Project:
This project can be best described as a problem-solving project that requires students to apply their
analytical skills to reflect on and resolve contemporary strategic issues. The specificity of MGMT415
project in contrast with other group projects specified in other courses lies in the strong emphasis on
problem-solving and data collection skills. In fact, this is a solution-based project that requires
students’ active involvement in extensive analysis of organization’s activities to come up with solid
recommendations for future growth.
The project suggests that students select any listed company in the UAE and perform strategic
analysis of their business model. The students are required to perform strategic analysis of the chosen
company in a way that shows that they have mastered the concepts of external and internal
environment analyses, business- and corporate-level strategies formulation and implementation, as
well as external growth together with internationalization strategies. The analysis and the
recommendations should be realistic, based on factual data, and based on critical thinking. Each team
should choose a listed UAE company and submit its choice to the instructor by the end of week 1 for
approval.
The target team size is 4-5 students. Groups with less or more students will require instructor’s
approval. The workload must be distributed equally between team members. Each member is
expected to demonstrate high interest in the development of the project throughout the semester.
Groups must sign up in project groups by the end of week 1.
Guide for report preparation
You will prepare the report as a team. However, each student will be marked individually for their
respective part in the project report. Therefore, you will need to separate the parts of the report for
each student. The suggestions are made below on how you can divide the work, but you may choose
to allocate the work differently. Each section must be taken by a separate student and student’s name
must be listed next to the topic title in the report.
The project report is due by the last week before the Final Exam. The teams need to submit
ONLY ONE FILE into the designated folder on Blackboard. ONLY ONE submission per team. The
maximum word-count is 1500 - 2000 words per student. You will not be penalized for less, but you
will be unlikely to have covered all the points correctly if you do not use at least 1000 words.
Table of contents
Title Page
a. UAE University and its logo etc.
b. Name of the company
c. Names of all students and IDs
PART I –Introduction & Background
1. Introduction
Company Description
a. Brief description of the company, ownership structure, product portfolio,
geographical scope etc.
b. Vision and Mission – webpage of the company
c. Organizational Chart – webpage – not always. In that case create your own.
PART II – Situation Analysis
2. External Environmental Scanning
a. Description of Levels of competitions (Form, Industry, brand): listing
competitors at each level – general introduction, or a broad overview of the state
of given competition in that industry.
b. PEST Analysis – Activity 1
c. Industry Analysis – Activity 2
i. Analyze the Five forces in the industry
d. Competitors Analysis – Activity 3
i. Industry Matrix/Competitive Grid Matrix – Activity 4
e. EFAS Table – Activity 5
3. Internal Environmental Analysis
a. Analysis of Resources, Capabilities and Competencies, Distinctive Competence –
Descriptive Analysis, no Table, No chart
b. VRIO Framework (Table) – Activity 6
c. Value Chain Analysis – Activity 7
d. IFAS Table – Activity 8
4. Summary of the Situation Analysis (environmental scanning)
a. Write a comprehensive analysis in your own words. Here you describe major
Strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities for your firm. Use the TOWS
analysis for this.
b. Combine your insights/analysis from section 3 and 4 and present major insights
which should describe the magnitude of the competition in the industry. And also,
how your firm intends to deal with this
c. What are the problem areas – if any
d. What are the opportunities/strengths – if any
e. What is the strategic approach to deal with the above-mentioned problem?
f. What to do next? Outline briefly the strategy
PART III – Strategy Formulation
5. Corporate level Strategy
a. Re- defining the Mission of the company
b. Setting new goals and objectives if needed
c. Analyzing the Directional Strategy (only one) of the company
d. Analyzing the Portfolio strategy
e. Analyzing the Parenting fit Matrix for the company
6. Business level Strategy
a. Analyzing the current business level strategy of the company and reformulating
them if judged necessary
b. Cost Leadership, Differentiation, or Focus strategies
7. Formulating functional level strategies
a. Creating Fit between Business level strategies and functional level strategies
PART IV- Strategy Implementation, and Evaluation
8. Implementing and executing Strategies
a. Culture and organizational structure for Implementation
b. Programs and policies of the company to execute the strategies
c. Analyze and device an appropriate Organizational structure and culture for the
execution.
9. Control and Evaluation
a. Give some suggestions in this part related to control and evaluation to measure the
performance of the company.
PART V
10. Conclusion and Results
PART VI
11. References
12. Appendices
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Project report
The project report should include all the sections. In the results sections, the results of the strategic
analysis should be clearly presented. Assumptions are allowed to be made, but they should be clearly
stated. In the conclusions section, the project’s research question(s) should be answered and a
recommendation of the solution(s) should be given with a clear justification. When grading the project
report, we will consider:
1. the correct use of language,
2. the correctness and depth of the analysis,
3. the obtained managerial insights and their justifications, and
4. the organization of the report.
Project presentation
Students are expected to present their project work using an oral presentation supported by MS
PowerPoint slides. See the course schedule for the date of the presentations. Each team member is
expected to contribute to the presentation. The presentation shall be judged by on following
dimensions:
1- Organization
2- Content
3- Quality of Conclusion
4- Voice Quality and Pace
5- Mannerisms and Body Language
6- Use of Media