Assignment brief: strategic management case study

The following list of questions will assist you in identifying and describing case situations and problems in your report. The list is not exhaustive and is provided to help you begin a systematic search of the organisation case.

1.    What is factual information about this organisation, its people, its position and its operating environment?

2.    What assumptions are contained in the information you have, and how much of it can you rely on, and to what extent?

3.    What inferences can you make from the information you have and how can you justify these?

4.    What are the major and minor strategic issues in the case?

5.    What strategic theories or methods of analysis can be applied to these issues?

6.    How do environmental factors influence this situation?

7.    What information is missing?

8.    Are technological factors important?

9.    Are market factors important?

10. Are individual behaviour factors an issue?

11. Are group behaviour factors an issue?

12. Who or what appears to be most responsible for the situation experienced by the organisation and for driving change?

13. What are the limitations to strategic change

14. Are the principals in the case assuming responsibility for strategic management?

15. What are the major strategic strengths? Weaknesses?

16. What skills do the case principals exhibit? What is needed?

17. Can short- and long-range recommendations be made in relation to the strategic issues?

These are not headings and do not imply a structure for your report – you must decide on that yourself, but they are important issues – to some extent the issues you may need to consider in order to do a thorough analysis.

3BM020 Organisational Strategy & Decision Making

Guidance on the assessed report

Guidance on structure: this is not a prescriptive guide but is meant to offer some guidance towards the structuring of the report.

Title page: The title page should include the following information: title of the report, author’s name (for this report use your student number), date.

Contents page: the contents page lists the main sections, sub-sections (if any are contained in the report), and appendices, indicating their page numbers. Most word processing packages now offer a facility that enables a contents page to be constructed automatically.

             

Abstract (or summary): the purpose of the abstract is to provide a brief outline of the main themes or issues contained in the report, so that the reader can gain an appreciation of the whole report content without having to read the full report. As such, this should be written after the report has been completed and should not just act as another introduction to the work.

The abstract should contain an overview of the following:

Ø  The purpose and scope of the report

Ø  What has been done and how

Ø  The main findings

Ø  Conclusions

Ø  Recommendations

All of the above not included in the word count

Introduction: (15% of the total word count = 375 words) should include sufficient background information to enable the reader to understand the context of the report, in this case the background to the sector/market in which your chosen organisation is operating and background to the actual organisation in question. For example you may perhaps want to offer some history behind the organisation, its size, the nature and scope of its business, its customers, sector/market data to indicate the nature of the environment in which the organisation operates etc. you have to be selective as it is impossible to include and cover everything.

           

Main body: (15% of the total word count = 375 words) application in relation to the relevant and significant academic concepts and models relating to strategy, again you have to be selective, but for example you might want to consider the following and use them in direct application to the organisation in question:

Ø  Internal audit – Strengths & Weaknesses

Ø  External audit – Opportunities & Threats

Ø  PESTLE

Ø  Porters Five Forces

Discussion: (25% of the total word count = 625 words) in this section you should consider how does the content of the environmental analysis inform the strategic position and strategy of the organisation

·         Bring the audit  areas of environmental analysis together in order to discuss and critically analyse the context and strategic options, etc, use academic concepts and referencing to support your discussion, for example:

·         Porters Generic strategies

·         VRIO/VRIN frameworks

·         Strategic capabilities i.e. Core capabilities/threshold capabilities

·         The strategy clock etc

Evaluation: (25% of the total word count = 625 words)

·         Where is the organisation going in terms of Strategic direction etc? What is informing this from the discussion? The relationship between the practical issues identified in the discussion and the academic concepts

·         Consider any detailed supporting material - relationship back to relevant concepts, models or academic references to support this?

·         Again you have to be selective as it is impossible to include and cover everything.

Conclusions: (10% of the total word count = 250 words)

Ø  The material presented in the report should lead the reader logically to the conclusions

Ø  What are the main points? What can be taken from the evaluation?

Ø  Make sure that the conclusions are logical, concise and clear

Ø  Be concise, stick to the main points and avoid rambling or being longwinded

Ø  Be consistent with what has gone before in the main sections of the report, do not introduce any new material at this stage

Ø  Offer well considered conclusions, not superficial suggestions

Ø  The conclusions should be written after the main sections of the report are completed, they should be brief and should be ordered in a way that is in-line with the actual report

Recommendations: (10% of the total word count = 250 words)

Ø  From the evidence included in the report offer some recommendations

Ø  The recommendations you make should be taken from the main sections of the report  and the conclusions

Ø  Recommendations are the important and influential factors in affecting the future strategic actions and decision making of the organisation you have chosen

Ø  Remember that the recommendation are advisory, it is not for to say how they will be specifically achieved in this report

Ø  Do not introduce any new material, new issues or arguments that have not been contained within the main sections of the report or in the conclusions

References: use the Harvard referencing system

Ø  The expectation is that you will have read widely and deeply in order to inform your report with academic content

Ø  It is important that you acknowledge other people’s work so that the reader can easily identify the item of work that is being referred to, for this report use the Harvard referencing system

Ø  It is very important that any sources you use are acknowledged and attributed correctly in order to avoid plagiarism