For this Discussion Topic assignment, your group is to conduct External Analysis for the industry of the company your group chose to analyze, populate the PEST, Porters 5-Forces and Strategic Group Map analysis templates and use your strategic frameworks to identify Opportunities and Threats in the industry.

After you submit your Discussion Topic assignment, I will give you feedback on your submission. You will use your External Analysis and the feedback I provide in your Case Study #1 assignment. (So do a good job now so you have less work to do later.)

To complete your assignment, use the PowerPoint template and review the sample Coca-Cola deliverable which analyzes the United States Branded Beverage industry.

Specifically, for this assignment, you are to:

1. Define the industry and geographic scope your group will analyze. Be specific! If you intend to complete a Case Study using the company "Sobeys" do not analyze the entire world-wide retail industry, you will be overwhelmed. Instead, define your industry as specific as you can while keeping the analysis relevant, such as 'The Canadian grocery store industry'.
2. Conduct research to populate the PEST, Porters 5-Forces and Industry Matrix external analysis frameworks. This means searching for information using the university library databases (like Statistica), whitepapers from management consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, BCG and Deloitte, and reviewing search results related to your companys industry.
3. Develop 5 Opportunities and 5 Threats from your analysis frameworks. Specifically identify the framework you used to identify the Opportunities and Threats.

Hints:

• In the slide notes of the PowerPoint template, I provided useful information which will help you use each of the frameworks. Review the videos for each framework, even if you think you know how to use the framework.
• Theory does not belong in your deliverable. Apply the frameworks. Do not explain how the frameworks work or why they are useful.
• This is External Analysis, so I should not know which specific company you intend to analyze (other than the fact that the company will be included in your Strategic Group Map with many other companies).
• This is a research-focused assignment. All of the information in your frameworks must be cited. Use published industry research by consulting firms, annual reports published by companies in your industry, news articles, library databases, etc.
• Do not search for "SWOT", "PEST", "Porter's 5 Forces", "Strategic Groups", etc. when looking for company research. This is cheating and will likely give you incorrect information. Cheating = No Feedback on your submitted work and whatever consequences the university imposes.
• This assignment will take more time than you expect. Get started ASAP.

please do it as soon as possible.