Title of Assignment

Microeconomics

Weight: 12%

Marks: 16

Assignment

Purpose

The purpose of this exercise is to encourage you to apply economic theory to real-word companies and/or industries.

Instructions

You and several of your classmates have pooled your money and are considering opening a new business in Calgary. The potential business idea could be a restaurant, a coffee/tea shop, a sporting goods store, a furniture store, a hair salon, a craft beer company, or a pet store. If your group is considering a different business, please discuss with your instructor. For this assignment, you are creating a brief business plan for this new business. Your plan should include answers to each of the following questions, as well as a summary conclusion. Your conclusion should suggest if the new business opportunity is viable or not.

All information must be properly cited using APA style.

1. Form a group of between 2 and 5 class mates. Email your instructor with the names of your group members. Discuss with your group to determine what type of business you believe would be successful in the Calgary market. Create a name for your potential new business.

2.Briefly describe the industry in North American, Canada, Alberta, and/or Calgary. Determine past and current industry trends, numbers of local or national competitors, as well as growth rates within the industry. Explain the influence of the macro-economy on the industry (interest rates, government policies on spending, and taxation, and so on.)

3.Identify and describe all local competitors including background information on your top two most relevant competitors, their mission (values), business objectives, products sold (and/or services provided), prices, reputation, strengths, weaknesses, so on.

4. Discuss demand and supply of your businesses products/services. Briefly explain what would cause demand and supply, in this industry, to increase or decrease.

5.Estimate total market demand for your new businesses products/services. Consider the impact over the next year.

6.Through observation and data collection, determine average prices, estimate average sales volume, and then estimate average sales revenue for the two competitors. Analyze the results of your data collection. Discuss and draw conclusions. Remember to graph your data and explain your results.

7. For each competitor, estimate their costs per unit and an explanation of how this was determined. Provide an estimate of their profit per unit and estimate their total profit per year.

8. For each competitor, and for the market, consider elasticity of demand and supply. Explain how this knowledge would be important to your new business. Also consider income and cross elasticities. Provide an explanation of these and their impact on demand for your new business.

9. Describe the type of market (perfectly competitive, monopolistically competitive, oligopoly, or monopoly) that exists in Calgary. Connect the market theory to your observations of the Calgary market. What conclusions can you draw?

10. Describe the details of your proposed business. Outline your one- year objectives for sales volume, costs, and expected profits if the service is launched in April, 2022. Estimate demand for your product/service.

11. Conclusions: When considering all of the various types of competitors in Calgary, and the estimate of total demand in Calgary, do you believe that your business will be successful over the first year of operations? Explain your rationale.

The due date for this project will be provided by your instructor.

For this assignment, you will create a power point presentation with NOTES pages and VOICE-OVER that address these topics. Feel free to add in any additional economics related topics that are relevant. You will have a proper title page with group member names, course name, instructor name, and date. The presentation time will be approximately 10 minutes. All group members must participate in the research, power point creation, as well as the presentation.

All group members must complete a peer evaluation, which will be in the next file. Peer evaluation grades will form the basis of your individual grade for the project.

A reference page must be included at the end of the power point presentation. Notes pertaining to the slide topic will be included. The NOTES PAGES will contain summary notes as well as APA citations pertaining to the information discussed. An example of proper power point is in the next file.

Slides will contain a maximum of 4 points. No more than 20 words per slide.