Overview

Leaders need input, especially from stakeholders, to move ideas along. Having a unique, insightful product or service is just one step. Project outlines that include careful consideration of a company’s mission, opportunities, and risks can help ideas gain momentum and snowball in significance.

Scenario

Now that you have written a blog post identifying critical elements needed to support the rationale of your project, outlining specifics is key! These specifics will be used in an upcoming elevator pitch you will submit to senior management in Milestone One. Before management will approve exploring the idea for new opportunities and funding, they have key performance indicators (KPIs) you will need to address. Your goal for this assignment is to provide an outline that strongly, yet carefully, presents an argument to move your concept forward.

Prompt

Using MarketLine, Yahoo Finance, and the company’s investor relations webpage, continue your investigation of the company you selected in your Module One blog post. Specifically, look at the company’s profile, financials, and SWOT analysis.

Using speculative strategies, articulate your thoughts. Remember, success may mean revenue to a for-profit business; however, to a non-profit, it may mean a specific outcome, such as donor retention rate, social media engagement, or email open rate.

Draft a project outline that presents a prospective timeline and targeted customer segment of your project. This project outline is a precursor to Milestone One: Elevator Pitch. The KPIs you need to consider and address in your outline are:

• The intended customer: Describe the intended customer or customer profile for the new product or service.
• Opportunities in the market: Explain the opportunities in the market based on your research.
• The financial opportunity: Assess the financial opportunity that the project presents for increasing cash flow and topline revenue.
  • Can it be cash flow positive and profitable? For example, Zappos donates a pair of shoes for every pair of shoes sold. This leads to profit in the long run due to good CSR and company image, but is not immediately profitable.

Your contribution will be evaluated based on the quality of the input.