to each of the opportunities/threats.

Note: This is the practical component of your assignment, and normally in-text references do not appear in this section.

How will the assignment be assessed?

The following minimum aspects should be addressed:

Aspect | Weight |

1. | Abstract | 5 |

2....