Reference no: EM133725846

Homework: Davids Bridal Company Playing Field Competition-Where to Play: Playing Field, Competition and Your Organization

Introduction

"Find out everything that you can about the playing field.
You should know what your competitors' salespeople eat for breakfast."
- Jack Welch -

As the Chief Strategy Officer of your company, you have been commissioned to recommend a game-winning move that will allow your company to achieve strong revenue and profit growth and to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Although your game-winning move will not be presented to the CEO until, you have been asked to provide written executive briefs on your progress.

You want to impress the CEO and your colleagues with your insights and recommendations! You know that the best way to do this is to follow Jack's logical 5-slide approach to strategy. Since there will be two interim updates, you have decided to focus your executive brief on the Playing Field, the Competition, and Your Organization. You will focus your executive brief on What's Around the Corner? and your Game-Winning Move. You will then synthesize your findings and recommendation into five PowerPoint slides for your presentation. At the culmination of this three-part strategy homework, you will have a clearly articulated and persuasive game plan to win!

Instructions

Using the Homework Template, address the following:

I. Introduction and Playing Field Description: Provide an opening paragraph that explains the purpose of your brief, then detail the specific target segment of the market where you are choosing to compete. You should ensure the target segment is sufficiently large to achieve your company's sales and profit growth objectives, but sufficiently focused so that your company can intimately understand market characteristics and compete effectively. The template provided for this homework guides you on how to organize relevant information, including:

1. Your company

2. The industry for your organization of choice

3. The market size of this industry

4. Specific description of the segment of this industry in which you will compete (the Playing Field)

5. Brief explanation of why you selected this segment.

II. Competitive Analysis: In this section you will identify the two most formidable competitors in your playing field and address the following for each:

1. How big is each competitor in this target segment?

2. What is their most significant strength and their most significant weakness?

3. Briefly explain how this strength and this weakness impact their ability to compete effectively.

4. Does their recent performance indicate they are generally winning or losing in this playing field? Support your conclusions with data.

5. Has anyone (including new market entrants) introduced any game-changing new products/technology/capabilities? Have they developed (or lost) a key competitive advantage?

III. Organizational Assessment: In this section you will "turn the mirror around" and look inward to assess the capabilities and competencies of your chosen organization. Briefly address the following:

1. How big are we in this target segment?

2. What is our most significant strength and our most significant weakness?

3. Briefly explain how this strength and this weakness impact our ability to compete effectively.

4. Do our recent results indicate we are generally winning or losing in this playing field? Support your conclusions with data.

5. Have we introduced game-changing new products/technology/capabilities? Have we developed (or lost) a key competitive advantage?

IV. Key Conclusions: Provide a succinct conclusion that captures your critical insights about the target segment and the relative competitive balance of the three companies you analyzed.

V. References: Include in-text citations for all data, assertions, and facts, and a corresponding reference list. Appendices are allowable if additional supplemental information is needed for the brief.