MBA Capstone Project Report Template

Capstone report: research question, literature, method, survey CI and chi-square, NPV analysis, recommendations, limits, reflection, rubric

MBA・ビジネススクールフルBusiness research reporting; Kolb (1984), Schön (1983) reflectioncapstone project report math更新 2026/10/28

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使い方: Use it for an MBA capstone, integrative or final strategic project. Fill the research question and sub-question table first and get the supervisor's approval before collecting data. The main pitfall is analysing each discipline in a separate silo instead of integrating them to answer one question.

プレビュー

Capstone Project Report: [Project title]

Report for an MBA capstone or integrative project: a substantial piece of work near the end of the programme that applies several core disciplines (strategy, finance, marketing, operations, leadership, analytics) to one real or realistic business question. It covers the research question, literature and frameworks, method, analysis, recommendations, limitations and a personal reflection, and closes with a grading rubric you can use to self-assess. Source basis: standard business research method (research question, design, evidence, analysis, conclusion), experiential and reflective learning (Kolb 1984, Schön 1983) and core-course techniques, all in original words. Your programme's capstone handbook sets the format, length, ethics review and grading; it always takes precedence. Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked Example. This is a report format, not financial or investment advice.

Document control

Field	Value
Document ID	[CAP-001]
Project title	[Should Corvane Robotics offer robots-as-a-service to mid-market warehouses?] (Example)
Capstone type	[Client project / New venture plan / Research paper / Integrative course]
Organisation studied	[Corvane Robotics] (Example, fictional)
Author(s)	[@student-1], [@student-2]
Supervisor	[Name]
Second reader	[Name]
Programme and course	[Programme, course code, term]
Word limit	[N words excluding appendices]
Ethics approval	[Reference number or "not required" per programme rules]
Version	[1.0]
Status	[Proposal / Draft / Submitted / Graded]
Last updated	YYYY-MM-DD
Classification	[Confidential to supervisor and examiners / Public]

Approvals

Role	Name	Decision	Date
Supervisor	[Name]	[Proposal approved]	YYYY-MM-DD
Organisation sponsor (client capstones)	[Name]	[Data use and publication approved]	YYYY-MM-DD
Author	[@student-1]	[Submitted]	YYYY-MM-DD

1. Abstract
2. Research question and objectives
3. Context
4. Literature and frameworks
5. Method
6. Analysis
7. Recommendations
8. Limitations and further work
9. Reflection
10. Grading rubric and self-assessment
11. Quality checklist and common mistakes
Sources and further reading
Revision history
Standard and licence note

1. Abstract

[Abstract: question, method, findings, recommendation, limitation.]

Example: Corvane Robotics sells autonomous mobile robots to large warehouses and is considering a subscription offer, robots-as-a-service (RaaS), to reach mid-market operators. This capstone asks whether, for whom and at what price RaaS creates more value than outright sale. It combines 14 interviews with warehouse operators, a survey of 120 warehouse managers and a per-robot cash flow model. 38.3% of surveyed managers preferred a subscription (95% confidence interval 29.6% to 47.0%), with a higher share among small operators (52.5% for firms under 50 employees). At the current list fee of USD 3,200 a month over 60 months, the present value of a RaaS robot to Corvane (USD 57,040) is slightly below that of a sale with a service contract (USD 60,382); the break-even fee is USD 3,273 a month. The report recommends a RaaS offer for small operators at USD 3,400 a month with a 60-month term, funded through a dedicated equipment facility, and a pilot of 50 robots. The main limitations are a convenience sample and untested assumptions about early termination.

2. Research question and objectives

Main research question. [Question.]

Example: Should Corvane Robotics offer a robots-as-a-service subscription to mid-market warehouses, and if so, to which customers and at what monthly fee?

