final structure document as a guideline

Use Percentages on the final structure document as a guideline to word limit for each section.

Contents:

• Executive Summary – TOM
• Background, Purpose and Scope – ALEX
• Implications from external environment and industry analysis – NAVANJANA/ DILAKSHI
• Employment pathways and business models
  • Analysis on employment pathways – PAV / TOM
  • Business plan/model
    • Desirability – GANGUL / Tom / Alex
    • Feasibility – Tom/ ALEX
• Viability (value chain) – SANA

• Potential of the market – ALEX
• Implementation plan for the very immediate year (timeline) – ALEX Implementation arrangements and implications – PAV
• Conclusion – SANA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – 5%

• TOM

Include key recommendations/findings

BACKGROUND, PURPOSE, & SCOPE – 5%

• ALEX

Background | Purpose | Scope

BACKGROUND

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) was created off the back of a major disapproval rate of the current systems in place, with the purpose of improving the lives of thousands of Australians who suffer with various disabilities. We have been hired by the NDIS to analyse the current employment climate / opportunities available to those with a disability and propose a solution which will increase their overall participation rate in the workforce. The NDIS mentions in their prescribed brief that “it is well known that for people with disabilities it can be hard to get a job and keep it”, and that this struggle is brought about by a combination of various factors.

As of 2018, there were 2.1 million people with a disability who were of working age in Australia (15 – 64 y/o).

Just over half (53.4%) were in the labour force, and (46.6%) were not.

The two most prevalent disabilities in individuals supported by the NDIS were those with Autism or an intellectual disability in the age bracket of 7 – 18 years of age, which represents 80% of scheme participants. More than 180,000 people with these disability types are accessing the NDIS, which is over half of all their participants. (NDIS 2020)

PURPOSE

The purpose of our collaboration with the NDIS is to develop and communicate an innovative solution that enhances employment participation rates among those with a disability. This product / service should be practical, feasible and applicable immediately after it is communicated to the NDIS. The specific criteria provided to us regarding the end solution is as follows:

“Develop a concept and business plan in a team that compliments, improves, enhances and/or expands on the current pathways to employment and the disability support and education ecosystem, with the aim to increase the number of people with disability moving into employment of choice, with particular focus on open employment”.

Ideally the NDIS should be able to understand our final solution, and practically apply it based on our thorough research and proper validation of our ideas.

SCOPE

There are stringent boundaries to this task which me must adhere to at all times, and these criteria define the environment in which our solution must operate in to comply with the NDIS’ requirements.

Below is a summary of the scope of our task as provided by the brief (NDIS 2020), as a group we must:

– develop and design an agreed view / map of the main current pathways all people take to get into the workforce

– identify challenges / barriers / problems in the path to fair and equally remunerated work for people with disability

– Address a particular problem, set customer targets, and create a solution with measurable benefit / value proposition for customers

– Include evidence to support effectiveness and potential outcomes / benefits

– Solution must be based on a product (e.g service, application, or device) with a clear application

– Deliver a business plan and operating model that is customer centric in terms of ease of access, clear benefit, and attractive cost and value equation

– Define a pathway to financial sustainability in the open marketplace

– Have a scalable solution, with the capacity to grow significantly

– Create a solution which complies with all relevant legislative requirements

We must also communicate how our solution will operate in Australia during the COVID-19 Pandemic, its immediate aftermath, and longer-term employment markets.

IMPLICATIONS FROM EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT & INDUSTRY ANALYSIS – 10%

• NAVANJANA & DILAKSHI

In the main body, you could include a summary discussion of significant factors that directly impact the organization. Detailed analysis can be provided as appendices which include a list of competitors.

As a team we did a PESTEL analysis in order to examine how external factors influence NDIS’ capacity to flourish in the business. This investigation additionally gave applicable bits of knowledge into how current issues can make new open doors for business advancement.

Political – Australian employment law became the largest influencing factor to NDIS. According to current employment law of Australia companies must meet quotas of diversity in the workplace. But there are no specific quotas to follow on disability people. Companies have quotas to meet and soon may have disabled quotas as well, which will allow NDIS to work closer with different businesses to ensure they are meeting their diversity requirements in the workplace.

