THE BRIEF, proposal
(i) Choose a business. This should be listed on the London (FTSE) or New York stock exchanges.
Where the target company has multiple listings, please state the details of this at the top of your a) Proposal and b) Main report and include with these details the ISIN number for your company’s listing.
(ii) The chosen business should be facing competitive disadvantages and/or serious strategic issues. If you choose a company which is not facing serious strategic issues (i.e. one which dominates its sector without other strategic problems, or is otherwise doing well), you will not be able to generate insightful strategic recommendations.
The company needs to have a clear like-for-like competitor set offering as far as possible like for like comparable products: If this clear competitor set is absent, then a competitive analysis in this context is impossible.
If your target company is in a global marketplace then you must do your analysis with reference to this global marketplace. The reason for this is because it is highly likely that the global economies of scope and scale will affect the competitive position of your target company in any national market.
Research current strategies using online or hard copy sources. Please see the video guides to all business information sources on the site.
Three key areas for inclusion:
• Your chosen company
– Overview of sector, competitors, markets and market share
– Overview of company and specifically: why is this company’s competitive and strategic position worthy of analysis?
– What is your evidence of significant strategic/competitive issues?
– Competitive issues
– What are the competitive challenges facing the company? The strategic challenges?
– Does the competitive position of the company leave you enough “space” to develop useful strategies of your own, in order to address these?
• Research plan in the appendices
– As a result of the above analysis, you will have identified some focuses for research
– How do you plan to do this research?
– What are the sources of data /information that you plan to use?
– Is this available publicly?
– Any risk that data is unavailable
– The analytical tools that you will use to perform your analysis
– Your proposal project plan with activities and timings (GANTT chart)
– YOU NEED TO SAY IF YOUR RESEARCH WILL BE AT THE CORPORATE, AND/OR
– BUSINESS STREAM OR FUNCTIONAL LEVEL