ID	Sub-question	Discipline	Analysis	Section
SQ1 (Example)	How many mid-market operators prefer a subscription, and does preference differ by size?	Marketing, statistics	Survey proportions, confidence interval, test of association	6.1
SQ2 (Example)	Which fee makes RaaS at least as valuable to Corvane as a sale?	Corporate finance	Per-robot NPV, break-even fee, sensitivity	6.2
SQ3 (Example)	Is RaaS a defensible strategic move?	Strategy	Five forces, resources and capabilities	6.3
SQ4 (Example)	What does Corvane need to operate RaaS?	Operations, organisation	Capacity, funding and organisation requirements	6.4

Decision informed: the executive team's decision on the [year] product and pricing plan. Out of scope: international markets, a new robot model, the company's equity financing strategy.

3. Context

Example: Corvane Robotics is a venture-backed company that designs autonomous mobile robots for picking and transport in warehouses. It sells robots outright to large logistics operators at a list price of USD 120,000 per robot, with an optional annual service contract of USD 12,000 that 60% of customers buy. Unit production and installation cost is USD 70,000. Growth has slowed because large operators have already automated, while mid-market warehouses (under 250 employees) say the up-front price is too high. Competitors have started to offer subscription pricing, and Corvane's sales team reports losing deals to them. The executive team asked for an evidence-based recommendation before the next pricing review.

4. Literature and frameworks

Source	Contribution to this project
Porter (1979) on competitive forces	Structure of the mid-market robotics industry: buyer power, substitutes (manual labour, conveyors), rivalry from subscription competitors (section 6.3)
Barney (1991) on firm resources	Whether Corvane's fleet software and service network are resources that make a RaaS offer hard to imitate (section 6.3)
Capital budgeting (NPV and IRR)	Comparing sale and subscription on a common present-value basis (section 6.2, `mba/mba-npv-irr-card`)
Gupta, Lehmann and Stuart (2004) on valuing customers	Treating subscription customers as a stream of margins over a customer life (`mba/mba-customer-lifetime-value-card`)
Survey sampling and inference	Confidence intervals for proportions, test of association (`academic/stats-confidence-intervals`, `academic/stats-contingency-tables`)
[Industry reports, with date]	Market size and adoption of warehouse automation (cite publisher and date)

Write two or three paragraphs that connect the sources to the question. Example fragment (fictional): Subscription pricing changes who carries the asset risk. Under a sale, the customer bears utilisation and obsolescence risk; under RaaS, the provider does, and must price it. The finance literature gives the tool to compare the two (present value at a risk-appropriate rate), while the strategy literature asks whether the provider has the resources to carry that risk better than the customer.

5. Method

Element	Description
Design	[Qualitative / quantitative / mixed; why it fits the question]
Data sources	[Primary and secondary, with dates]
Sample and recruitment	[Who, how many, how chosen; response rate]
Analysis	[Techniques and tools]
Validity checks	[Triangulation, reconciliation, sensitivity]
Ethics	[Consent, anonymity, data storage; approval reference]

Example: A mixed-methods design. Fourteen semi-structured interviews with operations managers of mid-market warehouses (recruited through Corvane's lost-deal list and an industry association) identified purchase criteria and contract concerns, coded against an initial frame of cost, risk, flexibility and service. A 12-question online survey reached 120 warehouse managers through the same association's newsletter (a convenience sample). Corvane's finance team supplied cost and pricing data. The financial model compares, per robot, the present value of a sale with a service contract against a 60-month RaaS contract. Interview and survey participants gave informed consent; responses are anonymous; data are stored on the school's approved drive and deleted after grading, as approved under the programme's ethics process [reference].

6. Analysis

6.1 About four in ten mid-market managers prefer a subscription, more among small operators

Exhibit 1. Preference for subscription over purchase, survey of 120 managers (Example)

Firm size	Respondents	Prefer subscription	Share
Under 50 employees	40	21	52.5%
50 to 249 employees	52	18	34.6%
250 employees and over	28	7	25.0%
Total	120	46	38.3%

Confidence interval for the overall proportion, using the normal approximation:

\hat{p} \pm z_{0.975}\sqrt{\frac{\hat{p}(1-\hat{p})}{n}}

Symbol	Meaning	Example value
$\hat{p}$	Sample proportion preferring subscription	$46/120 = 0.3833$
$n$	Sample size	120
$z_{0.975}$	Standard normal quantile for a 95% interval	1.9600
Standard error	$\sqrt{\hat{p}(1-\hat{p})/n}$	0.0444

Result: 38.3% with a 95% interval of 29.6% to 47.0%. Excel: =46/120, =NORM.S.INV(0.975), =SQRT(B1*(1-B1)/120), lower bound =B1-B2*B3.

