Assignment Instructions

Week 8 Final Project – Strategic Assessment Project (PowerPoint presentation plus References page)

Goal: Develop and present via PowerPoint a strategic plan for your organization, integrating various concepts, components and processes presented throughout this course.  Submit the presentation (ppt or pptx) along with a References page (.doc) that verifies sources used.

Introduction: Managers who want to improve the effectiveness of the future outcomes of their organization employ strategic planning. In a 20-25-slide PowerPoint presentation, present a strategic plan for your organization, accompanied by a References-only page as a Word.doc that contains the minimum 10 sources used in the development of the presentation. Your presentation may be a re-developed plan based on the plan your organization already uses. If you are in the military, you may elect to choose a company where you previously worked or select a company. In any case, you will need to begin by providing a brief history of the company, and then delve into the process detailed more fully below. Accompany your writing with a minimum five scholarly journal articles that support the assertions made in your strategic plan. You will also need to use at least five other sources—books, magazines, websites, and even interviews—to augment your data support for the presentation.

Your strategic plan should address [Suggested number of PPT slides in brackets]:

The Name of the Company/Firm  [1 PPT slide]

Brief History of the Company (or Organization), its Mission and Vision [2-3 PPT slides]

Organizational Analysis [5-6 PPT slides] : This section will present your identification of the firm’s strengths and weaknesses, which emanate from your value chain and functional analyses. There is a maximum of five strengths and five weaknesses and your presentation of them should be prioritized. Exhibits are effective tools to provide strong support for each strength and weakness. Please be as specific as possible and quantify your analysis where appropriate. This section will provide the first part of the foundation for your identification of strategic issues and related recommendations through your analysis of the organization’s core competencies, competitive advantages and organizational weaknesses.

Environmental Analysis [5-6 PPT slides]: This section will present your identification of the major external threats and opportunities currently facing the organization. These will be generated from your analysis of the industry and general environmental factors in light of the organization’s strengths and weaknesses. A maximum of five threats and five opportunities should be identified and should be presented in a prioritized order. Use power point exhibits to support your analysis, be specific and quantify your analysis where possible. This section will provide the second part of the foundation for your identification of a strategic issue and the formulation of related recommendations through your analysis of driving forces, key success factors and industry attractiveness.

Strategic Issues And Recommendations [6-7 PPT slides]: Identify (with support) the most important strategic issue facing your organization. It is extremely important that you clearly integrate the strategic issue with your analysis to the organization’s SWOT. There may be interrelationships between particular weaknesses and threats or missed opportunities, which should be recognized. It may be possible that 2 different weaknesses, 1 threat and 1 opportunity could be combined, due to their relatedness, to form one strategic issue. Similarly, your recommendations should attempt to capitalize and build upon strengths, competitive advantages and opportunities that you identified. The point is to clearly ground your issue and recommendations with the internal and external analyses so that the presentation is clear.

Conclusion/Summary [1-2 PPT slides]

PowerPoint Suggestions:

• The slides need to be detailed, ready for presentation, and professional in appearance. View the example in the attachment provided (below). Note how the citations are placed directly on the slides. Be sure to provide a separate references page that links to the citations on the PowerPoint. An example of how a references page should look is not provided, since you already should be able to construct that document as you would any other references page in APA.
• The scholarship required for this project must be cited on the slides, i.e., 10 overall sources minimum, as specified in the Introduction above.
• NOTE about the use of pictures—the website upload limit per PPT is 25MB.
• Always present in “third person”
• Do not forget to upload your separate references-only page to support the citations that appear on the PowerPoint.

Other Important Details:

• Upload BOTH your PowerPoint (.ppt or .pptx) and References page (.doc)