BUSINESS POLICY TERM PROJECT (Summer 2012) Prof. F. A. Fareedy BUSINESS POLICY IS COURSE WITH VAST DIMENSIONS.

IT COVERS ALL AREAS OF BUSINESS FROM HEAD TO TOES. THERE ARE THREE MAIN BROAD COMPONENTS OF ANY BUSINESS. THAT IS, MANAGEMENT, MARKETING AND FINANCE. ANY BUSINESS ACTIVITY TAKEN BY ANY ORGANIZATION CAN BE DIVIDED INTO (AS SET OR SUB-SET) OF THESE THREE BROAD CATEGORIES. THATS IS WHY BUSINESS POLICY IS CALLED AS MOTHER OF ALL COURSES. THEREFORE ANY SUBJECT YOU HAVE EVER STUDIED IN YOUR PAST YEARS PLAYS SOME ROLE IN THIS COURSE. The purpose of Business Policy Term Project is to do a complete ANALYSIS of the firm selected as it exists today and then to propose and/or develop and formulate a new strategy for the future growth and expansion. Our assumption is the basic capitalism model: a business that is not growing is dying. Your final term project report is due on Saturday June 2nd by 5.00 pm. The following is the basic outline of your term project report: 1. Introduction: This portion gives an overview of the firm, its history, its products and services, and the most important thing; it identifies mission, vision, and objective statements including the current industry structure and the positioning of your firm. This information is usually obtained through their website or published annual reports or any other internal sources you can utilize. 2. Current operations: This chapter looks at all level of productions, procurement, supply chain, distribution, sales and marketing, human resources and management structure, Research and Development. current planning, strategy and resource allocations etc. etc.. Actually you can break this chapter into many parts (of management and marketing areas) depending upon the nature and type of business and industry. 3. Financial analysis: all firms have a common goal in capitalism. SUPERIOR FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE. This chapter analyzes all aspect of financial data for the past 3 to 5 years. It will include balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statements analyses of the firm. It will calculate all necessary key financial ratios for audit, evaluations and controls. Lt may compare financial results of your firm with its major competitors. 4. After you have completed the above review and have gathered substantial information and have done the current analyses of the firms ( SHOW ME THIS BY MAY 13TH ) then you are ready to embark on the real work: 5. SWOT Analysis: You should be able to identify at least, 10 strengths, 1o weaknesses, 10 opportunities, and 10 threats. You have to justify as why you think these items are important. This is generally done by rigorous analysis of the industry and company you have selected. 6. External Factor Analysis Summary (EFAS): From the SWOT Analysis, you would need to develop a table of EFAS in which you will look at factors affecting the industry and the firm (such as political, social, legal, economic, technological etc). This requires general knowledge and brain storming about these factors which are related to your company and discarding some factors which are less important (by process of elimination).

7. Internal Factor Analysis Summary (IFAS): This usually requires many visits to the firm (called field work and you have to submit the hand written reports of these visits in a folder) and talking to many managers to do marketing analysis, production analysis, HRM analysis, financial ratio analysis etc. This portion is the major work where your analytical capabilities are challenged. 8. Strategic Factor Analysis Summary (SFAS): From the EFAS and IFAS, you will formulate SFAS that will provide you the basic input for the development and formulation of new strategy of the firm. 9. Formulation of New Business Strategy: It includes writing new mission, vision, and objective statements for the firm. It may include new suggested organizational structure and how to implement change in the current operations and how the evaluation and control system will be instituted. 10. Summary and conclusion: 11. Annexure and attachments The above is the main body of your report. You can include in this some Management Model(s), such as Porters competitive advantage model or Porters value chain model or McKinseys 7 S Model or any other that you may consider appropriate. You can also include a new business plan for launching a new product or service for the firm as a part of your new strategy. All the exhibits, questionnaires or any other information can be included in your report as annexure to support your new strategy formulation, implementation and control process.