Does preference differ by size? A chi-square test of association on the 3 x 2 table gives $\chi^2 = 5.806$ with 2 degrees of freedom, $p = 0.055$ (smallest expected count 10.73, so the approximation is acceptable). Excel: =CHISQ.TEST(observed_range, expected_range), where each expected count is row total x column total / 120. The pattern is consistent with interviews (small operators lack capital budgets), but at the 5% level the survey alone does not establish a difference, so the recommendation treats the size effect as a hypothesis to confirm in the pilot. See academic/stats-contingency-tables and academic/stats-confidence-intervals.

6.2 RaaS at the current fee is worth slightly less than a sale; the break-even fee is USD 3,273 a month

Per-robot cash flows to Corvane (assumptions in section 6.5):

Sale: year 0 margin USD 50,000 (=120000-70000); expected service margin USD 2,880 a year for 5 years (=12000*60%*40%: contract price x attach rate x service margin).
RaaS: year 0 outlay USD 70,000 (Corvane builds and installs the robot and keeps it); monthly net fee USD 2,600 (=3200-600, fee minus service and support cost) for 60 months; residual value USD 15,000 at month 60.

Both are discounted at Corvane's 12% annual cost of capital. For monthly cash flows, the equivalent monthly rate is

r_m = (1 + r_a)^{1/12} - 1 = 1.12^{1/12} - 1 = 0.009489

and the RaaS value is

\text{NPV}_{\text{RaaS}} = -C_0 + (F - S)\,\frac{1-(1+r_m)^{-60}}{r_m} + \frac{V_{60}}{(1+r_m)^{60}}

Symbol	Meaning	Example value
$r_a$	Annual cost of capital	12%
$r_m$	Equivalent monthly rate	0.009489
$C_0$	Build and installation cost	USD 70,000
$F$	Monthly fee	USD 3,200
$S$	Monthly service and support cost	USD 600
$V_{60}$	Residual value at month 60	USD 15,000
Annuity factor	$\frac{1-(1+r_m)^{-60}}{r_m}$	45.5878

Exhibit 2. Per-robot value to Corvane, USD (Example)

Measure	Sale with service	RaaS at USD 3,200 a month	Excel
NPV at 12%	60,382	57,040	Sale `=NPV(12%, C2:G2)+B2`; RaaS `=NPV((1+12%)^(1/12)-1, C3:BJ3)+B3`
PV of residual value	n/a	8,511	`=15000/(1+B5)^60`
IRR	n/a (no outlay)	3.28% a month, 47.3% a year	`=IRR(B3:BJ3)`, annualised `=(1+B7)^12-1`
Simple payback	Immediate	27 months	`=ROUNDUP(70000/2600,0)`
Break-even monthly fee		3,273	Solve NPV RaaS = NPV sale: `=(60382+70000-8511)/45.5878+600`

Exhibit 3. RaaS NPV per robot by monthly fee, USD (Example)

Monthly fee	2,600	2,800	3,000	3,200	3,400	3,600
RaaS NPV	29,687	38,805	47,922	57,040	66,157	75,275
Sale NPV (for comparison)	60,382	60,382	60,382	60,382	60,382	60,382

Each USD 200 of monthly fee changes NPV by USD 9,118 (=200*45.5878).

The contract term matters as much as the fee. If a customer terminates at month 36 and Corvane recovers a robot worth USD 30,000, the RaaS NPV at USD 3,200 falls to USD 30,328, about half the sale value. Termination terms (minimum term, early-exit fee) are therefore part of the pricing decision, not a legal detail.

