61A00200 - (P05) Business Communication Skills, Lecture, 13.1.2022-17.2.2022

1. Upload your pair's A1 first version to the A1 Discussion forum that corresponds to your pair number (below this submission box in MC) by 9.00 am on January 20. Please note that this needs to be what you would consider a final version; this way, you'll be able to get useful feedback on the assignment.
   
2. Give feedback (individually) on another pair's A1 according to the instructions you can find in the Discussion forum, and upload your feedback to the same discussion forum by 8.00 pm on January 20. Please note that the quality of your feedback will be evaluated, and the weight of the feedback is 5% of the final course grade.
   
3. Write a final version (with your own pair) based on the peer feedback from others. Upload the final version to this submission box by 9.00 am on January 27.
   

Learning outcomes

• analyze an audience and define objectives to create a targeted business message
• write a coherent and convincing, reader-friendly business message (request)
• critically assess others' business messages

You are an active member of Aalto Management Consulting Association (AMCA). Together with some other active students, you have decided to organize a case competition next semester that is open for all Aalto University School of Business students. You have already identified 10 teams of four students that would like to participate.

The reason for the competition is to help you and others to apply the knowledge you have learnt at university and develop the skills needed in working life, e.g. analytical, presentation and team-working skills.

For the case competition, you need to find a case company. During the case competition day, you would want the company to present a real-life problem that they are facing at the moment. After the company and case problem introduction, participating teams would first have 3 hours to develop possible solutions to the problem and then 15 minutes to present their solutions to the judges. At the end of the day, two teams would be selected as the winning teams (one from each parallel session, see below).

You would like to get the case company to commit to providing the following:

• real-life problem that the company is facing and would like to get ideas for
  
• one person to present the problem during the case competition day in a 1-hour session that would include a Q&A during which competitors could ask further questions
• 3+3 employees to act as judges during the presentations that would be held in two parallel sessions. Each presentation would be 15 minutes + 10 minutes for Q&A.
• light lunch and afternoon coffee for the 40 participants
• some kind of a prize for the two winning teams

Task:

Your task is to write an email to a real company of your choice to ask them to be the case company for the competition.

In class, we discussed the fact that before writing the email, you need to think carefully about:

1. Reader benefits. Why would the company want to be the case company? What's in it for them?
2. Arguments. What kinds of arguments would help you to get the response you want?
3. Information needs. What kind of background information would the recipient need?

In addition to the exercise we did in the first class session, thoroughly analyze the situation with your pair by using the ideas discussed in input 1 (communicating strategically) and input 2 (persuasive techniques). After that, write the email request.

Please check the evaluation rubric available in this submission box before starting to work on the assignment and again before you submit.