SIB429 Education Industry Strategic Management Research Paper

Education Industry Strategic Management Research Paper

SIB 429 Strategic Management

Guidelines for Company Analysis Project

1. Executive Summary (max ¾ page) ? !!

! Write this part after you finish writing the rest of the report. !!! ? This should be placed on a separate page, right after your title page. ? Briefly state the companies you analyzed, and the industry they compete in (1 sentence). ? List the most salient strategic issues you identified for each company. Then state the most critical recommendations you gave for each. ? Be precise, to-the-point, and provide eye-catching findings from your report. This summary should talk about the most important take-away of your report. Please write in full sentences and don’t use bullet points. Do not exceed ¾ page (ideal is ½ page).

2. Introduction (½ page) Briefly state the industry you will analyze (you can include the SIC code as well). Provide general information (briefly) about the nature of this industry (history, major changes across time, size, and geographic clusters, if any).

3. External Analysis (~4 pages)

a. General Assessment of Environment (1 – 1½ page) Assess the general environment, focusing on ONLY the most relevant three of the following segments for your chosen industry: demographic, sociocultural, political/legal, technological, economic, and global. Explain in detail how certain changes or trends in the segments you analyze had (or may have) impact on your industry.

b. Analyze the industry environment (Porter’s 5 forces analysis) (~3 pages)

? Analyze the industry dynamics and provide a detailed description of the competitive forces inside the industry. Use Porter’s Five Forces model to examine the competitive environment.

 ? Identify the strategic groups in the industry based on relevant criteria you will choose.

 ? Your aim should be to answer the following two questions in detail: “How attractive is this industry at the current time; that is, is it possible for incumbent organizations to sustain competitive advantage in this industry? Given the observed trends, what is your assessment of industry attractiveness over the longer term (5 to 10 years from now)?”

You should research and read external reports, analysis, news, and other related material and cite them properly for all the sections of this report. Please refer to next page for the stylistic guideline.

c. Conclusion (½ page)

Write a conclusion based on the external analysis you conducted, addressing the main implications regarding the profitability of the industry. Overall, what are the major opportunities for this industry? What are the major threats? Name 2 for each.

 4. Internal Analysis (6-8 pages)

a. Financial Analysis ? ? ? ?

Download the financial ratios of both companies from our library’s databases (i.e. Mergent Online, or other available sources). For each company, download the financial ratios of the most recent three to five years.

 Select at least one ratio for each of the 5 ratio categories from the table at the end of your textbook. Compare your companies in terms of differences in these ratios, and interpret the implications for each company’s financial health. You only need to compare and interpret the ratios that are included in your book.

Which firms is doing better financially? Explain. You can use figures and graphs. Optional: You can also include industry averages in your comparisons, which can give you another benchmark to compare with. b. Value chain analysis and Resource based view (VRIN analysis) ? Describe main products / services of these companies.

? Identify the suppliers, end users, and if there are any distributors or retailers in between the companies and the end users.

? Identify the primary value chain activities and describe what each of these activities consists of. (Provide separate value chain diagrams only if the two companies differ in their value chain activities). How are the companies creating value in each step of their value chain?

 ? Identify the critical resources (tangible, intangible, and organizational capabilities) these companies have. Are there common resources? What about unique ones?

? Indicate in which value chain activities the companies have competitive advantages over their competitors and explain why. Are these competitive advantages sustainable? (To see if the competitive advantage is sustainable, you can discuss if the resources/capabilities used in these value chain activities are: Valuable? Rare? Inimitable? Not Substitutable?) You can use a table to compare the two companies’ evaluation of resources.

c. Write a short conclusion based on the internal analysis you conducted. Overall, what are the most salient strengths for these firms? What are the major weaknesses? Can you draw linkages between your findings in financial analysis

 (a) and value-chain and resource analysis (b) ?

5. Strategy identification (2-3 pages)

 “What are the strategies of the two firms? Are they similar or different – and how?

a. To answer this question, first identify the firms’ current business level strategies (Chapter 5). For a multi-business firm, first identify the corporate level strategy (Chapter 6), and then explain the business level strategy (Chapter 5) of the particular business unit you focus your analysis on. If the firm is only competing in this industry, then you can start with its international strategy (Chapter 7). b. Identify the key strategic issues (problems) with each firm’s current strategy.

c. Overall, what aspects of their strategies help to explain their performance differences?

 6. Recommendations (6-8 pages)

a. Recommend two (2) potential strategies for each firm that would increase their performance.   

b. Commit to one of the recommended strategies for each firm. Your chosen strategy should address the key strategic issues you determined above; and it should reflect your external analysis (threats and opportunities you concluded in that section) AND internal analysis (major strengths and weaknesses for the firm you identified in that section).

c. Provide enough rationale regarding why this chosen strategy will bring sustainable competitive advantage to the firm.

d. Outline a strategic implementation plan for your chosen strategy. Be specific in writing short term and long term goals, and specific actions that should be taken by the firm to attain these goals. Optional: Now step back from your consultant roles. As an investor, which company’s stock you would invest in? Why? You can write as a group, or write in sub-groups if you disagree. Depending on the depth of the reasoning in your explanations, you can get a bonus point here. (If you choose to answer this question, put it in a separate page in the end

  Stylistic Guidelines:   

Title page should list the group number, members’ names, and class section. Double spaced, font size 12, 1-inch standard margin on all sides of the paper. Sub-titles are required. The proper organization of the paper is very important. The interim report will typically be no more than 5 double spaced pages, while the final report will be no more than 25 pages. Page counts do not include the title page and any attachments, such as figures, tables, references and appendix. Please follow the APA style for the citation format, as illustrated in the following website: http://www.apastyle.org/learn/tutorials/basics-tutorial.aspx

 Other requirements:   

I take plagiarism very seriously. If you plagiarize others’ work in any way, you will get an automatic zero for your paper. You will submit a hard copy of each paper PLUS upload the final paper to the SafeAssignment link on Blackboard. Extensive library research is required. If you have any questions regarding researching library databases, you can contact the reference librarian or me. The Internet may be used but only along with other sources. If your paper has only Internet sources but no library sources, you will not receive points for references. Open content sources like Wikipedia are not acceptable references. The quality of your project will depend on the quality and extent of external information you collect, and your ability to transform that information into valuable analyses. The interim report should include at least six, and the final project should include at least ten references that satisfy the above criteria. Note as well that late marks accrue rapidly (5 percentage points per day overdue) for any papers received after the stated deadlines.

 Strengthening aspects in your papers:  

 Evidence of thorough analysis. Use of theories and concepts from the textbook and lectures. Judgments supported by evidence from the sources. Clear articulation of the issues you are addressing. Justification for the recommendation that is consistent with your analysis sections. Damaging aspects in your papers:

Failure to ANALYZE. Don’t just give facts, do analysis! × Failure to support opinions by evidence or logical explanation.

Lack of adequate outside research, such as relying on Google or Wikipedia for information, instead of library’s databases and academic and professional articles.

Poorly edited or not organized or presented clearly (i.e. failure to proofread any written material and correct obvious misspellings, errors, and sloppy grammar)

Exhibits that are extraneous to the analysis. (i.e. the reader is left to draw his/her own conclusions and wonder why the exhibit is there)

Porter’s Five Forces

Intensity of Rivalry Bargaining Power of Suppliers Threat of New Entrants Bargaining Power of Buyers Threat of New Substitutes