6.3 RaaS is defensible only if fleet software and service are hard to copy

Apply the five forces (Porter 1979) to the mid-market segment and the resource-based view (Barney 1991) to Corvane's capabilities. Summarise in a table:

Lens	Finding	Implication for RaaS
Buyer power (Example)	Many small buyers, but low switching cost before installation	Price competition at acquisition; lock-in after integration
Substitutes (Example)	Manual labour and fixed conveyors	RaaS must beat the cost per pick of labour, not only rival robots
Rivalry (Example)	Two competitors already offer subscriptions	Being late means matching, not leading, on price
Resources (Example)	Fleet-management software with uptime data from large customers; national service network	Valuable and rare; imitable over time; a source of advantage only if the service organisation scales

6.4 Operating RaaS needs capital, a service model and new skills

Requirement	Detail	Example estimate
Capital	Corvane funds each robot up front	50-robot pilot: USD 3.5m (`=50*70000`)
Funding	Equipment financing secured on the contracts, or a partner lessor	Term sheet from two lenders
Service	Uptime commitment and remote monitoring	Service cost USD 600 a month per robot in the model
Organisation	Contract management, credit checks, collections	Two hires in finance operations
Metrics	Utilisation, churn, cost to serve per robot	Monthly dashboard

6.5 Assumptions and sensitivity

ID	Assumption	Value	Source	Effect if wrong
A-01 (Example)	Cost of capital	12% a year	Corvane finance	Higher rate lowers RaaS NPV more than sale NPV
A-02 (Example)	Service contract attach rate and margin (sale)	60%, 40%	Corvane finance	Small effect: service margin is USD 2,880 a year
A-03 (Example)	Monthly service cost (RaaS)	USD 600	Corvane service team	USD 100 more lowers NPV by USD 4,559 (`=100*45.5878`)
A-04 (Example)	Residual value at month 60	USD 15,000	Refurbishment estimate	PV effect USD 0.57 per USD 1 of residual
A-05 (Example)	Contract runs the full 60 months	60 months	Assumption	Exit at 36 months cuts NPV to USD 30,328

7. Recommendations

Answer. Yes, but selectively: offer RaaS to small operators (under 50 employees), at a fee above the break-even, with protections against early exit, and start with a pilot.

ID	Recommendation	Evidence	Owner	Success measure
REC-1 (Example)	Launch RaaS for operators under 50 employees at USD 3,400 a month, 60-month term	Exhibits 1 to 3: highest stated preference; NPV USD 66,157, USD 5,775 above a sale	Chief commercial officer	50 robots contracted in 12 months
REC-2 (Example)	Include a minimum term of 36 months and an early-exit fee sized to the lost present value	Section 6.2 termination case	General counsel with CFO	No early exits below break-even value
REC-3 (Example)	Fund the pilot fleet (USD 3.5m) through an equipment facility secured on the contracts	Section 6.4	CFO	Facility signed before the first deployment
REC-4 (Example)	Confirm the size effect and price response in the pilot before extending RaaS to larger operators	Section 6.1: $p = 0.055$	Head of strategy	Pilot conversion by size band

Implementation, first 90 days: price and contract design, lender term sheets, sales training for the small-operator segment, and a pilot dashboard (utilisation, churn, cost to serve).

8. Limitations and further work

Sample. The survey is a convenience sample from one association's newsletter; it may over-represent operators interested in automation. Further work: a random sample from a commercial database (academic/stats-sampling-plan).
Stated preference. Survey answers about future purchases overstate behaviour. The pilot measures actual uptake.
Single cost of capital. RaaS shifts utilisation risk to Corvane, which arguably warrants a higher discount rate for RaaS cash flows than for sale margins; a 12% rate for both may flatter RaaS.
Termination and credit risk. Modelled only as one scenario. Further work: a probability-weighted model of churn and default.
Competitor response. Not modelled; rivals may cut fees.

