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• Number of Words: 3000

 

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This assignment is designed to help you to practise and apply the various strategic tools and frameworks that you have studied during this module. The analysis of an organization’s strategy operates on three levels. First, you will conduct a PESTEL analysis to identify the impact of macro environmental factors on your chosen organization (business unit). Second, your analysis moves down to the industry level where you will apply the Five Forces Framework to identify the attractiveness of the industry where your organization operates. Third, you will apply some of the theories and concepts that you have studied to analyse your organization’s (business unit) strategy. You will then conduct scenario planning to investigate the impact of plausible events on your organisation and how these could be mitigated or avoided.

Task:

You are required:

To produce a detailed analysis of a business unit of a multinational or an organization active in global trade (governmental, commercial, professional services, or an NGO). You should focus on a specific country/market. Please do not select an organization which has been discussed in detail during lectures and seminars (i.e. where materials about the organization have been provided).

Steps:

1. Define your (chosen) industry (be sure to identify your specific industry segment within this broadly defined industry). Select an organization whose strategy you intend to analyse (see guidance note 1; Appendix A contains sources of data available in the Library and from other sources).
2. Conduct (i) a PESTEL analysis to identify the key drivers for change over the next 5-10 years, and (ii) a Five-Forces analysis of your chosen industry (see guidance note 2(a) and 2(b)). (iii) SWOT analysis
3. Assess your chosen firm’s current strategy and its ability to both create and capture value. You may draw on any frameworks you believe appropriate to the data you have identified (e.g. VRIN/VRIO, Value Chain Analysis, Strategy Canvass (Blue Ocean Strategy), Business Model Canvass, International Integration and Responsiveness Matrix, etc.). Do not try to use all these frameworks! (see guidance note 3 and Appendix A for sources of data)).
4. Use an impact – uncertainty matrix to identify two critical uncertainties and use these in turn to identify four future alternative scenarios (in a 2×2 diagram) (see guidance note 4, 4(a and b).
5. Answer the question: What strategic issues do these scenarios raise for your (chosen) company or organization? (see guidance note 5).

Guidance Notes

This assessment tests the following capabilities:

1. Your capacity to produce an analytically structured narrative of an organization. Your analysis can focus on an organization and industry in a single country (e.g. UK, China, Nigeria, India, etc).

2 (a) PESTEL analysis is about identifying the main macroenvironmental factors that are likely to impact on your chosen industry, and the strategies of firms operating in this industry (including the firm that you have chosen). You need to identify those key factors from the PESTEL analysis that are most likely to impact and shape industry conditions. It is a means of identifying the threats and opportunities that an organization faces now and in the future. A simple PESTEL analysis focuses on the main political threats (e.g. global instability) the main economic threats (e.g. Brexit), etc. Alongside this, you can identify the main opportunities that arises from the political (e.g. more UK government support for industry), economic (e.g. new markets in growth regions), social elements, etc of the analysis for your industry. It is likely to be the case that for each of the PESTEL elements, there will be 1 or 2 elements that will have a major impact now and in the future. Try and develop an understanding of how these main macro-environmental factors are impacting on the industry and will do so over the next 5-10 years. Identify the main threats and the main opportunities for each of the PESTEL elements. Managers need to understand what is happening at the macro-level and how it will impact on their industry now and in the future.

2 (b) Five Forces Analysis. We are now moving down to the industry level. This is to give you an understanding of the changes that have been occurring in the industry. The Five Forces Framework is to help you to identify the attractiveness of the industry. How powerful are each of the forces? How should the company position itself to defend itself against the strong forces and exploit the weak competitive forces? For example, how can a company protect itself again low barriers to entry? The next step is to consider how the industry is likely to change over the next 5 years or so. You will need to ask yourself questions like: Will any changes in regulations affect entry barriers? Are new competitors likely to enter the industry? Is technology changing. Are there any changes in consumer trends and tastes? What impact might the economic environment have on buyer or supplier power? (You are not expected to answer all these questions. They are examples to trigger critical thinking as you conduct your analysis). This provides you with information on any potential changes in industry structure. Porter only refers to 5 forces. However, academics have identified other forces, specifically complementors (e.g. App suppliers) and network effects in platform industries.

3. We are now moving down to the level of the company. This is where you are required to conduct ‘an analytically structured narrative’ of an organization This requires researching the organization over the last decade, using publicly available sources. This will involve trying to reconstruct the strategy adopted by the organization over the last decade. This relies on the information and data available to you from: Business Data Platforms such as Statista and Mintel Marketing Intelligence; government data and statistics publications; international governmental organizations, industry sources, company accounts, and the internet archive sections of the business press.

Having produced a narrative, you must analyse the strategy of the organization using theories / concepts / viewpoints covered in the MBA Strategic Management module. This can range from using a single theory through to using a small range of concepts from the module (do not use too many). The concepts used will frame the type of narrative produced.

Your analysis should include a critical evaluation of the strategy (strategies) adopted by the organization under study. Use the academic literature to develop and support your analysis of the strategy. To what extent have they been successful? What might you have done differently? What can we learn from their implementation?

To produce a high-quality strategic analysis of an organization’s strategy and to ensure maximum marks, it is important that you argue your choices, backing these up with clear data from authoritative sources. We would like to see evidence of research on the subject going beyond “what you simply know.” A high-quality analysis should include an excellent application of the academic literature to analyse and critique the strategy.

4. Scenario planning will help you use the insights gained about the current context and strategies of the organization to plan for alternative contingencies. Note, scenario planning is not forecasting: its role is not to predict what will happen in the future but to put in place strategies and resources to deal with multiple possibilities. Routinely, scenario planning is used to prepare at least for ‘the worst-case scenario’ – but more ambitious visionaries also plan for most promising opportunities. In this exercise, you are expected to use two 2×2 matrices:

(a) the two axes of the first matrix are low to high uncertainty and, respectively, low to high impact on the organization. Here you will place into the four quadrants the various factors that you anticipate may happen in the future and may also become important for the organization;

(b) two of the most critical uncertainties (i.e. highest uncertainty – highest impact factors) that you identified at (a) are then used as the axes of the second matrix to identify four scenarios of most interest to your organization (one scenario in each quadrant of your matrix).

5. In this section you are expected to briefly discuss each of the four scenarios identified at 4(b) above, describing those issues of strategic importance that each scenario is likely to create for the organization (if it becomes reality) – e.g. how they would affect the organization, and how the strategies may have to be adjusted in response).