Homework 1: Strategic Thinking
Part I: Mission, Vision & Values
Choose an organization that you would like to study and ultimately create your own strategic plan for. This should be either the organization that you work for currently, one that you most want to work for once you complete your MBA, or one where you have worked in the past (do contact me in a Private Message before choosing an organization other than one of those above so we can discuss ahead of time).
Write a 1,050 words paper in which you address the following:
1) Identify and provide a brief description of this organization, including its primary products/services and key markets/customers.
2) Look for the organization's mission and vision statements and apply specific learnings from the text and the Collins/Porras reading to assess these statements and identify any improvements you would recommend to them. Note - if the organization does not present a mission or vision statement, apply your learnings from the readings to craft your own proposed statement(s).
3) Identify and evaluate the organization's motivation strategy, innovation strategy, and people strategy. If the organization does not have one or more of these, how does that affect the organization and its people?
Homework 2 Strategic Thinking
Part II: External Environmental Scan
Select the organization studied in the week 1 paper (if you would like to change, let's discuss in a PM ahead of time). Support your assessments with authoritative research using the UOPX Library.
Write a 1,050 to 1,400 word paper in which you include the following:
1) Identify and assess the most important factors in the organization's external general environment.
2) Identify and assess one or more of Five Forces that are most important in driving competition in your organization's external industry environment.
3) Identify and assess the specific key competitors to your organization in the external competitor environment from an external perspective.
Note if your organization faces little or no competition, assess what might make an effective potential new rival in the future, and/or assess the firm's specific key customer/market segments and the specific key needs/demands of each in turn.
Homework 3 Strategic Thinking
Part III: Internal Assessment, Structure
Select the organization studied in the papers (if you would like to change, let's discuss in a PM ahead of time).
Support your assessments with authoritative research using the UOPX Library.
Write a 1,200 to 1,700 words paper in which you include the following:
1) Identify the most important internal strengths and weaknesses of your organization.
2) Identify and assess the organization's most important resources, capabilities and core competencies.
3) Assess the structure of the organization and the influence this has on its performance.
4) Identify and assess the organization's competitive position amongst its key rivals. Then assess the possibilities/risks that this competitive position provides.
Homework 4 Strategic Thinking
Part IV: Strategic Evaluation & Recommendation
Select the organization studied in the paper.
Support your assessments with authoritative research using the UOPX Library.
Write a 1,050 to 1,400 words paper in which you include the following:
1) Identify and Recommend the 3 most important long-term goals for your organization.
2) Identify and Recommend the one generic strategy/business level strategy OR one value discipline that should serve as your organization's overarching long term strategic approach to the market.
3) Identify and Recommend two or more grand strategies that are needed to help drive your organization towards achieving your proposed long-term goals (note grand strategies include the corporate level strategies discussed in chapter 6, and then go beyond these - see the "Choosing Grand Strategies" video here in week 4 for more details).
4) Identify and assess what specific global strategy you would propose for your organization going forward. If you do not recommend a global strategy, discuss your rationale.
Homework 5 Strategic Plan
Part V
This signature homework is designed to align with specific program student learning outcome(s) in your program. Program Student Learning Outcomes are broad statements that describe what students should know and be able to do upon completion of their degree. The signature homeworks may be graded with an automated rubric that allows the University to collect data that can be aggregated across a location or college/school and used for program improvements.
Write a 1,050-word minimum strategic implementation plan in which you include the following:
Create an implementation plan including:
1) Objectives
2) Functional tactics
3) Action items
4) Milestones and deadlines
5) Tasks and task ownership
6) Resource allocation
7) Recommend any organizational change management strategies that may enhance successful implementation.
8) Develop key success factors.
9) Create a risk management plan including contingency plans for the identified risks.
Homework 6: Final Strategic Plan
Part VI
Create the Final Strategic Plan. The Final Strategic Plan builds upon the assessments, ideas and proposals from prior week papers, however this is not a compilation or "cut-n-paste" of these prior papers.
This is intended to be a new stand-alone presentation that builds upon your earlier learnings (see my "week 6 paper tips" for more about this).
Your plan should incorporate facilitator feedback from papers submitted in previous weeks, and should include the following:
1) Table of Contents
2) Executive Summary (350 to 700 words)
3) Mission, Vision & Values Statement
4) External Environmental Analysis
5) Internal Environmental Analysis
6) Strategic Choice Recommendations
7) Implementation Plan, including any Organizational Change Management Strategies needed and a Risk
Management/Contingency Plan
o Conclusion
o References
Create a 10 to 15 slides Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, including the use of speaker's notes, to present the strategic plan. The objective is to sell the strategic plan to investors or company directors.
Format your homework according to the following formatting requirements:
(1) The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
(2) The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the homework, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
(3) Also include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.