BUS191 Strategic Management
Term Project
The emphasis of this project is to plan a strategic management proposal for a branch, product, or service your company is expanding locally, globally, or both. You will select a publicly-traded company of your choice and identify marketing challenges, analyze the internal and external forces that influence these issues, develop viable solutions to these challenges, determine implementation tasks, and evaluate the probable success of proposed recommendations. The focus of the solutions will be maximizing customer satisfaction and value within the framework of mission, vision, profitability, and integrity of the company. You do this through a strategic lens that requires planning, execution, and measurable results.
Paper should be about 8-12 pages including diagrams, tables, photos etc.. You must at least, address every section of the below outline. You may add, but not ignore any section. Literally, cut & paste the below into a word document to be your project outline and fill in relevant information under each heading and subheading. The project MUST look like the below outline and nothing like anything else you have written before. Changing the format or omitting any headings or subheading will not be considered for grading.
Start here:
Executive Summary:
Your Executive Summary should be less than a page and written after your entire project is completed but placed on top of your paper.
BUS191 Strategic Management
Company Background & Milestones:
A brief description of your company and what they do. About few paragraphs and not pages. All information from here on should be easily accessible on the company’s official website. If you don’t understand a heading, simply search it i.e. “what is Apple’s business model?”, and you should find plenty sources to explore and use one in your paper. Make sure you cite your source.
PART I: THE BUSINESS NOW (Information here is about the existing company in general and its offerings)
Vision & Mission Statements
Description of Business
Product/Service
Target Market / Customer Profile
Business Location
Business Model (how does the company operate and make money?)
Goals – Objectives – Strategies
- Corporate
- Division
- Functional (Departmental)
Company Performance (Financial and Strategic)
Management & Organization
SWOT (Analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)
Core Competencies and Competitive Advantage
Value Chain Analysis and Benchmarking
Industry/Market Analysis
- economic characteristics
- key success factors
- trends and opportunities
- 5 forces analysis (Porter’s)
Competitor Analysis
- Identify competitors
- What your company does to maintain its market share
BUS191 Strategic Management
PART II: MARKETING (Information from here on is about the specific new offering you’re recommending)
- Marketing Mix (4 P’s) (what is your product, where are you selling it, how much for, what promotions are you proposing?)
- Customer Analysis
- Marketing Goals – Objectives – Strategies
PART III: FINANCE
Information here should be obtained from the company’s official website from their latest filling.
- Financial Goals – Objectives – Strategies
- Financial Data
- Sources and applications of funding
- Capital equipment and supply list
- Balance sheet
- Breakeven analysis
- Income projections (profit & loss statements)
- Assumptions upon which projections were based
- Cash flow projections
- Assumptions upon which projections were based
- Historical Financial Reports for Existing Businesses
- Balance Sheets for past year
- Income Statements for past year
BUS191 Strategic Management
PART IV: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Personnel Planning
Personnel Policies
Job Analysis
Recruitment
Training
Management Development
Performance Appraisal
Compensation and Benefits
CONCLUSION:
Based on your analysis, write your recommendation with possible suggestions/solutions for the entire company or for a specific product or service it may be launching abroad…it is ok if after your thorough research to advise that the company does not proceed with your idea today, but table it to the future date should an event take place. i.e. if you select Starbucks and suggest that they open in Cuba, but current US policies do not allow that, but you believe that future presidents might change that, then you would still do the project and recommend that they implement when US policy changes. You’re graded on the learning journey you take (steps listed in the outline) and not the outcome whether proposal is recommended or not post your research. APA.