 Project report: This is a useful individual/group undertaking to complement the case

method and to give you the opportunity to relate your organization’s experience to the
concepts and theories studied in this course. The content of the project paper will be a
study of your own organization covering a wide range of topics related to the practice of
strategic management. Almost the coverage of each chapter will give rise to new issues and
topics to be investigated and included in the report. The collection of how your organization
deals with these issues and topics will be the basis for your project paper’s final report. You
can use Wheelen and Hunger (1987)’s Using the Strategic Audit [available with the readings
set] to help you address all important areas in your report (a sample of project report
questions and issues are given in Appendix 3).
The recommended format of the project paper is as follows:
1. Executive summary (in such a way that readers can rapidly become acquainted with a
large body of material without having to read it all ... provide a justification ... have a
conclusion).
2. A brief description of the organization about which the report is prepared (name, year
established, type of business, products and services, size of business, number of staff,
scope of operations …).
3. An external analysis.
4. An internal analysis.
5. Identification and evaluation of current strategy.
6. Recommendations, action plan, and resource requirements to improve the organization
performance.
I do expect to see quality report of reasonable size; about 20 pages (12- font Times New
Romans, double-spaced, and standard margins) of succinct writing will be just fine,
depending on the group size.
The submission due date will be given in the first class meeting. One letter grade will be
deducted for each day the report is late.

Project Paper Sample Questions and Issues

The aim of these sets of questions is to help you address the widest range of issues covered in
this course as well as to assist you demonstrate your understanding of them and how they
apply to your own organization. You are not required to address every single issue or to answer
every single question. However, the more issues you address the better.

Choose an organization, preferably the organization you work for, to study. You are required to
obtain enough information about that organization to carry out the instructions and answer the
following or similar questions.
Instructions and Questions Set 1

1. Give a short account of the history of the organization, and trace the evolution of its
strategy over time. Try to determine whether the strategic evolution of your organization is
the product of intended strategies, emergent strategies, or some combination of the two.
2. Identify the vision, mission, and major goals of the organization.
3. Do a preliminary analysis of the internal strengths and weaknesses of the organization and
of the opportunities and threats that it faces in its environment. On the basis of this
analysis, identify the strategies that you think the organization should pursue.
4. Evaluate the leadership capabilities of the CEO [or equivalent position].

The next set of instructions and questions deals with the relationships your organization has
with its major stakeholder groups. With the information you have at your disposal, perform the
tasks and answer relevant questions from those listed, as they apply:

Instructions and Questions Set 2

1. Does your organization have a formal mission statement? Does it define the business,
identify major goals, and articulate the corporate philosophy?
2. If your organization lacks a mission statement, what do you think its mission statement
should be like?
3. If your organization has a mission statement, do you see it as appropriate? Why or why not?
4. Identify the main stakeholder groups in your organization. What claims do they place on the
company? How is the organization trying to satisfy those claims?
5. Evaluate the performance of the CEO [or equivalent position]of your organization from the
perspective of
a) stockholders,
b) employees,
c) customers, and
d) suppliers.

What do you think about the ability of the CEO and the priorities to which he or she is
committed.

6. Do the governance mechanisms that operate in your organization do a good job of aligning
the interests of top managers with those of stockholders?
7. Pick a major strategic decision made by your company in recent years, and try to think
through the ethical implications of that decision. Do you think that the company acted
correctly?

The following set of instructions and questions requires you to analyze the environment of the
industry in which your company is based. With the information you have at your disposal,
answer relevant questions from those listed, as they apply:
Instructions and Questions Set 3

1. Apply the five-force model to the industry in which your organization is based. What does
this model tell you about the nature of competition in the industry?
2. Are there any changes taking place in the macro environment (the factors not the actors)
that might have an impact, either positive or negative, upon the industry in which your
organization is based? If so, what are these changes, and how will they affect the industry?
3. Identify any strategic groups that might exist in the industry. How does the intensity of
competition differ across the strategic groups you have identified?
4. How dynamic is the industry in which your company is based? Is there any evidence that
innovation is reshaping competition or has done so in the recent past?
5. In what stage of its life cycle is the industry in which your organization is based? What are
the implications of this for the intensity of competition both now and in the future?
6. Is your organization based in an industry that is becoming more global? If so, what are the
implications of this change for competitive?
7. Analyze the impact of national context as it pertains to the industry in which your
organization is based. Does national context help or hinder your organization in achieving a
competitive advantage in the global market place?

