Task

Choose a firm of your choice (my chosen company: a China company Alibaba Group) .  It should interest you for some reason. Are there some problems/opportunities in their current global operations or aspirations? Evaluate the suitability of its main corporate and business level strategies in the current global environment. What recommendations, if any, would you offer to its CEO if you had an audience with him/her? What other firms might learn from this firm?

This is a REPORT.

Word limit

4000 words for the main report. This limit excludes any supporting, charts, diagrams, tables, references and appendices.

Analysis guidelines

The purpose of this assignment is to give you an opportunity to demonstrate the knowledge and skills you have learned from this module.

There are many, equally valid ways to fulfil the assignment tasks. You will therefore have to make many choices of your own. The easiest way to bring this focus is use of a problem statement that has motivated the analysis. You can take the role of a consultant brought in by the firm to provide some new insight to address a specific problem or to tap a specific opportunity. That may well help you to decide what types evidence to collect and what tools and concepts to apply for the analysis. You will also have to decide on the exact time frame you want to cover (e.g. current strategies, or strategies since …). You will have to look slightly back into the past in order to describe the strategies, but you should NOT get lost in the history of its strategies as well.

You need to conduct your own research into the company, its strategies, and its environment. Most firms provide a lot of useful information in the public domain. Internet search, in particular the company website, news articles, and journal articles will be useful for gaining relevant information about the company and its environment.

You should first describe the most important features of the firm’s corporate and business level strategies. You will not be able to describe the strategy of all business units in detail, but you should first provide a brief overview of the business units and their strategies, and then provide slightly more detail on a few (3-5) business units of your choice.

You then have to evaluate the strategies with regard to their suitability. You should use only the criterion of ‘suitability.’ To examine suitability, you will therefore have to analyse how the strategies match (a) the firm’s remote and operating environments, (b) its capabilities, and (c) its stakeholders’ expectations.

There is no set range of tools and concepts that you should use, but you have to make a choice of which concepts or tools to apply. Please note that you do not have to use all concepts and tools discussed in the lectures. When choosing analytical tools, please make sure that you have access to the data you need for applying them, and that their use add value to the analysis. For example, to highlight the relevant factors in the environment, the capabilities, and stakeholder expectation, you may use theoretical concepts (such as core capabilities, environmental forces) and analytical tools (such as PESTEL, SWOT, value chain analysis and stakeholder mapping). You are expected to demonstrate that you have understood the concepts and tools in theory, and that you are able to use them to analyse the given case.

To make sure that your analysis reveals the core issues and not get bogged down by superfluous details, use your informed discretion that you would develop as you research more into your chosen firm. For example, if you are doing an environmental analysis and your firm is a global firm with operations in several countries, you don’t have to analyse each country in equal detail. Instead, provide a global overview of environmental factors and then give examples from the most important countries/markets.

General writing/stylistic guidelines

Start with a brief introduction on the chosen firm and the structure of the report before proceeding to the task. After completing the task, summarise the report very briefly and conclude.

Use Arial 11 or Times New Roman 12 font size. Use proper margins on both sides. You should provide a contents page and use headings and subheadings. You are expected to write in a logical, analytical, and concise manner. You also need to refer to relevant literature throughout the report and use a correct and consistent referencing style.

Tables or figures will be placed after the first mention in the text, as soon as graphically possible and pleasing. Remember to number all the tables, diagrams, charts, and pages and provide references of the sources you took them from (unless you have created them yourself). You need to describe the relevant content of each table, figure, etc. in your own words in the text, and introduce the table/figure in the text, e.g.: (see Table xy).

The sources that you use to develop this report should be appropriately cited. The work submitted for assessment must be your own. Copying others’ work without acknowledging the source of information is plagiarism, which is a serious academic misconduct. Use a consistent referencing style. You should make certain that there is a complete reference for every citation in the text and wherever you use someone else’s views or quotes. There should not be more references in the list than in the text. Moreover, the cited dates and the spellings of authors’ names in the text and references have to be in agreement. Make sure you use authors’ second names, not first names.

Submission

Students must submit an electronic version of their coursework through the Learn submission system so that the assignment can be put through plagiarism software where deemed necessary.  Students should be warned that the provisions of the University’s Regulation XVIII will be strictly applied to suspected cases of plagiarism in coursework assignments.  Details of Regulation XVIII may be found at the following Web address:

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/admin/ar/calendar/regulations/current/18/index.htm

Marking criteria

Your assignment will be marked according to the following criteria.

The use of concepts/frameworks: 25 %

You have to demonstrate that you have a thorough understanding of the theoretical concepts (including analytical tools) that you use to analyse the company case.

Quality of Research reflected by the use of evidence/data: 25 %

It is important that you fulfil the task in depth. You will be marked on the amount of relevant research that you have done to gather specific information about the focal firm. You therefore have to avoid presenting irrelevant and outdated material. Irrelevant information will not contribute to your mark.

Presentation: 25 %

This refers to the transparency of the assignment structure, clarity of ideas and arguments, the quality of language and spelling, and general format (see ‘Format’ below).

Recommendations/Insights: 25 %

This refers to the conclusion of your work. This may focus on any insight, supported by your analysis, that the management team in your chosen firm or any other firm can benefit from.