THE PROFESSOR HAS THE DISCRETION TO CHANGE ANY OF THE COURSE/SYYLABUS AND GRADING SYSTEM DEPENDING UPON THE PERFORMANCE OF THE CLASS AND AVAILABLITY OF THE TIME. PLAGIARISM:
BASIC PROBLEMS ALL PROFESSORS AT LSE HAVE FACED ARE RELATED TO TERM PROJECTS OR RESEARCH PROJECTS. STUDENT CONSIDERS THIS AS HIS/HER RIGHT TO CUT, COPY, PASTE, AND PLAGIARIZE, USING EACH OTHER REPORTS, USING HIS OWN PREVIOUS PROJECT REPORTS IN OTHER SUBJECTS OR TAKING HIS FRIENDS OR SENIORS REPORTS. ALL OF THIS IS PIRACY, THIEVERY, DECEPTION AND FRAUD. IF PROVEN, AN INSTRUCTOR MAY GIVE YOU AN F IN THE COURSE OR HE MAY BRING YOU TO THE DC FOR THE SEPERATION OF THE STUDENTS FROM THE MBA PROGRAM.

USUALLY PLAGIARISM, CUT, COPY, PASTE, USING PREVIOUS PROJECT REPORTS, DOING OUT OF THE HAT REPORTS WITHOUT FIELDWORKS ARE DISCOVERED AFTER THE GRADES HAVE BEEN SUBMITTED. AND IT HAPPENS BECAUSE SOME STUDENT OR GROUP OF STUDENTS WILL SQUEAL ON THEIR FELLOW STUDENTS BECAUSE OF THE FINAL GRADE DISPUTES. THE INSTRUCTORS DO NOT KNOW THIS PRIOR TO FINAL GRADING. THEREFORE, INSTRUCTORS HAVE THE RIGHT TO REVIEW THE REPORTS AND IF FOUND GUILTY CAN GIVE YOU F IN YOUR COURSE. THE INSTRUCTOR HAS THE RIGHT TO ASK DC TO TERMINATE YOU FROM THE MBA PROGRAM.

HOW NOT TO PLAGIARIZE? Answer: Identify all references from where the material was taken.
Play safe and do not take any chances. I will explain the following in the class room.

1. Srinivasan, R., 2005, Strategic Management: The Indian Context, Prentice Hall, New Delhi, pp. 9395. 2. Porter, M.E., 1985, Competitive Advantage, the Free Press, New York, pp. 482-512. 3. Porter, M.E., winter 1986, Changing Patterns of International Competition, California Management Review, p. 12. 4. Pine, B.J., 1993, Mass Customization: The new frontier in business competition, Harvard Business School Press, Boston. 5. World Bank. (2005). Islamic Republic of Pakistan, country policy and institutional assessment. Washington DC: World Bank. 6. Source: M.L. Patterson, Lessons from the Assembly Line, Journal of Business Strategy, May-June, 1993, p. 43. 7. Haadiah Qaiser, 2010, WiTribe Pakistan: Business Policy Term Project, Lahore School of Economics, p. 48. 8. Anam Javed, Azka Munir, 2010, Analysis of non-performing loans: balance sheet analysis, Lahore School of Economics, pp. 37-38. 9. http://share.sweska.net/files/BCG_Matrix.png 10. ibid. 11. Carroll refers to discretionary responsibilities as philanthropic responsibilities, in A.B. Carroll, The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders, Business Horizons, July-August 1991, pp. 89-90 FINAL WORD: I WILL ACCEPT REPORTS WHICH ARE THICK AS LONG AS THEY ARE NOT PLAGIARIZED WORK BUT TRY TO KEEP IT LESS THAN 100 PAGES PLUS ANNEXURES. IF FOUND GUILTY OF PLAGIARISM, YOU MAY GET AN F IN BUSINESS POLICY COURSE OR I MAY RECOMMEND THAT THE STUDENT IS SEPARATED FROM THE MBA PROGRAM.