Assignment Brief and Guidance Scenario and Activity Business Strategy plays a crucial role in guiding a firm’s growth, competitiveness, and success. It offers a roadmap for decision-making, resource providing, and adaptation to transforming
Assignment Title: Strategic Management Plan
Submission Format
The submission is in the form of a strategic management plan report submitted using a WORD processed document. PDF and other types of files are not accepted.
The recommended word limit is 4000 – 4500 words. Although, you will not be penalised for exceeding the recommended word limit, however, you are strictly advised to remain within the recommend word limit and enhance your writing skills. For more guidance, consult your lecturer.
You are required to make use of clear headings, sub-headings and paragraphs, as appropriate to organise your report. Wherever appropriate, work should be supported with relevant researched data, examples, academic literature, and referenced using the Harvard referencing system. Please also provide a reference list using the Harvard referencing system.
Unit Learning Outcomes
LO1: Analyse the impact and influence that the macro environment has on an organisation and its business strategies.
LO2: Assess an organisation’s internal environment and capabilities.
LO3: Apply the outcome of an analysis, using an appropriate strategic management tool, in a given market sector.
LO4: Develop a strategic management plan in an organisation, informed by models, theories and concepts, to achieve competitive advantage in ab given market sector.
Assignment Brief and Guidance
Scenario and Activity
Business Strategy plays a crucial role in guiding a firm’s growth, competitiveness, and success. It offers a roadmap for decision-making, resource providing, and adaptation to transforming circumstances, ensuring that a firm stays agile, focused, and well-prepared to achieve its goals successfully. For this reason, business leaders need to continuously evolve, educate themselves in creating and executing effective strategies.
Much more so that in the recent time, there is a concern that China is becoming a big rival innovator of the Western nations’ competitive position in advanced industries. In most of these industries, that include aerospace, automotive, robotics, and advanced materials, China has been able to gain market share through the advantages of scale economies in its often-protected home market, combined with significant subsidies to Chinese firms. This is why, in 2020, in 7 of 10 the advanced industries, China led in global production, with the United States leading in only 3. The position may have changed favourably towards China with the competitions evolving in developing AI infrastructures.
While the evidence suggests that China hasn’t yet taken the overall lead, it has pulled ahead in certain areas, and in many others. Chinese firms will likely equal or surpass Western firms within a decade or so; as it has assumed a new stage in its economic development, with much greater innovation capabilities in its universities and domestic companies—and on many innovation indicators, which may be an indication that China is perhaps now leads the United States and West Europe, including Great Britain. This is possible because of the combination of low costs of operations and the growing innovation capability; making an increasing number of Chinese companies having formidable global competitors.
As a Junior Strategy Manager working in an organisation of your choice, you have been tasked with the responsibility of producing a strategic management plan (in a report to your line manager) that creates a set of valid strategic directions, objectives and tactical actions for successfully achieving strategic alignment, based on critical interpretation of internal and external data, and information.
Within the report, you should critically analyse the macro environment to determine and inform the strategic management decisions of the selected organisation, while the assessment of the internal environment and capabilities should generate an interpretation of information and data to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the internal capabilities, structure and skill set of your selected organisation using appropriate frameworks.
In addition to the situation analysis above, you will need to justify the use of an appropriate strategic management tool to inform strategy and strategic objectives for your chosen organisation within its specific market sector.
Resultantly, use appropriate models and concepts to produce a strategic management plan that has tangible and tactical strategic priorities and objectives to improve competitive edge and market position.
Note
From the following list of companies, you will need to choose any one company, as a reference company to complete this unit assignment.
You must get your lecturer’s approval on your selection before proceeding to work on your assignment report.
1. Tesla
2. Airbnb
3. Mercedes Benz
4. HubSpot
5. Apple
6. AstraZeneca
7. Spotify
8. P&G
9. IBM
10. Nvidia
Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria
Pass Merit Distinction
LO1 Analyse the impact and influence that the macro environment has on an organisation and its business strategies.
LO1, LO2, LO3 and LO4
D1 Create a set of valid strategic directions, objectives and tactical actions for successfully achieving strategic alignment, based on critical interpretation on internal and external data, and information.
