Assignment:
Pick a company that you are familiar with and have access to their operational information, either a company you or a close family or friend works/worked for, or conceptualize a new business in an industry you are familiar with, e.g. the business in your Capstone project.
Once the company is approved, conduct the following research, and develop an analysis paper covering:
1. Specify at least one, and no more than three, critical service and/or operational capabilities the company must excel in to succeed. E.g. product quality, speed of delivery, customer service, competitive pricing, service flexibility, availability or dependability, etc. Do not be generic and list everything, focus on the business' core competencies
2. How does the company attempt to excel at these capabilities against their competitors? How can it improve?
3. Chart the current Order Management Cycle or the Value Stream Map of a key process (such as the customer communications or customer service), analyze the opportunities for improvement.
4. Based on your research, how do the company's operations strategy impact their marketing and business strategies, and provide competitive advantages or lead to disadvantages?
5. Which areas do you think the company should focus on in order to scale or grow? Propose a growth strategy operationally for 2018.
Research methods:
Focus on the first-hand research and original critical analysis, supported by some secondary research based on published materials such as through SEC documents, online news archives, company websites, NYU library, etc. The secondary/literature research should not exceed 20% of the paper and only sourced if it is essential to support the key points of your analysis.
The first-hand research can be conducted via interacting with the business as a customer (signing up for email newsletters or promotions, requesting catalogs, calling customer service to gather product information, requesting customer materials from the company, making a purchase, returning the goods or submitting a complaint, conducting a usability test, etc.), interviewing key employees, or observing the process as an employee.
Requirements:
• The final analysis paper should be 8-10 pages including the exhibits and annotation. Single line spacing, normal or moderate margin setting. Font size: 10-12 points. Exhibits should be properly annotated, and clearly illustrate a key point in the paper.
• The student will deliver an informal presentation to the class and/or instructor at the end of semester, to discuss the research process and key findings, discuss and expand on the relevant points not covered in the analysis paper.
• Be analytical, not just descriptive. Be as objective as possible: we are all interested in how the company manages the customer experience - not if you liked or did not like your experience, not if the home page looks clean and pleasing, etc.
• The project should NOT focus on customer acquisition, direct-response campaigns, marketing strategies, etc. It should focus on business processes and customer interactions or communications the company addresses to prospects and customers, such as fulfilling an order or delivering a satisfactory experience. Extraneous material not related to the topics of the class will count negatively in the grading of this project.