Assignment Requirements
Case study
Edge Ltd, Corporate Media Services
Background
Edge Ltd, one of the West Midlands’ creative-sector small-medium size enterprises (SME) currently located in the Bigger Peg office complex in the media ‘cluster’ area of Eastside.
Edge Ltd is or has been involved in the following activities;
• Corporate video
• Corporate event management (including technical delivery; sound, lights, etc)
• Corporate multimedia presentations
• Corporate entertainment
Ownership and development
Brief Overview
Edge Ltd. was established in 1997 by its two founding partners, brothers David (36) and Andrew Thompson (40). Initially, David and Andrew produced corporate videos for clients in and around the West Midlands. Commissions to produce video for corporate events led in 2000 to the company diversifying into corporate event management. Customer requirements for multimedia productions led to the company moving into this area of activity as well.
More recently Edge Ltd has moved into corporate entertainment, providing range of one off events for companies, mainly draw from the Midlands but some from father afield including a few commissions from London based clients.
Corporate Video
David Thompson is the video specialist. In the initial phase of the company’s development David’s role was video director, leaving the development of client relationships and touting for new work to Andrew. The company developed a good reputation amongst local firms for no frills, affordable video. The move into corporate events management led to the taking on of new staff but the new workload meant that the corporate video side of the company’s activities was reduced. Currently, new commissions for corporate video are not pursued.
Corporate event management
Lacking the required skills in-house, the brothers took on Tim Jenner to oversee this side of their operations. Tim is the Corporate Events Manager and as such is responsible for both the technical delivery and the development of multimedia products.
John Johnson is the technical specialist and is responsible for sound, stage and lighting ‘on the night’. John is very experienced but is overstretched. Currently, John acts as stage manager and looks after the lights. Although John is an experienced sound engineer, freelancer sound engineers are brought in to fulfil this role. There have been complaints from some clients about the quality of the sound at a few events and this has caused problems with securing follow-up contracts.
Emily Stroud is a multimedia designer. Emily graduated from her Multimedia Technology degree 7 years ago. Initially, she worked as a web designer but wishing to broaden her skill set took the job at Edge with the remit of producing multimedia presentations using PowerPoint, Flash etc. Emily is office based and does not get involved ‘on the night’. In order to oversee the delivery of the multimedia presentations at the corporate events a freelancer is again utilised to handle connectivity, scan conversion and vision mixing. As part of the hire price the freelancer is required to bring their own equipment.
Emily has complained about feeling bored with her job and would like to get involved with the delivery of the multimedia presentations. She has asked to be trained in this area but this has not been acted upon by the management.
Corporate Entertainment
Perceived by the staff to be the more ‘glamorous’ side of the companies activities; corporate entertainment is a relatively new venture for Edge. Josh Simmons is responsible for this aspect and has a young team of three under his supervision, Sally Evans, Richard Smith and James Jones (JJ). Josh is 30. Sally and Richard are 21, JJ is 20 and an intern on a 1 year placement from his Media Studies degree. Josh sees himself as ‘one of the gang’ and struggles to rein-in some of sometimes inappropriate behaviour of his team. There have been complaints from clients that Edge staff are not staying focused throughout an event and are getting drunk drinking with clients.
Currently there is a limited client base of local companies including law and accountancy firms and property developers.
Concerns have been raised about the impact of the recession on this side of the companies activities.
David and Andrew are keen to develop their client base for the corporate events management and entertainment and are focusing their attention on London based companies.
Company Structure and Culture
The company now employs 10 fulltime staff including the two directors.
The company has little sense of management hierarchy. Both David and Andrew spend 2 or 3 days a week in London, taking meetings together and keeping in contact with the office in Birmingham via mobile phone. Although they are absent from the office they keep a firm control of the activities back in Birmingham.
Andrew is very domineering in meetings. He tends to overcompensate for his own insecurities by trying to appear to be a decisive, strong leader. Younger brother David will sometimes subtlety mock Andrew’s style in front of other staff.
Andrew and David were hoping to be earning more at this stage of the company’s development and are aiming to be earning £50,000 each in the next year.
There is much frustration within the workforce. Loyalty seems to be based on a promise of better things tomorrow.
Joan Schmitt, the bookkeeper, finds it increasingly hard to manage the companies’ finances. Joan despairs at Andrew and David’s cavalier approach to petty cash and personal expenses. Joan dislikes uncertainty and confrontation which means that she finds the whole situation very stressful. Joan has now been off work for 6 weeks but the directors are holding off on treating her as long-term sick and just hope that she will come back soon. They are currently considering bringing in a temp to deal with Joan’s work that has been building up.
When Andrew and David are in London there is no overall leadership in the office and there are tensions across the various areas of activity. Tim and Josh do not get on. Tim feels that the company is over-stretching itself with the corporate entertainment activities when they could be consolidating their reputation in corporate events management.
The Edge office is open plan and this has been seen to exacerbate personnel issues. In particular, Joan finds it very difficult to work on figures with Josh and his team talking, laughing and arguing loudly. She has put forward the idea of working from home but was rebuffed with a comment from Andrew about them getting round to carrying out a risk assessment sometime.
Communication is mainly informal and ad hoc, formal meetings are rare and email is the predominant medium of communication even for staff sitting next to one another. David and Andrew will drop into the office first thing in the morning if they are travelling to London that day. With the rest of the staff turning up to work at various times until lunchtime it is impossible to have meetings in the morning. In the afternoon, those who started early tend to want to leave at 5.00 at the latest.
Edge’s management structure appears to lack cohesion and teamwork. None of the workforce has any formal management training. Andrew and David resist the delegation of any areas of decision-making and seem to want to be involved in every aspect of day-to-day decision making. The workers feel powerless to influence the direction of the company.
