M115LON Strategic Management - Coventry University
Assignment Brief
The purpose of assessment (assignments, examinations, debates, reports and other methods) is to assess your level of knowledge and understanding of a particular subject area. Additionally, it assesses amongst others things your cognitive skill sets.
This briefing document provides:
1. The details of the assessment for M115LON Strategic Management.
2. Advice and guidance for undertaking this assessment. This advice and guidance is the culmination of many years' experience of teaching and assessing at postgraduate level. As stated both here and in other documents (indicated within this document) it is in your best interest to actively engage with your studies and prepare for the assessment.
Learning Outcome 1: Critical analysis of the organisation's strategic direction, determining which theoretical models have valid applications in different environmental contexts and making practical use of mainstream strategy concepts to assess the organisation strategic direction.
Learning Outcome 2: Account for and critically evaluate the organisation's strategic decisions within the context of its external and internal environment, using SWOT/TOWS frameworks to support your
analysis.
Learning Outcome 3: Synthesise your understanding and knowledge of critical aspects of the organisation's strategy and the strategic process in your conclusions and recommendations.
Learning Outcome 4: Demonstrate an ability to independently research, present, analyse and critically evaluate relevant data and appropriate academic literature to support your analysis, conclusions and recommendations.
Learning Outcome 5: Demonstrate effective communications skills to enable a clear presentation of key findings, results and recommendations.
These include:
1. Clarity of written communication,including accurate spelling and grammar.
2. Consistency and appropriateness of writing style.
3. Appropriate use of standard Management Report template.
4. Correct and consistent use of the required Referencing System.
THE COMPANIES
You have to select one of the following companies to investigate and analyse for your assessment. Choose your company carefully. Your selection could be based upon areas of interest, the type of company that you might want to work for in the future and/or the course you are enrolled on. We suggest that you briefly review each of the organisations prior to making your final choice. The choice has to be yours alone and not your tutors.
Each company has a corporate website from which you can extract the company's Annual Report and Accounts, in addition to other reports (usually indicated under the ‘Investors' tag). We suggest that this is your starting point for your research.
The companies and their industries are
Name of Company Corporate Website Business Sector
1 Netflix - Entertainment
2 Choice Hotles - Hospitality
3 Puma - Fashion
4 Unilever - Manufacturing
5 Tesla - Automobile
6 Barclays - Finance
7 Alibaba Group - E-commerce
8 Eni Energy
COURSE WORK BRIEF
For the Strategy Report, you are required to carry out a critical analysis of the Business Environment of the organization you've selected as case study as well as evaluate the strategies implemented by the organization.
Please note that we want you to have the mind-set that you are submitting this Management Report to the Board of Directors for their consideration and understanding. Therefore it must be professional both in content (depth of research and analysis) and presentation (layout and writing style).
This assessment will entail engaging with the business models and frameworks typically employed to undertake an environmental audit and effectively evaluate strategic options available to organizations in terms of appropriateness, feasibility and sustainability. When presenting the frameworks do not simply re- create the diagrams. Your role is to apply the frameworks. It is perfectly acceptable to use a series of subheading to delineate the points that you wish to make.
Structure of the Strategy Report
• Anonymous cover sheet: This must contain the module title and code, assignment title, your ID number, name of your specific seminar tutor, submission date and word count
• Executive summary: This should present a ‘snapshot' of the report - What did you find out? What conclusions have you drawn? [This will help you to start formulating the Executive Summary for your Summative.]
• Introduction: An introduction to the company's operations - in other words ‘setting the scene'. This to include an overview of the organisation's operations, their proposed strategy, its financial situation, general state of the sector/industry (for example, is it in growth or decline) and its key competitors. It is expected that elsewhere in the report you will apply the models/concepts and frameworks to the organisation. This approach should underpin your knowledge and understanding of the organisation and the environment in which it operates.
• An analysis of the organisation's external business environment - macro factors (PESTEL framework).
• An analysis of the sector/industry through Porter's Five Forces model.
• Analysis of the organisation's strategic position in its industry- by using relevant business KPIs in comparing the performance of the organization with that of its main competitors
• An analysis of the organisation's internal business environment - specifically the capabilities of the organisation. This will include the use of the VRIO framework.
• Analysis of the organisation's strategic direction: This needs to be undertaken with a clear identification of the methods by which the organisation's strategies have been pursued. You must use Ansoff and either BCG orGE/McKinsey.
• Formulation and critical evaluation of strategic measures for the organisation based on an assessment of the organisation's internal and external business environment using the appropriate frameworks - SWOT/TOWS
• Critical evaluation of the strategic measures formulated: This is in terms of its suitability, acceptability and feasibility (SAF Framework).
• Conclusions: Whatconclusions have youdrawn from analysing thisorganisation?
• Recommendations: These are what you have derived from examining the organisation. These should link back to the material that you have critically reviewed within the previous sections. There must be a clear rationale for the recommendations. Read your recommendations carefully and ask yourself the following questions:
• Are your recommendations rational?
• What evidence can you provide in support of these recommendations?
• How would the various stakeholders react? How would you react if you were a shareholder?
• Is it logical that the company would orneed to take these specific actions?
• Do they make sense?
• Wouldyou be prepared to discuss them at a Board meeting?
• References: These must be in the APA Referencing Format. There must be appropriate in-text citations throughout your submission. [NOTE: You must seek out credible and validated sources of information for your assignments - Please refer to comments elsewhere in this document and other guides on the M115LON aula pages.] The references (both in-text and within the reference list) are not included within the overall word count.
• Appendices: If required and no more than four pages. If there are more than the stipulated four pages those additional pages will not be read.
Conducting and applying research is crucial to this module. Additionally there is a mark awarded for the level of research demonstrated. You will be expected to read and apply information (as an absolute minimum) from the core text, the company's most recent Annual Reports & Accounts, two news items (from reliable sources) and four journal articles.
Presentation of Strategy Report
The Management Report must be professionally presented and appropriately referenced. As stated above we want you to develop the mind-set that this is for the Board of Directors of your chosen company. Even though you are submitting this electronically we want you to follow the format stated below.
Assignments must be presented in the following format:
• Word-processed in Arial font, 12 pitch and double-spaced.
• Margins must be as follows: Top; 1.0 inch (2.5cm), Bottom; 1.0 inch (2.5 cm), Left; 1.25 inches (3.2 cm), Right; 1.25 inches (3.2cm).
• All pages must be numbered in the topright-hand corner.
• Use only a plain white background - no coloured/designed backgrounds (including company logos) as this impedes readability.
Please also remember that a report can be enhanced or damaged through layout, for example placing all tables and diagrams in Appendices can hamper the flow of discussion (see later comments on the use of tables). Decisions therefore need to be made about the most appropriate place to use tables [please see various notes on what should not be in a tabular format] and so on to support your case.
Attachment:- Strategic Management.rar