SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

Centre for Modern Architecture Studies in Southeast Asia

Foundation of Natural & Built Environments (FNBE)
Principles of Economics [ECN30205]
Prerequisite: None
Lecturer: Tay Shir Men
Assignment: A Comparative Analysis of 2 Businesses of Similar Industry in Different
Geographical Locations
30% Group Work
Submission: By 12pm, Wednesday, 25th November 2015 (Week 16)
Introduction

In this assignment, the students will collect data regarding 2 businesses (of their choice) and
then analyse and compare their competitive behaviours with respect to their own environmental
factors.
This research assignment must be conducted through a combination of both primary sources
and secondary sources to support your finding and analysis. These findings, together with
relevant conclusions, will be presented in a submitted written report (burn in a CD).
In addition to the report, you are required to submit a short video segment together with the
report. You may include footages of the interviews and visit to the business premises in the
video as well.
Objectives of Project

The objectives of this project:

To understand the real world, market forces and consumer behaviour.
To analyze and compare the different types of firm competition in a market.
Learning Outcomes of Project

On successful completion of this project, students will be able to demonstrate the following:
Generalize about economic behaviour or economic data.
Compare and summarize the characteristics of different types of market competition.

Tasks - Methodology

Your tasks are as follows:

a) Form a group with maximum 6 members (one member will be the group leader).
b) Select 2 businesses within the same industry (one based in Melaka and the other in
Klang Valley) for research purposes.
c) You will contact and obtain permission from the relevant persons (e.g. owner,
manager) of those businesses to conduct a face-to-face interview and on-site
observations.
d) Before the interview, you will conduct preliminary research (via books, internet,
newspaper, etc.) and gather background information on the chosen businesses.
e) Interview questions will be prepared and reviewed (by the lecturer) 1 week before the
scheduled interview date.
f) After you have gathered the information, submit a 2500-3000-word report (excluding
cover page and references) based on your findings. The report must be submitted in
softcopy form(burn in a CD) only.
g) Along with the report, you must also provide the videos related to the site visit.
h) For more information on part (f) and (g), read the guidelines in the appendix section
of this brief.
i) The information sources for your research will come from personal interviews, on-site
observations and others (such as books, magazines, newspapers, and the internet).
Ensure that you quote at least 10 different sources of information in the report and the
internet constitutes no more than 30% of those sources.
j) Important: Ensure that you quote your sources (APA style) and refrain from copying. I
conduct plagiarism checks on all assignments submitted. Students caught with said
offence will face severe disciplinary action. Ignore this warning at your own risk.
Submission Requirement

- A 2500-3000-word written report (excluding cover page and references) in softcopy form.
- Video segments relevant to the report.

Assessment criteria
The assessment for this assignment will be based on:
TGC
Acquired

Assessment Criteria

Marks %

Group Component
Format

5%

Background Information

5%

Analysis of Competitive Behaviour

15%

Video Segments

5%

TOTAL
Marking criteria
Please refer to Assessment Rubric on page 4.

30%

Assessment
Criteria (with
TGC)

30%

Format
5%

Background
Information

Analysis of
Competitive
Behaviour

Video
Segment

5%

15%

5%

Excellent (10-9)

Good (8-7)

The report is
written coherently
i.e. proper use of
paragraphs,
headings, fonts,
etc.

The reports
content is written
in a decently
coherent manner.

Provides an
excellent
description of the
businesses and
their industry.
Also includes
highly relevant
and informative
graphs, tables,
charts and
photos, etc.

Satisfactory (6-5)

Poor (4-3)

Fail (2 0)

The reports
content is
moderately
coherent.

The reports
content does not
read coherently

The reports
content does not
make sense at
all.

Provides a good
description of the
businesses and
their industry. Also
includes relevant
and informative
graphs, tables,
charts and photos,
etc.

Provides a
satisfactory
description of the
businesses and
their industry. Also
includes
moderately
relevant and
informative
graphs, tables,
charts and photos,
etc.

Provides a poor
description of the
businesses and
their industry.
Graphs, charts,
tables and photos
presented are
neither relevant
nor informative.

Provides a very
poor description
of the businesses
and their industry.
Does not provide
any charts,
tables, graphs
and photos, etc to
illustrate the key
points.

Provides an
excellent analysis
of the competitive
traits of the
businesses. Also
able to draw
excellent
conclusions and
suggest
outstanding
recommendations
for the
businesses.

Provides a good
analysis of the
competitive traits
of the businesses.
Also able to draw
good conclusions
and suggest
decent
recommendations.

Provides a
satisfactory
analysis of the
competitive traits
of the businesses.
Also able to draw
average
conclusions and
suggest
moderately
suitable
recommendations.

Provides a poor
analysis of the
competitive traits
of the
businesses. In
addition, poorly
justified
conclusions and
unsuitable
recommendations
are provided.