They are keen to tap into the entrepreneurial potential of all staff but feel they are not getting much back in terms of entrepreneurial innovations from the team. Andrew and David disagree as which members of staff display entrepreneurial flair. Andrew has suggested a Paint-Ball company day-out as a way of assessing staff potential in a different, more relaxed environment.
Staff have been used to working in an informal, organic way but the directors now feel that there needs to be a clear demarcation of roles. Certain members of staff have called for flexible, written job descriptions although this process has been positively received it has never been taken any further. Staff appraisals are informal and infrequent as Andrew and David rarely get round to organising them.
Since its inception, Edge has developed no formal procedures for human resource issues such as recruitment and selection, training and development, reward and performance management, just the occasional ‘we don’t know what we’d do without you’ at the Christmas party. There are no job descriptions or organisational charts and no clear career path. These things evolved naturally as the company grew, resulting in some anomalies and inequalities which are now beginning to surface as the various activities become more complex.
Staff are unclear as to their individual roles and responsibilities. Various staff have ‘management’ positions although their authority tends to be limited. The directors have always believed staff employment contracts to be an unjustifiable expense and anyway are unsure as to what information such contracts should contain.
Levi, an ex member of staff, is currently pursuing taking them to a tribunal for unfair dismissal. Having sacked him for chronic absenteeism, they are now worried about losing the tribunal and what the penalties will be. Obviously, they are keen to avoid any such situations in the future.
It is taken as read that staff will remain loyal to the company and will ‘do the right thing’ when they move on but there was a recent problem with an ex-member of staff approaching their corporate clients and discussing confidential information.
Neither director likes confrontation and they tend to rely on ‘having a few words’ to reign in any member of staff not pulling their weight. Unfortunately they currently have a problem with Tim who has been upsetting Josh with his sometimes aggressive manner. The ‘little chats’ have not worked and they are wondering how to proceed.
The workplace is a laissez-faire environment and there are no rules regarding use of workstations for personal emails, surfing the web etc. The last series of Big Brother did cause some disruption as certain members of staff grew to resent their colleagues spending too much time on the BB website when there was much work to be done.
Sally has just announced that she is pregnant and wishes to make full use of her entitlement to maternity leave. The directors are unsure as to their responsibilities and can only presume this will be an expensive and disruptive experience for the company.
Unavoidably, problems have begun to emerge in areas such as a lack of effective employee induction, poor internal teamwork within and between functions, frustration at the lack of promotion structure and lack of attention to individual development needs. Although employee turnover is still low, the undertones show that some employees feel frustrated and are considering other career options. Andrew and David have been made aware that certain members of staff are job hunting and the directors would like to get more of a feel for general staff motivation and morale. They are unsure how to approach this issue as they do not wish their data gathering efforts to be misconstrued as ‘restructuring’ which is often code for redundancies.
Although espousing the value of a team-based workplace, the level of team working awareness and skills are significantly low.
Core Competences and Human Resources
In a knowledge-based business ‘people are the greatest assets’. A company like Edge faces the problem of attracting talented staff with the right skills and experience. For a small growing provincial company such as Edge this is even more difficult as it is not possible to compete with more established companies in London in terms of remuneration.
This set of circumstances leads to employing new staff with little or no experience which in turn means that they are taught from scratch by existing staff. New staff are often recruited via networking – they tend to be already known to members of staff and are encouraged to apply for available jobs. In terms of encouraging innovation this is a real problem as the same people’s knowledge and skills tend to be recycled in the next generation in the company. Hence, one of the continuing challenges is how to keep pace with the relentless innovation that is a minimum requirement to stay afloat in the current highly innovative and competitive market.
A human resource issue of continuing concern amongst the staff is the joint absence of both David and Andrew for much of the week leaving no one member of staff in a position of overall responsibility in the office. No plans have been made to fill this vacuum. The other issue is how to accommodate the individual ambitions of employees, given that Edge lacks much by way of hierarchy. This is a young company with predominantly young staff whose ambition, passion for challenging work and wish for personal growth will all need to be fulfilled in order to satisfy and retain experienced staff. Having a fairly flat company organisational means that there are few opportunities for promotion.
The management of knowledge (tangible and intangible) at Edge is not well developed. There is an intranet system that enables information to be passed on and shared but the culture is such that little actual sharing takes place, since knowledge is jealously guarded. There is a damaging lack of coordination of information impacting on the speed and accuracy of dealing with queries and requests.
Future challenges
Although Edge is currently doing well, specifically due to involvement with a few higher profile local events, worrying signs are starting to emerge. There does not seem to be a coordinated approach to the product / service mix and a long term appreciation of the inevitabilities of the product lifecycle. There are tensions between the different functions of the company. Whether these emergent problems are the result of growth or managerial inefficiencies or both are open to question. Having moved to the Bigger Peg to be part of Birmingham’s media cluster, the company has seen no benefits of this and are unsure how they can exploit any possible opportunities and support locally. Andrew and David are keen to expand nationally and are currently focusing on London. The duo would also welcome a cohesive marketing plan.
The directors are keen to draw more on their own entrepreneurial skills and that of their employees for future development. Unfortunately, low staff moral leaves them struggling to re-engage the whole workforce in a more cohesive approach to generating new ideas and initiatives.
Some General Financial Information Relating to the Company’s Business since April 2014
Rent & Rates – £16,000/year
Loans – the company has no loans.
