FPE013 Business Planning and Practice Management - Case Study Assignment Help

Introduction

This assessment is based on the Smith Financial Services Case Study and Sample Strategic Business Plan. It is also designed to assist you with the completion of Assignment 2, your Strategic Business Plan.

Your task is to complete a business case for a strategic objective that Smith Financial Services has identified as key to its success in the future. The template in this assignment contains instructions in each section to help you complete it, and your topic notes have references to guide you as to what information should be used where in this template.

Suggested word limits are provided at the end of each question as a guide.

Part 1: Overall presentation, cohesiveness, research and referencing (5 marks)

Your assignment should be presented in a clear and appropriate format, with all sources correctly referenced and cited.

You are required to:

• structure a clear response to each question, using headings if required
• number questions (including sub-questions) and pages
• use correct font style and size
• ensure tables or graphs are clearly labelled and readable
• clearly set out calculations or workings, where they are required
• adhere to the assignment word limit
• follow the Harvard referencing style as recommended in Kaplan Australia: Harvard Referencing Guide (available from the ‘Build Your Skills’ hub in KapLearn) to cite sources throughout your assignment, and provide a reference list at the

Part 2: Developing a business case (95 marks)

Instructions to students

Refer to the Smith Financial Services Case Study and Sample Strategic Business Plan, which you can download from KapLearn. You should read both of these documents carefully before completing this assignment, which focuses on the development of a business case.

Before completing this assessment, it is expected that you have read Topics 1 to 6 of your subject materials. You can refer to Topic 6 specifically for more information on completing a business case.

In the Sample Strategic Business Plan, you will find a list of five Strategic Commitments which were developed for Smith Financial Services (Section 5). You will also see a completed dashboard with measurements for some of these objectives (Section 9).

Read the Strategic Commitments and look at the completed business case for Commitment 1 as a reference.

Your task is to select one (1) of the remaining Commitments in the plan to use for this assessment.

You must then use the information in the case study, and your own additional research where needed, to prepare a business case by filling in the template provided here.

1. The first step is to choose the Strategic Commitment you will develop into a business case and rewrite this as a SMART objective. You should look at the business case and dashboards to help you identify the metrics you will use. The Commitments you may choose from are:
   • Commitment 2: Implement new fee model for initial and ongoing clients to improve
   • Commitment 3: Increase referrals and revenue to the business by building the mortgage business and strengthening the accounting referral
   • Commitment 4: Transition the business from the current structure to enable John to retire without losing clients from the
   • Commitment 5: Implement social media marketing strategy to build the new mortgage business to bring in new clients, and to inform existing clients of the new
2. You will then develop the proposed strategy and consider alternatives that you reject in favour of your
3. You should then consider the implementation steps and detail the plan for implementing the strategy with reference to the case
4. Finally, provide a financial analysis, explaining all your assumptions. This financial analysis must be consistent with the information provided in the case study and sample strategic business You may assume that any figures in the profit and loss in Table 7 represent the ‘likely’ situation. You might need to investigate beyond the information presented in the case study, and you may have to use the information presented in the case study to calculate values such as the director’s hourly rate based on his annual salary.

Suggested word limit: up to 1,640 words.

Section 1:          Objectives and project owner (10 marks)

Objective:

Based on the Strategic Commitment you have chosen, rewrite this as a SMART objective.

Project owner:

Identify the project owner for your chosen Strategic Commitment.

Suggested word limit: up to 20 words.

Section 2:           Proposed strategy and alternate strategies (35 marks)

Refer to Section 6 of the Smith Financial Pty Ltd Strategic Business Plan for an example of the types of information you could include for the proposed strategy and options.

Detail the strategy you will use to reach this objective, and provide a rationale for why you are adopting this, how it will work, and why you rejected the other options you considered.

You are required to identify three (3) other options to fulfil each objective and explain why they were rejected.

Suggested word limit: up to 650 words.

Section 3:           Implementation plan (10 marks)

Complete the table below, showing how you will implement the proposed strategy.

Suggested word limit: up to 150 words.

Section 4:           Financial analysis (20 marks)

From the implementation plan and the proposed strategy discussion, analyse and detail the costs and benefits of the proposed strategy by completing the table below. You can refer to Section 6 of the Strategic Business Plan for Smith Financial Services for an example of how this analysis was completed for the Strategic Commitment ‘Reduce plan preparation costs by 20% by end of next financial year through outsourcing’.

This financial analysis you provide must be consistent with the information provided in the case study. You may assume that any figures in the profit and loss in Table 7 represent the ‘likely’ situation. You might need to investigate beyond the information presented in the case study, and you may have to use the information represented to calculate values such as the director’s hourly rate based on his salary.

You should identify any revenue that will be retained as a result of the strategy (e.g. through increased client retention, revenue will be created by freeing up the time of an existing revenue-generating employee) and then add these to get the total revenue. You then calculate the project costs and the operational costs and subtract cost savings to arrive at total costs. Refer to Topic 6 of the course materials.

Suggested word limit: up to 70 words.

Section 5:           Assumptions (20 marks)

Document the assumptions that were made when determining the costs above. This section should include how the worst, likely and best cases were arrived at, including identifying any dependencies.

Suggested word limit: up to 750 words.