Strategic Decision-Making in Global Business Assignment Essay: Evaluating Competitive Advantage and Growth

Assessment requirements:

Analysing and Evaluating the Strategic Choices of a Global Organization

The purpose of this assignment is to analyse the strategic choices made by a global organization and evaluate their impact on competitive advantage, organizational growth, and sustainability. This exercise encourages the application of strategic management concepts, frameworks, and tools as they relate to a global organisation.

Instructions:

Choose a global organization from the following list: Apple, Amazon, Google, Coca-Cola, Mercedes, Wal-Mart and provide an in-depth analysis of its strategic management practices. Your analysis should cover the following key areas:

1. Introduction and Organizational Overview (LO1) (Approx. 300 words) – 10% of marks
   • Provide a brief introduction to the organization you have chosen, including its history, mission, vision, and core values.
   • Discuss the industry in which the organization operates and its position within the competitive landscape.
   • Define the critical success factors, based on what we covered in Week 5 on CPM, for the company of your choice and determine their weighting. Then, apply a rating by using the following rating values:
     • 1 = major weakness,
     • 2 = minor weakness,
     • 3 = minor strength,
     • 4 = major strength
     • Finally, calculate the company’s score by multiplying the weighting with the rating.
2. Strategic Analysis (LO3) (Approx. 600 words) – 30% of marks
   • External Environment Analysis: Using tools such as PESTEL or Porter’s Five Forces, evaluate the external factors that influence the organization’s strategic decisions.
   • Internal Analysis: Conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) of the organization. Identify the key internal resources and capabilities that provide competitive advantage.
   • Competitive Strategy: Analyse the organization’s business-level and corporate-level strategies (e.g., cost leadership, differentiation, diversification). Discuss how these strategies are aligned with the external and internal analyses.
3. Strategic Implementation (LO2) (Approx. 500 words) – 25% of marks
   • Examine how the organization implements its chosen strategies. Discuss the organizational structure, culture, leadership, and resource allocation processes that support strategic execution.
   • Assess the role of innovation, technology, and change management in the implementation of the organization’s strategies.
4. Evaluation of Strategic Performance and Sustainability (LO4) (Approx. 400 words) – 25% of marks
   • Assess the effectiveness of the organization’s strategies in achieving its strategic objectives. Provide critical analysis on the financial performance e.g. (sales, margin, production) market share, and customer satisfaction.
   • Evaluate the long-term sustainability of the organization’s strategies. Are they adaptable to changing market conditions? Have they integrated corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental sustainability (ESG) into their overall corporate strategy?
     

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5. Conclusion (Approx. 200 words) – 10% of marks
   • Summarize the key findings from your analysis. Provide recommendations for the organization’s future strategic direction based on your analysis of its internal and external environment.

Requirements:

• The report must be 2000 words in total (+/- 15%), please note the point allocation is not based on the word count, but your critical analysis in each of the sections.
• For every 100 words beyond the maximum number of words +15%, there will be 2% deducted from the grade
• Use appropriate strategic management theories, models, and frameworks throughout your analysis.
• Utilise and insert tables, graphics, or illustrations as needed
• Cite at least a minimum of 10 academic sources to support your analysis (e.g., peer-reviewed articles, textbooks, reputable business reports)
• Ensure the assignment is well-structured with clear headings and subheadings for each section
• Harvard referencing must be applied throughout
  • Refrain from copying and pasting content from the web, but instead summarise information effectively.

The assessment covers the following Learning Outcomes:

1. Critically appreciate the issues and factors influencing various managerial strategic decisions within business
2. Engage with and critically evaluate the strengths and limitations of the various theoretical frameworks and key debates of strategic management.
3. Employ various models and frameworks to assess external and competitive forces and influences and their implications for strategic choices, and organisational performance.
4. Distinguish strategic management from operational management and articulate the role it takes over in the modern organisation.

Critique an organisation’s competitive strategy and evaluate the ability to provide a sustainable competitive advantage through strategy development.

