Reference no: EM131901116

Prepare a strategic management report on "Nestle". You need to do PESTEL Analysis, PORTERS Analysis, SWOT analysis and all the required details for the report.

Assessment Guideline

Introduction
- For your introduction you need a number heading (1. Introduction)
- and for the 4 other parts, you need decimal subheadings (1.1. Headings).

Important elements you MUST talk about in the introduction to inform the reader about the importance of your work.
- You need to give your marker background information necessary to their understanding: The Background section
- What you are going to talk about: The Purpose
- Show your marker what you are trying to do with your topic: The Method of Investigation
- Show your marker what you are going to cover: The scope

In detail: the four sections in the introduction:

1. The Background
- Provide information on the problem or the situation that gave rise to the investigation.
- May refer to secondary data as pull information from existing sources analyzed by other researchers
- The tense of the background section is present and past tense

2. The Purpose
- States the objective of the report including the 4 questions that are stated in the guideline.
- Be careful to not state objectives, which you will not later analyze/assess. This discrepancy between objectives and body of analysis is heavily penalized as considered an off topic.
- The purpose must be written in the present tense

3. The Method of investigation
- Type of data collected (primary, secondary). Secondary information will save time but must be used carefully as they have to be contextualized according to the problematic/ purpose of the present study.
- Sources of data (journal, website, books, etc.) must be presented. You must explain why you selected some sources and put aside other ones based on the author, date, relevance, theoretical approach, etc.
- If you gather primary information, explain what the process was (questionnaire, interview, etc.). This part must not expand beyond a paragraph. Further details will be incorporated in the appendix.
- Essential theories, which the study will useto answer the questions stated in the guideline are to be mentioned. Answer the question: Why these theories matter rather than other?

4. The Scope
- State the area of investigation and what information you need to address your scope. For example, the R&D as an issue for Sony Corporation. An investigation into the assets and structural organization to identify the challenges.
- The scope should not be too broad (too much information will make your work look superficial) and a narrow scope makes your work too simplistic. Keep in mind that your strategic issue must be addressed through the three levels of analysis: Corporate, Business and Implementation.
- You need to define the structure of the company you are focusing on as there are many areas/departments, geographies, etc. of focus. E.g. conglomerates managed hundreds if not thousands of products, it is up to you to focus on a certain segment of activities.
- Link your scope to a general overview of the market/industry/company.

The body of Analysis

The following documents aims at giving advices to students to structure their body of analysis. The listed elements are just an example of what can be found in each part. But there should be a clear coherence of the ideas with a complementary approach based on analysis and not descriptive information.

Q1. Identify the Strategic Environment

Issue 1: (PESTEL) Define the Far environment. Which PESTEL area is involved? What is the Strategic Issue and show (use the course definition) why it is strategic.
Example
Political -> Government policy towards private Universities and their impact on EUBS.
Economic -> The rising middle class in Africa and their demand for quality education

Issue 2:
(5 Forces) Define the Near environment. Which Forces are involved? What is the Strategic Issue and show why it is strategic.
Example:
Rivalry -> The competition structure (perfect competition) amongst universities triggering a fall in price
Power of buyers -> student preferences as the number of Business schools in the world is on the rise

Q 2. Strategies and Strategic Responses

Strategy Describe the main strategies the business has applied and the results (positive and negative) of these approaches. You may give an overview of the development of their strategies over time, but the special focus shall be on recent developments/decisions.

Strategic responses In particular, work out to what extent the business managed (or not) to understand changes in the environment of the business and to make the corresponding conclusions, positive or negative.

Q3. Current strengths/weaknesses and competitive advantages

Resources, capabilities and efficiences What are the current competitive advantages/disadvantages of the business?

Q4. Recommendations

How to Improve the Strategy?
(Ideas?) Based on the competitive position and advantages and taking into accountexpected future developments in the environment of the business, develop ideas how to ensure its long-term success. You should discuss different ideas and then come to a conclusion which ones you would propose to the organization for implementation. This recommendation should take into account factors of feasibility and how factors like stakeholder management, corporate culture etc. may have an impact on the solution(s) proposed.

Conclusion
- Summarizing the results of the work
- Discussion some limitations of the work
- Opening to new questions which could be analyzed by other studies