Business Concept Report

In developing a new business venture, the process begins with recognizing an opportunity from a business problem and creating a business concept that articulates it. For the first steps, the entrepreneur (1) builds a concept to solve the business challenge; (2) fashions a story that conveys the meaning of the new venture, and (3) prepares a presentation that tells the story and explains the concept to potential customers, investors and partners. After testing the concept with stakeholders, the entrepreneur may go on to develop a complete business plan.
To help you build these skills you will be required to undertake the entrepreneurial process of opportunity recognition and concept development. You will be asked to identify possible commercial opportunities for a particular innovation and then articulate the opportunities into a new business concept. You will submit a 1000-1200 word business concept report that identifies and describes your innovative business idea. You will develop your business concept into a full business plan in assignment 3.
Some of the issues that will help you in developing and evaluating your business idea are:
•    the problem or need and identification of the customer/s and market
•    the proposed solution and the uniqueness of the solution
•    why the customer will pay for the solution
•    feasibility, marketing, finance and operational issues
Report Format:
In your business concept report you should:
•    Identify the problem and recognise a business opportunity to solve it.
•    Assess the business opportunity. (This is where you undertake a feasibility analysis. The textbook on pages 67-71 and the week 3 lecture slides will give you information on how to assess feasibility.)
•    Identify and explain the business model/strategy, based on the assessment of the business opportunity (see textbook pp.161-172 for guidance).

Your business concept report may be structured around all three elements above or you can devise your own approach. See below for a suggested approach:

1. The business opportunity: The problem and solution
(Identify the ‘problem’ and discuss the business opportunity that may address it, showing an understanding of the particular market and potential customers.)

2. Business opportunity assessment
(This is your feasibility analysis. In this section, assess the feasibility of the business idea in relation to the following: industry/market, product/service, and the organisation and its management.)

3. Business model/strategy
(Based on your assessment of the business opportunity, explain the business model/strategy that you will use to realise the opportunity.)

Here are some questions to help GUIDE you in developing your business concept (and later when expanding it into a full business plan). Remember that your concept report is only 1000-1200 words so you don’t need to consider ALL of these questions.
•    What are the key factors in determining if your idea is a viable business opportunity? Is this just an idea or a real business opportunity? Can the new product or service work?
•    What contextual (economic, regulatory, industry) factors should you be aware of? What markets and market drivers should you focus on? What are the specific competitive advantages will the product or service offer? Who are the customers likely to be?
•    Who would make up the team? In your opinion, what is the greatest risk? Why and how should this risk be mitigated? What resources you will need? Who is going to finance it?
•    What would be the business strategy? Briefly describe your business strategy. What partners and alliances (important stakeholders) will you need in order to be successful in production, distribution, marketing, and overall? What distribution channels will be used?