Business

COURSEWORK GUIDELINE:

Topic: Critically analyse what and how effective are the competitive and corporate strategies of a publicly listed firm of your choice (must have some international activities)?

Some important websites to be referred to:
http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/subjects/management/index.html Click on ‘Company, Financial & Legal Information’ under ‘Further Management Resources’  Search for ‘Hoover’s online’ and click on it (a new tab will open)  Type Sony Corporation in the search box and select the one which shows ‘Minato-Ku, Japan’. Here you will get a lot of information about the company.

Just below Hoover’s, you will also find Marketline and Nexis. These also have a lot of useful information relevant to the coursework.

Note: If you cannot accesss the bath library website and it asks for username and password, then the username is ‘va304’ or ‘va304@bath.ac.uk’ and the password is ‘mh12ju6393’

Guidance: Your essay should critically investigate, identify, detail and assess the competitive and corporate strategies, including crucially their effectiveness, to date of your selected firm in the context of theories and analytical frameworks we have gone through in the class.

Grading: Essays will be graded by their (i) thoroughness, (ii) rigour and (iii) quality of critical analysis, with excellent work exhibiting (a) sceptical appraisal of relevant facts, (b) concision, (c) clarity, (d) logical argumentation, (e) systematic structure, and (f) appropriately professional use of referencing, data, and appendices, plus apposite exhibits in terms of charts, figures and tables. An excellent essay will constitute a comprehensive evidence-based critical analysis of your firm’s success or otherwise as it stands today in terms of its various strategies.

INSTRUCTIONS FROM TUTOR:
Use Headings, sub-headings and also sub-sub-headings (if required) to form a good structure of the essay. (systematic structure is one of the grading criteria).

Write an executive summary for the essay.

DO NOT do this:
There is absolutely no need to have five boxes and arrows (Porter’s five forces model). By this the professor means that we don’t have to insert an image of the Porter’s five forces model, but we do have to use the forces in our essay.
Also, don’t refer to case studies. They are hypothetical and usually made-up.

SUGGESTIONS FROM TUTOR:

Environment:
Talk about the dynamic complex of basic demand and supply relationships that both determine average industry profitability and dictate the immediate industry environment of a firm. Take advantage of your personal case study firm to practice applying industry analyses that help you to understand what is affecting a firm and all its competitors (direct rivals and substitutes), its buyers and its suppliers.

Profitability:
Very clear idea of just how profitable it is or is not, and also a good grasp of the complex of factors that interact to affect average profitability in the industry or industries in which your firm operates. As you go through the factors, make sure you fully understand if a particular factor has a benign or malign effect on profitability.
Competitive strategy:
Never let yourselves forget that making profits means having revenues that exceed costs. Hence you really do need to get down to understanding what makes buyers in fact buy a firm’s products as opposed to another firm’s products that might arguably satisfy the same need. This is competitive strategy.

• Determine what your own selected firm’s competitive strategy(ies) is(are)
• Make sure you really do know precisely who those buyers are and what in fact they are buying. Also identify what is your company actually selling. For example, Supermarkets are selling the experience and convenience of buying grocery and not actually the grocery.
• For the sake of good critical analyses it is always useful to keep in mind that competitive strategy is simply what a firm does in terms of making buyers buy its products rather than alternatives.
• Identify the micro-determinants/dimensions/characteristics of the company and it’s products.
For example, the micro-determinants/dimensions of McDonald’s are price, speed, novelty, consistency, ubiquity etc. Identify which dimensions are same as the competitors and which are different. This will help in formulating competitive strategy.
Competitive strategy is best viewed from an analytical perspective as being about how a firm gets revenues by inducing buyers in the market place to buy its goods/services as opposed to those of other firms offering similar goods/services that satisfy the same need.
• All competitive strategies will combine elements of price, real differentiation, and perceived differentiation. A fundamental strategist’s task is to determine precisely what these are and assess (i) how effective they are in making buyers buy, (ii) how distinctive do they make a firm’s products compared to those offered by other firms, and (iii) what is happening in the firm’s overall operating environment that will necessitate competitive strategy change.
• If a firm can sell more at a higher price by exploiting CSR-type stuff, then there is no reason why it should not incorporate CSR-type stuff into its competitive strategy(ies).

Corporate Strategy:
Corporate strategy is best viewed as the way a firm organizes and manages itself to ensure that it delivers cost effectively successful competitive strategy.
Competitive strategy should determine corporate strategy, not the other way around.

For analytical clarity, keep in mind that corporate strategy has three elements: vertical, horizontal and geographic scope.

Vertical scope (or degree of vertical integration) is simply what a firm does or does not do itself in order to deliver cost effectively its competitive strategy. A firm’s competitive strategy might determine that certain activities must be executed and retained in-house, while others can be outsourced. Precisely what is in or outsourced should be determined by competitive strategy, so this will vary from firm to firm. That is why it is vital to ensure that you really do accurately identify what a firm’s competitive strategy is (or ought to be).

Difference between competitive and corporate strategy:
They are inextricably linked, but they are completely different. Competitive strategy is what makes the buyers in the market place buy a firm’s products as opposed to rivals’ products. Corporate strategy is everything a firm does to deliver that competitive strategy. Corporate strategy boils down to vertical, horizontal and geographical scope

Suggested readings:
• Porter, M. E. 2008, The five competitive forces that shape strategy, Harvard Business Review, January 2008, pp. 79-93 (For environment topic)
• Venkatesan, R. 1992. Strategic Sourcing – To Make Or Not To Make. Harvard Business Review, 70(6): 98-107 (For outsourcing topic under vertical scope-corporate strategy)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_chain (For outsourcing topic under vertical scope-corporate strategy)
REFERECING:

Use Harvard (Bath University, 2016) referencing in your essays and remember that unreferenced work casts doubt upon itself and its author. Make full use of charts, appendices, etc.

Bath University (2016). A Guide to Citing References. Library and Learning Centre, Citing References, accessible at: http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/help/infoguides/references.pdf

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