(2021SP1-MGMT-7080-01) Strategic Business Applications

Assignment 1: Environmental Scan and Competitive analysis

Part I of your Capstone Project - Strategic Plan - Environmental Scan and Competitive analysis

This is the first part of your strategic plan. This will be the ONLY part where you include data that you have researched (be sure to reference your facts when doing this paper).   Then, in Module 2 you will use this information to identify a strategy that you think the firm should follow (as opposed to one that they are following) and describe how they should implement your strategy (not what they are currently doing). The strategy development and implementation will be the second assignment in the course. Thus strategy implementation will demonstrate YOUR ability to make decision about how best to manage firm's resources as opposed to your ability to conduct research.

Start by completing the team workflow plan with responsibilities assigned and due dates (template attached here for your use).

Each team should use secondary sources to identify the following:

• The first two steps in strategic planning are identifying the company mission and vision and usually that is followed by a PESTEL analysis so that you can identify the macro factors that provide for opportunities or threats to achieving the mission and vision.Assess the macro environment (specific to the industry not to the firm) or PESTEL analysis- please consider the global nature of the PESTEL when assessing a country different than the domestic country of your firm. - each separate pestel analysis should be based on a specific nation for that industry.
• based on the case study - what is the strategic problem facing competitors in that nation? Assess briefly performance challenges using specific for the industry key performance indicators (relevant metrics). Address the changes over time (trends) and relative to the industry averages (competitors). These findings should point out to possible strategic problem(s), disruption in the industry or an inflection point
• Next part of the group project will be the competitive analysis - create an analysis for as many competitors as you have team members.
   
  • Start with each company highlights: locations, annual profit, growth rates, no of employees, performance (as should be much more numbers-driven). and any relevant strengths and weaknesses for each competitor. All data should be references and the sources (such as Annual Reports, Industry Reports, etc.) should be included in the Appendices. 
  • Identify their mission and the vision of their current CEO, then identify their current objectives and goals (from the letter to investors is you are using a publicly traded company), and if your know their current structure and culture identify this as well (by using CVF) - note these are not what you are recommending but show a base line from which they will change to implement your identified strategies as part of your proposal.
  • Construct a SWOT analysis for each competitor, please include also ethical decision making as a resource for your organization and whether it is a strength or weakness of the firm.
  • VRIO analysis of the each competitors resources, include ethical decision making as a resource for your organization and how strong it is. Think about how the leadership's strategy has affected the performance of the organization. Include your analysis of their resources in the appendix, as background information to create the VRIO table (such as the firm's current financial strengths, the strengths of their human capital, etc).
• Present competitive mapping with very distinctive for the sector unique dimensions often related to swot and VRIO as the basis for competencies and .strategic competitive advantage.

• Apply Porter's five forces to the industry with supporting data to assess the forces
• Apply Porter's Diamond Model to their geographic market with supporting data to assess the factors and to provide evidence for strategic comparative advantage of the country of  origin. Each country would have its own diamond model similar to each country having its own pestel analysis.

Submit a single environmental scan and competitive analysis for the team project.  Include a title page with the name of the industry and country being studied.   Include the names of a team members and include an executive summary for this portion of the plan. At the end of the team assignment include the team workflow plan with all columns included with actual dates and who edited which sections added to the original workflow plan..

grading rubric for assignment 1