an individual assignment that focuses on the application of the strategic design tools. Complemented by your own research, you are required to consider a growth venture proposition using, as a minimum, the competitive advantage, business model, intellectual capital, and resource based strategy tools and perspectives covered in this course. You are not permitted to use the same firm as your team case study.

Your chosen case will be a young firm; a start-up or new firm of not more than 3 years old. Alternatively it could be a new division or a new spin-out firm from a corporate or university providing it is creating a new market position not previously held. Analysis of established firms (more than three years old) that do not have a new market position intent will not be permissible cases. If in doubt about your case, check with your lecturer.

You are required to:

Describe the venture detailing its background and core business.

Define a strategic intent and the customer value logic (chain, shop or network) for the venture.

Using resource based theory, assess and recommend the potential competitive advantage of the venture.\r\n§

Design and document the intellectual capital resources required to ground the competitive advantage for the growth of the venture.

Articulate the intellectual capital resources and capabilities currently available to the venture and those that are yet to be acquired (a gap analysis) detailing short term strategies of capability and/or resource acquisition. Use the IC Navigator and Effector plot for your analysis.

Propose a long term resource based strategy for the venture describing the growth of core assets that will be critical for the venture to maintain a unique competitive position and competitive advantage. Be specific about the action steps for the firm.

Develop a set of principles that will guide the entrepreneur in managing the acquisition and growth of key intellectual capital resources to form the basis of a three year plan.