Salaries:
• Joan – £22,000
• Tim – £30,000
• Josh – £22,000
• Sally – £17,000
• Richard – £17,000
• JJ – £11,000
• John – £25,000
• Emily – £22,000
• Andrew and David took £40,000 each out of the business last year (20013-14)
• In addition the company has made use of freelance staff for the first time this year costing £12,000
Expenses:
Energy (Electricity) – £4,500
Travel Expenses (Rail and Air) – £8,000
Accommodation – £6,000
Expenses incurred outside the firm £3,000
Consumables £1100
Software Costs £11,000
Assets:
Computer Equipment (10 workstations) – £13,000 value
Peripherals (scanners, 2 TVs, Hi Fi, Projector, 2 Laptops, colour photocopier) £25,000
Furniture and fittings not supplied by landlord £2,500
Income
This is the income generated over the last four financial years:
INCOME Financial Year
Activity 2010 – 11 2011 – 12 2012 – 13 2013 – 14
Corporate Video 44,000 48,000 40,000 25,000
Corporate Events Management 116,000 122,000 125,000 160,000
Multimedia Presentations and related work 135,000 95,000 55,000 40,000
Corporate Entertainment 60,000 75,000
NB Figures are after tax.
For 2014-2015 the following is likely to be invoiced before the end of the financial year (31st March):
Corporate Video – £0.
Corporate Event management – £105, 000 has already been received from events done during the year. £12, 000 invoiced and awaiting payment. Three major events are scheduled before the end of February which should bring in a further £13,000 if the invoices are paid before 31st March.
Multimedia Presentations and related work – So far £25,000 has been received and overall this is expected to bring in a similar amount to last year ie £40,000 although one £8,000 contract might not be paid as it has been heard (from a usually reliable source) that the client will file for bankruptcy in the near future.
Corporate Entertainment
£65,000 has been received this year and two more events worth £10,000 should be paid for by the end of March. Although negotiations for five events next year are ongoing, only one of these is likely to proceed in the next six months and two clients (in the property industry) have cancelled since December.
N.B. The company holds £15,000 cash in hand not allocated to any outstanding bills.
Note – all names of persons and company in this case study do not refer to actual facts or company, if they do they are purely coincidental.
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Learning Outcomes to be Assessed:
• Consider and critically evaluate approaches to production management.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the principles of financial analysis.
• Communicate findings effectively in written, visual and oral forms.
• Critically evaluate academic work, developing initiatives for improvement.
Assessment Details:
Case Study Report. Students are required to write a report based on a given case study of a media company. Details of the case study will be uploaded to the module website.
For this report you will need to offer a series of recommendations for improving the performance of this company backed up by evidence gained from research into media businesses and their production management. Your report needs to address the following areas:
• Analysing evidence taken from the case study highlight the key issues facing the company and for each of these offer suggestions for improvement. It is advised that you are selective and focus your suggestions in a few areas in order to achieve the appropriate depth rather than trying to draw parallels with every topic covered in the module.
• It is not enough to offer ‘common sense’ advice; you are required to use the work of experts in this area to back up your discussion.
• Appraise the potential for the company to exploit new opportunities in terms of entrepreneurship and in managing the career development of its staff.
• Make recommendations for how the changes that you are proposing may be ‘rolled-out’ within the company
You do not need to undertake a complete financial analysis, because the information is inadequate, but comments on the financial information might be used to illustrate some of your main points. Care should be taken in the structuring of your report in a professional manner. Your report should be written in the third person throughout and checked carefully for typographical errors (using a UK rather than USA setting for your spellchecker!). The use of direct quotes should be limited to particularly distinctive quotations and there should be no extended extracts from the work of others; in general extracts taken from sourced documents should be paraphrased.
Plagiarism will not be tolerated. All quotes whether direct or indirect should be referenced using the Harvard format (See Learning Centre Tip Sheet for details).
See Module Website for useful resources.
Minimum word count 2000 words / maximum word count 2500 words (main body of the text, this does not include title page, abstract, contents, appendices, references and bibliography). Marks will be deducted in the ‘Fulfilment of assignment brief details, structure and referencing’ section of the marking criteria if your report falls outside of this constraint. You should state your word count at the bottom of the contents page.
Note – Wikipedia and similar user-edited sites should not be considered as reliable sources for research material although they can be a useful starting point if you explore the sources for each article and consider their credibility.
Your report should follow this template:
Assessment Criteria:
Highlighting of key issues (including drawing on financial and statistical information) facing the company. 30%
Suggestions for improvement.
30%
Evidence of material drawn from research to back-up points made 20%
Structure, style and referencing:
• Report should be written in the third person throughout.
• Checked for typographical errors.
• Appropriate use of direct / indirect quotes.
• Appropriately structured, with relevant headings and sections.
• Use of Harvard Format for referencing 20%
Assessment Details:
Case Study Report. Students are required to write a business report based on a given case study of a media company. Details of the case study will be uploaded to the module website.
For this report you will need to offer a series of recommendations for improving the performance of this company backed up by evidence gained from research into media businesses and their production management. Your report needs to address the following areas:
• Analysing evidence taken from the case study, including financial and statistical information, highlight the key issues facing the company and offer suggestions for improvement. It is advised that you focus your suggestions in a few areas in order to achieve the appropriate depth rather than trying to draw parallels with every topic covered in the module.
• It is not enough to offer ‘common sense’ advice; you are required to use the work of experts in this area to back up your discussion.
• Appraise the potential for the company to exploit new opportunities in terms of entrepreneurship and in managing the career development of its staff.
• Make recommendations for how the changes that you are proposing may be ‘rolled-out’ within the company
Care should be taken to structure your report in a professional manner. Your report should be written in the third person throughout and checked carefully for typographical errors (using a UK rather than USA setting for your spellchecker!). The use of direct quotes should be limited to particularly distinctive quotations and there should be no extended extracts from the work of others; in general extracts taken from sourced documents should be paraphrased.
Plagiarism will not be tolerated. All quotes whether direct or indirect should be referenced using the Harvard format (See Learning Centre Tip Sheet for details).
See Module Website for useful resources.