Economic – COVID-19 is the biggest challenge the Australian and world economy facing recently. With a decrease in the global and Australian economy, people are losing their jobs and income is being affected. As a result, businesses will be forced to lay-off people and will not be looking to employ new staff. The NDIS will be unable to assist disabled people in finding jobs as no places will be hiring.

Social – NDIS will have to further work towards breaking down these barriers for disabled people, which may be met with opposition from society and certain people who are uneducated in disabled people or unwilling to shift their prejudiced views.

Technological – Viable utilization of new technology is fundamental to business accomplishment in our society. Innovation can upgrade correspondence, association and lucidity all through associations. Therefore, NDIS has planned to arrive at the incapacitated network underneath 65 years old with the assistance of new Assistive Technology (AT) (Ndis.gov.au 2020).With increasing technological advances, equipment for disables is getting better. It helps them to overcome their fears and lead a normal life. For example, assistive technology can help disabled students compensate for some of the decline. This particular technology promotes independence and reduces the need for other aids. In addition, assistive technology is becoming more common and people with disabilities benefit from it. For example, people who speak English as a second language take advantage of screenwriters.

Environmental – The main issue disables face when it comes to environmental factors is the bushfires in Australia. Absence of accessible information, emergency housing, essential equipment and many other factors make disabled people especially vulnerable to wildfires in Australia. As a result the Australian Insurance council has implemented many services and new pathways to provide them with more job opportunities. One such organization is NDIS.

Legal – The overseeing model of the National Disability Insurance Scheme is sketched out in the NDIS Act 2013. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is a broadly based plan that offers assets and administration among all legislatures. Every Australian government will keep on being associated with the strategy, financing, and administration choices of the plan. Likewise, this plan is overseen by the NDIA, where it has been set up under Commonwealth Legislation (NDIS 2020).

Competitive Forces In the Industry | Porter’s Five Forces Analysis

Bargaining powers of Suppliers

Bargaining powers of Buyers

Threat of new Entrants

Threat of new Substitutes

Competitive Rivalry

EMPLOYMENT PATHWAYS & BUSINESS MODEL

• A concise summary of all/general employment pathways
• Key transition points and challenges/barriers people with a disability could face
• Specific problem you address (in a concise manner)
• How significant is the issue? And your solution (briefly and specifically)

EMPLOYMENT PATHWAY ANALYSIS – 15% – PAV / TOM

Individuals are able to pursue a variety of pathways to enter the workforce. Depending on which transition point an individual is at or where they are in their career will heavily impact the options they have. One of the biggest groups in society entering the workforce would be students. This can either be students completing secondary or tertiary studies. As shown in the image below, a main pathway for students involves getting work experience or participating in an internship or placement. Following this, students and other individuals may also volunteer, which increases experience and makes for a more attractive applicant. An increasingly popular means of getting a job also is through online sources such as Seek and Gumtree or agencies like NDIA or Hays. Additionally, another means of entering the workforce involves utilising your personal network. This may be through word-of-mouth recommendations, family contacts or using sources such as LinkedIn.

Within all the transition points discussed above arises numerous challenges for individuals. These challenges usually start from a young age and are heightened when looking at children with disabilities. The barriers faced can be broken into the following categories (Yakobi, 2013):

· Attitudinal: behaviours, perceptions, and assumptions that discriminate against individuals with disabilities

· Organisational: policies or procedures that prevent individuals from participating in a situation

· Physical: elements of buildings or spaces that create barriers to people with disabilities

· Communications: when sensory disabilities have not been considered

· Technology: when a technological platform is not accessible to its intended audience and cannot be used with an assistive device

Based on these categories, the particular problem that will be addressed in this report is attitudinal barriers. The negative set of beliefs about people with disabilities is a major issue and educating NDIS participants will help them gain employment in the future. Consequently, we are looking to focus on young children who have dyslexia by creating a digital application called Lexia that will enable further learning anywhere. These programs will be specifically curated with dyslexia in our mind and will promote the best educational experience for children and aid them to manage their disability. According to WISE Employment (2020), people with disabilities have actually shown to be more loyal employees offering higher retention and providing diversity within a workforce. However, even with statistics showing otherwise most individuals with disabilities are still perceived as a difficult addition to companies instead of being viewed as an asset.