P1 Applying appropriate frameworks, analyse the impact and influence of the macro environment on a given organisation and its strategies. M1 Critically analyse the macro environment to determine and inform strategic management decisions.
LO2. Assess an organisation’s internal environment and capabilities.
P2 Conduct and internal environment and capabilities assessment of a given organisation using appropriate frameworks. M2 Interpret information and data to assess strengths and weaknesses of an organisation’s internal capabilities, structure, and skill set.
LO3 Apply the outcomes of an analysis, using an appropriate strategic management tool in a given market sector.
P3 Determine appropriate management tools to analyse a given market sector for an organisation and inform strategy.
P4 Devise appropriate strategic objectives, based on the outcomes of analysis for an organisation to inform strategy. M3 Justify the use of an appropriate strategic management tool for a given market sector, to inform strategy and strategic objectives for an organisation.
LO4 Develop a strategic management plan in an organisation, informed by models, theories and concepts, to achieve competitive advantage in a given market sector.
P5 Apply a range of models, concepts or theories to interpret and devise strategic planning for a given organisation.
P6 Design a strategic management plan, applying appropriate strategies to improve competitive edge and market position based on the outcomes. M4 Produce a strategic management plan that has tangible and tactical strategic priorities and objectives.
Achievement of a Pass grade
A student must have satisfied all the Pass criteria for the learning outcomes, showing coverage of the unit content and therefore attainment at Level 4 or 5 of the national framework.
Achievement of a Merit grade
A student must have satisfied all the Merit criteria (as well as the Pass criteria) through high performance in each learning outcome.
Achievement of a Distinction grade
A student must have satisfied all the Distinction criteria (as well as the Pass and Merit criteria), and these define outstanding performance across the unit as a whole.
ALL GRADES ARE PROVISIONAL UNTIL INTERNALLY VERIFIED AND UNTIL EXTERNALLY CERTIFIED BY EDEXCEL.
THIS MEANS THAT A GRADE CAN BE CHANGED AT ANY POINT UNTIL EDEXCEL CERTIFIES IT
As per Pearson policy, you are only allowed two submissions per module. One for final submission and another one for referral. Failure to achieve a grade pass after a second submission will result in you having to repeat the module in the next term.
Any re-submission or late submission (unless authorised due to mitigating circumstances) will be capped at a PASS grade only.
Specification of Assessment
• Present your work in one report style which should include a cover page, table of contents, introduction, conclusion, reference list, foot or end notes and appendices, if any.
• Include the reference code of this assignment on your assignment submission front page.
• Sign the Learner’s Statement of authenticity in the cover page. Failure to do so will result in the submission being declined.
• Ensure the following information is in the footer on every page:
o Your name
o The production date of your submission
o The code number of your assignment brief
o The page number (Each page must be numbered at the bottom right-hand side)
• Spell-check the document and make sure there are no grammatical errors as it may result in the submission being declined.
• Complete all the tasks in a Holistic manner as set in the brief and without separating the assessment criteria to avoid a potential referral.
• Create your own titles and sub-headings to structure the work without copying the assessment criteria verbatim.
• Produce clear specific reasoning and arguments in support of your answers.
• Submit your work in a single WORD processed document of not more than 5000 words for all learning Outcomes. This word limit is only for guidelines and is not applied to grading. PDF and other types of files are not accepted.
• You must include a bibliography at the end to show where your information was sourced. Failure to do so may result in the submission being declined
• Your sources must be identified using the Harvard referencing system. The words used in your bibliography will not be included in your word count.
• You must use Arial, size 12, 1.5 line spacing and black to format the text.
To access any feedback (formative/summative) you will have to access Moodle and open your assignment. You will have to click on the blue comment box in the righthand side and the feedback will appear within the text. You might have to click on the blue bubbles to see the feedback.
If an extension is necessary for a valid reason, requests must be made in writing using a course work extension request form to the head of department. Please note that the lecturers do not have the authority to extend the coursework deadlines and therefore do not ask them to award a coursework extension.
The completed form must be accompanied by evidence such as a medical certificate in the event of you being sick.