Your report should follow this template:
Title Page
• Title to be relevant and fairly brief
• Recipient of report
• Author of report
• Date of report.
Abstract
• Also known as: Management Summary or Executive Summary.
• Points to Consider:
• Do not attempt to write your Executive Summary until the Report is finished
• Include brief outline of what it was that you set out to do
• Give a brief overview of what findings you made without going into a lot of detail as this is contained in the body of the Report
• State, briefly, what your conclusions are.
Remember:
• Executive Summary must not be more than 1 page of A4 in length
• A reader should be able to read and make sense of it
• It must have a beginning, a middle and an end part.
Contents Page
• List of Chapter Headings and Page Numbers
• If you have included any tables, diagrams or charts these are collated under a separate Contents Page called ‘Table of Figures, etc.’.
• Word count
1. Introduction
1.1 Brief introduction
Explain the purpose of this report. It aims and objectives. This should demonstrate you have understood the company’s brief.
1.2 Background information
This section should help to set the scene. Do not regurgitate the content of the case study just provide sufficient contextual information to understand why your report was commissioned and what use it will be to the company.
2. Methodology/Approach
A description of what you did in order to resolve the issues in the case study showing the alternative approaches available to you and a justification for those you selected.
In this section you should discuss your approach to gathering research data along with any limitations and suggestions to overcome them.
MAIN BODY OF THE REPORT should have sections addressing:
3. Financial / Statistical Analysis
An examination of the financial and statistical information given and the implications that can be drawn.
4. Discussion of the dynamics of the company ie its management and organisational structure along with workforce relations and culture.
This and section 3 will provide the main body of the report.
5. Conclusions
A short summary of the important findings which should be related back to the original aims and objectives arising from the case study brief.
6. Recommendations
Your views on what actions the company should take. This can be in the form of a strategy denoting short-, medium- and long-term actions.
7. References and Bibliography
References refer to pieces of research material that you have actually used in your report. This includes material that you have directly quoted and material that you have indirectly quoted (paraphrased). The Harvard system should have been used and the list of references should be provided at the end of the report.
A short Bibliography should be provided concerned with background reading and research that you did, i.e. research material that has fed your knowledge of the subject but has not been directly used in your report.
For this assessment, you are required to use the Harvard Referencing Format, (Tip Sheet available in the Learning Centre) for both references and bibliography
eg: Bigfoot B (2002) Proper Report Writing Skills. Peter Waterman Publishing, London.
Web-based reference sources need to be acknowledged, importantly, the date of access to the site needs to be given, eg.www.website.info.com (date accessed 21.01.06)
Appendices
An Appendix contains supporting material which does not need to be read in the body of the Report. The number of words used in your Appendices does not contribute towards the word count of your Report.
Your appendix should not contain copies of all of the pieces of research material that you have gathered.
Report Style
The report should be written in an impersonalised style using the third person.
GUIDANCE ON STYLE AND FORMAT:
Fonts and paragraphs and line spacing
Aim to maintain a consistent approach throughout. Use Arial font size 11. Type to a left hand margin that is 35 mm wide to allow for binding. Use 1.5 lines spacing between lines and double spacing between paragraphs. Do not indent at the start of a paragraph. Type on one side of the page only.
Text headings
Headings throughout the report should be consistent as follows:
• Chapter, or major headings, should be in capitals and centred on the line. Leave a space of two lines above such headings and one below.
• Section headings should be lower case with capital letters for the first letter of the first word, and placed at the left hand margin. Leave a space of two lines above such headings and one below.
• Sub-section headings can be introduced in italics, leaving a space above and below the heading.
Faculty of
Technology, Engineering and the Environment
Module:
Media Industry UG2
Assessment Title:
Assessment Identifier:
School:
Digital Media Technology
Module Co-ordinator:
Assessment Details
and Deadlines:
Brief Assessment Details
Students are also required to write a report based on a given case study.
IMPORTANT STATEMENT
Plagiarism: the presentation of the work of another (from whatever source: book, journal, internet etc) as if it were one’s own independent work. This can be anywhere on a continuum ranging from sloppy paraphrasing to verbatim transcription without crediting sources.
You are advised to refer to the Student Handbook on matters of cheating and plagiarism as they relate to coursework, group assignments, class tests and examinations. Both cheating and plagiarism are totally unacceptable and the University maintains a strict policy against them. It is YOUR responsibility to be aware of this policy and to act accordingly.
The University requires that the following statement is included in all module documents.
“You are reminded of the University Disciplinary Procedures which refer to cheating. Except where the assessment of an assignment is group-based, the final piece of work which is submitted must be your own work. Close similarity between assignments is likely to lead to an investigation for cheating. It is not advisable to show your completed work to your colleagues or to share and exchange disks.
You must also ensure that you acknowledge all sources you have used. Work which is discovered to be the result of collusion or plagiarism will be dealt with under the University’s Disciplinary Procedures, and the penalty may involve the loss of academic credits.
If you have any doubts about the extent to which you are allowed to collaborate with your colleagues, or the conventions for acknowledging the source you have used, you should first of all consult module documentation and, if still unclear, your module tutor.”
You will be asked to confirm in writing when handing in any piece of assessed work that it is your own by completing the Coursework Submission & Record Form which should be printed from ECMS My-course on https://mytid.bcu.ac.uk/.
It is the STUDENT’S responsibility to accurately complete the form and comply with its rules and guidance as described in the student handbook for this academic year.
Learning Outcomes to be Assessed:
Consider and critically evaluate approaches to production management.
Demonstrate an understanding of the principles of financial analysis.
Communicate findings effectively in written, visual and oral forms.
Critically evaluate academic work, developing initiatives for improvement.
