Strategy Individual Capstone Project Strategic Knowledge Integration MBAD 6990 Your capstone project is the final piece of your RMU MBA. It provides an opportunity for you to undertake a thorough strategic assessment of an organization. The purpose is to identify and address an issue closely tied to the strategic direction of an organization (or a major division or department). In developing recommendations for how the organization can resolve the issue, students are expected to utilize the tools of analysis, not only learned in Strategic Knowledge Integration, but also from your overall MBA program. Through research and analysis, you are expected to identify a strategic issue and develop a customized solutions based recommendation that considers the practicality of implementation. Successful completion of this requires a demonstrated ability to collect and analyze both primary and secondary data sources. You will employ a variety of analysis tools and complete a thorough financial assessment to assist in identifying the full scope of the issue and the associated recommendation. The core deliverable is a major report in scholarly form with sound analysis, references and bibliography. In a word document, using size 12 font, single spaced, conduct a thorough strategic analysis of your organization. Provide a conclusion for each section and sub-section. Make sure you do not contradict what you are stating in one section versus another. Additionally you will also prepare and deliver a maximum 15 minutes presentation that identifies the highlights of this report. The intent of the presentation is to inform your classmates of the results of your analysis and your recommendation. You need to video yourself actually reading and presenting. You can begin this project by identifying a firm to study, we prefer that if possible, it can be one you work, if not, we recommend you select a publicly traded organization. Clear your choice with Dr. Potter or Dr. Seth in week 1. You will be required to obtain and analyze a significant amount of data about this firm (see list below). Use sources such as Edgar (www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml), Firm's annual reports and website, Proquest, Hoovers.com, finance.yahoo.com, Datamonitor, etc. Please consider all of the following elements as you undertake your analysis: 1. External environment: a. Identify the industry (or segment) the organization primarily operates in, describe the industry structure in terms of size, scope, key players, history, current trends, and relevant environmental factors. b. Who are the organization's closest rivals? Why? C. What are the driving forces of change in the industry in which this organization competes? d. Which of the five forces exert the most pressure? What has the organization done to relieve this pressure? e. Overall determine how attractive is this industry? Identify critical success factors that are derived from your analysis. (i.e. market share is not a factor it is an outcome of strategic choices made by the organization). 2. Internal environment a. What are the organization's mission or value statements? How does it compare to those of its competitors? What do these statements say about the organization and its leadership? b. How well has the organization performed to stated strategic objectives or performance targets? Pay particular attention to how they have performed from a financial perspective over the last 5 years? Support your assessment with factual data. C. Compare the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the organization to those of its competitors. d. What do you think is the core competency of the organization? Why? e. How has the organization used its value chain activities to improve its competitive position? What are your recommendations in regard to the organization's competitive position and value chain activities? f. Which of the generic competitive strategy options is your organization pursuing? How does this strategy affect the strategic choice your organization makes? g. How does pursuit of this strategy help your organization achieve sustained competitive advantage? h. What methods has the organization used to grow its business? Has this worked well for the organization? Why or why not? İ. j. Discuss which diversification strategy is used-diversification into related or unrelated businesses, a mix of both or none, and/or divestiture and retrenchment? How has this helped or hurt the organization? Describe which method(s) has been used to enter foreign markets and if the organization has gained competitive advantage through competing internationally. k. How is the organization structured? What are the strengths and/or weaknesses of the current structure? I. Does the organization have an ethics statement or code of conduct? Does it have a comprehensive, proactive social responsibility statement? Do its actions support stated policies in these areas? m. Assess the organization's human resource policies, do they support its strategy? Identify the key leaders in the organization? Assess their leadership styles. Are these styles effective? If so why or why not? Please remember, the purpose of the above list is for you to take into account factors that affect the organization and allow you to determine a strategic issue and associated recommendation. Therefore the above elements are designed to frame your analysis. This is not simply a laundry list where you should expect to receive credit simply by having everything on the list as part of your submission. Having all factors identified in your paper is important, but what is more important is how you tie this information into your overall assessment.

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Strategy Individual Capstone Project Strategic Knowledge Integration MBAD 6990 Your capstone project is the final piece of your RMU MBA. It provides an opportunity for you to undertake a thorough strategic assessment of an organization. The purpose is to identify and address an issue closely tied to the strategic dire