Project & Presentation (Group) 30%
You are expected to work in groups and submit a presentation on the competitive
strategy of an Indian firm. The purpose of this project is to understand the industry and
external context of the firm, analyse the firm’s competitive strategy, identify the firm’s
resources and capabilities that help it compete in the industry, and provide
recommendations on how the firm can sustain or improve its performance.
You should choose an Indian company, preferably a firm listed on any of the Indian
stock exchanges, to help you source sufficient data. In addition, since much of this course
deals with business-level strategy, ideally, you should select single business firms for
analysis. If that is not possible, you should analyse that business of a multi-business firm,
which accounts for the largest part of its revenue. Otherwise, financial analysis will either
be difficult or require assumptions that may be difficult to justify. Please seek my approval
before deciding on a company for the project.
Each option should state the industry choice and company choices as shown
below. The project will be allocated on a first-come first served basis. Example: Industry:
Telecoms – Company: Airtel, Industry: Paint – Company: Asian Paints
There are two submissions for the project: (1) Industry Analysis (slides); (2) Company
Analysis and Business Strategy.
- The industry analysis should be submitted by November 30th. The limit for the
industry analysis slide deck is 5 slides (excluding the title slide and references)
with a minimum font size of 20.
- Assume that you are a consulting firm and that you have been hired by the
company to make recommendations for its strategy in the future.
All groups must send their overall project presentation slides (comprising both
industry and company analyses) by December 13th.
Your slide deck on industry analysis should include:
• The definition of the relevant industry the firm competes in, including the industry
boundaries.
• An analysis of the changes in industry structure over time, an assessment of how the
structure is likely to evolve in the near future, and actions that can be taken to
sustain or improve industry profitability.
• Insights on the drivers of profitability and how the firms can stake out a position
which is more profitable and less vulnerable to attack.
Your slide deck on firm analysis should include:
• A critical analysis of the firm’s competitive strategy – what is its competitive strategy,
how has it evolved, and its appropriateness for the firm’s strategic intent and the
industry context.
• An analysis of the firm’s sources of sustainable competitive (dis)advantage, including
analysis of how the firm leverages (or not) its resources and capabilities to
secure and sustain its competitive advantage.
• Recommendations on how the company can retain its leadership position or
improve its competitive situation, as appropriate.
• Your recommendations should be based on your industry and firm analysis. State the
key action steps required for implementing the recommendations and, if
necessary, suggest changes in organization structure, compensation schemes,
and information and control systems.
• Do not give me a laundry list of recommendations. It should maximum one or two
recommendations which you will present to the client.
Please acknowledge sources of all data/information used and provide a complete list of
references. If you refer to any other material (article, website, blog post, etc.) in your
project slide deck and report, it must be explicitly acknowledged (with full citations for the
report). Failure to acknowledge material sourced from elsewhere will be considered as
plagiarism and subject to disciplinary rules. The project report should be submitted as a
PDF. Grading will be based on the quality of analysis, rather than simple collection,
collation, and presentation of data.