Category: Finance

Define budget? Define budgetary control? What are some of the key benefits of budgeting?

Assignment Instructions:
Writer, please read all the required readings, Media, and videos first and then answer question topic 1. Please ENSURE TO Support your arguments with data and concepts from the readings, videos, and simulation

Assignment:
Directions:
1.Read DRS, “Anglo American PLC in South Africa: What Do You Do When Costs Reach Epidemic Proportions,” pp. 425- 428.
2. View the Michael Porter and World Economic Forum videos.
3. Select two multinational corporations where the MNCs aredifferentindustries (e.g., manufacturing/Ford and pharmaceutical/Merck). The choice of MNCs is yours. (DEAR WRITER: I CHOSE FINANCE: BANK OF AMERICA AND RETAIL: SAKS. BUT YOU CAN CHOOSE 2 DIFFERENT ONES IF YOU LIKE AS LONG AS YOU TELL ME SO THAT I CAN ENSURE MY CLASSMATES DON’T HAVE THE SAME CHOICE.
4. Go to the two MNCs’ websites and locate their most recent CSR reports, also often called corporate citizenship, sustainability, or corporate responsibility reports.
To locate the reports: Go to the Global Reporting Initiative’s superb database you can always use “Google” to locate company reports.
5. Compare and contrast the information provided by the two companies’ reports.
A. Are there differences between the two reports in terms of the range of issues dealt with and the depth of coverage on specific issues, risk areas (labor, environment, human rights, supplier relationships, bribery, corruption, health, animal testing, etc.)?
B. Do you think these differences can be explained by industry differences or the national origins of the MNCs or by the location of their foreign operations?
C. The Anglo American PLC and other examples in DRS and videos of corporate responsibility initiatives suggest that emerging markets present both opportunities (generate profits, create societal value) and risks (pose challenging operating environments) for MNCs.In the two reports you chose are there examples of the companies going beyond their legal responsibilities to creating shared value, of how they are achieving the perception of being socially responsible by the local communities in the foreign countries where they operate?Be sure to apply Porter’s framework in your analysis.

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The Business Plan assignments for week 4 include a one year projected budget broken down monthly, an opening day balance sheet, a price sheet and a financial statement paragraph.

Projected Budget

Draft the financial planning and pricing strategy components of your business plan. Your financial plan should focus on the essentials of your business’ projected budget – things like projected revenues (from your market analysis) and expenses such as property, equipment, employees, taxes, utilities, costs of goods, etc. – don’t waste your time bothering with things like depreciation. I want to see that you can get down to the fundamentals. Do a 1-year budget projection (e.g. total of all expenses and revenues ) broken down by month. This will enable you to closely monitor revenues and expenses as they occur, and make any necessary adjustments should the figures differ from your initial projections. Don’t forget about phone, lights, gas, mortgage payment or rent, internet, advertising, car payment if you use your car, salaries for yourself and employees. Office supplies, cleaning supplies, maintenance fees, and service contracts should be included. Insurances, like liability, workmen’s compensation, insurance on your building, car and perhaps yourself if you should get hurt. Think of every possible expense you may encounter for the month. Some months will have more expenses than others due to mortgage payments and the like. Please use Excel for your 1 year budget projection.

Include a paragraph about your finances. Your financial paragraph should indicate clearly how much cash is needed by the prospective investors or bankers, and the intended purpose for the money. Lastly, the investor needs to be told how and when he or she may expect to cash out of the investment. Here is a site that has some templates that may be helpful to you. https://www.score.org/template_gallery.html

Opening day balance sheet
A balance sheet shows the financial position of your company at a single moment in time; in this case, it will be as of opening day. Use your Startup Expenses spreadsheet to get the basic data for the balance sheet. Here are some accounting rules which will help you construct an accurate balance sheet: Assets are recorded at the lower of cost or current market value. Since your assets will be newly acquired, put them down at cost. If you have donated personal possessions to the business (e.g., a vehicle), enter them at market value.
Include a price list for all goods and services.

Unit VIAfter reading the unit lesson and textbook chapters, discuss how a firm can add value by combining traditional capital budgeting techniques with an alternative strategy and consider sustainable capital. Your paper should synthesize at least one alternative technique into the capital budgeting process. Justify how this technique creates value in an organization.
 Your case study should be at least two pages in length, double-spaced.
 Use a minimum of three scholarly articles, in addition to the textbook, Online Library, or other
scholarly sources to support your work.
 In-text citations and reference page must be properly formatted using APA style guidelines.
 An abstract is not required.
 Reference and title pages do not count towards the minimum page requirement.

