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Please use CoreLogic as the company in order to complete assignment # 2, please also use the template in order to complete assignment two. I have also attached the 7 winning strategy from week 7 to be used for this assignment as well. If you have any question please let me know. jwi_540_assignment_2.pdf jwi_540_week_7_lecture.pdf jwi_540_assignment_2_template_1192.docx Unformatted Attachment Preview JWI 540: Strategy Assignment 2 Assignment 2: How to Win: Strategic Options Assessment and Recommendation Due Week 8, Sunday, midnight of your time zone (Weight: 25\%) Introduction “Strategy means making clear-cut choices about how to compete. You cannot be everything to everybody, no matter what the size of your business or how deep its pockets.” – Jack Welch – Whew! You have generated some great insights about the Playing Field and Competitors and your own Organization from the work you did in Assignment 1. Now you will transition from looking back to looking ahead and develop the primary “How to Win” strategy that will be your game-winning move! Your CEO has clarified that you need to think expansively and recommend a Move that is transformative rather than incremental. To help with this, you have decided to consider each of the seven common winning moves outlined in the Week 6 lecture, and intend to pick one of them as your preferred game winning move. This is an exciting opportunity to actually create the plan instead of just execute the plan and thus you want to do your best work. You know that your Game Winning Move will be a decisive choice for the company. But in choosing this Move (as is the case with any strategic initiative), the company will risk money and resources. If your Move is the right one, you will grow sales and profits and beat your competitors! If your Move is the wrong one, you risk disappointing your investors and letting your competitors gain competitive advantage. Given the importance of this Move, you want to evaluate each of the seven Moves and do a deep dive on the attractiveness and feasibility and risks of your chosen Move. Your CEO is expecting an executive brief in Week 8 that summarizes your analysis of the Move you feel offers the most potential and your conclusion on the Game Winning Move that will you be presenting in Week 10. Instructions for Assignment 2 Important note: We are striving to help you create game-winning moves, and not just evaluate other people’s game winning moves. For this Assignment, do NOT recommend a Move that is identical or very similar to a real-life example for your company. As an example, don’t recommend that Tesla/Apple/Google/Uber/etc. invest in self-driving car technology or recommend that CVS acquire Aetna as those are all in the public domain. Instead, recommend a Move that is novel and innovative for your company. Prepare an executive brief for your CEO which provides the following information: © Strayer University. All Rights Reserved. This document contains Strayer University confidential and proprietary information and may not be copied, further distributed, or otherwise disclosed, in whole or in part, without the expressed written permission of Strayer University. This course guide is subject to change based on the needs of the class. JWI 540 – Assignment 2 (1186) Page 1 of 4 JWI 540: Strategy Assignment 2 1. Opening paragraph summarizing the purpose and content of this brief. 2. Consider the applicability and attractiveness of each of the 7 common winning moves (from the Week Six lecture notes) for your organization and your competitive situation in your chosen Playing Field. List your top three most attractive Moves in order from most attractive to least attractive. 3. For your most attractive Move, provide specifics about the Move you would recommend. For example, if you chose acquisition, who might you buy? If you chose geographic expansion, where would you expand? If you chose discontinuous innovation, what would the innovation be? Explain why you think it will generate financially attractive growth (which includes both incremental revenue growth and commensurate incremental profit growth). 4. How does this Move align (or conflict) with your key strength/weakness identified in your Playing Field template? 5. Most Moves require investments of resources and money. What are some significant investments that would be required to implement this move? Note, we are not looking for dollar figures; instead, we are looking for the key categories of investments (like hiring people, investing in new capabilities, or building new manufacturing plants, etc.) 6. Most Moves have risks that need to be considered. What are the most significant risks and what is your recommended risk mitigation plan? 7. How do you think the competition will react to your Move? 8. Conclude with a final paragraph or two which includes a summary of your Game Winning Move and conclusions on the above topics. Formatting and Submission Requirements • The executive brief submission should be 2 to 3 pages (not including the cover page or appendixes/references page. • Typed, single-spaced, professional font (size 10 – 12) with one-inch margins on all sides. • Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, your name, professor’s name, and the course title and date. • Include a references page at the end documenting sources and citations used. You must cite three or more current media sources. • Use headings to identify main topics and subtopics. • You are welcome to include charts, tables, and graphs in-text or in an appendix. • Develop and support your research with facts and in-text citations, appendixes, and references. © Strayer University. All Rights Reserved. This document contains Strayer University confidential and proprietary information and may not be copied, further distributed, or otherwise disclosed, in whole or in part, without the expressed written permission of Strayer University. This course guide is subject to change based on the needs of the class. JWI 540 – Assignment 2 (1186) Page 2 of 4 JWI 540: Strategy Assignment 2 RUBRIC Assignment 2 Criteria 1. Recommend a specific Game Winning Move. Weight: 30\% 2. Alignment and Investments. Weight: 20\% Unsatisfactory Low Pass Pass High Pass Honors The student does not provide a Move ranking and/or unsatisfactorily describes their recommended Move and how it might generate financially attractive growth for the company. The student partially describes their recommended Move, but does not include a Move ranking. The student only partially describes how the Move might generate financially attractive growth for the company. The student rank orders 3 Moves