Human Resources

 
Assignment Instructions
Week 2: Assignment
Course Objective:
Professionally interact with fellow students or business managers to learn skills necessary for  entrepreneurial success.
Analyze risks inherent in owning a business.
Prompt:
In week 1 you conducted your first interview with a small-business owner/manager.  This week you will complete a second interview with the entrepreneur/manager and address the ongoing challenges the business has faced in the past, is currently facing, and will continue to face in the future.   Start your week by reviewing your interview write-up from last week.  The obvious next step, unless you did this last week, is to set up a date and time when you may conduct this second interview.  Next, as you did last week, create an interview outline to use. As this week’s focus is on “ongoing challenges,” build your interview outline around past, present, and future challenges the business has, is, and will face.  Feel free to modify this outline, but here is one way to start:

Areas of challenge to a small-business (there easily could be several more):
Human resources related (skills, retirement, turnover) 
Related to competition (increased, unscrupulous, larger, e-commerce)
pricing related (international, out of state, or new competitor based)
Hindrances to growth (people, financing, competition)
Services related (delivery, market constraints, inventory)
Product related (product evolution, competitiveness or availability from manufacturer, or access issues)
Asset or Financing related
Inventory
Legal, regulatory, or license related

As you learned last week, the key to a good interview is preparation, using open-ended questions (as opposed to yes-no questions), and exercising good listening skills.  This course will be a challenge to your time management skills.  There is a lot to cover this week, including a discussion Forum and reading materials on small business challenges in the Reading & Resource section.
Instructions:
As you did last week, write up your notes or transcribe your recordings into a narrative and present your findings and conclusions in a logical manner.  Your narrative should be a minimum of 5 pages.  One possible organization may be as follows:

Section 1 – Past and Present Challenges Faced by the Entrepreneur
Section 2 – Future Challenges that Could Affect the viability of the business
Section 3 – Your conclusions and insights regarding the challenges this company may face in the future.  

Your paper should be in APA format. Finalize and submit your report by Sunday midnight.
Grading Rubric:
A rubric is provided here for your convenience that details how this assignment will be graded.  Please review it carefully prior to submitting your work.