Reference no: EM132255140

Comparative Analysis Report

In addition to providing a hard copy of this report at the beginning of class (per the instructions

in your syllabus), you need to upload an electronic copy on NYU Classes by 10:30 am on March 15. Failure to upload on NYU Classes before the deadline will result in a 5-point penalty on the assignment. In addition, if for any reason we are unable to locate the hard copy of your assignment, then we will accept a duplicate copy only if we find a copy uploaded on NYU Classes.

Assignment

Your should limit your report to 4 pages, excluding appendices, in single-spaced, 12 point font.

This assignment is meant to be challenging. It essentially asks you to apply many of the lessons from the course to compare a firm operating in two different countries. The attached document

contains your assigned country, which your analysis will compare to Peru with respect to the questions found below and in your syllabus.

In this assignment, the purpose is not to just highlight how the industries differ (that is relatively clear and easy to understand in many cases).

The purpose is to also find those differences between the industries in the two countries that derive from the country/region where they are located.

In a global world, we must understand how institutional voids are created due to differences in politics, economics, culture, and market structure, and how they influence the operations of industries. Your papers are meant to illustrate this.

Good papers will be ones that not only highlight differences between the industry structure and dynamics but also clearly link those differences to the country from which they originate. The best papers will be ones that thoughtfully discuss the most important ways that location makes a difference for these firms.

Specific instructions are as follows:

1. Identify the main industry in which your company competes in Peru). If your company has significant operations in more than one industry, then select any one of those.

2. Analyze BOTH your assigned country as well as Peru on the following questions:

a. Are there any features (historical, political, legal, socio-cultural, etc.) in each country that help the companies in this industry in that company achieve competitive advantage internationally? Are there any features that seem to lead to competitive disadvantages internationally?

In answering the above, ensure that you are incorporating an analysis of the global/regional competition in this industry if any.

b. Can the management of firms in this industry, either on their own or collectively as a group, leverage their competitive advantages and overcome their disadvantages? How?

3. Building on the above analysis of your company's industry structure, identify major competitive advantages/disadvantages your company enjoys that derive from its location.

The following is a suggested template for this assignment (page lengths are based on single spacing):

1. Executive Summary (½ page)

2. Industry Analysis (1 page). Analyze your industry and report your findings separately for both countries. You can use your own format for this section, but your analysis can include Porter's 5 forces, the economics of the industry, the strengths and weaknesses of the top two or three major competitors in the industry, market sizes, and growth rates, etc.

At the end of the section, briefly summarize the key differences between the industries in the two countries and the key success factors for the industry in each country.

3. Country Comparison (1 page). Having analyzed the two industries separately, consider the major differences between the industry structure and dynamics in the two countries.

Specifically, look for differences that are driven by national location, and assess the overall influence of national systems on these firms.

In particular, look at historical and geographical factors (e.g., access to scarce raw material, etc.), political and legal factors (e.g., corruption, legal systems, labor laws, product regulations, bankruptcy laws, etc.), socio-cultural factors (e.g., business culture, education system, labor mobility, consumer preferences, etc.), and economic factors (e.g., capital markets, transportation infrastructure, financial institutions and access to capital, energy availability and prices, etc.).

Your analysis should focus on identifying country factors that can explain differences between the industries in the two countries, and not on those that do not explain differences.

4. Company Strategy (1 page). Using the Resource-Based View (RBV) of the firm and other concepts discussed in class, as well as your country and industry analysis in the above sections, identify major competitive advantages/disadvantages that your company enjoys in your ISP country.

If your company were to operate in the other country, what would be the competitive advantages/disadvantages that it would experience?

What changes would you suggest in its strategy so that it effectively competes if it is located in the other country?

Be sure to address any significant market differences that exist between the countries that impact the firm (product market differences, suppliers, customers, economic conditions, etc.). A SWOT analysis would be one appropriate tool to uncover these competitive issues, but again the format is up to your group.

5. Appendices and Bibliography using the APA or MLA format (no limit).