The following set of instructions and questions deals with the competitive position of your
organization. With the information you have at your disposal, perform the tasks and answer
relevant questions from those listed, as they apply:

Instructions and Questions Set 4

1. Identify whether your organization has a competitive advantage or disadvantage in its

primary industry. (Its primary industry is the one in which it has the most sales).
2. Evaluate your organization against the four generic building blocks of competitive
advantage: efficiency, quality, innovation, and customer responsiveness. How does this
exercise help you understand the performance of your organization relative to that of its
competitors?
3. What are the distinctive competencies of your organization?
4. What role have prior strategies played in shaping the distinctive competencies of your
organization? What has been the role of luck?
5. Do the strategies currently pursued by your organization build on its distinctive
competencies? Are they an attempt to build new competencies?
6. What are the barriers to imitating the distinctive competencies of your organization?
7. Is there any evidence that your company finds it difficult to adapt to changing industry
conditions? If so, why do you think this is the case?

The next set of instructions and questions requires you to assess the vertical integration,
diversification, and other grand and business strategies being pursued by your organization.
With the information you have at your disposal, perform the tasks and answer relevant
questions from those listed, as they apply:
Instructions and Questions Set 5

If your organization has used any growth strategy during the last decade

1. Identify growth strategies (separately used or in combination) that have/had been used by
your organization during the last ten years or so.
2. Assess the appropriateness of those strategies and the risks associated with them.
3. Assess the advantages and disadvantages of those strategies with respect to value adding.
4. Is your organization currently pursuing a growth strategy or a combination of growth
strategies? If so, how appropriate are these strategies? Justify your answer.

If your organization has vertically integrated during the last decade

5. How vertically integrated is your organization? If your organization does have vertically
integrated operations, is it pursuing strategy of taper (partial) or full integration?
6. How diversified is your organization? If your organization is already diversified, is it pursuing
a related diversification strategy, an unrelated diversification strategy, or some mix of the
two?
7. Assess the potential of your organization to create value through vertical integration. In
reaching your assessment, also consider the bureaucratic costs of managing vertical
integration.
8. On the basis of your assessment in question 7, do you think your organization should
a) outsource some operations that are currently performed in-house or
b) bring some operations in-house that are currently outsourced? Justify your
recommendations.
9. Is your organization currently involved in any long-term cooperative relationships with
suppliers or buyers? If so, how are these relationships structured? Do you think that these
relationships add value to the organization? Why?
10. Is there any potential for your organization to enter into (additional) long-term cooperative
relationships with suppliers or buyers? If so, how might these relationships be structured?

If your organization has diversified its operations or entered into strategic alliances during the
last decade

11. Assess the potential of your organization to create value through diversification. In reaching
your assessment, also consider the bureaucratic costs of managing diversification.
12. On the basis of your assessment in question 11, do you think your organization should
a) sell off some diversified operations or
b) pursue additional diversification? Justify your recommendations.
13. Is your organization currently trying to transfer skills or realize economies of scope by
entering into strategic alliances with other organizations? If so, how are these relationships
structured? Do you think that these relationships add value to the organization? Why?
14. Is there any potential for your organization to transfer skills or realize economies of scope
by entering into (additional) strategic alliances with other organizations? If so, how might
these relationships be structured?

If your organization has entered a new business area during the last decade

15. Pick one new business area that your organization has entered into during the last ten
years.
16. Identify the rationale for entering this business area.
17. Identify the strategy used to enter this business area.
18. Evaluate the rationale for using this particular entry strategy. Do you think that this was the
best entry strategy to use? Justify your answer.
19. Do you think that the addition of this business area to the organization has added or
dissipated value? Justify your answer.

If your organization has restructured its business during the last decade

20. Identify the rationale for pursuing a restructuring strategy.

21. Pick one business area that your organization has exited during the last ten years or so.
22. Identify the strategy used to exit this particular business area. Do you think that this was the
best exit strategy to use? Justify your answer.
23. In general, do you think that exiting from this business area has been in the organization’s
best interest?

Project Paper: An Alternative Option

Choose an organization, preferably the organization you work for, to study. You are required to
obtain the “strategic plan” of that organization to carry out your analysis and assessment.

Your task is to look into every element of the “strategic plan” (vision, mission, goals/objectives,
strategy, etc.). Assess the quality of each of these elements, as well as the “strategic plan” in its
totality, according to what the literature of the field of strategic management suggests (the
course covers some of that). Finally, recommend improvements to address the identified
weaknesses in your assessment.