W7 Group SWOT paper and strategy

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W7 Group SWOT paper and strategy
 


Group Category 
 
Semester long teams 

Group Name 
 
Group 3 

Instructions 
 


Group Strategy project: Competitive Strategy, entry strategy and SWOT (7% of course
grade)


Resources: 

Hunger and Wheelen, chapters 5 and 6

http://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/tools/swot-analysis-how-to-do-it.html

http://www.businessballs.com/free_SWOT_analysis_template.pdf


Executive Summary

Business Plan Outline

 Assignment Overview: The content objectives are to summarize the market
Opportunities and Threats (external risks) facing your client company, given its
own Strengths and Weaknesses (internal risks) and to propose specific mitigating
actions (operational tactics) to mitigate each of the identified risks for your
client company’s entry into the selected country. This is also the point at which
your final business plan begins to take shape. The structural objective is to 
create a formal paper, with an introduction to be used in all formal papers,
including final business plan; and you will create an executive summary as a skill
that will be required for all remaining written assignments. You should refer,
therefore, to both the Executive Summary and Business Plan Outline, which are
listed as resources in the reading assignments list for this week. 


Complete the SWOT TABLE (started in W3), which should now show ALL the country and
industry (external ) Opportunities and Threats (from Weeks 2-6 assignments) and
Company Strengths and Weaknesses (from Weeks 2 and 6 assignments). For each of the
external threats identified for this country, specify the mitigating strategies
needed; e.g., if your previous analysis identified political ties as important or
necessary to compete in this country (external Threat), but your client does not
have those ties (internal Weakness), consider how a specific type of partner (in an
entry strategy) or some specific activity (operating tactic) might mitigate this
risk for your client. 

 

Describe IN TEXT the data in the SWOT table, and organize the text around two basic
sections: Opportunities and Threats 
1.The external O's (including your target market’s size and growth, PESTEL factors
and industry factors in the country that support O (e.g., growth or technology
trends, pending positive regulatory changes) 
2.The external T's (PESTEL risk factors plus industry factors in the country that
represent actual or pending T's ; e.g., pending negative regulatory change), 
3.State the company S's (including corporate assets, geographic/location
advantages, competitive product/service advantages; process efficiencies), 
4.State the company W's (internal risks such as lack of experience; high costs,
inefficient processes).

Using this SWOT table and text as appendices, write a formal report that includes
the following components, and which pulls ALL the previous analyses together (as
will be consistent with the final business plan ) and moves your thinking into
business unit strategy formulation:

I. Introduce the paper with an INTRODUCTORY FRAMEWORK that will be the same for all
papers from this point forward and will contain: 

a. Company Description: Describes your company and product(s) of focus; its reason
and its goals for international expansion


b. Statement of purpose: statement of Purpose will depend upon the assignment goals,
but this particular paper will summarize the O's and T's in Country x, including
competition, and will recommend mitigating strategies (or tactics) for the T's
identified.

c. Country Selection Rationale: Statement that your recommended country was
selected over the other BECAUSE--better O, less T (specify the O's and T's). This
should come from your W4 paper’s conclusion. 

d. Company Description detail: Describe the product in detail, the target buyer,
and the company’s competitive advantages/STRENGTHS (from last week’s conclusion)

 II. Body of your analysis goes next:(this should be approximately 10 pages
double spaced)


 1. State the COUNTRY OPPORTUNITY, including market size (in dollars or units) and
growth potential of your target segment (the target buyer). Include opportunity
support factors and company strengths/assets that will support your client's
success


2. State the Threats and Weaknesses that must be mitigated

3. Propose mitigating strategies/tactics for country and industry THREATS, and
internal WEAKNESSES, specifying:

a. How entry barriers could be overcome; 

b. How operational tactics might mitigate operational threats and internal weaknesses.

4. To realize the Opportunities present in this country environment, propose some 
strategies for how your client company might utilize its strengths/assets to
realize the opportunities


 III. Conclusion: Summarize the strategic actions you believe are needed to
mitigate specific external T's and internal W’s and leverage specific S's, to
realize specific O's.

In addition to these structural basic components, this paper AND ALL FUTURE PROJECT
PAPERS will contain the following (which are not included in recommended page
counts, which will always refer only to the body of the analysis. ):

IV. Executive summary is written last (incorporating the conclusion), but is placed
before the table of contents and before the Introduction to the paper.

 V. Table of contents should show the major topics and subtopics within our paper.
The table of contents comes before the executive summary, after the title page

 VI. Title page should list the names of all team members who participated in the
development of this analysis.

Post the assignment in the Group assignment folder by the end of the week and title
it “SWOT and Risk Mitigation Strategies.” 

Where you are now: you have identified specific risk mitigation actions, including
a competitive strategy, that will help your firm optimally operate in country. 
You have not yet addressed a specific entry vehicle or legal structure that will get
your client into operation in the country. An entry strategy consists of both a
legal structure (the entry vehicle) and an organizational structure for how your
firm will operate in country--in order to realize the risk mitigation strategies you
have just developed in this assignment. Therefore, risk mitigation strategies you
have developed here will be the basis for comparing different entry vehicles: which
type of entry vehicle will be better at achieving these risk mitigation strategies
and at capturing the opportunity. 

Some of the risk mitigation strategies you developed here may lead you directly to a
type of entry vehicle ; e.g., if the country requires a joint venture with a local
firm, that entry barrier has to be mitigated with a specific vehicle (joint
venture is the legal structure that is required and you would identify the type of
partner and define the partner responsibilities in an organizational structure). 
Without a requirement for a specific entry vehicle, other mitigation strategies
you developed here will lead you less directly to an entry vehicle. For example,
if you determine that a local presence will mitigate some political risk and/or
mitigate a competitor's in-country advantage, you may consider what type of
structure (entry vehicle) could best provide that local presence (e.g., an
alliance with a local firm, a contract with a local distributor, hiring locals to
staff a branch sales office). The entry vehicles or legal structures you develop 
in next week's assignment must be able to realize the mitigation actions and capture
the opportunity you have identified in this SWOT analysis. Therefore, this SWOT
becomes the foundation for thinking about and proposing potential entry vehicles and
organizational structures for your complete entry strategy.


Looking ahead: Next week, you will develop two alternative entry strategies (legal
and organizational structures) that will help your firm to realize the potential
Opportunities and mitigate the Threats you have identified this week.