Students are asked to develop a strategy for the Co-Op group for the next 3-5 years.
The individual report should consist of the following 6 sections. For each section I will provide suggestions on what students could cover but these are not restrictive. I will outline all the frameworks and tools you have in your disposal but that does not mean that you have to use all of them. What you need to have in mind is that each section has a goal that you need to meet. For each section thereof you need to draw some “conclusions”, take them with you and complete the next sections. These “conclusions” need to be justified. So the key word here is justify your findings/arguments in each section.
Your end Strategy needs to be informed by all the previous sections. So the strategy that the company should implement needs to be justifiable by all the previous analysis.
(1) Introduction
Introduce the company, its products, the market it operates, define your industry, define your target market
Briefly assess whether the company is doing well or bad at the moment.
(2) Internal Analysis
The Goal of the Internal analysis is to identify your company’s; (1) Capabilities/Strengths and value adding activities (2) Weaknesses (3) Internal Competitive advantage.
To achieve this goal you can use all or a combination of the following frameworks/suggestions (marks are not allocated based on how many models/frameworks you have used rather if you have used them correctly and if you have achieved the goal of the internal analysis):
– Value Chain
o Identify your company’s primary and supplementary activities
o How these activities add value to your company
o Incorporation of these activities/resources in the Resources & Capabilities table and any weaknesses in the Weaknesses table
– Resources & Capabilities table
o Identify your company’s resources and briefly discuss the corresponding capabilities (you can use a table if you wish)
– Test the Distinctive Capabilities through VRIO model to identify your company’s competitive advantage
o Briefly discuss the conclusions from VRIO – What is your competitive advantage and why you believe so?
– Weaknesses table
o Identify your company’s weaknesses and provide a short term or long term solution (you can use a table if you wish)
(3) External Analysis
The Goal of the External analysis is to identify how the industry and the country/countries your firm operates can affect the development of its strategy. The Goals of the External analysis are; (1) Assess the attractiveness of the industry you operate (2) perform a Competitors’ analysis (3) identify Macro – economic factors affecting your industry and consequently your firm
To achieve this goal you can use all or a combination of the following frameworks/suggestions (marks are not allocated based on how many models/frameworks you have used rather if you have used them correctly and if you have achieved the goal of the external analysis):
– The external analysis is conducted at an industry level – Define your industry – Be specific
– Five forces to identify the attractiveness of the industry you operate
o Identify the forces (low-medium-high)
o Discussion on the attractiveness of the industry (is it attractive yes/no why?)
o What does this mean for your company? (opportunities and threats)
– Identify your company’s strategic position AND your Competitors strategic position
o Porter’s 3 generic strategies OR
o Bowman’s clock
o Position your firm and the competitors, justify why you think they follow this strategic position, discuss if this positioning is an opportunity or threat for your company
– Competitors’ Benchmarking to identify the Competitors strengths and weaknesses
o Critical evaluation of your findings – any opportunities or threats for your firm?
– PESTEL
o You can use a table to identify as many RELEVANT macro-economic trends taking place at the moment in the country/countries your firm operates, that can affect your industry and consequently firm
o Select a 3 KEY trends to discuss further – discuss their impact to your industry, to your firm and your future strategic planning (opportunities/threats?)
(4) SWOT analysis
In this module SWOT analysis is used as a summary tool – meaning that you use it to summarise existing information.
Strengths & Weaknesses: Should come from your internal analysis ONLY.
Opportunities & Threats: Should come from your external analysis ONLY.
SWOT should NOT include any new information – you need to populate the SWOT table using existing information from you previous analysis.
You don’t have to explain the SWOT analysis in a separate paragraph the table should suffice.
(5) TOWS matrix
In the TOWS matrix you are going to combine the data you gathered from the Internal and External analysis and you will come up with tactics/ideas. It is the brainstorming stage.
The way you are going to combine the data is as follows:
Strengths & Opportunities: To pursue one or more of the opportunities you identified what strengths do you need to utilise? You combine these information and you come with one or more tactics/ideas
Strengths & Threats: To overcome one or more of the threats you identified what strengths do you need to utilise? You combine these information and you come with one or more tactics/ideas
Opportunities & Weaknesses: By pursuing one or more of the opportunities you identified what weaknesses you fix? You combine these information and you come with one or more tactics/ideas
Threats & Weaknesses: Come up with ideas that at the same time help you fix some of your weaknesses and overcome some of your threats.
All these tactics/ideas can be included inside the TOWS matrix. One/two sentences for each idea/tactic clearly showing which opportunities + strengths etc you combined. You don’t have to explain the TOWS matrix in a separate paragraph the table should suffice.
(6) ANSOFF matrix
In the ANSOFF matrix you need to position your tactics/ideas from the TOWS matrix inside the right strategy i.e Market penetration, market development, product development, diversification.
From the 4 strategies and corresponding tactics you need to select 2 to analyse further. Which 2 you are going to select is up to you. One (amazing) paragraph for each strategy (and corresponding tactic). These 2 paragraphs are going to be the “selling point” of the report. Indicative these paragraphs can discuss the following but are not limited to:
• Does this strategy and corresponding tactic addresses any opportunities and/or overcomes threats? How the Industry forces/ Competition/ Macro-factors will affect your strategic option?
• By following this strategy and corresponding tactic do you capitalise on your competitive advantage? Yes? No? How? If you haven’t identified a competitive advantage in the internal analysis, does this strategy and corresponding tactic helps you build one?
• Implementation plan: how are you going to implement this strategy and corresponding tactic? Have you implemented this strategy before (as a company)? Yes/no? was it successful? Is there a reason why you haven’t implemented it before?
▫ Market penetration – explain how you will retain and increase your market share. Ideas: how you will deal with the competitors, additional services you may offer to attract new customers, maybe an advertisement you want to run.
▫ Product development – explain the process of developing new product/service and how this will add value to the company. Ideas: invest in R&D, or acquire a company that has the knowledge/technology you are after, how and why customers will value the new product
▫ Market development – explain which country you plan to enter and provide discussion on how you will enter it.
▫ Diversification – combine the discussion from product development and market development. If you are entering a new industry with a new product, provide some additional information about the new industry such as is it attractive, is it competitive, has room for investment etc.
• Based on the assessment of your firm’s current conditions (doing good or bad from the introduction section) what this strategy and corresponding tactic does? Turns around the bad performance? Builds upon current success?
The main discussion should be in paragraphs but feel free to use tables/ graphs/ images to support your arguments.