The place of useful learning The University of Strathclyde is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, number SC015263 MS925 – Strategy Modelling and Management Group assignment (worth 50% of the overall module mark) You should write a management report, consisting of two sections. 1. The first section consists of an analytical group report on the application of strategy analysis and modelling methods to a given case study organisation. The first section of the assignment is worth 40% of the overall module mark. 2. The second section consists of a reflective group report based on your work on the group assignment. The second section of the assignment is worth 10% of the overall module mark. For the first section of the assignment, students will be randomly divided into groups of up to 5 students each. Each group will be allocated one of the following case studies (or a group may choose another UK-based company – but only after consultation with and permission from me): 1. Barclays UK or National Westminster Bank (part of the NatWest group) or Royal Bank of Scotland (part of the NatWest group) or HSBC Bank 2. Boots (subsidiary of Walgreens Boots Alliance) 3. BP plc or Shell plc 4. Sky UK Limited 5. Costa Coffee (subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company) 6. Diageo plc or Edrington (The Edrington Group Ltd.) 7. Ryanair or easyJet plc 8. GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) or AstraZeneca plc 9. John Lewis Partnership 10. Oxfam GB or Save the Children or Amnesty International 11. Primark (subsidiary of Associated British Foods) or Marks & Spencer Group plc 12. Rolls-Royce (Rolls-Royce Holdings plc) – not including Rolls-Royce Motor Cars! 13. SSE plc (Scottish and Southern Energy) or Scottish Power (subsidiary of Iberdrola) 14. Tesco plc or Sainsbury’s (J Sainsbury plc) or Morrisons (Wm Morrison Supermarkets) 15. Hays Travel (UK’s Largest Independent Travel Agent) 16. Unilever plc (part of the Unilever group) 17. BT (formerly British Telecom) 18. Jaguar Land Rover (subsidiary of Tata Motors) The task for each group will be the same. You are asked to undertake a strategic analytical review of your case study organisation for senior management in that organisation, in order to help them to formulate and evaluate a guiding strategic policy, including a coherent set of actions, for their organisation. Your group’s report should cover the following areas: a) a detailed profile of your case study organisation, including its activities, size, structure, history, etc.; The place of useful learning The University of Strathclyde is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, number SC015263 b) an analysis of the organisation’s current strategy, leading to a diagnosis in which you explain the nature of the main strategic challenge faced by the organisation; c) the formulation and evaluation of a guiding policy for effectively dealing with the strategic challenge that you have identified; d) the development of a coherent set of strategic actions that are designed to carry out the guiding policy that you have formulated and evaluated. The first section of the assignment should consist of between 3800 and 4200 words in length, excluding any Appendices. (You should provide a word count at the end of the first section.) Please note the following guidance: This first section of the assignment will require a considerable amount of data gathering from a variety of sources – company websites, media coverage, official statistics, case study articles etc. This will take time and effort and you should plan for this accordingly. You are not expected to collect any primary data. Some of your data will be qualitative, some will be quantitative. But no matter how much effort you put into your data gathering, your data will be incomplete in some ways. The second section of the assignment consists of a reflective group report based on your work on the assignment. As a group, you are asked to reflect on your own experience, the work done in the group, and the relevant literature that you have read. The main theme of the reflection should be around the following questions: a) In practice, how appropriate or useful do you think these analytical and modelling tools are for strategic decision makers b) In practice, what difficulties would you anticipate in applying these analytical and modelling tools and, realistically, how could these be overcome The second section of the assignment should consist of between 800 and 1200 words in length. (You should provide a word count at the end of the second section.) The two sections of the group assignment should be presented together in the form of a management report, with a total length of between 4600 and 5400 words (excluding the Executive Summary, the Bibliography and any Appendices). The assignment should include full references to all the material that you have consulted (both direct references in the main text of your report and a bibliography at the end). The assignment should be produced in Microsoft Word. Submission should be made electronically through the MS925 class website on Myplace. Please note that this group assignment will be peer-reviewed. Peer reviews from all members of the group are compulsory and non-submission by the required submission date will result in a 5 point penalty. The assignment deadline is Monday 28 March 2022, no later than 11:00 pm. (Standard penalties will apply for late submission.) Dr Robert Van Der Meer, Strathclyde Business School