Any act of plagiarism and collusion will be seriously dealt with according to the regulations and MRC Malpractice policy
Plagiarism occurs when a student misrepresents any work submitted as his/her own work, the work of any other person or of any institution. Examples of forms of plagiarism include:
• the verbatim (word for word) copying of another’s work without appropriate and correctly presented acknowledgement.
• the close paraphrasing of another’s work by simply changing a few words or altering the order of presentation, without appropriate and correctly presented acknowledgement.
• unacknowledged quotation of phrases from another’s work;
• The deliberate and detailed presentation of another’s concept as one’s own.
All types of work submitted by students are covered by this definition, including, written work, diagrams, designs, engineering drawings and pictures.
Collusion occurs when, unless with official approval (e.g., in the case of group projects), two or more students consciously collaborate in the preparation and production of work which is ultimately submitted by each in an identical, or substantially similar, form and/or is represented by each to be the product of his or her individual efforts.
All submissions for assessment must be submitted on Moodle to generate a Turnitin Report on similarity to detect potential plagiarism and collusion.
The maximum Turnitin score admissible is 15% but a submission can be classified as plagiarism and/or collusion with a lower score depending on the size of the submission and size of the text highlighted.
Assignments with plagiarism/ad or collusion will be automatically referred for reworking and resubmission. Please check the MRC Assessment policy as well as MRC Malpractice policy for details of the potential penalties as a procedure.
Including pictures of text (apart from the cover page or table of content) or pictures of any other type of information (diagram for example) without a citation and a Harvard Reference could be deemed to be an attempt of malpractice and could trigger an automatic referral as well as a malpractice procedure.
Any student might be called to seat through a viva with the lecturer to confirm any parts of the submission through an interview which will then form part of the summative assessment.
AI tools have proliferated and become more common and as a result, their usage for research has increased which prompted change of government policies in this matter.
Overall, it remains too easy for students to misunderstand how they can use Generative Artificial Intelligence tools and unintentionally breach academic integrity guidelines.
Research of information and the writing of academic work must always be performed by the student, and while it is acceptable to use an AI tool to start a research process, it is not allowed to use it to write a submission in your place.
The important part is to understand that the best way to produce a work is to research it through traditional methods (books articles, websites, journals).
Yet, AI tools could be used to help with the research but only as a starting point. Having found information, thanks to an AI tool, about a topic you are writing about, you should then research it using these traditional methods and include the references and citations based on these resources in your work.
Once you have the correct information, you need to write the assignment yourself, using an AI tool to do this for you is never allowed. The usage of paraphrasing tools might be appropriate to find alternative to some words and short sentences, but not or a whole paragraph/page/ work.
The same way Mont Rose College is using a similarity detection system, an AI detection tool is embedded in our systems and every submission you make will go through both of them.
Submissions for assessment that consist of large substantially unmodified output from Artificial Intelligence software may be considered as a very poor academic practice as it does not represent the student’s own work.
To this effect, the limit on AI detection has been set at 50%. If a submission is over that allowance, the submission could be rejected and awarded a Referral and/or the student called to seat through a viva with the lecturer to confirm any parts of the submission through an interview which will then form part of the summative assessment.
In cases where an individual persistently exhibits poor academic practice through inappropriate use of Artificial Intelligence tools, such as a lack of evidencing their use of the tools, they may be referred to the academic misconduct procedures and the range of the potential penalties
Textbooks
JOHNSON, G. et al (2023) Exploring Strategy: Text and Cases.13th Ed. Harlow: Pearson.
KIM, W. C. and MAUBORGNE, R. (2015) Blue Ocean Strategy. Expanded Ed. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.
ROTHAERMEL, F. (2018) Strategic Management. 4th Ed. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill.
Websites
www.businessballs.com
Business Balls, Strategy and innovation (General reference)
www.businesscasetudies.co.uk
Business Case Studies, Case studies, Strategy, (Resources)
www.corporatefinanceinstitute.com
Corporate Finance Institute, Resources, Knowledge, Strategy, (General reference)
www.strategy-business.com
Strategy and Business, Strategy, (General reference)