Additional Instructions and Information for Students:

It is your responsibility to inform yourself of the relevant instructions and information. The examiner has the right to refuse to mark your work if the submission instructions have not been observed. Should the examiner not assert this right, you are notified that no precedent is thereby established regarding submission to any other module.

Word Count

1. The word count, if applicable, is stated in the Assignment Specification. The word count includes everything in the main body of the text from the Introduction to the Conclusion. The word count does not include the Cover Page, Table of Contents, Reference List or Appendices (if any).
2. Appendices should be kept to a minimum and relevant to supporting key points of the submission.
3. If your submission is more than 15% below the word count guide specified, the examiner will decide whether the main requirements of the assignment have been satisfied or not and will decide on the appropriate mark for the submission if academic expectations have not been met.
4. If your submission exceeds the word count guide by more than 15%, the examiner will reduce your mark in light of the excess content. See the Assignment Specification for details.
5. You can view the Independent College Word Count Policy here.

Format

1. Unless otherwise stated in the Assignment Specification, your assignment must be typed. One-and-a-half or double spacing must be used with a font size of 11/12. Suggested font types are Calibri, Times New Roman, Arial or Garamond.
2. Work must be presented properly: ensure that you spell-check and proof-read your work before submission.
3. Typed assignments must be submitted in Word or PDF Screenshots/images of type will not be accepted. The examiner may refuse to grade your work, or you may be asked to send the typed work in Word or PDF format to locker@independentcollege.ie. Any other alteration made to the originally submitted work will be dealt with under College academic misconduct regulations.
4. Your assignment MUST include the completed official Cover Sheet. The examiner will not correct any assignment submitted without the correct, completed, Cover Sheet. You may be asked to send the originally submitted work with an attached, correct, completed, Cover Sheet to locker@independentcollege.ie; any other alteration of the originally submitted work will be dealt with under College academic misconduct regulations.
5. Please note that the grading of work delivered late under sections B3 and B4 above may be significantly delayed; the examiner is not required to return a result for such work within the usual timeframe.

Referencing

1. 1. Independent College uses the Harvard referencing system.
   2. Your assignment must include a Reference List of all the sources that you used.
   3. Failure to reference the ideas and work of others is plagiarism and a serious academic offence.
   4. Consult the following Library Guides for more information on referencing:

• Referencing and Citation Explained
• Referencing and How to Avoid Plagiarism

D. ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

1. This assignment assesses your own learning and understanding; write in your own words and in your own style.
2. It is a breach of academic integrity:

• to copy and paste without referencing the source – this is plagiarism.
• to paraphrase without referencing the source – this is plagiarism.
• to work with others on an individual assignment or allow others to amend your work in any way – proof-readers may highlight issues but may not correct them for you.
• to submit your own work from any previous assessment/s for this assignment.
• to submit work that has been created artificially e.g., through artificial intelligence – this includes translation tools or grammar-editing software, which may be used only to correct small amounts of text or specific words or phrases.
• to use any AI-tools to an extent beyond that specified by the examiner – it is your responsibility to retain evidence of your ‘process’ of learning and completion of this assignment. If any concerns regarding inappropriate use of AI are raised, you may be asked to furnish this evidence to the College. This evidence may include, but is not limited to, a research trail showing what resources cited in the work were accessed, and when; proof of multiple versions of the work being saved and the content therein, as well as the ‘journey’ you undertook in completing the assignment. You are encouraged to send as many versions of your assignment to locker@independentcollege.ie as you wish. You are also encouraged to review Turnitin’s Ethical Checklist for Students before submitting your work.

3. Alleged breaches of academic integrity will be investigated under the College academic misconduct regulations.
4. You can view the Independent College Academic Misconduct Policy here.
5. You can view the Independent College Artificial Intelligence Policy here.

Upload and Back-up

1. Unless otherwise agreed by the examiner in advance of the submission deadline, your assignment must be submitted on Moodle to the designated Turnitin link.

