Strategic Management Assignment: Report for Twitter’s CEO

As part of the formal assessment for the programme you are required to submit a Strategic Management assignment. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full   details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

After completing the module, you should be able to:

1) Critically analyse and apply a number of theoretical models and their potential for developing strategy and supporting strategic decisions.

2) Analyse theoretical developments in strategy.

3) Support the development of organisational strategies and plans.

4) Critically assess the impact of strategy making in an increasingly volatile and turbulent environment.

5) Appreciate the significance of and the difficulties in formulating and implementing strategy.

Your assignment should include: a title page containing your student number, the module name, the submission deadline and a word count; the appendices if relevant and a reference list in Arden University (AU) Harvard format. You should address all the elements of the assignment task listed below. Please note that tutors will use the  assessment criteria set out below in assessing your work.

Produce a Report for Twitter’s CEO that addresses the following questions based on the case, your own research and relevant strategic management theories:

1. a) Analyse and justify what makes the Twitter strategy formulation approach both deliberate and emergent. Evaluate the limitations of both approaches to strategy formulation.

Your answer should first provide an outline of the main principles underpinning both deliberate and emergent approaches and the major differences between the approaches and their main limitations. You should then identify initiatives adopted by Twitter over the past few years to justify your answer.

b) Explain why the development of strategic management is important for the major players in the microblogging and social networking industry?

a) Critically analyse the competitive environment facing Twitter in the social networking industry. Evaluate the balance of opportunities and threats. To achieve this task, you should apply relevant strategic management concepts and models to undertake this analysis. You should aim to identify the major issues arising from the competitive environment facing the organisation which need to be taken into consideration in future strategies.

b) Evaluate the strategic capability of Twitter using the Value, Rare, Imitability and Organisational Support (VRIO) framework. What lessons, if any, can other companies learn from your analysis and evaluation in this task?

You should again apply appropriate strategic management concepts and frameworks to achieve an effective evaluation of the resources and competences of Twitter.

a) Critically analyse Twitter’s current strategies and propose a range of practical alternative future strategies for possible adoption by the organisation. In completing this task, you should apply one or more of the following frameworks to generate strategic options: Porter’s Generic Strategies, the Strategy clock, TOWS matrix or the BCG matrix.

b) Using the SAF (Suitability, Acceptability and Feasibility) strategic model,  select and justify the strategy that you believe Twitter should pursue in the future. You should ensure that your selection aligns with the outcomes of your analyses in question 2.