The assessment has been designed to help you to develop a practice based approach to your work and to demonstrate that you have engaged with the module materials. You will need to draw on a range of concepts from the module and frameworks from across the different topics that have been covered, using the context of an organisation that you are familiar with to consider and analyse the materials.

You are to conduct a critical analysis of a Strategy for an organisation of your choice in the form of a Strategy report. (6,000 words) which relates the module material to your chosen case study organisation. References and appendices are not included in the word count, nor are any contents pages. Remember also that material contained within images and / or tables does contribute to your word count. See the guidance on the expected content. You do not need to hand in a hard copy of this report. Please note, this is an INDIVIDUAL report. The electronic submission boxes will be available from mid-March. You must reference your work very carefully.

For this assignment you will critically reflect on the internal and external environments of organisations before moving onto to consider the business model of your selected organisation.

Tasks

1. External Analysis

Conduct an external environmental analysis of your organisation. Based on this analysis, identify the key strategic issues that your organisation is facing. A template for your Industry analysis which students must use. (Approx. 1500 words)

2. Internal Analysis

Conduct a resource audit of your organisation using relevant concepts and frameworks. Drawing on this analysis, provide appropriate recommendations on how your organisations resources and its strategy should be developed. A template for your Resource Based Analysis which students must use. (Approx 1500 words)

3. Business Models

Critically analyse your selected organisations business model. A template is provided for this which student must make use of. (Approx 750 words).

4. Sustainable Value

All students must consider and apply Hart, S.L. and Milstein, M.B., (2003) Sustainable Value Framework to their organisation. A template is provided for this and all students must do this as part of their assignment using the resources provided. (Approx 750 words)

5. Strategic options.

Recommendation of some strategic options for the organisation to maintain or enhance competitiveness in the future. These must be related to the potential impacts of macro or competitive forces as identified in Section 1. Please also note you should make recommendations within the context of the organisation. (Approx 1500 Words)

Please note that in doing your assignment you may want to give consideration to other core issues such as Culture, CSR, Organisational Structure, and any other issues you think are relevant to the analysis

This needs to be written in the form of a business report. The limit of 6000 words excludes appendices which should not be excessive in length and should not include material that would be more properly included in the body of the report.

Consider all the relevant models, tools and concepts which have been covered in this module: if you think they apply to your case study organisation, and tell you something useful about its strategy, then apply them, and tell us about what you have found out by doing so. One approach to including this material is to put such models and analysis tools in clearly numbered and labelled appendices but this is not the only approach

An alternative approach is to integrate the application of such specific tools and models within the body of the report and dont bother to include any appendices

The assessment tests strategic thinking skills and the ability to apply module concepts to understand situations facing your organisation, developing insights in the process and then using these insights to offer your own perspective on what your organisation should do and why. You are expected to draw explicitly on the models, concepts and theories to support your analysis conclusions and recommendations.

In order to conduct their research students must make use of Statista, Marketline, Mintel, Mergent, Fame / Osiris, Corporate Websites and academic journals that are available via the University Library.

All students must demonstrate that they have engaged with the module materials. This should include the suggested readings and the recommended textbooks. Students must not base their research around Google Searches, and sources which are not considered to be authoritative. The tutorial activities will support your learning through examples and applications of the core models and frameworks. Guides to using the major research databases such as Statista have been provided in Tutorials 2 5. Students are encouraged to engage with the formative feedback available through Tutorials and through the ability to submit drafts to Turnitin.

Hart, S.L. and Milstein, M.B., 2003. Creating sustainable value. Academy of Management Perspectives, 17(2), pp.56-67.

Hart, S.L., 1997. Beyond greening: strategies for a sustainable world. Harvard business review, 75(1), pp.66-77.

Notes for Students:

Instructions for completion and submission of written assignment

This assignment is worth 100% of the total module marks.

• The Word Count is 6000 words

• Words included in the bibliography are not included in the word count;

• You should only use Harvard referencing;

• Any websites referred to must be properly referenced;

• The text of your assessment must be displayed using a 12-point (or larger) Arial or Verdana font and with a line spacing of at least 1.5.