Assignment for an Finance & Economics course work
“Managing during recession”
Instructions:
1) The first individual Assignment carries 30% weighting in the final assessment, is compulsory, and will be individual coursework.
3) This Assignment shall be 2,000 words. A deviation of 5% on either side is acceptable. Simple tables or calculations, which you might use to support your arguments, are not counted as part of the 2,000 words.
4) Please mention the ‘word count’ on the title page.
5) Kindly submit the coursework in computerised A4 size pages in a Microsoft Word document.
6) Students not submitting the coursework or submitting it late shall face consequences as per the rules and regulations of the MBA Programme and the University.
7) Under no circumstances, will any email be accepted towards the submission of the Coursework.
8) Students are advised to take a print of ‘Digital Receipt’ for their online coursework submission on My Learning.
9) Students are expected to retain their own copy of the coursework for their future reference.
10)Under no circumstances will any form of plagiarism be tolerated. Any books, journals, newspapers, websites, etc. referred for the Coursework must be mentioned as a part of footnotes and references as per the standard way.
11)The following shall be the criteria for marking the coursework:

(i) Depth and coverage of the economic theory and concepts in the readings (covered in lectures 1and 2) with relevant examples………………………………………… 12 marks
(ii) Analysis and argument………………………….……. 6 marks
(iii) Originality & Presentation formatting……………….. 2 marks

A good answer would summarise the arguments clearly and succinctly in good style and illustrate them with examples and graphs.
A moderate answer would outline the major arguments and repeat materials learned by class notes.
A bare pass would display famili

Contents & Structure of the individual Assignment:
Title: “Managing during recession”
The focus of this assignment is to discuss micro and macroeconomic concepts and relate them to your marketing strategy.
The content of the individual Assignment should cover the following aspects in a total of 2,000 words:
Imagine that you are part of the marketing team of the product X at company ABC, which aims at selling this product in the domestic as well as global markets. You are preparing a marketing strategy for this product in the second half of 2011. Define the properties of your product and the target markets by using the micro and macroeconomic concepts that were covered in the units, which will be used as an input for your marketing strategy. In particular address the following issues:
In your introduction highlight the characteristics of the product x and the business. You should also focus on following question:
• Is the price set by the markets or Government?
• Is the firm operating in a competitive market?
• Who are the competitors?
• Is your firm managed efficiently?

a. What are the alternative scenarios with regards to the costs of production (marginal costs like labour costs, raw materials, energy)? Consider the macroeconomic expectations for the second half of 2011 and different scenarios about the macroeconomic developments and the course of the recession.

In this section you can identify the fixed costs and variable costs of your business and highlight which one dominates. You can also discuss total fixed cost, total variable cost, average cost and marginal cost etc.
b. What type of a good or service is X? What is the price and income elasticity of your product? What is the cross price elasticity with respect to complementary and substitute products?

In this section discuss the concepts of price elasticity, incomeelasticity, cross price elasticity. You can also discuss the factors influencing price elasticity with relation to your firm.
c. What is the market structure? What are the possible strategies of your competitors? What will be your strategy with respect to your competitors?

In this section you are expected to highlight the main characteristics of your firm and identify market structure and discuss what will be your strategy in relation to the competition.
d. Which market segments and different pricing strategies can you imagine?

In this section you can think of different market segments and strategies you would suggest that your business should target.
e. Think of the developments in demand in different markets domestically and globally. How will demand develop in these markets? What is the effect of the recession on the demand for your product? How could government policies in different markets affect the demand for your product?

In this section you can discuss economies of scale, inflation, consumption, consumer confidence and investments. You can also discuss how government can affect the demand through macroeconomic policy.
f. Prepare different scenarios about the developments in the currency markets and their effect on the price competitiveness of your company.

In this section you should outline different examples of how your company could take advantage of developments in the currency markets.

YOUR TASK

Create a financial plan/statement of advice which will assist Dina and Tones in achieving their life objectives.

