LCCB4005 The Global Business Environment L4 Assessment 1 Brief

Task Description

Consider the automobile industry, select a brand and critically evaluate the challenges of their internal and external business environments. In your evaluation, you should reflect on the challenges they encounter in trading across the globe; your evaluation should be critical enough to address their SWOT, PESTLE utilising Porter's Five Forces, Value Chain, and their competitive advantages concerning their core values on sustainability. 

Guidance for students in the complation of tasks

1. Engagement with Literature Skills Your work must be informed and supported by scholarly material that is relevant to and focused on the task(s) set. You should provide evidence that you have accessed an appropriate range of sources, which may be academic, governmental and industrial; these sources may include academic journal articles, textbooks, current news articles, organisational documents, and websites. You should consider the credibility of your sources; academic journals are normally highly credible sources while websites require careful consideration/selection and should be used sparingly. Any sources you use should be current and up-to-date, mostly published within the last five years or so, though seminal/important works in the field may be older. You must provide evidence of your research/own reading throughout your work, using a suitable referencing system, including in-text citations in the main body of your work and a reference list at the end of your work. 

Guidance specific to this assessment: students are expected to use at least 15 academic references to support their work and they should be selected from a variety of credible sources. Peer reviewed articles from top rank journals and books are particularly recommended and they can be used in conjunction with some credible online sources. The reference list should follow Harvard referencing technique and student  should try to oay attention to detail when organising their references in text and in the reference list. 

2. Knowledge and Understanding Skills At level 4, you should be able to demonstrate knowledge of the underlying concepts and principles associated with your area(s) of study. Knowledge relates to the facts, information and skills you have acquired through your learning. You demonstrate your understanding by interpreting the meaning of the facts and information (knowledge). This means that you need to select and include in your work the concepts. techniques, models, theories, etc. appropriate to the task(s) set. You should be able to explain the theories, concepts, etc. to show your understanding. Your mark/grade will also depend upon the extent to which you demonstrate your knowledge and understanding. 

Guidance specific to this assessment: The student will need to select and apply the relevant global business environment concepts, techniques, models, theories, etc that are linked to the task. They can introduce and discuss the issues identified and its impact on the fashion industry in light of the COVID19 pandemic.

3. Cognitive and Intellectual Skills You should be able to present, evaluate and interpret qualitative and quantitative data, in orderto develop lines of argument and make sound judgements in accordance with basic theories and concepts of your subject(s) of study. You should be able to evaluate the appropriateness of different approaches to solving problems related to your area(s) of study and/or work. Your work must contain evidence of logical, analytical thinking. For example, to examine and break information down into parts, make inferences, compile, compare and contrast information. This means not just describing what! But also justifying: Why? How? When? Who? Where? At what cost? Youshould provide justification for your arguments and judgements using evidence that you have reflected upon the ideas of others within the subject area and that you are able to make sound judgements and arguments using data and concepts. Where relevant, alternative solutions and recommendations may be proposed.

Guidance specific to this assessment: the student should be able to demonstrate some element of critical analysis in the report. They should demonstrate how the different business environment models can be applied in practice using practical examples, data, graphs, etc in the report and should also engage the literature, introduce comparative and contrasting analysis, etc. More broadly, the student should apply some form of critical thinking to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the relevant business management theories, concepts and models.

4. Practical Skills At level 4, you should be able to apply the basic underlying concepts and principles to evaluate and interpret these within the context of your area of study. You should be able to demonstrate how the subject-related concepts and ideas relate to real world situations and/or a particular context. How do they work in practice? You will deploy models, methods, techniques, and/or theories, in that context, to assess current situations, perhaps to formulate plans or solutions to solve problems, or to create artefacts. This is likely to involve, for instance, the use of real-world artefacts, examples and cases, the application of a model within an organisation and/or benchmarking one theory or organisation against others based on stated criteria.

Guidance specific to this assessment: critically analyse and introduce the practical solutions and  problems that have been solved by the organisation. Compare that to some stated criteria for example competitor's performance and industry average performance. 

5. Transferable Skills for Life and Professional Practice Your work must provide evidence of the qualities and transferable skills necessary for employment requiring the exercise of some personal responsibility. This includes demonstrating that you can communicate the results of your study/work accurately and reliably, and with structured and coherent arguments; that you can initiate and complete tasks and procedures, whether individually and/or collaboratively; fluency of expression; clarity and effectiveness in presentation and organisation. Your work should be coherent and well-structured in presentation and organisation.

Guidance specific to this assessment: If you were to advise the organisation, provide recommendations of what could the organisation have done better and what can they learn from other players in the industry?