and satisfactorily describes their recommended Move and satisfactorily describes how the Move might generate financially attractive growth for the company. The Move might or might not be reasonably logical or reasonably feasible, but must derive from the 7 common Moves. The student rank orders 3 Moves and completely describes their recommended Move with sufficient specificity to provide a clear understanding of the Move. Student also completely describes how the Move might generate financially attractive growth for the company. The Move must be reasonably logical and reasonably feasible and derive from the 7 common Moves. The student rank orders 3 Moves and exemplarily describes their recommended Move with sufficient specificity to provide a clear and unambiguous understanding of the Move. Student also exemplarily describes how the Move might generate financially attractive growth for the company. The Move must be reasonably logical and reasonably feasible and derive from the 7 common Moves. The student does not include or unsatisfactorily describes how the Move relates to their company’s strength/weakness and significant investments that might be required. The student partially describes how the Move relates to their company’s strength and weakness. The student partially describes significant investments that might be required. The student satisfactorily describes how the Move relates to their company’s strength and weakness. The student demonstrates satisfactorily describes some significant investments that might be required. The student clearly and concisely describes how the Move relates to their company’s strength and weakness. The student demonstrates sound logic and reasoning on some of the significant investments that might be required. The student clearly and concisely describes how the Move relates to their company’s strength and weakness. The student demonstrates exemplary logic and reasoning and foresight on the most significant investments that might be required. © Strayer University. All Rights Reserved. This document contains Strayer University confidential and proprietary information and may not be copied, further distributed, or otherwise disclosed, in whole or in part, without the expressed written permission of Strayer University. This course guide is subject to change based on the needs of the class. JWI 540 – Assignment 2 (1186) Page 3 of 4 JWI 540: Strategy Assignment 2 Criteria 3. Risks and competitive response. Weight: 20\% 4. Provide an effective and persuasive conclusion that is “fit for use” for a CEO. Unsatisfactory Weight: 15\% Pass High Pass Honors Student does not include or unsatisfactorily demonstrates risk mitigation. Student unsatisfactorily anticipates competitive response. Student partially demonstrates anticipation of the risks of the Move and partially provides risk mitigation plans. Student’s competitive response predictions partially address the likely outcomes. Student demonstrates satisfactory anticipation of the risks of the Move and provides satisfactory risk mitigation plans. Student’s competitive response predictions are not unreasonable. Student demonstrates good anticipation of the most significant risks of the Move and provides sound risk mitigation plans. Student’s competitive response predictions demonstrate sound logic and reasoning. Student demonstrates exemplary anticipation of the most significant risks of the Move and provides cogent and novel risk mitigation plans. Student’s competitive response predictions demonstrate exemplary logic and reasoning. The conclusion is missing or presents an unsatisfactory summary of the Move, risks, and investments. The conclusion partially summarizes the Move and partially addresses other factors like risks and investments. The conclusion is a satisfactory synopsis of the key elements of the Move. Conclusion satisfactorily asserts the recommended move, while simultaneously providing some perspective on risks and/or investments. The conclusion is a complete and succinct synopsis of the Move. Conclusion persuasively asserts the recommended move, while simultaneously providing reasonable fair-balance on investments and risks. The conclusion is an exemplary and succinct synopsis of the Move. Conclusion persuasively asserts the recommended move, while simultaneously providing reasonable fairbalance on investments and risks. Excised from the brief, the conclusion paragraphs could effectively be used as the elevator pitch for the Move. Brief is missing significant content and generally unprofessional in appearance or due to multiple mechanics and usage errors. Brief is partially well-written and semi-professional in appearance. Several mechanics and usage errors make parts of the text difficult for the reader to understand. Some recommendations, assertions, and facts are supported with in-text citations, appendixes, and references. Brief is satisfactorily well-written and generally professional in appearance. There may be a few mechanics and usage errors, but they do not have a major impact on the flow. Many recommendations, assertions, and facts are supported with in-text citations, appendixes, and references. Brief is succinct and well-written and within the threepage limit (excluding cover, references, and appendices) and professional in appearance. It includes a cover page. Mechanics and usage errors, if any, are minor and have no impact on the flow. Most recommendations, assertions, and facts are supported with in-text citations, appendixes, and references. Brief is succinct and well-written and within the threepage limit (excluding cover, references, and appendices) and very professional in appearance. It includes a cover page. There are no mechanics or usage errors. All recommendations, assertions, and facts are exemplarily supported with intext citations, appendixes, and references. Weight: 15\% 5. Present information professionally within the three-page limit, and support recommendations, assertions, and facts with in-text citations, appendixes, and references. Low Pass Most recommendations, assertions, and facts are not supported with in-text citations, appendixes, and references. © Strayer University. All Rights Reserved. This document contains Strayer University confidential and proprietary information and may not be copied, further distributed, or otherwise disclosed, in whole or in part, without the expressed written permission of Strayer University. This course guide is subject to change based on the needs of the class. JWI 540 – Assignment 2 (1186) Page 4 of 4 JWI 540: Strategy Week Seven Lecture Notes © Strayer University. All Rights Reserved. This document contains Strayer University Confidential and