The below marking rubric shows how marks will be awarded and what needs to be considered in the financial plan:

Complete required tasks (A) Marks Total Marks
Short term goals clearly identified (A.1) 1
Long term goals clearly identified (A.2) 1
Income and income statement clearly tabulated including tax and child budgeted. (A.3) 1
Balance sheet clearly tabulated (A.4) 1
Financial ratio analysis is sound (A.5) 1
Direct and indirect assets clearly identified (A.6) 1
Asset allocation of couple’s assets and recommended asset allocation (A.7) 1
Reasonable assumptions for estimates of income, expenses, assets and liabilities used and clearly stated in a separate section. (A.8) 1
TOTAL (A) 8

Presentation, structure, readability clarity (B)
The format follows a statement of advice structure from a respected source (e.g. Textbook , ASIC website or financial planner website). ‘Boilerplate’ statements need not to be made (B.1) 2
The structure is easy to follow (headings and sub headings, follows the financial planning steps (B.2) 1
There is an executive summary which clearly summarises the recommendations to the couple and reasons (B.3) 1
Very few grammatical or spelling mistakes. (B.4) 1
Easy to read and understand, even for non-financial (use of point form helps) (B.5) 1
Table and text font are consistent and neat. (B.6) 1
TOTAL (B) 7

Critical analysis (C)
Recommend a realistic solution in detail of how to fund the birth of their second child. (C.1) 1
Recommend a realistic solution in detail of how to fund their comfortable retirement using superannuation. Quantify their retirement needs and how they will achieve it taking into consideration their risk profile, recommended asset allocation amongst other things.(C.2) 2
Recommend and quantify their insurance needs using the risk management approach. How much insurance do they need, what kind of insurance need and how much would it cost to suit their budget? How would you convince them that insurance is important given the reason they provided for not having insurance? (C.3) 2
Recommend a detailed and suitable strategy so the Ying’s may attain their dream home. (C.4) 2
Consider your recommendations on asset allocation, budget, taxation, debt repayment, insurance and retirement as an integrated recommendation which affects one another. For example acknowledging that budgeting for retirement impedes on their other life priorities. There are many other constraints and so the recommendations should be considered together rather than individually.(C.5) 3
TOTAL (C) 10
GRAND TOTAL (A+ B + C) 25

Penalties (P)
Lateness (P.1) 2.5 marks per day
Plagiarism (P.2) Up to 100% deduction.
Exceed page limit (excluding title/cover page but includes appendices) (P.3) 2 marks per page exceeded

Notes
I will award fractions of marks depending on how well each criteria is met. E.g. a 1 mark criteria may be split into 1/4’s or 1/2’s.

The entire assignment is to be 18 pages maximum (excluding title page and references but including appendices).
ASSIGNMENT FAQ
Q. When we do the current budget, do we need to put tax in it? If we do, should the tax include the income tax and super contribution tax?
A. You should think of the budget as a cash flow statement. So yes eventually tax would come out of it if the couple will have to pay it to the government.

Q. When we analyse the financial position of this couple, I think we should use the financial ratios from lecture 2, but we are not quite clear how to get some figures, such as current debt in liquidity ratio, in this assignment, is it the credit card+overdraft+the part of mortgage & car loan which should be repaid this year?
A. Yes some figures aren’t clear. You would need to get some estimates for things such as the current year’s mortgage repayments and car loans. This is up to your judgment and research.
Q. How should we allocate the asset category of personal items and home contents and superannuation?
A. Superannuation is usually decomposed into different asset classes. It is not a separate asset class. Personal items and home contents insurance is not part of asset allocation.

Q. What are the projected returns of their investments?
A. You must do some research into similar funds to find what are reasonable rates of returns for their given investments or investments that you recommends to them. This also applies to other items such as superannuation and insurance premium costs.

Q. What are some tips to doing well in the assignment?
A. Read ahead of lecture notes as there may be strategies there to help couple (e.g. on retirement planning). Follow the weekly tips in class. Also follow the marking rubric.

YOUR TASK

The below marking rubric shows how marks will be awarded and what needs to be considered in the financial plan:

Complete required tasks (A) Marks Total Marks
Short term goals clearly identified (A.1) 1
Long term goals clearly identified (A.2) 1
Income and income statement clearly tabulated including tax and child budgeted. (A.3) 1
Balance sheet clearly tabulated (A.4) 1
Financial ratio analysis is sound (A.5) 1
Direct and indirect assets clearly identified (A.6) 1
Asset allocation of couple’s assets and recommended asset allocation (A.7) 1
Reasonable assumptions for estimates of income, expenses, assets and liabilities used and clearly stated in a separate section. (A.8) 1
TOTAL (A) 8

Presentation, structure, readability clarity (B)
The format follows a statement of advice structure from a respected source (e.g. Textbook , ASIC website or financial planner website). ‘Boilerplate’ statements need not to be made (B.1) 2
The structure is easy to follow (headings and sub headings, follows the financial planning steps (B.2) 1
There is an executive summary which clearly summarises the recommendations to the couple and reasons (B.3) 1
Very few grammatical or spelling mistakes. (B.4) 1
Easy to read and understand, even for non-financial (use of point form helps) (B.5) 1
Table and text font are consistent and neat. (B.6) 1
TOTAL (B) 7

