The Enterprise Challenge Judging Criteria

Plans will be judged on the basis of potential success as a new business enterprise. The judges will evaluate the written plan on the following criteria:

Business Plan:

• Executive Summary: Clear, exciting, and effective as a stand-alone overview of the plan.
• Company Overview: Presents a vision, history, genesis of concept, current status, overall strategy, and objectives for the business.
• Products or Services: Describes the key features and benefits, pricing, current state of development, and proprietary position.
• Market and Marketing Strategy: Description of market, competitive analysis, needs identification, market acceptance, unique capabilities, and sales and promotion.
• Management: Backgrounds of key individuals, ability to execute strategy, personnel needs, organizational structure, and role of any non-student executive.
• Operations: Plan for production, delivery of product or services, cost, margins, operating complexity, and resources required.
• Financials: Presented in summary form, easy to read and understand, consistent with plan, and effective in capturing financial performance; detailed for first two years, quarterly/annually for years three to five. (cash flow statement, income statement, balance sheet, funds required/uses, and assumptions/ trends/comparatives).
• Offering: Proposal/terms to investors; indicates how much needed, the ROI, the structure of the deal, and possible exit strategies.
• Company Viability: Market opportunity, distinctive competence, management capability, financial understanding, sustainability, growth and investment potential.
• Brevity and Clarity: Is the plan twenty (20) pages, plus appendices, with minimal redundancy.

Oral Presentation:

Clear concise presentation of:

• Problem definition and opportunity
• Solution overview
• Business model
• Market and sales strategy
• Operations
• Management
• Financial outlook

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