Reference no: EM132344609

Assignment - Individual Practical Assignment Based on Workplace

1. Introduction

This document provides information about the content and grading procedures concerning the Individual Practical Assignment.

2. Your role:

You will be acting as a consultant for your workplace assigned to offer your top management team a set of recommendations that will sustain and improve the firm's competitive position in the next 5 years.

Note: In order to effectively combine theory and practice in a manner that is most relevant to individual students, both Part C modules in trimester 1 (Work-based Learning and Strategic Management) encourage students to use examples from their organisational context.

Please note that we do not expect the same base material to be used for both assignments. This should not be a problem but, if you have special circumstances, then you must agree your approach with both tutors.

3. The key requirements

You will be analyzing the competitive position of your workplace vis-à-vis a key competitor in the same industry. The key competitor should be either a market leader or second to your workplace.

Make sure as early as possible in the selection process of the competitor that there is substantial information available about the firm. Look for financial data to backup your claim and consider firms that are listed/public.

4. The Project

The analysis of your two firms (your workplace and the main competitor) could include the following dimensions:

• Firm's positioning/competition strategies in the industry.
• Firm's unique strengths and weaknesses (SWOT analysis/resources and capabilities analysis).
• Firm's financial performance.
• Trends in competition both historically as well as over the next 5 years, for.

The final report must be structured as follows:

I) Introduction

i) Provide an executive summary of the paper, and what your key learnings and conclusions are.

II) Industry Overview

i) Introduction to the industry, background on its structure, information on major competitors if these are in addition to your two candidates chosen, strategic developments at the industry level etc. Where possible data on industry size, market positions, potential growth areas, overall competitive challenges should be included.

III) Your Workplace

a) Background on your workplace: who is the firm, its history, its management and organizational structure, the firm's strategy/approach to compete, its current competitive position in its main market, its core resources and capabilities , and its recent performance etc.

b) Future challenges and recommendations, given your analysis of your workplace's current competitive position, products/services/solutions, competencies and capabilities etc.

IV) Key competitor

a) Background on the firm chosen: who is the firm, its history, its management and organizational structure, the firm's strategy/approach to compete, its current competitive position in its main market, its core resources and capabilities , and its recent performance etc.

b) Justification why the firm's strategies/activities/actions/policies as 'exemplar like' in nature or worthy of study.

c) Future challenges and recommendations given your analysis of the firm's current competitive position, products/services/solutions, competencies and capabilities etc.

V) Synthesis and Integration

a) Comparison of the firms' strategies: summary of the approaches followed by each competitor, where they are similar, where do they differ, which is preferred, and why.

b) What does your research/study and analysis teach us about the management of firms in the business environment?

5. Allocation of Grades

The Individual Practical assignment is worth 100% of the course grade.

6. Late assignments

Late assignments will be dealt according to School rules.

7. Citations of Sources

Whatever work you submit must be yours. Claiming work written by others to be your own is plagiarism, a serious academic offense which will not be tolerated. You are encouraged to use any source of information available but whenever you quote directly you must use quotation marks around your direct quote and insert a footnote and whenever you paraphrase another person's words, you must insert a footnote. In any case, your footnote must contain a full citation that enables the reader to find the source. For example:

In the case of a book:

March, J. G. (1999) The Pursuit of Organisational Intelligence. Malden MA: Blackwell.

In the case of a journal paper:

Meyer, M. H. and Utterback, J. M. (1993) 'The Product Family and the Dynamic of Core Capabilities', Sloan Management Review 34(3): 29-38.

In the case of a news paper:

Business Week "China Price" November 24, 2005.

All outside sources must be clearly and carefully referenced.

8. Submission:

Information about submission is on school website.

9. Employment matters:

If you have an unusual employment situation or are 'between jobs', then you may interpret the above instructions flexibly in agreement with the tutor.

Attachment:- Assignment File.rar