Critical analysis (C)
Recommend a realistic solution in detail of how to fund the birth of their second child. (C.1) 1
Recommend a realistic solution in detail of how to fund their comfortable retirement using superannuation. Quantify their retirement needs and how they will achieve it taking into consideration their risk profile, recommended asset allocation amongst other things.(C.2) 2
Recommend and quantify their insurance needs using the risk management approach. How much insurance do they need, what kind of insurance need and how much would it cost to suit their budget? How would you convince them that insurance is important given the reason they provided for not having insurance? (C.3) 2
Recommend a detailed and suitable strategy so the Ying’s may attain their dream home. (C.4) 2
Consider your recommendations on asset allocation, budget, taxation, debt repayment, insurance and retirement as an integrated recommendation which affects one another. For example acknowledging that budgeting for retirement impedes on their other life priorities. There are many other constraints and so the recommendations should be considered together rather than individually.(C.5) 3
TOTAL (C) 10
GRAND TOTAL (A+ B + C) 25

Penalties (P)
Lateness (P.1) 2.5 marks per day
Plagiarism (P.2) Up to 100% deduction.
Exceed page limit (excluding title/cover page but includes appendices) (P.3) 2 marks per page exceeded

Notes
I will award fractions of marks depending on how well each criteria is met. E.g. a 1 mark criteria may be split into 1/4’s or 1/2’s.

The entire assignment is to be 18 pages maximum (excluding title page and references but including appendices).
ASSIGNMENT FAQ
Q. When we do the current budget, do we need to put tax in it? If we do, should the tax include the income tax and super contribution tax?
A. You should think of the budget as a cash flow statement. So yes eventually tax would come out of it if the couple will have to pay it to the government.

Q. When we analyse the financial position of this couple, I think we should use the financial ratios from lecture 2, but we are not quite clear how to get some figures, such as current debt in liquidity ratio, in this assignment, is it the credit card+overdraft+the part of mortgage & car loan which should be repaid this year?
A. Yes some figures aren’t clear. You would need to get some estimates for things such as the current year’s mortgage repayments and car loans. This is up to your judgment and research.
Q. How should we allocate the asset category of personal items and home contents and superannuation?
A. Superannuation is usually decomposed into different asset classes. It is not a separate asset class. Personal items and home contents insurance is not part of asset allocation.

Q. What are the projected returns of their investments?
A. You must do some research into similar funds to find what are reasonable rates of returns for their given investments or investments that you recommends to them. This also applies to other items such as superannuation and insurance premium costs.

Q. What are some tips to doing well in the assignment?
A. Read ahead of lecture notes as there may be strategies there to help couple (e.g. on retirement planning). Follow the weekly tips in class. Also follow the marking rubric.

select any TWO listed companies from within the same business sector on the London Stock Exchange and attempt a comparative critical analysis of the following:

1. The various external sources of finance available to both companies. These sources of finance must be clearly identified, explained and distinguished.

2. The possible considerations that may have been taken into account by the management when choosing the type of finance. All the relevant considerations explained and placed clearly in the context of the particular circumstances of the chosen public listed companies.

3. What are your conclusions and recommendations on their respective capital structures of the chosen companies?

I will add additional files where you can find more information about coursework.

Please use academic sources for research and please do not use non academic sources like wikipedia

Name any TWO listed companies from within the same business sector on the London Stock Exchange(must be on the London Stock Exchange) and attempt a comparative critical analysis of the following:

1. The various external sources of finance available to both companies. These sources of finance must be clearly identified, explained and distinguished.

2. The possible considerations that may have been taken into account by the management when choosing the type of finance. All the relevant considerations explained and placed clearly in the context of the particular circumstances of the chosen public listed companies.

3. What are your conclusions and recommendations on their respective capital structures of the chosen companies in the long-run?

I will add additional file which will have more details about coursework.Please use academic sources for research and referencing(books, academic journals and websites such as the guardian, economist and etc…). Please do not use non-academic sources like Wikipedia

Funding Source:

***Research several private and publicly funded agencies.
***Provide information on the agency to which you will hypothetically submit your proposal.
***Include the Internet address or attach the form and protocols if not on the
Internet.
***In a 1-2 pages, describe: the agency (purpose, mission, funding (private, not-for-profit, public)
funding cycle; why you are selecting this agency, that is, the match between your need or problem and the funding mandate of the agency; application guidelines/requirements