Assessment Details:
Case Study Report.Students are required to write a report based on a given case study of a media company. Details of the case study will be uploaded to the module website.
For this report you will need to offer a series of recommendations for improving the performance of this company backed up by evidence gained from research into media businesses and their production management. Your report needs to address the following areas:
Analysing evidence taken from the case study highlight the key issues facing the company and for each of these offer suggestions for improvement. It is advised that you are selective and focus your suggestions in a few areas in order to achieve the appropriate depth rather than trying to draw parallels with every topic covered in the module.
It is not enough to offer ‘common sense’ advice; you are required to use the work of experts in this area to back up your discussion.
Appraise the potential for the company to exploit new opportunities in terms of entrepreneurship and in managing the career development of its staff.
Make recommendations for how the changes that you are proposing may be ‘rolled-out’ within the company
You do not need to undertake a complete financial analysis, because the information is inadequate, but comments on the financial information might be used to illustrate some of your main points. Care should be taken in the structuring of your report in a professional manner. Your report should be written in the third person throughout and checked carefully for typographical errors (using a UK rather than USA setting for your spellchecker!). The use of direct quotes should be limited to particularly distinctive quotations and there should be no extended extracts from the work of others; in general extracts taken from sourced documents should be paraphrased.
Plagiarism will not be tolerated. All quotes whether direct or indirect should be referenced using the Harvard format (See Learning Centre Tip Sheet for details).
See Module Website for useful resources.
Minimum word count 2000 words / maximum word count 2500 words (main body of the text, this does not include title page, abstract, contents, appendices, references and bibliography). Marks will be deducted in the ‘Fulfilment of assignment brief details, structure and referencing’ section of the marking criteria if your report falls outside of this constraint. You should state your word count at the bottom of the contents page.
Note – Wikipedia and similar user-edited sites should not be considered as reliable sources for research material although they can be a useful starting point if you explore the sources for each article and consider their credibility.
Your report should follow this template:
Assessment Criteria:
Highlighting of key issues (including drawing on financial and statistical information) facing the company.
30%
Suggestions for improvement.
30%
Evidence of material drawn from research to back-up points made
20%
Structure, style and referencing:
Report should be written in the third person throughout.
Checked for typographical errors.
Appropriate use of direct / indirect quotes.
Appropriately structured, with relevant headings and sections.
Use of Harvard Format for referencing
20%
Assessment Details:
Case Study Report.Students are required to write a business report based on a given case study of a media company. Details of the case study will be uploaded to the module website.
For this report you will need to offer a series of recommendations for improving the performance of this company backed up by evidence gained from research into media businesses and their production management. Your report needs to address the following areas:
Analysing evidence taken from the case study, including financial and statistical information, highlight the key issues facing the company and offer suggestions for improvement. It is advised that you focus your suggestions in a few areas in order to achieve the appropriate depth rather than trying to draw parallels with every topic covered in the module.
It is not enough to offer ‘common sense’ advice; you are required to use the work of experts in this area to back up your discussion.
Appraise the potential for the company to exploit new opportunities in terms of entrepreneurship and in managing the career development of its staff.
Make recommendations for how the changes that you are proposing may be ‘rolled-out’ within the company
Care should be taken to structure your report in a professional manner. Your report should be written in the third person throughout and checked carefully for typographical errors (using a UK rather than USA setting for your spellchecker!). The use of direct quotes should be limited to particularly distinctive quotations and there should be no extended extracts from the work of others; in general extracts taken from sourced documents should be paraphrased.
Plagiarism will not be tolerated. All quotes whether direct or indirect should be referenced using the Harvard format (See Learning Centre Tip Sheet for details).
See Module Website for useful resources.
Your report should follow this template:
Title Page
Title to be relevant and fairly brief
Recipient of report
Author of report
Date of report.
Abstract
Also known as: Management Summary or Executive Summary.
Points to Consider:
Do not attempt to write your Executive Summary until the Report is finished
Include brief outline of what it was that you set out to do
Give a brief overview of what findings you made without going into a lot of detail as this is contained in the body of the Report
State, briefly, what your conclusions are.
Remember:
Executive Summary must not be more than 1 page of A4 in length
A reader should be able to read and make sense of it
It must have a beginning, a middle and an end part.
Contents Page
List of Chapter Headings and Page Numbers
If you have included any tables, diagrams or charts these are collated under a separate Contents Page called ‘Table of Figures, etc.’.
Word count
Introduction
1.1 Brief introduction
Explain the purpose of this report. It aims and objectives. This should demonstrate you have understood the company’s brief.
1.2 Background information
This section should help to set the scene. Do not regurgitate the content of the case study just provide sufficient contextual information to understand why your report was commissioned and what use it will be to the company.
Methodology/Approach
A description of what you did in order to resolve the issues in the case study showing the alternative approaches available to you and a justification for those you selected.
In this section you should discuss your approach to gathering research data along with any limitations and suggestions to overcome them.
MAIN BODY OF THE REPORT should have sections addressing:
Financial / Statistical Analysis
An examination of the financial and statistical information given and the implications that can be drawn.
Discussion of the dynamics of the company ie its management and organisational structure along with workforce relations and culture.
This and section 3 will provide the main body of the report.
Conclusions
A short summary of the important findings which should be related back to the original aims and objectives arising from the case study brief.
Recommendations
Your views on what actions the company should take. This can be in the form of a strategy denoting short-, medium- and long-term actions.
References and Bibliography
References refer to pieces of research material that you have actually used in your report. This includes material that you have directly quoted and material that you have indirectly quoted (paraphrased). The Harvard system should have been used and the list of references should be provided at the end of the report.
A short Bibliography should be provided concerned with background reading and research that you did, i.e. research material that has fed your knowledge of the subject but has not been directly used in your report.
