TERM PROJECT

(20 marks)

You are a consultant or a team of consultants that is required to write a business report of 2000-4000 words approximately on the following topic: Management Practices in a company of your choice. Longer reports are acceptable; shorter reports will result in a poor grade.

The objective of this business report is to examine and document in some detail how the theory taught in this course is being applied in practice in a real-life business organization.

Choose any reasonably sized company/institution (except educational institutions) operating in Pakistan making any product or service, profit or non-profit, national or multinational, public or privately owned. Try to choose a company employing at least 100 employees. The target organization must have proper and formalized operating policies/practices. You may do the report on your own company, if you are employed.

You are required to conduct an in-depth managerial analysis of the selected organization. Suggested issues and questions to be addressed include, but are not limited to, the following:

a. What is the mission/vision of the organization? b. What planning methodologies are utilized? c. Define and assess the organization's strategy/strategies. c. Identify its customers and/or constituents; and its competitors.

Describe how the firm is organized. a. Note the formal structure (organizational charts); also what informal entities exist? b. Describe the decision-making processes. c. How does the organization manage change?

Evaluate any innovative managerial practices. a. How is entrepreneurship encouraged? b. What ethical dilemmas are faced? c. What sources of employee empowerment are utilized? d. role (s) of technology in the production/operations of the business.

For this report, please form teams of 1-3 students. You may choose to do the work individually or in teams. The choice is yours. Four or more members in a team are strictly NOT ALLOWED.

Team members are required to prepare a list of questions and obtain prior appointment with a responsible person(s) (preferably manager/senior manager/director level) in the target company in order to arrange an interview or interviews. You may meet more than one person in the target company in order to collect data. Important instruction: please mention the name(s) of the person(s) interviewed or append their visiting cards, on the top sheet of your report. Visiting card is NOT mandatory. Name(s) and contact details of the person(s) interviewed must be provided on the top sheet otherwise the report will NOT be graded. These person(s) may be contacted for verification of your visit!

Use only the personal interviewing technique for gathering data; avoid using other tools such as survey questionnaires incorporating a Likert scale, observation studies of the employees at work, etc. Owing to the present Covid-19 restrictions, you may conduct interview(s) online.

Your report should contain information collected from one company only. The report should consist entirely of primary data. If secondary data about the target company is included such as companys history, vision, mission, organogram, main products/services offered, main departments/divisions, main competitors, business strategies, etc. it must be in your own words. No handouts provided by the company should be included as appendices.

Warning: Plagiarism in any manner, shape or form will result in an F grade!

The final report should be in soft copy format, double spaced, on A-4 sized paper, Times New Roman, font size 12. Pages should be properly numbered. Table of Contents must be included in the beginning. Copy of list of questions asked in the interview(s) must be included as an appendix. Check your report for grammar, spelling, punctuation and capitalization errors. Do NOT include a Letter of Acknowledgement/Appreciation or a Letter of Transmittal.

Please remember that you are expected to write a business report, NOT a research thesis. For tips on writing a business report consult:

http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/style-and-usage/report-writing-format.html

Your report will be graded on the following criteria: thorough investigation of the problem/selected topic, originality of information, clear and logical presentation of ideas, worded in simple English (no jargon or company-specific terminology, please), use of correct grammar, spelling, punctuation and capitalization. Students are advised to use active voice throughout.