Due to this, teaching children ways to manage their disability from a young age ensures they are better prepared for all aspects of life in the future. Utilising our program along with ordinary school education will really aid in setting a strong foundation for children with dyslexia and help them understand what is required to work with their disability. This will also aid in preparing them to better understand their education and for future job prospects.

BUSINESS PLAN – 35%

• DESIRABILITY – ALEX & GANGUL & TOM
  • your business’s value proposition, target market, customer relationships and distribution channels

ALEX

VALUE PROPOSITION / MISSION STATEMENT

Lexia has a grand vision which we believe will change the lives of many children throughout Australia who struggle to get an education due to dyslexia.

Our mission is to:

“Enable future employment opportunities for kids with dyslexia”

The effect of a proper and full education can not be understated for a child’s life. Dyslexia is a major hindrance for a child who is trying to learn and develop their skills from a young age. It is extremely important to provide kids with the highest quality education while they are young, so that they have the highest amount of potential and opportunity regarding their future career. It was this understanding which sparked the development of Lexia, which aims to provide this quality education through learning avenues that are unaffected by dyslexia.

The overall value proposition of Lexia is designed to:

“Create a better educational foundation for young children with dyslexia, providing them with the abilities and skills to enter long term employment in a job that inspires them.”

TARGET MARKET

Lexia caters to the needs of kids aged 5 – 12 years old who struggle with dyslexia during the vital years of education. We believe that giving these kids the tools to learn and prepare for the future will aid them immensely when they come of age to enter the workforce, and our product will give them greater opportunities to enter a career of choice that is inspiring and enhances their quality of life.

The reason we are targeting this age group is in response to our research on educational influence on kids. It suggests that the most important years of learning for a child occur from ages 5 – 12, where their brain is at its greatest ability to learn, process, and develop new skills. In terms of increasing the work-force participation rate from those with a disability, we believe that influencing early childhood education is a fantastic way of achieving this, while also allowing them

TOM

Customer Relationships

There are three customer relationships that Lexia will need to ensure are maintained to ensure the success of the app and the effectiveness of the education provided. By having strong customer relationships, Lexia will be able to “retain more customers over time”, and enable the customer to receive a greater profitability from the app in terms of the educational aspects received (Goldenberg 2008, p.5).

The first relationship is between the customer and Lexia. As our target is parents whose children suffer from dyslexia, it is vital that we cater towards their child’s educational needs, ensuring that the content is relevant to their educational levels and that it is constantly updated to keep them challenged and motivated. A strong relationship with parent’s will ensure that their child is always learning and they feel like they are receiving value from the service.

Distribution channels – Gangul

As we mentioned previously, our project was to provide a better and sustainable life for children who feel with dyslexia issues in their early ages. Distribution channels can be divided into three main categories, Internet, television, and labor. Having a suitable Distribution channel network, it has to be an innovative network to distribute the resources. How everything gets prepared to distribute around people with the help of NDIS. social media and online trade would be the main way of distributing would be done. Online resources will be on our website, it is the main way of connecting people to support their issues. We have introduced an app for the kids with Dyslexia issues. It can be downloaded from Apple store, google play, Facebook and from our website. Second way of providing our services is by advertising on social media, we choose Facebook, Instagram, and twitter to distribute our services to the world instead of paper articles. We have introduced economical medical services at most of the clinics across the country for sustainable by our business project. There will be television programs which help children with dyslexia issues to maintain their health. Most of our labor force was doctors and teachers who retired from their services. Lots of physicians who provide their services would be students who learn medicine as their future currier. As this was our next plan for distribution technique, but also it was our target to develop this project more innovatively. This was requested from our project to give students who practice medicine for their university education a better learning.

