Students will be working on their SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) and target market analysis. Their questions will probably revolve around specific aspects of your company as they try to determine S/W. Do not answer if they ask you for your strengths and weaknesses; that is for the groups to determine. You will not get many questions up to this point.

Students will be working on developing a sales forecast, determining product and process designs. Their questions are most likely to revolve around operations, capacity, and flow. They may want to schedule a tour, if applicable.

Students will be working on resource and project planning as well as operating cash flows and net working capital. Their questions will most likely revolve around financial information and costs, and operational capacity (such as staffing and equipment). If you are not comfortable giving specific information, industry ranges are acceptable.

Students will be working on their marketing strategy including promotion, the execution of operations (especially specific procedures) and determining WACC, NPV and IRR. They may be working on organizational charts as well. At this point, their questions will be broad ranging as they start to put it all together. They are under a time crunch with this deliverable and may be feeling the stress and pressure.

Each group will give a 15 minute presentation followed by up to 10 minutes of Q&A. We would like the company representatives to take the lead in the questioning. Typically our approach is not to "fry" the groups but rather get clarification and "what if" questions. We will then have the group leave, spend a couple minutes getting everyone’s feedback on the presentation itself, and then ask the next group to come in. We usually have three or four groups present and then take a break.