For this assessment, you are required to use the Harvard Referencing Format, (Tip Sheet available in the Learning Centre) for both references and bibliography
eg: Bigfoot B (2002) Proper Report Writing Skills. Peter Waterman Publishing, London.
Web-based reference sources need to be acknowledged, importantly, the date of access to the site needs to be given, eg.www.website.info.com (date accessed 21.01.06)
Appendices
An Appendix contains supporting material which does not need to be read in the body of the Report. The number of words used in your Appendices does not contribute towards the word count of your Report.
Your appendix should not contain copies of all of the pieces of research material that you have gathered.
Report Style
The report should be written in an impersonalised style using the third person.
GUIDANCE ON STYLE AND FORMAT:
Fonts and paragraphs and line spacing
Aim to maintain a consistent approach throughout. Use Arial font size 11. Type to a left hand margin that is 35 mm wide to allow for binding. Use 1.5 lines spacing between lines and double spacing between paragraphs. Do not indent at the start of a paragraph. Type on one side of the page only.
Text headings
Headings throughout the report should be consistent as follows:
Chapter, or major headings, should be in capitals and centred on the line. Leave a space of two lines above such headings and one below.
Section headings should be lower case with capital letters for the first letter of the first word, and placed at the left hand margin. Leave a space of two lines above such headings and one below.
Sub-section headings can be introduced in italics, leaving a space above and below the heading.
Assessment Criteria:
Highlighting of key issues (including drawing on financial and statistical information) facing the company.
30%
Suggestions for improvement.
30%
Evidence of material drawn from research to back-up points made
20%
Structure, style and referencing:
Report should be written in the third person throughout.
Checked for typographical errors.
Appropriate use of direct / indirect quotes.
CD copy handed-in alongside paper copy.
Appropriately structured, with relevant headings and sections.
Use of Harvard Format for referencing
20%
Table of Assessment Criteria and Associated Grading Criteria
Assessment
Criteria
à
Highlighting of key issues
Suggestions for improvement
Evidence of material drawn from research to back-up points made
Structure, style, referencing.
Weighting:
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
Grading
Criteria
0 – 29%
Little or no demonstration of an appreciation of key issues facing the company. No attempt at quantitative numerical analysis
Little or no useful suggestions for improvement.
Any suggestions that are made are not backed up with research material.
Serious shortcomings in style, language and readability. No attempt at referencing.
30 – 39%
Vague appreciation of key issues facing the company. Poor attempt at quantitative numerical analysis
Vague suggestions for improvement.
Little evidence that the suggestions that are made are backed up with research material.
Shortcomings in style, language and readability. There may be an attempt at referencing although not following the Harvard format.
40 – 49%
Some appreciation of key issues facing the company. Adequate quantitative numerical analysis
Adequate suggestions for improvement.
Adequate use of research material to back up points.
Significant
shortcomings in style
and language. The
report may not be
straightforward to
follow.
A fair attempt at following the Harvard Format for referencing although there may be some errors.
50 – 59%
Appreciation of key issues facing the company. Fair attempt at quantitative numerical analysis
Some useful suggestions for improvement
Points are backed up with material drawn from research.
Report generally
appropriate in style
and language.
There may be
shortcomings in
clarity of text and
visual presentation Referencing generally follows the Harvard Format although there may be a few minor errors.
60 – 69%
Good appreciation of key issues facing the company. Good attempt at quantitative numerical analysis
Good suggestions for improvement.
Comments are backed up with well chosen research material.
No significant
shortcomings in
structure
Style and language are
appropriate, though there may be minor deficiencies. Referencing (following the Harvard Format) is appropriate
70+%
Deep understanding of key issues facing the company. Thorough quantitative numerical analysis
Excellent suggestions for improvement
Points are backed up with well chosen research material demonstrating a thorough approach to the task.
Presentation is clear and supported
through the use of
suitable visual
techniques. Succinct
style and language
with no significant
shortcomings. Referencing (following the Harvard Format) is
appropriate
Checklist
Media Industry UG2
Case Study –
Edge Ltd, Corporate Media Services
Background
Edge Ltd, one of the West Midlands’ creative-sector small-medium size enterprises (SME) currently located in the Bigger Peg office complex in the media ‘cluster’ area of Eastside.
Edge Ltd is or has been involved in the following activities;
Corporate video
Corporate event management (including technical delivery; sound, lights, etc)
Corporate multimedia presentations
Corporate entertainment
Ownership and development
Brief Overview
Edge Ltd. was established in 1997 by its two founding partners, brothers David (36) and Andrew Thompson (40). Initially, David and Andrew produced corporate videos for clients in and around the West Midlands. Commissions to produce video for corporate events led in 2000 to the company diversifying into corporate event management. Customer requirements for multimedia productions led to the company moving into this area of activity as well.
More recently Edge Ltd has moved into corporate entertainment, providing range of one off events for companies, mainly draw from the Midlands but some from father afield including a few commissions from London based clients.
Corporate Video
David Thompson is the video specialist. In the initial phase of the company’s development David’s role was video director, leaving the development of client relationships and touting for new work to Andrew. The company developed a good reputation amongst local firms for no frills, affordable video. The move into corporate events management led to the taking on of new staff but the new workload meant that the corporate video side of the company’s activities was reduced. Currently, new commissions for corporate video are not pursued.
Corporate event management
Lacking the required skills in-house, the brothers took on Tim Jenner to oversee this side of their operations. Tim is the Corporate Events Manager and as such is responsible for both the technical delivery and the development of multimedia products.
John Johnson is the technical specialist and is responsible for sound, stage and lighting ‘on the night’. John is very experienced but is overstretched. Currently, John acts as stage manager and looks after the lights. Although John is an experienced sound engineer, freelancer sound engineers are brought in to fulfil this role. There have been complaints from some clients about the quality of the sound at a few events and this has caused problems with securing follow-up contracts.
