Coursework Brief:

You should prepare a Strategy Report of 5,000 words (+10% is acceptable) which relates the module
material to your chosen case study organisation. The purpose of the report is to conduct a critical
analysis of a Strategy for an organisation of your choice. Please listen to the advice of your tutor
when choosing an organisation though the final choice is yours to make. References and appendices
are not included in the word count, nor are any contents pages. Remember also that material
contained within pictures or tables does not contribute to your word count. See the guidance on the
expected content.

You do not need to hand in a hard copy of this report. Please note, this is an INDIVIDUAL report. The
electronic submission boxes will be available from mid-November. You must reference your work
very carefully.

Suggested Content: Your assignment will be contextualised by the organisation that you choose –
below are possible avenues of investigation. You do not have to cover every topic that we cover in
the lecture programme.
1. External Environment – All assignments should present an assessment of the external forces that
act upon the organisation using appropriate tools and frameworks.
2. Strategic capabilities. You should identify and evaluate the strategic capabilities of the
organisation.
3. Business AND/OR corporate/diversification strategies. There must be a consideration of the
business or corporate strategies used by the organisation and these must be related to its
competitiveness.
4. Issues such as Politics, Sustainability and Business Models should also be considered where
appropriate.
5. International strategy There should be consideration of the organisation’s international strategy
(where appropriate).
6. Strategic options. Recommendation of some strategic options for the organisation to maintain or
enhance competitiveness in the future. These must be related to the potential impacts of macro or
competitive forces as identified in Section 1. Please also note you should make recommendations
within the context of the organisation.
7. Presentation. The report should be well-presented, meaning that it should be clear and well-
structured, with few or no spelling or grammatical errors, and it should be correctly referenced in a
consistent Harvard style.
8. GUIDANCE. Consider all the relevant models, tools and concepts which have been covered in this
module: if you think they apply to your case study organisation, and tell you something useful about
its strategy, then apply them, and tell us about what you have found out by doing so. One approach
to including this material is to put such models and analysis tools in clearly numbered and labelled
appendices – but this is not the only approach
An alternative approach is to integrate the application of such specific tools and models within the
body of the report and don’t bother to include any appendices. That is fine by us. Remember that
material contained within pictures or tables does not contribute to your word count. We don’t mind
which way you do it, so long as you are appropriately critical and analytical.