FEASIBILITY

Alex / Tom/ Pav

ACTIVITIES

– Providing relevant and useful educational content on the platform which can be listened to rather than read, to enhance the learning quality for our consumers with Dyslexia.

– Personalise learning opportunities for individuals interacting with the platform

– Constantly review, monitor, and improve the content quality provided with the advice of a specialist team.

– Gather feedback in various forms to aid our improvement of the platform to enhance the end-users experience.

– Careful communication with key partners to provide the best learning opportunities

– Server maintenance – server speed

– Platform bugs etc

There are several key activities which Lexia must engage in to effectively operate this business. The most important priority for Lexia is to provide high quality content in auditory form which supports kids who struggle with dyslexia. Constant reviewing and updating of content provided on the platform is extremely important as we deliver our value proposition. As the severity and effect of various learning disabilities changes between individuals, personalised learning opportunities will be available for creation through the collaboration of a Lexia team member, and the parent or teacher of the child using the platform.

Lexia will succeed by maintaining a strong relationship with our consumers. Involvement of the parents and teachers of Lexia users will be crucial to the platforms on-going development. Therefore, various opportunities to provide feedback will be made easily accessible.

Internally, Lexia will hire a team of experienced educators who specialise in course / curriculum development, as well as special education teachers and more to create fantastic educational opportunities covering a wide range of topics that will enhance the future opportunities of the kids.

PARTNERS

– Primary and Secondary Schools

– Special Education Centres

– Course Curriculum devilment professionals

– The Australian Government / State Territories

– Disability Support Providers

As Lexia is providing educational content for dyslexic children, primary and secondary schools will need to be utilised to ensure the content fits with the student’s current curriculum and is relevant to their age and learning abilities.

Education professionals will also need to be included to ensure the material is suitable for the children, taking in their circumstances and tailoring the program specifically to them to enable the most efficient and effective learning.

Disability professionals who have a strong understanding of dyslexia will also need to be consulted to give recommendations on how best to present the curriculum to ensure any child is not hindered by their dyslexia when learning.

Support from the State and National Government will be required to help subsidise the costs for users to use the Lexia app if they need it to enable every child with dyslexia the opportunity to improve their learning and receive tailored educational content.

RESOURCES

– Software development / Web design team

– Server hosting to run the platform on

– Cloud computing technology for data storage

– Business Email

– Curriculum creators / Content research team

– Customer Service Department

–

VIABILITY (VALUE CHAIN) – SANA (300 including tables)

• Cost structure and revenue model
• Funding for phone app:
  • Monthly subscription fee for app
  • Subsidise fee through NDIS funding
  • Get schools to sponsor so they can use the app
  • Using funds from ‘Remarkable’

POTENTIAL OF THE MARKET – ALEX

The global Education Apps Market is likely to grow at a significant CAGR of 27.46% during the period 2018-2022. Emergence of cloud and SMART technologies for data procurement and storing options are most likely to propel the market growth during the forecast period. Subsequently, change of culture in education domain witnesses positive acceptance in users. Development of education apps for all age groups stimulates the market development for the forecast period.

“Now, users can access a huge amount of data via the internet, anytime and anywhere – transcending the barriers of time and space. Individuals are granted access to programs by different schools and institutions that enable them to earn online degrees and expand their skill set. The exponential increase in these stats indicates that the eLearning market size is currently growing at an unprecedented rate.

According to Orbis research, the global eLearning market worldwide is set to surpass USD 275 billion value by 2022. The market size was estimated over USD 165.21 billion in 2015 and is predicted to grow at over 7.5% CAGR during the 2015-22 period. The major factors promoting the eLearning market includes:

• Low cost
• Easy accessibility
• A shift towards flexible education solutions
• Increased effectiveness by animated learning
• Increased internet penetration: Statistics show that the number of internet users ranges around 3.2 billion, which makes 43 percent of the global population
• A surge in the number of smartphones: currently owned by 36 percent of the world’s population”

Given the fact that apps are used more than once during a day, usage for learning will be even higher. The worldwide mobile revenue generation during 2016 was a whopping USD 88.3 billion. Estimates are that in 2020, mobile apps will generate 188.9 billion US dollars in revenues via app stores downloads and in-app advertisements. Further increase in the usage of mobile apps for learning is projected, and this will become a significant part of the corporate training in the coming years. The flexibility of mobile app learning viz-a-viz personalization and connection with learners through notifications will continue to establish their value in the future.

