Video-Enhanced On-Line Small Business Start-Up, Expansion and Management

Course Contents, Concepts and Issues:

Industrial Project Start-Up: Some Salient Factors

• Industrial and Consumer Products: A Distinction and Guide
• Determining Industrial and Consumer Sectors
• Integrating Industrial and Consumer Products
• The Military as a Consumer
• The Health Sector as a Consumer
• Education as a Consumer Sector
• Determining Players, Market Share and Gaps

Company Formatiion and Legal Status: Important Issues to Consider

• Company legal status categorisation
• Factors associated with a choice of legal status of a company
• Issues in favour of and mitigating against particular legal status
• Legal requirement for company formation
• Company legal status and reporting requirement
• Company legal status and accounting requirement
• Company legal status and accounting reporting
• International trade and legal requirement
• Import and Export VS National, Regional and International Embargo

Protecting Inventions: Drawing on Legal Parameters

• Design and Patent Law
• International Convention For Design and Patent
• Intellectual Capital
• Protecting Intellectual Capital
• Intellectual Property
• Inventions as Intellectual Property
• Determination of the Ownership of Intellectual Property: Application of International Convention and Precedent
• Intellectual Property Rights
• International Convention for Intellectual Property Rights
• Copyright and Copyright Convention
• Understanding Industrial Espionage
• Detecting and Averting Industrial Espionage
• Industrial Espionage and the Recovery Process
• Industrial Sabotage and Long-term Consequences
• Identifying Acts of Industrial Sabotage
• Dealing with Industrial Saboteurs

Operational Costing Issues (1)

• Determining Product Needs and Wants
• Scientific Research
• Funding Scientific Research
• Utilising Pre-existing Scientific Research Findings
• Social Research
• Social Research: A Practical Guide
• Using Marketing Research Agents
• Calculating Depreciation
• 'Accounting Depreciation' VS 'Real Depreciation'
• Calculating Fixed Costs
• Calculating Rates of |return on Investment
• Calculating Variable Costs

Operational Costing Issues (2)

• Costing Human Resource
• Integrating Fixed and Variable Costs
• Cost Apportioning
• Accounting for Depreciation in Cost Apportioning
• Projected Sales and 'Externalities'
• Projected Revenue
• Projected Income
• Pricing Strategy and Cost Variables
• Understanding the Balance Sheet

Industrial Product Design and Marketing

• Industrial Products Aesthetics
• Consumer Products Aesthetics
• Social Values and Aesthetics
• Averting Consumer Infuriation: Examples of Costly Mistakes
• Sources of Investment Funds
• National Governments
• Social Development Funds
• Economic Development Funds
• City Regeneration Funds
• Regional Governments
• The World Bank
• UNESCO
• Venture Capitalists
• International Venture Capitalists
• Angels
• Dragons

Marketing Industrial and Consumer Products: A Basic Introduction

• Product as a Concept
• Pricing, Competition and the 'Snob Appeal': Niche or Mass Marketing
• Physical and Virtual Place
• Creating Product Awareness
• The Business Plan: A Guide To Entrepreneurs and Investors
• The Business Plan as A Guide to the Entrepreneur
• Using the Business Plan to Attract Investors and 'Fund Holders'
• What Should Be Included in the Business Plan
• Tweaking The Business Plan Without Losing the 'Focus'
• Establishing Contingency: The Most Unlikely Scenario