Part 1: Identify the Strategic Issue(s) That Are the Key Point(s) of Leverage For A Company in An Industry
Part 1 of the assignment has a future-oriented focus. Use critical analysis to find and argue which issues are the underlying, most important drivers of your chosen situation and how that situation could change in the future. Do not make any assumptions. Do not believe any claims made by the organisation or others. You must provide evidence and PROVE which forces are the key strategic drivers and then apply implementation models to argue for which actions should be taken to successfully achieve the change you intend. Simple descriptions will not be sufficient.
Build on your strategic analyses of the context, industry and organisation to recommend what your target company should do to enhance their strategy. In doing your analyses and arguing for your recommendation, your paper would need to have evidence that is as specific, detailed, and relevant as possible.
Part 2: Identify the Future Actions to get those changes to occur
Part 2 has a detail-oriented focus. Identify and argue, using strategy models, which organisations could leverage the strategic issue(s) identified in part 1 to be a strategic opportunity.
That is, identify and argue, using detailed evidence, what actions a target organisation could do in order to successfully implement your recommendation, including avoiding any likely problems. In determining the actions the organisation could do, ask yourself, if the changes have not occurred by now, why have those changes not already occurred? What’s stopping the changes occurring? Quite often the obstacles could be very subtle or hidden, such as obscure rules in regulations or some other subtle, but important, detail.
Any recommendations have to be reasonable and supported by detailed evidence. Your assignment has to find and prove, using detailed evidence, the key points of leverage to help bring about the recommended solution.
Overall
Overall, your assignment must answer: For which organisations could the target situation represent a strategic opportunity? Why is that opportunity arising? How could the target organisation take advantage of that opportunity?
Good examples of motivations that could help you choose a target organisation and industry include:
– the need to improve our residential construction industry to catch up on the shortage of houses and restore confidence in the industry,
– the need to improve the efficiency and sustainability of “heavy” industries such as cement and lime for the infrastructure and construction industries,
– the need to dramatically reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) production of cement manufacturing companies, such as through the use of kaolin in producing clinker for cement,
– the need for dramatic growth in the number of forestry plantations, preferably sustainably managed plantations, in Australia and especially in Victoria,
– the need to upscale and enhance the Ammonia industry in Australia, whether in terms of ammonia production, transport (over land) or shipping, and the options for Green Ammonia,
– substantially growing the vinyl-recycling industry or soft plastic recycling industry in Australia, or
– the need to dramatically expand the generation and provision of energy from solar farms.
General Guidelines
In doing your analyses and arguing the way forward, your paper would need to get down to as specific a level of detail as possible, as specific as you have evidence to support your recommendations or projections. Specify what changes are needed, how would the necessary changes be executed and which organisations you think will and could execute such changes and why would they execute those changes? What argument, such as an under-served market, or business opportunity to make profit, would motivate a particular organisation to make the changes you suggest? Furthermore, if the changes have not occurred by now, why haven’t those changes occurred? What’s stopping the changes occurring? Quite often the obstacles could be very subtle or hidden, such as obscure rules in regulations or some other subtle detail.
Again, remember to not make any assumptions anywhere in the paper and do not believe unsupported claims made by the company or other commentators. In your paper, as much as possible, you must provide evidence (referencing the source) and prove the likely drivers, issues and actions that should be taken. Merely describing what is occurring in a situation will not be sufficient for a pass.
Any changes and actions recommended in your assignment have to be reasonable and likely. Your assignment is to find the key points of leverage to help bring about possible futures.
In this assessment, students are encouraged to present the background of the case and the industry that is stated in the given case, analysis of the strategy and source of competitive advantage, and identify key theories or models that are useful and applicable to the case.
Students need to analyse one or more of the companies in the target industry and write a business report of 2,500 words (+/- 5%, including tables and figures in the main body of the report, including the Executive Summary, but excluding the Table of Contents, the References section and Appendices). Your analysis and argument should lead to a set of feasible, detailed recommendations as to which organisations should do what and why those organisations should do those actions. An initial overview of Assignment 3 is also available Download An initial overview of Assignment 3 is also available.
The Executive Summary should be half a page and should give the “answer” to your situation, making a convincing argument to an executive reading it, using powerful evidence, that a particular action should take place. The Executive Summary should also contain the key points of context and evidence for that person to be able to use to argue for your recommendations to other people. There are