Proprietary information and may not be copied, further distributed, or otherwise disclosed in whole or in part, without the expressed written permission of Strayer University. JWI 540 (1192) Page 1 of 5 IDENTIFYING GAME WINNING MOVES What it Means Building a winning strategy is energizing and can provide insight into the future. With focus, it should take anywhere between a few days and a month to create it. After that, its time to act. Its time to make your game changing move that will enable your organization to win. A winning strategy is a chosen direction that is executed with passion. The readings and exercises from the previous weeks have probably resulted in generating a number of possible winning strategies for your organization’s future. Now it’s time to focus on determining which ones you are ready to pursue. Why it Matters • Being open to lots of new ideas is essential for the “what if?” portions of strategy development, but having too many initiatives going at once will lead to clutter and lack of focus. • Most organizations cant effectively manage more than two or three key strategic initiatives at once. If the strategies are large-scale or are a significant departure from the way things have been done in the past, that number may be reduced to a single core initiative. • Selecting a clear, straightforward plan of action makes it easier to explain to your organization where the company is going (and why), and to rally everyone’s support. “Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” Jack Welch © Strayer University. All Rights Reserved. This document contains Strayer University Confidential and Proprietary information and may not be copied, further distributed, or otherwise disclosed in whole or in part, without the expressed written permission of Strayer University. JWI 540 (1192) Page 2 of 5 IDENTIFYING YOUR GAME WINNING MOVE We’ve looked at a lot of different components of strategy development since our course began. • We’ve spent time assessing the market segment in which we want to compete. • We’ve looked at what our competitors are really good at and not so good at. • We’ve looked at how our core competencies measure up as potential sustainable advantages relative to our competitors’ capabilities and market opportunities. • We’ve looked at ways to generate strategic options and to refine these options down to those that are most likely to lead to meaningful differentiation in the market. Now we have to narrow our focus further and choose a game winning move. As noted previously, strategy development is iterative. That’s a nice way of saying it can be messy at times. While some strategy models advocate a rigid step-by-step process, the reality is that even the most linear models are intended to help you ask questions in ways that get the creative juices flowing. This means that, despite your best efforts to “check the boxes” sequentially as you develop your strategy, you will naturally have new discoveries at various points along the way. They might cause you to go back and rethink something you were quite certain about when you began. And that’s good, but still, we have to make our choices and move ahead. To help accomplish this, we suggested in last week’s lecture notes that it’s helpful to organize your strategic options into categories. We suggested seven of these. The use of categories is not intended to pigeonhole your ideas, but rather, to help you better understand where your idea fits into a framework of moves. There are two primary advantages in this: 1. These categories of winning moves have proven themselves over time and across industries. While different strategists may organize such lists in different ways, the point is to be able to leverage the categories as a tool to clarify what your potential moves are actually doing. 2. Reviewing your strategic options against a set of categories of moves may help to turn up additional options that are worth considering, but which have been overlooked initially. EVALUATE THE OPTIONS Once you generate strategic options, evaluation is the next step. Although the more strategic options you can generate, the better, you’ll want to eliminate weak ideas early in the process. © Strayer University. All Rights Reserved. This document contains Strayer University Confidential and Proprietary information and may not be copied, further distributed, or otherwise disclosed in whole or in part, without the expressed written permission of Strayer University. JWI 540 (1192) Page 3 of 5 Ideally, as you consider options, you will improve them, too. Say you come up with the idea of a low-cost, mobile fast food service targeted at young suburban office workers. What if you combined that idea with novel approaches to ordering via mobile phones and the storing of repeat customers’ preferences, since these workers will presumably want to call in their orders and get back to work quickly? Details could be worked out later. But an initial evaluation of whether this newly-identified market segment values convenient, technology-enabled ordering could transform a strategic option with modest prospects into one with significant potential. The initial screening of options can begin with three simple questions: 1. Is it Big? What is the size of the potential market? This question is not intended to bog you down in detailed analysis. But you need to quickly eliminate good ideas that have only limited potential. 2. Is it Us? Sometimes, a strategic option is great, but doesn’t fit with the rest of your company’s strategic activities. Or it runs counter to your history, values, or skill set. Assessing the value of the idea not in the abstract, but with specific reference to your organization, can quickly flash a red or a green light. 3. Is it Time? Being too early to market is sometimes worse than being too late. Ask yourself whether there is a critical mass of eager customers ready to adopt this option. Are necessary complementary technologies ready to support it? Of course, most evaluations will also contain a financial component, such as a net-present-value analysis. The farther the options you’re considering are from your core business, the less useful the traditional evaluation tools will be. But estimates of market size and demand trends can still help narrow your choices, even when you’re moving into unfamiliar territory. If a plausible business model for the option can’t be identified, it should be rejected or recycled. That is, it may need to be reconfigured in some way, either through creative insights or additional economic analysis, if it is to have real strategic potential. Some situations – such as ... Purchase answer to see full attachment