Provides a very
poor analysis of
the competitive
traits of the
businesses. In
addition, very
poorly justified
conclusions and
very poorly
considered
recommendations
are given

The video is
excellent
produced i.e.
highly informative,
has outstanding
direction and
editing, and with
proper subtitles
(wherever
appropriate), etc.

The video is well

produced i.e. very
informative, has
good direction and
editing, and
subtitles
(wherever
appropriate), etc.

The video is
satisfactorily
produced i.e. it is
informative, has
acceptable
direction and
editing, etc.
However, subtitles
are not provided.

The video is
poorly produced
i.e. not very
informative, has
poor direction
and editing, etc.
Also, subtitles are
not provided.

The video is very

poorly produced
i.e. not
informative at all,
has very poor
direction and
editing, etc. Also,
subtitles are not
provided.

Assessment Rubric for Principles of Economics Assignment (FNBE0135)

APPENDIX 1: Guidelines for Report Writing

4

The following is a suggested outline for your research report:

Cover page
The cover page of your report should include name of module, report title, names of group members
(with student ID) and Taylors Universitys name logo.
Table of Content
It contains a list of the key sections of your report and their corresponding page numbers.
Key Summary (approx. 100 words)
The key summary is, as the name suggests, a SUMMARY of the content in your report. This will give
the reader a quick idea of what your research is about and the results that you have acquired.
Brief Bio of the Businesses (approx. 600 words)
This section provides background information about the businesses such as:
i) Their names;
ii) Current locations;
iii) Number of branches and employees;
iv) Main products or services sold;
v) Estimated current number of customers.
vi) When were the businesses founded?
vii) Who are the founders?
viii) What was their motive(s) for starting the business; and
ix) Their recent development (i.e. what has the business accomplished or what changes have occurred
in the business over the past 3 - 5 years).
Comparative Analysis of the Businesses Competitive Traits (approx. 1000 words)
This section discusses the competitive behaviours of the businesses and their respective markets such
as:
i) (Approximate) number of competitors in their respective geographical markets;
ii) The market share of the business and its top competitors.
ii) Brief bios of each business top 3 competitors (E.g. who are they? What are their products? etc.);
iii) How do the businesses compete with their competitors? What strategies were/are employed (e.g.
pricing, advertising, product variety, etc.) and how successful are they?
iv) What are the obstacles faced by new businesses who wish to enter their markets today? Are they
easy or difficult to overcome? Why?
v) What is the nature of their markets (e.g. perfectly competitive, oligopoly, monopolistic competitive)
and your justifications.
vi) You must include a summary table (see appendix 3) to compare the similarities and differences
between the 2 businesses.
vii) Based on your analysis, which business is more commercially successful? And why?
Recommendation (approx. 300 words)
Based on the analysis of the previous section, you will provide a minimum of 2 recommendations on
improving the competitiveness for each business with proper justifications.

Appendices

This section will include interview notes, contact details of the businesses and photos (e.g. business
premises, current owners, employees, products or services sold, promotional advertisements, Facebook
pages, websites, competitors business premises, competitors product and services, etc.).
Reference
Your report must contain at least 10 different sources (in APA style) and the internet constitutes no
more than 30% of those sources.

APPENDIX 2: Suggested List of Interview Questions (Non-Exhaustive)

1) When was the business founded?

2) Who are the key founders?
3) What prompted the founders to start this business?
4) What are your main products or services?
5) Who are your customers? (e.g. Age group, income-level, education-level, etc.)
6) What is the business annual revenue figure?
7) How many branch offices/stores do you have (if applicable)?
8) Can you provide us a brief history of your business and its most recent developments?
9) Do you have many competitors? Who are they? Who are your top 3 competitors?
10) How big is your market share as well as your top competitors?
11) Is the business constantly facing strong competition from other competitors? What strategies
have they used to compete with you?
12) How much capital is required to start this business? What, if any, specialized field of
knowledge do you need to run this business?
13) Generally, do you feel it is easy or hard to enter this market? Why?
14) How do you compete with your competitors i.e. what strategies do you employ to divert
customers away from your competitors?
15) How often do you release a new product (note: this assumes the business sells differentiated
products)?
16) Are your pricing decisions strongly affected by your competitors? Why or why not?
Important: You must provide the contact details (name, job position, and office phone
number/email address) of your interviewee in the report.

APPENDIX 3: Comparative Analysis Summary Table

Competitive Traits

Business A (Melaka-Based)

1. Number of Competitors
(in ranges e.g. 2 to 10, 10 to
50, 50 to 150, etc.)
2. Barrier to Entry (Weak or
Strong? Why?)
3. Differentiated or
Standardized Products (if
differentiated provide 2 to 3
examples)
4. Pricing Power (Price
Maker or Taker? Why?)
5. Other Characteristics
(e.g. Any close product
substitutes, mutual
dependence, constant
advertising)
6. Verdict (Monopoly?
Oligopoly? Perfect
Competition?)

Business B (Klang ValleyBased)