9. Reflection

Prompt	Response
The decision in this project I would make differently	[Specific moment, what I did, what I would do]
Where two disciplines conflicted, and how I resolved it	[Example: marketing preference versus finance value]
A belief I held at the start that the evidence changed	[Belief, evidence, new view]
What I learned about working with a sponsor or team	[Specific behaviour]
A skill gap I will close next, and how	[Plan with date]

Example fragment (fictional): I started convinced RaaS was the answer because every interviewee complained about up-front cost. The NPV comparison showed the current fee did not compensate Corvane for carrying the robot, and the chi-square result reminded me that a clear pattern in a small sample is still a hypothesis. I now frame recommendations as pilots with explicit tests.

Keep longer notes in mba/mba-learning-journal.

10. Grading rubric and self-assessment

Criterion	Weight	Excellent (4)	Good (3)	Adequate (2)	Weak (1)	Self	Peer
Research question and scope	10%	Decision-focused, answerable, scoped	Clear, slightly broad	Topic rather than question	Unclear	[ ]	[ ]
Use of literature and frameworks	10%	Primary sources, each applied to the question	Relevant sources, partly applied	Listed, not applied	Missing or misused	[ ]	[ ]
Method and evidence	20%	Design fits the question; sample and limits stated; reproducible	Sound, some gaps	Weak sample or undocumented steps	No method	[ ]	[ ]
Analysis and integration	25%	Correct calculations, sensitivity, three or more disciplines integrated	Correct, limited integration	Errors or one discipline only	Descriptive only	[ ]	[ ]
Recommendations and implementation	15%	Direct answer, owners, costs, tests, risks	Clear answer, partial plan	Vague	None	[ ]	[ ]
Reflection	10%	Specific, honest, linked to competencies	Specific	Generic	Missing	[ ]	[ ]
Communication	10%	Answer-first, insight headlines, clean exhibits	Clear	Hard to follow	Poor	[ ]	[ ]
Total	100%					[ ]	[ ]

Weighted score: =SUMPRODUCT(weights, scores) on the 1 to 4 scale; for example scores of 3 on every criterion give 3.0.

11. Quality checklist and common mistakes

Checklist

Common mistakes

A topic, not a question. "Subscription models in robotics" cannot be concluded.
Literature as decoration. Frameworks named in section 4 and never used in section 6.
Disciplines in silos. A marketing chapter and a finance chapter that never meet.
Comparing undiscounted totals. Five years of fees against one sale price ignores the time value of money.
Mixing monthly and annual rates. Discounting monthly cash flows at 12% a period destroys the result.
Treating a non-significant pattern as proven. Report the test and treat it as a hypothesis.
No sensitivity. A single-point NPV hides the assumption that drives the decision.
Recommendations without owners or costs.
Generic reflection. "I learned teamwork is important" earns little; specific decisions earn marks.
Over the word limit. Many programmes penalise or stop reading.

Sources and further reading

Porter, M. E. (1979). How competitive forces shape strategy. Harvard Business Review, 57(2), 137-145.
Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99-120.
Gupta, S., Lehmann, D. R., and Stuart, J. A. (2004). Valuing customers. Journal of Marketing Research, 41(1), 7-18.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice Hall.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books.
Further reading (textbooks, named only): Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students; Yin, Case Study Research and Applications; Berk and DeMarzo, Corporate Finance.
Open resource: OpenStax, Introductory Statistics 2e (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), chapters on confidence intervals and the chi-square distribution.
Your programme's capstone handbook, ethics policy and academic integrity policy.

Revision history

Version	Date	Author	Change
0.1	YYYY-MM-DD	[@student-1]	Proposal: question, method, ethics
0.5	YYYY-MM-DD	[@student-1]	Survey and model results
0.9	YYYY-MM-DD	[@student-1]	Draft to supervisor
1.0	YYYY-MM-DD	[@student-1]	Submitted

Standard and licence note

Structure aligned with standard business research reporting (question, literature, method, analysis, conclusion), reflective and experiential learning (Kolb, Schön) and core MBA techniques (survey inference, net present value, five forces, resource-based view), which are general methods described here in original wording. This template is not affiliated with or endorsed by any business school, and your programme's capstone handbook takes precedence. Corvane Robotics, the survey and all figures are fictional and were computed for this example. This template is original text written for this collection. It is not financial or investment advice. Template licence: MIT.