Competitive Position and Strategies

Chapter 5: “The Five Generic Competitive Strategies”

Chapter 6: “Strengthening a Company’s Competitive Position: Strategic Moves, Timing, and Scope of Operations”

Formulate strategic business decisions from a management, leadership, and organizational design perspective.

In this assessment, you will differentiate between leadership and management strategic decision-making from an organizational design perspective. You will find the following resource to be a helpful guide in your analysis of your chosen case study: Guide to Case Analysis. This assessment will require intensive interpretation skills. Be sure to read this Case Analysis Guide to prepare. To successfully complete this assessment, immerse yourself in the following scenario:

Scenario:

Choose an award-winning company from the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program website to study. You will evaluate the “Award Application Summary” as a business case. You are the director of strategic planning and business intelligence for your chosen company. You are conducting an evaluation of your chosen company for an upcoming annual report. Your goal is to demonstrate skill and expertise in making strategic decisions based on your expert analysis and evaluation of the strategic position of your company. You will be submitting this report to the C-level executives for review. Use the following criteria to make strategic decisions for your chosen award-winning organization. 

Requirements:

• Provide background information about your chosen company, including topics such as the company name, industry sector in which the company operates, products, and target market. Elaborate and use research. 
• Provide a high-level synopsis of the organizational design of your chosen company from a strategic management perspective (read pages 35–38 in your textbook).
• Explain which one of the five generic competitive strategies best characterizes your chosen company’s strategic approach to competing successfully for the next 3 years (read Chapter 5 in your textbook). Explain how and why. 
• From a management perspective, formulate and explain your company’s offensive or defensive strategy to improve its market position in the next 3 years (read pages 153–159 in your textbook).
• Explain whether your company will be a first mover, a fast follower, or a late mover to ensure competitive advantage (read pages 159–164 in your textbook).
• Does your company engage in outsourcing? If so, what do you see as the pros and cons of outsourcing for your company? Should strategic alliances be involved? (Read pages 172–173 in your textbook.) Explain. 
• Demonstrate leadership communication skills. Be persuasive and descriptive in your communication style. 
• Use a minimum of three peer-reviewed research resources (including your textbook) to substantiate your thoughts, opinions, ideas, etc.
• Apply proper APA style citation and reference format. 
• Write in third person. 

Minimum Submission Requirements

• Microsoft Word document, in addition to the title and reference pages. 
• Respond to the questions in a thorough manner, providing specific examples of concepts, topics, definitions, and other elements asked for in the questions. Your submission should be highly organized, logical, and focused.
• Your submission should provide a clearly established and sustained viewpoint and purpose.
• Your writing should be well ordered, logical, and unified, as well as original and insightful.
• Your submission must be written in Standard English and demonstrate exceptional content, organization, style, and grammar and mechanics.
• A separate page at the end of your submission should contain a list of references in APA format. Use your textbook, the Library, and the Internet for research.
• Be sure to include references for all sources and to cite them using in-text citations where appropriate. Your sources and content should follow current APA citation style. Review the writing resources for APA formatting and citation found in Academic Tools. Additional writing resources can be found within the Academic Success Center.
• Your submission should:
  • include a title page;
  • be double-spaced;
  • be typed in Times New Roman, 12-point font; and
  • be free of spelling or punctuation errors.