Market trends show that the much-discussed mobile app revolution has just begun. New monetization models like sponsorships and crowdfunding will complement revenue generation, while the old popular models including direct sales, in-app ads, in-app purchases, and subscriptions will continue to generate higher and higher revenue in the foreseeable future.”

(Size of the education software/application market worldwide from 2018 to 2023)

Estimates suggest that this trend of strong growth will continue for years to come, reaching 8.3 billion dollars by 2023.

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN FOR THE VERY IMMEDIATE YEAR (TIMELINE) – ALEX / TOM

June 2020 – Recruit a professional team from relevant fields to plan, design and create the application

July – December 2020 – Pitch to schools, governments and other sectors before release to develop starting consumer base

January 2020 – Official Release / initial feedback gathering / consultation with relevant professionals to improve the product

Additionally:

(a) assumptions and reasons that underpin your recommendations,

(b) information and evidence to support your recommendations, and

(c) any other relevant details (further details could be provided in an appendix).

IMPLEMENTATION ARRANGEMENTS & IMPLICATIONS – 15%
PAV

Highlight the organizational and resource implications, including financial implications, and the risks associated with your recommendations.

Within the beginning stages of Lexia we will be focusing on implementing in two ways. Firstly, it will be available as a digital platform that can be downloaded by parents for their children or even personal use. This application will also be altered to be accessible by iOS and Android users. Secondly, primary schools will be given the opportunity to sponsor the program in order to receive access to the application for their students with dyslexia to utilise as well.

Developing an application comes with numerous implications within the stages of creating the application itself and also whilst implementing it. One of the biggest concerns revolves around the user interface needing to be simple and efficient. As Lexia is intended for children with dyslexia keeping the application user-friendly is key. By overcomplicating the manner in which the program operates may deter participants from using it as difficulty in comprehending the application itself may outweigh the benefits they may gain.

Additionally, As the application revolves around paid usage and sponsors from schools there are high financial risks involved in creating Lexia. As a subscription fee is required, participants may be discouraged to utilise the program and seek other free services available. There are also organisational risks to be considered as users that pay for an application would have higher expectations regarding its performance and benefits. One of these risks includes the level of security delivered by Lexia. As schools are able to sponsor the application and provide access to students it is highly important any information they provide is kept highly secured. Furthermore, the program needs to operate with minimal issues in terms of glitches or errors. This requires a strong database and excellent IT support to be available in order to provide the simplest software that children can use with ease.

It is also important to consider whether Lexia is a future proofed application. Developing an application involves more than ensuring the users have a great experience. It is crucial to generate a product that is able to provide profit for further advancements as if the application is not profitable there is a huge risk of failure. Ensuring the program is profitable also allows for the functionality of the application to be improved which will attract further participants of NDIS to use the program.

CONCLUSION – 5%

• SANA

Include a succinct summary that highlights the key takeaways.

REFERENCES

• Goldenberg, B.J., 2008, CRM in Real Time: Empowering Customer Relationships, Information Today Inc., ProQuest eBook Central
• Matanov, I., 2018, Top 10 Things To Consider When Developing A Mobile App, JetRuby, viewed 5th May 2020 <https://expertise.jetruby.com/top-10-things-to-consider-when-developing-a-mobile-app-97ab00e664bf>.

• WISE Employment 2020, Benefits Of Employing Someone With A Disability, viewed on 5th May 2020 <https://wiseemployment.com.au/employers/benefits-of-employing-someone-with-a-disability/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrLiY3ISc6QIVkHwrCh2MuwqQEAAYAiAAEgL4CvD_BwE>.

• Yakobi, H, 2013. Understanding Barriers To Accessibility.