Strategy Making (BUS9048M) Assignment Help

Description of Assessment Task and Purpose:

The purpose of this assessment is to assess your ability to critically evaluate and apply strategy concepts and theory to a selected organisation and to demonstrate knowledge of business strategy.

Put yourself in the shoes of a consultant to the board of directors, hired to identify and tackle a strategic problem or address an opportunity to improve the performance of the organisation selected. The board of directors consists of the representatives of the main shareholders, executive directors and independent directors who are industry experts and university professors.

You will be asked to select a company from the list of companies suggested by the teaching team (the list and some resources related can be found on Blackboard).

Situational Analysis

Based on the information received during the lectures and the experience of solving case studies maturated during the seminars, you are asked to conduct a comprehensive situational analysis of the organisation’s internal capabilities and external competitive environment.

You will use advanced concepts, frameworks, and tools of strategy to evaluate the organisation’s resources, core competencies, value chain, industry dynamics,competitive positioning, and market trends.

In this part, you should tackle the following issues:

1. Introduction: Provide a brief overview of the organisation and introduce the purpose of the presentation.
2. Analyse the organisation’s current strategy and business model using tools such as the strategy diamond or the business model canvas.
3. Assess the external factors influencing the business, such as industry trends,market dynamics, customer behaviour, and competitors. Use relevant frameworks and tools, such as PESTEL analysis, Porter's Five Forces,strategic group analysis, or industry life cycle analysis, to evaluate the external environment. You should use at least two tools to analyse the external environment.
4. Analyse the internal capabilities of the organisation, including its resources,core competencies, and value chain. Use appropriate frameworks like the VRIO analysis or the value chain analysis to evaluate the organisation's internal strengths and weaknesses and identify key factors of success.
5. Analyse and identify future trends using tools such as scenario planning or horizon scanning.
6. Perform a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis based on the insights gained from the external and internal environment, and future trends analysis.
7. Review the strategic purpose of the organisation using tools such as the BHAG criteria.
8. Based on the analysis conducted, identify at least two strategic issues
9. Explain the significance and potential impact of the identified strategic issues on the business's current and future performance.

Strategic choice and strategy implementation

Based on the analysis in Part 1, you will select a specific strategic issue among those identified and develop a strategy for the organisation to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. You will appraise, investigate, and recommend strategies aligned with the organisation’s mission, vision, and values. Then, you will formulate a comprehensive strategy that addresses the chosen strategic issue and opportunities for growth and success and helps to develop a lasting competitive advantage. Additionally, you will discuss strategy implementation or execution outlining the steps, resources and actions required for a successful strategy execution and suggest ways to monitor and evaluation the success of the chosen strategy. Finally, you will proffer recommendations for organisational growth and ethically sound sustainable strategicroute.

In this part, you should include the following sections:

1. Strategic issue:What is the strategic issue that you selected? Why the issue is important? What is the impact of the strategic issue on the long-term performance of the firm?
2. Strategic choice:What are the strategic alternative available? What is the strategy that you suggest? Why you think that this strategy is the most appropriate? How the suggested strategy allows the organisation to seize opportunities for growth and success and helps to develop a competitive advantage?
3. Strategy execution and implementation:What is the business model or value proposition to customers? Where is the organisation going to compete? How will the organisation win against our key competitors? What capabilities are needed to achieve success? How the strategy will be implemented? What organisational systems and processes are required to achieve success? How to ensure that the employees are committed to execute the new strategy?
4. Strategy monitoring:How the strategy performance will be measured?
5. Recommendations:What are the key recommendations for organisational growth and ethically sound sustainable strategic route?
6. Personal Reflection and Conclusion: Critically reflect on the implications for you as a leader and trategist. What have you learned from the assignment, lectures, and seminars? How you will you use the learning gained in the future to be a better leader and strategist?

The strategic report will also provide a comprehensive set of recommendations and action plans, with supporting reasoning and evidence.

You should use academic literature and relevant evidence to justify your choices and recommendations and support the reasoning and evidence of the analysis you performed to “sell” your approach to board members and the senior management of the organisation.

