Building Competitive Advantage for New Sports Service.

FBLU052 Sport Management

Question:

How the product or service will gain sustainable competitive advantage?

Details of what you are expected to do:

1. Rationale:

This report will allow you to demonstrate how the various elements of strategic theory come together by producing a strategic proposal that will persuade either a single venture capitalist, or a larger group of people (“Equity crowdfunding”) to invest in your ideas for a new product or service that will prove to be successful in years. Essentially, you are going to produce a piece of work that tries to convince someone to give you money for your idea (similar to a “Dragon’s Den” pitch but with more theory!). To do this effectively, you will need to demonstrate an understanding of all aspects of the unit.

2. The learning outcomes being assessed:

3. Following your graduation, you have decided to start your own company. Initially you will focus on one product or service. You are thus required to identify a single, and novel sport-related product or service that you think will prove to be globally successful in the near future (5-10 years time). This can be either a brand-new product or service, or an adaptation of an existing product or service. You are to write a strategic proposal that will convince potential investors to provide capital for your company to help you to provide that product or service by both describing and justifying your key strategic decisions and arguments.

There are no set requirements in terms of content. The key is to think about what content will allow you to present the most convincing case possible – The elements that could be addressed may include (but are not limited to).

1. An assessment of the future environment within which the product or service will exist (including the methodology for the assessment).

2. An analysis of the likely future competition that you may face.

3. How the product or service will gain sustainable competitive advantage.

4. The resources required to deliver the product or service – including intangible resources.

5. The proposed organisational culture.

6. The leadership requirements to deliver the product or service successfully.

7. How ‘success’ will be evaluated.

8. Any ethical or CSR issues.

9. You are not expected to include financial aspects within this report, So there is no need to create a budget, for example.

Format:

The assessment is to be presented in report format, so will require an executive summary, contents page etc. Use diagrams/tables if appropriate (but all words used in these will count in the word count). Be creative in your presentation. The report must catch the reader’s attention in style as well as content.

The word count is 3000 words maximum. In real life, there would be no 10 percent either way, so that’s being reflected here. With the exception of the title page, executive summary and reference list, Every single word (including headings/subheadings/diagrams) will count. I don’t expect any appendices for this piece of work.

Assessment criteria and weightings:

1. General understanding of strategic theory (20%)

2. Clear application of strategic theory to the product or service (50%)

3. Level of argument for funding presented (20%)

4. Organisation and presentation (10%)

5. Further guidance will be given in class.

Get instant help from 5000+ experts for