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Business Analysis and Decision Making

Assessment Method:

1. Element 1: Individual digital case study presentation 25% (1,000 words)
2. Element 2: Individual report 75% (3,000 words +/- 10%)

Learning Outcomes

• Undertake a strategic marketing audit, assessing an organisation’s competencies, competitive advantage, market performance, customers, competitors, product and service portfolios, positioning, value proposition and market impact.
• Utilise a strategic marketing audit to critically evaluate a range of strategic marketing options available to an organisation, including innovation, mergers, acquisitions, partnering, alliances, environmental sustainability and CSR, in order to deliver best value growth and expansion opportunities for the organisation
• Critically assess the impact of external factors on an organisation and its strategic intent and direction.
• Utilise a range of financial and other measurement tools to critically assess the financial and non-financial benefits of recommended strategic marketing decisions.
• Utilise a range of risk assessment tools to critically assess the risk of strategic market decisions and their impact upon an organisation, including financial, corporate and reputational risk.

Assessment Overview

The assessment for this module consists of two Components:

1. Element 1: Individual digital case study presentation 25% (1,000 words)
2. Element 2: Individual report 75% (3,000 words +/- 10%)

Please note: in order to pass this module, you must achieve an overall mark of 50%. For each Component, 1 and 2, you must have a minimum mark of 40%. A minimum mark of 40% in each Component will mean that you fail this module.

Please note that you have to submit both Components.

Element 1

• L04: Utilize a range of financial and other measurement tools to critically assess the financial and non-financial benefits of recommended strategic marketing decisions.

Task: A Presentation for Pizza the Action 

You have recently been approached by an old school friend, who is interested in setting up a pizza place, Pizza The Action, as a sit-in and take-away business in her neighbourhood.

Your friend knows that have recently set up a marketing consultancy business, and she is keen to avail of your advice in helping her to address some pressing strategic issues.

Your friend is specifically interested in price, and in putting together a menu that is both competitive and profitable for her business.  Having some entrepreneurial experience under her belt, she knows that pricing decisions can be some of the most challenging for any business owner, particularly in highly competitive industries.

Your task involves developing a report for this business owner in three sections.

1. Imagine that the pizza place will be located in your neighbourhood. Present an outline competitive audit to your client to advise her about the direct competition in this area and the prices that these businesses typically charge for their products and services. If there are no direct competitors in your area, you can research the indirect competition. (4 slides)
2. In clear and intelligible terms, explain the concepts of own, cross and residual price elasticity to your client by working with figures that your business owner can clearly understand and recognise. The purpose of this exercise is to help your client understand how making changes to her pricing structure in the future could cause competitive reactions and consumer demand to fluctuate (4 slides)
3. Recommend price points for some of your client’s products or services (such as a sample menu) and provide justification for your recommendations. Calculate the price premium for one or more products that your organisation sells (4 slides)

Element 2

This assessment is designed to give students the opportunity to apply a portfolio analysis to an international organisation.  Students must also critically evaluate the usefulness of such an analysis to the modern practitioner by acknowledging its limitations. This assessment is designed to assess students’ abilities as outlined in learning outcomes 1, 2, 3 and 5

• LO1. Undertake a strategic marketing audit, assessing an organisation’s competencies, competitive advantage, market performance, customers, competitors, product and service portfolios, positioning, value proposition and market impact.
• LO2.  Utilise a strategic marketing audit to critically evaluate a range of strategic marketing options available to an organisation, including innovation, mergers, acquisitions, partnering, alliances, environmental sustainability and CSR, in order to deliver best value growth and expansion opportunities for the organisation
• LO3.  Critically assess the impact of external factors on an organisation and its strategic intent and direction.
• LO5.   Utilise a range of risk assessment tools to critically assess the risk of strategic market decisions and their impact upon an organisation, including financial, corporate and reputational risk.

Task: Applying the GE McKinsey Matrix to a social enterprise organisation

Strategic marketing managers love their matrices because they can help them to simplify complex scenarios and see where components in their product and service mix sit in relation to each other.  You may have seen the GE matrix before – if you haven’t, you’ve almost certainly come across the BCG matrix – or Boston Box – on your travels.

The key difference between the GE McKinsey Matrix and the Boston Box is that the GE McKinsey Matrix includes nine cells, whereas the Boston Box includes four.  As a result, the GE McKinsey Matrix may be able to offer a greater level of analytical depth than the Boston Box.

The vertical axis of the GE McKinsey Matrix measures industry attractiveness, while the horizontal measures the strength of a business unit or product within that particular industry

You can read some more about the GE McKinsey Matrix approach via the following link:

https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/tools/ge-mckinsey-matrix.html

This website gives a very comprehensive explanation of how the nine-cell matrix can be used.

Strategic Management Insight helpfully outlines some of the factors than can help to determine industry attractiveness on the one hand, and competitive strength on the other.

Some of the industry attractiveness factors mentioned include:

1. Long run growth rate
2. Industry size
3. Industry profitability
4. Industry structure

Some of the competitive strength factors mentioned include:

1. Total market share
2. Market share growth compared to rivals
3. Brand strength (use brand value for this)
4. Profitability of the company

Choose a diversified social enterprise organisation which sells a range of products and/or services.

1. Firstly, using some of the industry attractiveness factors mentioned in Strategic Management Insight, assess the current level of attractiveness of one industry in which your organisation does business (15%).
2. Secondly, using some of the competitive strength factors mentioned in Strategic Management Insight, assess the current strength of one of your chosen organisation’s products/services or business units (15%).
3. Thirdly, develop a GE McKinsey Matrix for your organisation’s product and/or service portfolio. Provide an accompanying narrative to justify the choices you have made in terms of placing certain products or services in certain parts of the grid (40%).
4. Finally, critically evaluate some of the opportunities and associated risks for your diversified organisation in developing strategic partnerships with other organisations across one or more parts of its product or service portfolio (30%)

Your paper should be no more than 3,000 words.  You are entitled to make assumptions about your chosen organisation and the industry/industries in which it operates in circumstances in which up to date market intelligence is not available to you.