Market Research

 Your assessment is a 2400 (+/- 10%) word individually written report assessing the attractiveness of a given industry and the distinctiveness of a firm. The essay accounts for 40 % of the total mark.

1. When possible this unit use live case study. In the case no firm can be found, the tutor will provide a list of firms the students can work from 

2. Collect information about the company and the industry in which the company evolves. Construct strategic tools that will lead to the analysis performed in your individual report.  This task is your research and is not graded. However without the research you will not be able to successfully complete the individual task

3. The Individual Report (2400 words). This submission only will be graded.

• Provide a critical analysis of the business environment of the firm. You should consider the main competitors and their competitive position; the structure of the industry, market details (value; share etc.); current trends and key drivers in the market; future trends and key drivers in the market. You will need to base some of your analysis on the reflection you have posted on your individual journal (Attractiveness of the industry).
• Provide a critical internal analysis of the firm giving details of its current strategic position and tactics. You should also consider the resources and capabilities of the firm and how they impact upon the success or otherwise of the firm. You will need to base some of your analysis on the reflection you have posted on your individual journal> (Distinctiveness of the firm based on the identification of competitive advantages).

The submission will be in the form of a consultant’s report. The exact presentation style will be at your discretion, but should be a professional, business-like report.  It should also use Harvard referencing.

• In order to pass Assessment 1 you will need to:
• Collect relevant data to logically and coherently assess the current strategic positon of a real organisation
• Demonstrate some evidence of selecting and applying relevant strategic frameworks to determine the attractiveness of an industry and distinctiveness of a firm
• In order to pass Assessment 2 you will need to:
• Generate and design a coherent strategy based on a logical decision making process backed up by relevant qualitative and/or quantitative data
• Evaluate and justify the proposed strategy referring to evidence based analysis and selection of appropriate strategic framework

How do I produce high quality work that merits a good grade?

We will be filling this section in together in class on 00/00/2020 make sure you have downloaded/printed out the Assignment Brief and bring it to the session with you.

1. The analysis:

Use the strategic tools you have designed to develop your analysis. Make sure you focus on the assessment of the attractiveness and distinctiveness. A list of strategic tools will not be accepted

2. The structure:

Flexible. You can describe the theory you intend to use to support your standpoint, and then use practical situations to reinforce your work. There is no fixed order to structure this assignment.

3. The link between theory and practice:

Remember to relate the two together sufficiently! You need to relate the theory to evidence in your assessment. The evidence needs to be specific. Don’t use generalised and anecdotal evidence.

4. Use of literature:

Use academic source, i.e. books, journal articles etc. Refer to respected industry sources DO NOT overuse the Internet, do not use and / or quote from Wikipedia.

Reminder:

You are required to use proper in-text reference and the reference list in the end using the Harvard Referencing System.

5. The writing:

Try to approach this assignment in a logical and systematic way. Make sure you have a logical structure, a convincing argument, clear description of the situations which ‘set the scene’, and clear explanation which relate to theories, and a conclusion that draws your argument together.

Overall, you need to provide a logical and coherent demonstration ( strategic tools, like pestle, 5 forces, value chain etc should only be included in the appendix not the body of the report)

How does assignment relate to what we are doing in scheduled sessions?

Please refer to the study guide, all the session in the first week are designed to introduce you to specifics topic in strategic management. Those elements will be needed to design your assignment.

Week 2 of the block is devoted to data collection and to start structuring your assignment.

Week 3 we will look at your assignment to provide formative feedback before the submission

Reference : Harvard