Assignment Question
Discuss the strategic challenges of an organisation of your choice and explore what could be done in order to address these challenges.
in doing so,
o Do some preliminary research to ensure that there are enough data on your chosen organisation to address the assignment question
o Think and choose the tools and theories that are appropriate (and complementary) for analysing your chosen organisation
o Focus on current and/or future strategic challenges
o Think of how to synthesize your data to provide a convincing analysis of your identified challenges
o Reflect on what could be done to address these challenges (look at existing literature and other past/present examples)
Identifying strategic challenges
What is a strategic challenge?
Can be positive or negative
o Factors that can affect the future direction of your organisation
o Factors that can affect current and future performance (great impact)
Carefully read the Assignment Question, the Further Guidelines and the FAQ on BB.
use keywords relevant to your chosen organisation to search for relevant works and relevant information
Search on Business Magazines, Financial Reports, Newspaper articles,
Business-related webpages
Search your chosen organisation's webpage
Do some initial reading
Lecture Notes and Summaries
Academic Articles
Past papers on your chosen organisation
Develop a Plan
How am I going to approach the topic? How would I structure my work and arguments? What tools or theories can I use?
Why these tools and theories? Are they relevant?
Where to look for challenges?
In Business Magazines, Financial Reports, Newspaper articles, Business-related web pages
Academic articles or past papers related to your chosen organisation Apply tools and Synthesize
o Identifying an issue (e.g, an opportunity/threat or a weakness; a social trend or an economic condition) is not enough.
o Build a narrative (e.g. An issue can present a challenge for an organisation when you connect the organisation's strengths or weaknesses with as an opportunity or threat that is emerging due to a technological advancement or social trend)
Provide a brief overview of your chosen organisation (e.g. size, age, industry, financial perfornnance) - Alterriatimek the overyiew_cari be Incorporated at the beginning of the main body
Approximately 400 words and no more than 600 words if you include an overview of your organisation
Issues to consider:
- What tools and theories to use and how to present my data?
- Are these theories and tools supplement each other?
- Is there a clear flow in my discussion and are my arguments well articulated and supported by relevant sources and literature? Use bullet points only for summarising key data Analyse your data - Elaborate on your arguments (support them with literature or other sources when appropriate)
- Is my assessment (Identification of strategic challenges) and suggestions (what could be done to address challenges) well connected?
- How to structure my Main Body? Do I need headings? If so, how many?
Do not use headings unless necessary. Avoid fragmentation that could cause descriptiveness
For example you can have two subheadings - one Tor the challenges and another for suggestions
Begin with an overview of your chosen Organisation (if you have not done so in the introduction)
Briefly reflect on the tools and theories that you have decided to use and explain why you use them
There is no need for a theoretical discussion Your applicability of the theories/ tools will demonstrate your understanding of these too!sitheories
Apply tools and theories to your chosen organisation and try to identify the challenges
o When use tools like Porters five forces or SWOT you can summarise your findings in bullet points using a table format
Analyse your findings to support your assessment and justify why these are strategic challenges - Synthesize data Do not discuss them in isolation from each other
Connect your suggestions (what could be done) to the challenges that you identified. Do not make recommendations that are not linked to your assessment!