Assignment: Organisational Issue and SWOT Analysis

Whether large or small, every organisation will at some point encounter issues that might be challenging. Take for example the global franchise Cold Stone Creamery. Several years ago, Cold Stone Creamery franchises were rapidly expanding, and it seemed there was one on every corner. They had a unique product: high-quality, hand-crafted ice creams with a bevy of toppings and flavour combinations. Cold Stone became trendy and began expanding at an extremely fast pace. Soon, franchises started opening too close to one another and were hurting each other's sales. As fast as franchises were opening, they were closing as well. This is a perfect example of an organisation that encountered the issue of expanding too quickly.

Organisations can face a multitude of challenging issues that need to be addressed. One effective tool an organisation can use to self-evaluate and determine potential issues is a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis. A SWOT analysis can help in the decision-making process for new strategies or ventures. In addition to facilitating analysis of the organisation's internal characteristics, SWOT analysis also introduces the notion of external environmental analysis, which you will explore in more depth in the next module.

Your Final Project in this module consists of a Consulting Report you will make to an organisation of your choice. In this Individual Assignment, you will identify an organisational issue that will serve as the basis for your Final Project, and to which you will return in future assignments. Throughout the module, you will apply a variety of analytical tools to aid you in understanding and addressing the organisation and the organisational issue you identified. The first such analytical tool you will practise applying is a SWOT analysis, which you will also conduct in this Assignment.

To prepare for this Individual Assignment:

- Review the Final Project Guidelines document found in the Learning Resources. You can also find the Final Project Document in the Final Project area of the Module Menu. The Final Project instructions include guidance for selecting an organisation on which to focus.

- Review the Learning Resources from this unit and focus on organisational issues and SWOT analysis; use these as a basis to identify one to two additional scholarly sources on internal organisational analysis.

- Identify an issue in the organisation you selected. Organisational issues may include ethical problems, understaffing or overstaffing, overuse or underuse of resources, lack of communication between teams and stakeholders, lack of innovation, decreased profits, or other problems or challenges faced by the organisation. The issue should be of strategic importance, with a demonstrable impact on organisational performance.

To complete this Individual Assignment:

- Describe the organisational issue that you have identified for your Final Project.

- Explain the scope of the issue.

- Explain how the issue you identified may impact the organisation from an internal perspective.

- Perform a SWOT analysis on the organisation you selected and analyse the results.

- Provide two to four questions you might need to ask key stakeholders in the organisation in order to obtain additional information that would help in refining your analysis.

Be sure to include references to all sources, including your Learning Resources, in Harvard Referencing Style.Organisations and the Business Environment Final Project Guidelines

Overview

For your Final Project, you are strongly encouraged to select an organisation that is publicly traded, a government organisation or an organisation that is otherwise required by law to disclose its information. You must have, at a minimum, access to the following organisational information:

• An organisational issue and scope of that issue

• Sufficient detail to be able to provide two bullets of information for each of the following areas: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis)

• Political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental information required to perform a PESTLE analysis

• Information on resource allocation (technology, people, finances)

To aid in your selection, it is highly recommended that you submit the organisation you wish to select to your Faculty Member early in the course. In that submission, include the name of the organisation and provide as much information as possible about the organisation. The Faculty Member can then provide feedback on your selection and make recommendations.

For your Final Project, you will act as a hired consultant to the organisation you selected. You will provide a Consulting Report to an executive in that organisation. You may select the Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or Chief Operating Officer (COO). You should make your selection based on your interests and the organisational information available to you.

Throughout the module, you will participate in activities and complete assignments that will help prepare you to complete this Final Project. Many of the elements for your Consulting Report will first be submitted as Individual Assignments during the various units. You will have a chance to revise and improve them before submitting your Final Project, based on feedback from your peers and your Faculty Member. Use the instructions below to complete all required elements of your Final Project.

To complete the Consulting Report, revise your Individual Assignment entries from Units 1-5 based on feedback from your Faculty Member and compile them into a single Microsoft Word document.

Your Final Project should include: Final Project Part 1: Consulting Report
- Section 1: Organisational Issue (Unit 1)

o An organisational issue you identified

- Section 2: Internal Environmental Analysis (Unit 1)

o A SWOT analysis of your selected organisation

- Section 3: External Environmental Analysis (Unit 2)

o A PESTLE analysis and additional external analysis of the organisation, with explanation of how external analysis can help you understand the organisational issue you identified

- Section 4: Resource Allocation (Unit 3)

o An explanation of how the identified organisational issue can be addressed through better resource allocation

- Section 5: Change Management (Unit 4)

o A proposed organisational change that could address the identified organisational issue, a discussion of change models that could be used to implement the change and an explanation of how to involve stakeholders in the change

- Executive Summary (Unit 5)

o Executive summary, focusing on the identified organisational issue

Organise all of the above into a coherent report you could submit to a CIO, CTO, CEO or COO. Your final document should be approximately 5,000 words.

Final Project Part 2: PPDP Update (not assessed)

- Review and update your PPDP by adding at least one new goal connected to your learning in this module.

To complete your Final Project, do the following:

1. Please submit in one Word document the Executive Summary and Sections 1-5 to the Final Project Part 1 submission link in the Final Project area on the Module Menu.

2. Please submit the PPDP update to the Final Project Part 2 submission link in the Final Project area on the Module Menu.