Strategic Management Term Project

Choose a local company for your Strategic Management Project. Following study will be carried out on the company of your choice:

1) History / Overview:
Give a short account of the history of the company and trace the evolution of its strategy over time.

2) Vision / Mission Statement:

Find out if your company has a formal vision and mission statement or not. Does the mission statement define the business, major goals and articulate the corporate philosophy (i.e the nine components). Propose a vision and mission statement.

3) External / Internal Assessment:

Do a preliminary analysis of the internal strengths and weaknesses of the company and the external opportunities and threat it faces in environment. Develop EFE, IFE, CPM. Apply the Porters five forces model to the industry in which your company operates. What does this model tell you about the nature of the competition in industry?

4) Strategy Selection:
Identify whether your company has a competitive advantage or disadvantage in its primary industry. What are the distinctive competencies of your company? How differentiated are the products / services of your company? What is the basis of their differentiation appeal? How vertically integrated is your company? Is it following the strategy of full integration or taper integration? How diversified is your company? If your company is diversified, is it pursuing a related diversification or unrelated diversification strategy, or a mix of two? Based on product market distinctive competencies, what generic business level strategy is your company pursuing? Develop QSPM, SWOT, SPACE, BCG, IE and Grand Strategy matrices of the company. 5) Strategy Implementation Make positioning map for your company Identify the type of organization structure your company is using and also explain why the company is following it. How large is the company as measured by the number of its employees? How many hierarchical levels does it have from top to bottom? Based on these two measures, would you say your company operates with a tail or fat structure? What effect does it have in peoples behavior? Does your company have a centralized or decentralized approach to decision making?

Who is the CEO of the company? Identify his / her leadership qualities. Make hierarchy of aims for the company EPS/EBIT analysis for the company

6) Strategy Control and Evaluation:

What strategy evaluation tools / control systems is the company using presently?

7) Recommendations:
Recommendations and alternate options (for the following) that can make company gain competitive advantage o Companys existing vision and mission statement o Existing organizational structure, whether company should change it or not? Support with justifications. o Based on existing information should the company continue pursuing integration / diversification / focus strategy? o Strategies based on the strategy selection matrices that you formulated. o Recommended strategies

POINTERS ON PRODUCING A PROFESSIONAL REPORT Ensure the report is properly formatted (font, font size, spacing, spelling, grammar etc.) Acknowledgements should be included (this is only for reports submission for College or University, not necessary for a professional report); basically your are recognizing those who have helped you in making the report. Its also a good source of reference. Table of contents is an integral part of a report. There should be a 300-350 word executive summary; it should be non technical and should summarize the main question, the methodology (includes data and approach used) and the conclusion. Background of company or organization should also be included in the report, after the introduction. All figures, charts, pictures and tables should be clearly labeled and numbered (fig.1 or table 2 etc.) All financial data must include the year, source, any deficiency etc. There should be also a section talking about the methodology adopted for the report; primary data (interviews, own surveys) or secondary data (official reports, company data, internet). Each chapter, section, sub-section and paragraph should follow each other. There should be continuity in the report. A good may to see if the main idea or analysis has been communicated, ask someone from out of your group to go through the report and ask them what they understand. Always give a conclusion in the end of the report; it forms one of the important parts of report. Reports (academic) must be referenced and should include either footnotes or endnotes. Cover to cover report should be attractive to look at and should have substance to make it a good reading. Parts of the report: o Cover page (preferably in color) about the company. o Second page should contain the names of the group members and about the class along with the name of the institution. o Third page should contain a replica of no plagiarism undertaking of the institute signed by each of the group members. o Fourth page should contain acknowledgement. o Fifth page should have the executive summary. o Sixth page should have the contents (should include sections, sub-sections and appendix etc.) o Report should follow the page of contents. ALWAYS PROOF READ EACH PART OF THE REPORT.