2. You are encouraged to upload your assignment to the designated link well in advance of the submission deadline to obtain the Turnitin similarity report and to make appropriate edits to your work before the deadline. Note that after the third such submission, a 24-hour wait period is imposed by Turnitin to generate the similarity report. Only the most recent submission to a given Turnitin link is available: previous submissions are overwritten and cannot be recovered.
3. Ensure that you allow sufficient time to upload the final version of your assignment before the submission deadline: systems may be slower at times of high demand.
4. Check and retain your final Turnitin Digital Receipt.
5. You must also send the final version of your assignment as an attachment (not a link) in an email to locker@independentcollege.ie before the submission deadline. This copy of your assignment in locker@independentcollege.ie is your official back-up copy. It is the only copy of your work that will be accepted for grading in the event of an issue with your submission in Turnitin. Please note that your emails to locker@independentcollege.ie must be sent from the email address that you have registered with the College – files emailed from other accounts will not be considered.
6. An assignment sent only to locker@independentcollege.ie in lieu of Moodle will not be accepted for grading unless also accompanied by evidence (e.g., time-stamped screen capture/photograph) that an IT issue precluded upload to Turnitin within the final hour of the submission period. This evidentiary requirement does not apply in the case of a timed test.
7. Once the submission deadline has passed, you cannot amend or change your submission in Turnitin. If you uploaded the wrong† file in error, you should immediately send the correct file as an attachment in an email to locker@independentcollege.ie and then inform Student Services (learnersupport@independentcollege.ie) in a separate email. The College may facilitate the upload of your correct file provided that the final late-submission deadline (if any) has not passed and will apply a late-submission penalty with reference to the date of receipt of the file in locker@independentcollege.ie.

† Please note that, in line with the Late Submission Policy, the upload of a revised version of the work will not ordinarily be facilitated by the College.

8. Please note that the locker@independentcollege.ie address is not monitored. You are required to inform Learner Support (learnersupport@independentcollege.ie) in a separate email if – and why (please see point E6 above) – your work is in ‘Locker’ instead of in Moodle. Do NOT send your work to Learner Support; files emailed to any accounts other than locker@independentcollege.ie will not be considered.

Late Submission

1. Late submission, subject to penalty, is permitted for all assignments except time-limited tests. Late submission, if permitted, is penalised by 5 marks of the awarded mark per calendar day or part thereof. This is subject to a maximum of 5 calendar days, after which time the work will not be accepted.
2. Where an assignment is undertaken in a group, the work should be submitted in its entirety, and any penalty incurred for late submission applies to all group members.
3. Note that a late submission is only possible if it is your first submission to the designated link.
4. You can view the Independent College Late Submission Policy here.

Personal Circumstances

1. 1. If you are unable to submit this assignment on time or at all due to circumstances beyond your control, you are required to submit a completed Extenuating Circumstances Form with the relevant documentary and supporting evidence to learnersupport@independentcollege.ie not later than one working day after the final late-submission deadline. Extenuating Circumstances Forms with the relevant documented evidence presented more than one working day after the final late-submission deadline will not be accepted.
   2. If you are unable to attend a timed test due to circumstances beyond your control, you are required to submit a completed Extenuating Circumstances Form with the relevant documentary and supporting evidence to learnersupport@independentcollege.ie within five working days of the submission deadline. Extenuating Circumstances Forms with the relevant documented evidence presented more than five working days after the submission deadline will not be accepted.
   3. You can view the Independent College Extenuating Circumstances Policy here.

G. non-engagement

1. A student who fails to adequately engage in the assessment components of a programme may be presented to the Examination Board with a recommendation to withdraw them from the programme. Any of the following may be grounds for withdrawal:

• non-submission of more than 50% of assessment components for that semester
• non-participation in more than 50% of assessment components for that semester
• repeated failure to respond to communication from the College, within a reasonable period, in relation to extremely poor academic performance
• non-submission of more than two modules in a resit period (with derogation for a student in the first semester of a Stage).

2. You can view the Independent College Failed Module Policy here.

Please see the Quality Assurance Manual for further information on Independent College Policies.