BCOBM116 Innovative Technology in Business Task brief & rubrics

Instructions

• This task must be performed individually.

• Save this file and name it xxxxx_MIDTERM (Where xxxxx must be your last name).

• This exercise must be uploaded at the LMS Portal link to Moodle called “Mid-Term Evaluation Submission Point”

Task: Students must analyze the case below and answer the following questions accordingly

Case Study: Leather Product Company Acquisition

Background:

You are the owner of a thriving leather product and sales company that has been operating successfully in the B2B market for a decade. Your company

has established a strong reputation for producing high-quality leather goods, including bags, wallets, and accessories. Due to your continued growth

and market presence, you have decided to expand further by purchasing one of your competitors in the leather product industry, which was staggering

due to the previous pandemic crisis.

Situation:

After the successful acquisition of your competitor, several projects are necessary to integrate the newly acquired company into your business

operations and ensure a smooth transition. You will streamline financial reporting, optimize operations, retain and grow the customer base, and track

marketing efforts efficiently.

YOUR TASK: Choose two (2) of the acquisition projects below. Write a combined report to support your decision-making strategies with

data analysis. (Both spreadsheets and visualizations are required.)

Acquisition Project 1: Financial Integration:

• Merge the financial systems and accounting practices of both companies.

• Consolidate financial statements and reporting.

• Assess and optimize cash flow and working capital management.

Acquisition Project 2: Operational Streamlining:

• Evaluate and harmonize manufacturing processes, including inventory management.

• Optimize supply chain and logistics for cost savings.

• Standardize production quality and reduce inefficiencies.

Acquisition Project 3: Customer Base Consolidation:

• Analyze the customer databases of both companies.

• Develop a strategy to combine, cross-sell, and retain customers.

• Implement a unified customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Acquisition Project 4: Marketing and Brand Strategy:

• Reevaluate branding strategies and messaging.

• Integrate marketing efforts to promote the expanded product portfolio.

• Plan and execute marketing campaigns to reach a broader audience.

Evaluation and grading:

First acquisition project

5 Create an excel spreadsheet that shows your company’s data (before acquisition). Use at least 10 rows.

5 Create an excel spreadsheet that shows the data for competitor (before acquisition). Use at least 10 rows.

10 IDENTIFY A SITUATION: Explain your how acquisition of the competitor has created a need for data analysis and
reporting to assess financial / operational / customer / marketing aspects of the business integration.

10 IDENTIFY A TASK: Use Excel for data analysis to compare the performance of both companies. Calculate ratios and
assess the overall health of the integrated business.

5 IDENTIFY AN ACTION: Supported by your findings in the combined data, find a feasible action to implement for the task
you mentioned above.

10 EXPLAIN THE RESULTS: Explain how your action leads to improved business efficiency, cost savings, and revenue

growth.

Second acquisition project

5 Create an excel spreadsheet that shows your company’s data (before acquisition). Use at least 10 rows.

5 Create an excel spreadsheet that shows the data for competitor (before acquisition). Use at least 10 rows.

10 IDENTIFY A SITUATION: Explain your how acquisition of the competitor has created a need for data analysis and
reporting to assess financial / operational / customer / marketing aspects of the business integration.

10 IDENTIFY A TASK: Use Excel for data analysis to compare the performance of both companies. Calculate ratios and

assess the overall health of the integrated business.

5 IDENTIFY AN ACTION: Supported by your findings in the combined data, find a feasible action to implement for the task
you mentioned above.

10 EXPLAIN THE RESULTS: Explain how your action leads to improved business efficiency, cost savings, and revenue
growth.

10 Coherence and complementarity between two project reports

100 TOTAL

Formalities:

• The report should be submitted in a pdf format which contains two basic chapters (one project in each chapter). These chapters should include

tables and figures derived from your spreadsheet effort. Explain the dashboards and how decisions are made over the spreadsheets.

• All spreadsheets should be your original work. Also, they should be attached to the submission in the original format.

• Your calculations for identifying situations, tasks, actions and results must be observable on the spreadsheets you submit.

• Max word limit: 2000 (surpassing +10% of this limit will be penalized)

• This is an individual task.

• Make a bundle of your spreadsheets and report by zipping them before submission.

• Cover, Table of Contents, References and Appendix are excluded from the total wordcount.

• Font: Arial 12,5 pts.

• Text alignment: Justified.

• The in-text References and the Bibliography must be in Harvard’s citation style.

Submission: Sunday, 19th of November, 23.59.

Weight: This task is worth 40% of your overall grade for this subject.

It assesses the following learning outcomes:

• Recognize the way innovative technology is managed in business, specifically in terms of the criteria and components necessary for innovation to

flourish.

• Apply learning objectives to general software applications and their functionality to address more advanced business situations.

Rubrics

Exceptional 90-100 Good 80-89 Fair 70-79 Marginal fail 60-69

Knowledge &

Understanding
(20%)

Student demonstrates

excellent understanding of
key concepts and uses
vocabulary in an entirely

appropriate manner.

Student demonstrates

good understanding of the
task and mentions some
relevant concepts and

demonstrates use of the
relevant vocabulary.

Student understands the

task and provides minimum
theory and/or some use of
vocabulary.

Student understands the task

and attempts to answer the
question but does not
mention key concepts or uses

minimum amount of relevant
vocabulary.

Application (30%) Student applies fully

relevant knowledge from
the topics delivered in
class.

Student applies mostly

relevant knowledge from
the topics delivered in
class.

Student applies some

relevant knowledge from
the topics delivered in
class. Misunderstanding

may be evident.

Student applies little relevant

knowledge from the topics
delivered in class.
Misunderstands are evident.

Critical Thinking
(30%)

Student critically assesses
in excellent ways, drawing

outstanding conclusions
from background analysis.

Student critically assesses
in good ways, drawing

conclusions from
background analysis.

Student provides some
insights but stays on the

surface of the topic.
Background analysis is not

sufficient.

Student makes little or none
critical thinking insights, does

not provide valid sources.

Communication
(20%)

Student communicates
their ideas extremely

clearly and concisely,
respecting word count,
grammar and spellcheck

Student communicates
their ideas clearly and

concisely, respecting word
count, grammar and
spellcheck

Student communicates
their ideas with some

clarity and concision. It
may be slightly over or
under the wordcount limit.

Some misspelling errors
may be evident.

Student communicates their
ideas in a somewhat unclear

and unconcise way. Does not
reach or does exceed
wordcount excessively and

misspelling errors are
evident.