Besides, by engaging with literature, you will provide contextualisation and critical evaluation of the strategic analysis and the suggested strategic recommendations:

1. Explain your approach by drawing on relevant literature.
2. Critically evaluate how the strategic alternatives you suggested address the issues identified considering the context of your selected organisation.
3. Critically review the factors that you need to consider when implementing your recommended strategy effectively.
4. Support the recommendations that you suggest to the board of directors.
5. Support your reflection regarding the learning gained and the implications of your learning.

Learning Outcomes Assessed:

LO1 - Identify, evaluate and demonstrate knowledge of the context in which a strategy can be formulated and implemented.

LO2 - Analyse different theoretical approaches, techniques, tools and models used in understanding strategy making

LO3 - Review an organisational strategy and the internal and external contexts of the organisation by using relevant models and tools to enable the achievement of competitive advantage for the organisation.

LO4 - Apply strategy models and tools to proffer recommendations for organisational growth and ethically sound sustainable strategic route.

Knowledge & Skills Assessed:

1. Analysis and critical evaluation e.g., critical thinking, analytical, strategic argument skills and professional presentation
2. Subject Specific Knowledge, Skills and Understanding: e.g., Literature searching, referencing, project planning, techniques and subject-specific knowledge and skills.
3. Professional Graduate Skills: e.g., independence and personal responsibility, adaptability, verbal communication, written communication, creativity, critical thinking, IT skills, self-reflection and life-long learning, problem solving, group or team skills, effective time management, working under pressure to meet deadlines, negotiation skills, leadership.
4. Emotional Intelligence: e.g., self-awareness, self-management, awareness of others, managing and supporting others, motivation, resilience, self-confidence.
5. Career-focused Skills: An understanding of the range of graduate careers, skills and attributes required by employers, a range of strategies to present skills and attributes to employers.

Assessment Submission Instructions:

You are required to submit your assessment before 12 noon on Tuesday 9th July 2024 using the online Turnitin assessment submission facility on the Module Blackboard site. Pay careful attention to instructions provided at the time of submission.

Late submission, where an extension has not already been granted, will attract penalties at the level stipulated in the University Regulations (i.e., a reduction of 10 percentage points for each whole or partial working day late).

Date for Return of Feedback:

Grades and feedback will be available within 15 working days.

Format for Assessment:

The Individual final report will need to be submitted as one document using Microsoft Word. As a student of the University of Lincoln, you will have access to Microsoft 365. The final report is limited to 3,500 words. The word count includes everything in the main body of the text (excluding headings, tables, citations, quotes etc). It does not include your appendix or reference list.

The word count should be clearly stated on the first page of the assignment.

Please follow these formatting guidelines:

1. Font / Size: Arial / 12
2. Spacing / Sides: 1.5 / Single Sided
3. Page numbers required? Yes
4. Margins: At least 2.54 to left and right and text ‘justified’
5. Referencing: Full compliance with Harvard protocols

If you submit an assignment which exceeds the prescribed word limit, marking will cease at the point at which the limit has been exceeded and the mark will be awarded on the basis of the extent to which the criteria for assessment have been met up to that point.

Marking Criteria for Assessment:

Please see Assessment Criteria below.

Please note that all work is assessed according to the University of Lincoln Management of Assessment Policy and that marks awarded are provisional on Examination Board decisions (which take place at the end of the Academic Year).

Feedback Format:

You will have two assessment support sessions in Week 39 and 41 and you can receive non written formative feedback from your seminar tutor. Grades and written feedback will be available electronically on Blackboard. If you have any specific questions relating to the feedback comments, please email the module leader to discuss.

Additional Information for Completion of Assessment:

1. You should use the 3rd person to write the strategic report.
2. Ensure all sources referenced in your assessment are correctly listed according to the Harvard System of referencing.
3. Include only sources that you have cited in the work.
4. It is very important to use appropriate academic books/e-books and journals/e-journals as the basis for your research.
5. Whilst you may use the internet, take great care to ensure that the sites are valid and appropriate for academic purposes – sites such as Wikipedia, Businessballs.com, MindTools.com etc. are inappropriate for academic research.