Emily Stroud is a multimedia designer. Emily graduated from her Multimedia Technology degree 7 years ago. Initially, she worked as a web designer but wishing to broaden her skill set took the job at Edge with the remit of producing multimedia presentations using PowerPoint, Flash etc. Emily is office based and does not get involved ‘on the night’. In order to oversee the delivery of the multimedia presentations at the corporate events a freelancer is again utilised to handle connectivity, scan conversion and vision mixing. As part of the hire price the freelancer is required to bring their own equipment.
Emily has complained about feeling bored with her job and would like to get involved with the delivery of the multimedia presentations. She has asked to be trained in this area but this has not been acted upon by the management.
Corporate Entertainment
Perceived by the staff to be the more ‘glamorous’ side of the companies activities; corporate entertainment is a relatively new venture for Edge. Josh Simmons is responsible for this aspect and has a young team of three under his supervision, Sally Evans, Richard Smith and James Jones (JJ). Josh is 30. Sally and Richard are 21, JJ is 20 and an intern on a 1 year placement from his Media Studies degree. Josh sees himself as ‘one of the gang’ and struggles to rein-in some of sometimes inappropriate behaviour of his team. There have been complaints from clients that Edge staff are not staying focused throughout an event and are getting drunk drinking with clients.
Currently there is a limited client base of local companies including law and accountancy firms and property developers.
Concerns have been raised about the impact of the recession on this side of the companies activities.
David and Andrew are keen to develop their client base for the corporate events management and entertainment and are focusing their attention on London based companies.
Company Structure and Culture
The company now employs 10 fulltime staff including the two directors.
The company has little sense of management hierarchy. Both David and Andrew spend 2 or 3 days a week in London, taking meetings together and keeping in contact with the office in Birmingham via mobile phone. Although they are absent from the office they keep a firm control of the activities back in Birmingham.
Andrew is very domineering in meetings. He tends to overcompensate for his own insecurities by trying to appear to be a decisive, strong leader. Younger brother David will sometimes subtlety mock Andrew’s style in front of other staff.
Andrew and David were hoping to be earning more at this stage of the company’s development and are aiming to be earning £50,000 each in the next year.
There is much frustration within the workforce. Loyalty seems to be based on a promise of better things tomorrow.
Joan Schmitt, the bookkeeper, finds it increasingly hard to manage the companies’ finances. Joan despairs at Andrew and David’s cavalier approach to petty cash and personal expenses. Joan dislikes uncertainty and confrontation which means that she finds the whole situation very stressful. Joan has now been off work for 6 weeks but the directors are holding off on treating her as long-term sick and just hope that she will come back soon. They are currently considering bringing in a temp to deal with Joan’s work that has been building up.
When Andrew and David are in London there is no overall leadership in the office and there are tensions across the various areas of activity. Tim and Josh do not get on. Tim feels that the company is over-stretching itself with the corporate entertainment activities when they could be consolidating their reputation in corporate events management.
The Edge office is open plan and this has been seen to exacerbate personnel issues. In particular, Joan finds it very difficult to work on figures with Josh and his team talking, laughing and arguing loudly. She has put forward the idea of working from home but was rebuffed with a comment from Andrew about them getting round to carrying out a risk assessment sometime.
Communication is mainly informal and ad hoc, formal meetings are rare and email is the predominant medium of communication even for staff sitting next to one another. David and Andrew will drop into the office first thing in the morning if they are travelling to London that day. With the rest of the staff turning up to work at various times until lunchtime it is impossible to have meetings in the morning. In the afternoon, those who started early tend to want to leave at 5.00 at the latest.
Edge’s management structure appears to lack cohesion and teamwork. None of the workforce has any formal management training. Andrew and David resist the delegation of any areas of decision-making and seem to want to be involved in every aspect of day-to-day decision making. The workers feel powerless to influence the direction of the company.
They are keen to tap into the entrepreneurial potential of all staff but feel they are not getting much back in terms of entrepreneurial innovations from the team. Andrew and David disagree as which members of staff display entrepreneurial flair. Andrew has suggested a Paint-Ball company day-out as a way of assessing staff potential in a different, more relaxed environment.
Staff have been used to working in an informal, organic way but the directors now feel that there needs to be a clear demarcation of roles. Certain members of staff have called for flexible, written job descriptions although this process has been positively received it has never been taken any further. Staff appraisals are informal and infrequent as Andrew and David rarely get round to organising them.
Since its inception, Edge has developed no formal procedures for human resource issues such as recruitment and selection, training and development, reward and performance management, just the occasional ‘we don’t know what we’d do without you’ at the Christmas party. There are no job descriptions or organisational charts and no clear career path. These things evolved naturally as the company grew, resulting in some anomalies and inequalities which are now beginning to surface as the various activities become more complex.
Staff are unclear as to their individual roles and responsibilities. Various staff have ‘management’ positions although their authority tends to be limited. The directors have always believed staff employment contracts to be an unjustifiable expense and anyway are unsure as to what information such contracts should contain.
Levi, an ex member of staff, is currently pursuing taking them to a tribunal for unfair dismissal. Having sacked him for chronic absenteeism, they are now worried about losing the tribunal and what the penalties will be. Obviously, they are keen to avoid any such situations in the future.
It is taken as read that staff will remain loyal to the company and will ‘do the right thing’ when they move on but there was a recent problem with an ex-member of staff approaching their corporate clients and discussing confidential information.
Neither director likes confrontation and they tend to rely on ‘having a few words’ to reign in any member of staff not pulling their weight. Unfortunately they currently have a problem with Tim who has been upsetting Josh with his sometimes aggressive manner. The ‘little chats’ have not worked and they are wondering how to proceed.
