Strategic Analysis Report: Business Policy and Strategic Management

Students are required to submit their coursework through JIRA. Only assessments submitted through JIRA will be marked. Any other submission including submission to your study centre in hard copy will be treated as a non-submission.

If your centre supports Turnitin©, a copy of your Turnitin© originality report must be submitted in conjunction with your assignment.

K1. Understanding of the origins and various approaches to strategy

K2. Understanding of the complexity of the relationships between the organisation and its environment

K3. Understanding of international/global strategic thinking

K4. Understanding of the application of strategy ideas in practice Skill

S1. The ability to analyse the complexity of organisations and their environments

S2. The ability to synthesise earlier, diverse and possible piecemeal studies of the organisation and assimilate new theoretical models and offer solutions relative to strategic issues

S3. The ability to evaluate existing models and methodologies against observations of the practices of real organisations

Moderated by:

All students are required to submit their assignment via the module in Canvas.

The penalty for students that do not submit their assignments through the module in Canvas is that they will fail the assignment.

Students may submit assignment drafts prior to the submission date to generate originality reports. The last submission of the assignment prior to the submission date will be deemed to be the final submission for assessment purposes.

All work submitted must adhere to the University Policy on ‘Cheating, Collusion and Plagiarism’

You are required to submit an individual report of 3,000 words, which can be based on an organization of your own choice. The strategic analysis must be related to a recognised aspect of business policy, strategic management or the philosophical underpinning of a particular methodology within the public or private sector strategic management domain.

The report must be written in a recognised style, ie table of contents, introduction, main analysis, conclusions, recommendations, and references (bibliography, if any). You must apply the Harvard system of referencing in your report. The word count must be stated on the front page of your assignment. The word count includes the front page, executive summary and or abstract, contents page, introduction, main analysis, conclusions, recommendations, diagrams, tables, figures and graphs. The word count does not include references, bibliography and appendices. A penalty will be applied for exceeding the word count. The penalties that will be applied for exceeding the word count can be found in Table 1.

Learning Outcomes

To analyse a business policy or strategic management topic, to carry out individual research or evaluation of an organization.

Meet the learning outcomes listed above, identify and critically analyse fundamental issues related to strategic management. Undertake a study that shows clear evidence of synthesis and evaluation.

(1) Introduction (300 words): Describe the scope of your report (eg, Strategic Fit Analysis of the chosen organization). Give a very brief introduction to the organization (outline of history, current market position and strategy) and to the industry, eg, in Hong Kong. Outline the structure of the report briefly.

(2) TASK A – Market Environment Analysis (900 words): Using appropriate analytical tools, evaluate conditions in the market environment that the chosen organization occupies. The market environment comprises a combination of the industry itself (the micro environment) and the wider macro environment in which the chosen company operates. You should highlight what you consider to be the market environment’s critical success factors.

(3). TASK B – Resource and Capability Analysis (900 words): Using appropriate analytical tools, evaluate the internal environment of the chosen organization, highlighting its threshold and unique resources, and its core capabilities/competencies.

(4). TASK C – Strategic Fit Analysis (600 words): Using the analysis completed in Tasks A and B, evaluate the strategic fit of the chosen organization, highlighting how the chosen organization’s strengths and weaknesses fit the opportunities and threats in its market environment.

(5). Conclusion and recommendations (300 words): To draw a conclusion of the situation of the chosen organization based on the strategic analysis (Tasks A, B & C) and propose recommendations that the chosen organization should further explore and consider.

(6) Presentation skills (Harvard System of Referencing, formatting, style of writing and use of language, word limit). The report should contain a title page, a table of contents, an introduction, a main body (tasks A, B, and C), and conclusion and recommendations. Sections and subsections should follow a logical order. Language should be appropriate to the business context and follow correct spelling. Sources should be properly cited (including in-text referencing) and displayed in a reference list according to the Harvard System of Referencing style at the end of the report (at least 8 relevant literature sources, depending on their importance).

Please be reminded the length of sections from (1) to (5) above (words) is for reference only. Understand each student has hisher own way of preparing an assignment. It is crucial for students to cover (1) to (5) above in his/her assignment, though there might be variation in format, headings, etc.

Your lecturer/tutor on the basis of the following general criteria will assess the paper:

• The university generic assessment criteria
• Discretion - additional credit may be awarded to a student who tackles a difficult subject well.