The workplace is a laissez-faire environment and there are no rules regarding use of workstations for personal emails, surfing the web etc. The last series of Big Brother did cause some disruption as certain members of staff grew to resent their colleagues spending too much time on the BB website when there was much work to be done.
Sally has just announced that she is pregnant and wishes to make full use of her entitlement to maternity leave. The directors are unsure as to their responsibilities and can only presume this will be an expensive and disruptive experience for the company.
Unavoidably, problems have begun to emerge in areas such as a lack of effective employee induction, poor internal teamwork within and between functions, frustration at the lack of promotion structure and lack of attention to individual development needs. Although employee turnover is still low, the undertones show that some employees feel frustrated and are considering other career options. Andrew and David have been made aware that certain members of staff are job hunting and the directors would like to get more of a feel for general staff motivation and morale. They are unsure how to approach this issue as they do not wish their data gathering efforts to be misconstrued as ‘restructuring’ which is often code for redundancies.
Although espousing the value of a team-based workplace, the level of team working awareness and skills are significantly low.
Core Competences and Human Resources
In a knowledge-based business ‘people are the greatest assets’. A company like Edge faces the problem of attracting talented staff with the right skills and experience. For a small growing provincial company such as Edge this is even more difficult as it is not possible to compete with more established companies in London in terms of remuneration.
This set of circumstances leads to employing new staff with little or no experience which in turn means that they are taught from scratch by existing staff. New staff are often recruited via networking – they tend to be already known to members of staff and are encouraged to apply for available jobs. In terms of encouraging innovation this is a real problem as the same people’s knowledge and skills tend to be recycled in the next generation in the company. Hence, one of the continuing challenges is how to keep pace with the relentless innovation that is a minimum requirement to stay afloat in the current highly innovative and competitive market.
A human resource issue of continuing concern amongst the staff is the joint absence of both David and Andrew for much of the week leaving no one member of staff in a position of overall responsibility in the office. No plans have been made to fill this vacuum. The other issue is how to accommodate the individual ambitions of employees, given that Edge lacks much by way of hierarchy. This is a young company with predominantly young staff whose ambition, passion for challenging work and wish for personal growth will all need to be fulfilled in order to satisfy and retain experienced staff. Having a fairly flat company organisational means that there are few opportunities for promotion.
The management of knowledge (tangible and intangible) at Edge is not well developed. There is an intranet system that enables information to be passed on and shared but the culture is such that little actual sharing takes place, since knowledge is jealously guarded. There is a damaging lack of coordination of information impacting on the speed and accuracy of dealing with queries and requests.
Future challenges
Although Edge is currently doing well, specifically due to involvement with a few higher profile local events, worrying signs are starting to emerge. There does not seem to be a coordinated approach to the product / service mix and a long term appreciation of the inevitabilities of the product lifecycle. There are tensions between the different functions of the company. Whether these emergent problems are the result of growth or managerial inefficiencies or both are open to question. Having moved to the Bigger Peg to be part of Birmingham’s media cluster, the company has seen no benefits of this and are unsure how they can exploit any possible opportunities and support locally. Andrew and David are keen to expand nationally and are currently focusing on London. The duo would also welcome a cohesive marketing plan.
The directors are keen to draw more on their own entrepreneurial skills and that of their employees for future development. Unfortunately, low staff moral leaves them struggling to re-engage the whole workforce in a more cohesive approach to generating new ideas and initiatives.
Some General Financial Information Relating to the Company’s Business since April 2014
Rent & Rates – £16,000/year
Loans – the company has no loans.
Salaries:
Joan – £22,000
Tim – £30,000
Josh – £22,000
Sally – £17,000
Richard – £17,000
JJ – £11,000
John – £25,000
Emily – £22,000
Andrew and David took £40,000 each out of the business last year (20013-14)
In addition the company has made use of freelance staff for the first time this year costing £12,000
Expenses:
Energy (Electricity) – £4,500
Travel Expenses (Rail and Air) – £8,000
Accommodation – £6,000
Expenses incurred outside the firm £3,000
Consumables £1100
Software Costs £11,000
Assets:
Computer Equipment (10workstations) – £13,000 value
Peripherals (scanners, 2 TVs, Hi Fi, Projector, 2 Laptops, colour photocopier) £25,000
Furniture and fittings not supplied by landlord £2,500
Income
This is the income generated over the last four financial years:
INCOME
Financial Year
Activity
2010 – 11
2011 – 12
2012 – 13
2013 – 14
Corporate Video
44,000
48,000
40,000
25,000
Corporate Events Management
116,000
122,000
125,000
160,000
Multimedia Presentations and related work
135,000
95,000
55,000
40,000
Corporate Entertainment
60,000
75,000
NB Figures are after tax.
For 2014-2015 the following is likely to be invoiced before the end of the financial year (31st March):
Corporate Video – £0.
Corporate Event management – £105, 000 has already been received from events done during the year. £12, 000 invoiced and awaiting payment. Three major events are scheduled before the end of February which should bring in a further £13,000 if the invoices are paid before 31st March.
Multimedia Presentations and related work – So far £25,000 has been received and overall this is expected to bring in a similar amount to last year ie £40,000 although one £8,000 contract might not be paid as it has been heard (from a usually reliable source) that the client will file for bankruptcy in the near future.
Corporate Entertainment
£65,000 has been received this year and two more events worth £10,000 should be paid for by the end of March. Although negotiations for five events next year are ongoing, only one of these is likely to proceed in the next six months and two clients (in the property industry) have cancelled since December.
N.B. The company holds £15,000 cash in hand not allocated to any outstanding bills.
Note – all names of persons and company in this case study do not refer to actual facts or company, if they do they are purely coincidental.
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