The Strategic
Management Cycle
Current Event Blog 1
In your SLP for this course you will be
considered a strategic management subject matter expert and will be asked to
blog about important aspects of the strategic management process and to provide
examples to support your key arguments based on current events pulled from
recent articles from reputable sources (such as a major national news source
like the NY Times, Business Week, etc.).
Your main article(s) for each of your blog
entries must be no older than 4 months old. If you use an older article
as your primary focal article, you will be asked to redo the assignment.
You may, of course, use older sources to support your discussion but the
current event article serving as the main focus of your paper must be
recent.
For your first SLP discuss why the mission and
vision are important in helping to shape organizational strategy and find two
recent articles (no older than four months old) that provide examples of
organizations that seem to be living up to (or failing at) fulfilling their
mission and vision.
Remember that you are playing the role of a
person blogging about strategic management and the key here is to convey to the
public the importance of the mission and vision statement in a strategic
management context and to provide examples of organizations who do well (or
poorly) in fulfilling their stated missions and visions. Also remember to
keep your discussion focused on strategic management
SLP Assignment Expectations
Your SLP assignment should be a minimum of 3
pages in length.
You are required to use APA formatting and you
are required to cite and reference your sources. There should be a
minimum of three reputable sources cited and referenced in your
paper.
Please make sure you review the assignment
rubric prior to writing your assignment.
Module 2 – Case
Environmental
Assessment
Case Assignment
In this assignment you will be asked to once
again consider Dish in responding to the following two requirements:
Why is it best for large organizations like
Dish to use both PEST and Porter’s 5 Forces analysis in helping its leaders to
understand their particular external environment? Make sure you
demonstrate understanding of both analytical processes in your discussion and
give clear, Dish-related examples to support your arguments.
Second, describe how the information obtained
from the organization’s macro-level external analysis might be used by an
organization like Dish in performing their SWOT analysis.
In short, what should an organization like
Dish be doing to analyze the external environment at the macro-level and how
does that overlap with the organization’s micro-level analysis efforts?
Make sure you provide well-reasoned and well supported arguments.
Assignment Expectations
Your case assignment should be a minimum of 4
pages in length.
You are required to use APA formatting and you
are required to cite and reference your sources. There should be a
minimum of three reputable sources cited and referenced in your
paper.
Please make sure you review the assignment
rubric prior to writing your assignment.
Module 2 – SLP
Environmental
Assessment
Note: This is a signature assignment that will
be graded using the special rubric below to assess Written Communication.
Current Event Blog 2
For this SLP submission you will be asked to
submit your second blog entry about another important aspect of the strategic
management process and to provide examples based on current events pulled from
recent articles from reputable sources (such as a major regional or national
news source like the NY Times, Business Week, etc.).
Recall that the main article(s) for each of
your blog entries mustbe no older than 4 months old. If you use
an older article as your primary focal article, you will be asked to redo the
assignment. You may, of course, use older sources to support your discussion
but the current event article(s) serving as the main focus of your paper must
be recent.
For your second SLP submission, describe why
environmental analysis is important and find two recent articles that
demonstrate how one or two organizations have reacted to a turbulent or
competitive environment in a fashion which indicates they have leveraged their
strengths, overcome weaknesses, taken advantage of opportunities, or
successfully faced threats to maintain a competitive edge. What is/are the
lesson(s) to be learned that you want your blog readers to take away from your
analysis?
SLP Assignment Expectations
Your SLP assignment should be a minimum of 3
pages in length.
You are required to use APA formatting and you
are required to cite and reference your sources. There should be a minimum of
three reputable sources cited and referenced in your paper.
Module 3 – Case
Strategic Planning
& Strategy Formulation
Case Assignment
In this case assignment, consider some key
strategies recently implemented by Dish in its effort to succeed and compete in
its current competitive environment. Discuss the strategic direction of the
company and whether you believe the organization to be on the right
track. Make recommendations that you believe would help Dish to gain
market share (that is, hypothetically formulate what you think would be useful
strategies for Dish to consider). Also comment regarding whether you
believe Dish operates in a socially responsible manner and whether their CSR
record helps or hinders their success.
Assignment Expectations
Your case assignment should be a minimum of 4
pages in length.
You are required to use APA formatting and you
are required to cite and reference your sources. There should be a
minimum of three reputable sources cited and referenced in your
paper.
Please make sure you review the assignment
rubric prior to writing your assignment.
Module 3 – SLP
Strategic Planning
& Strategy Formulation
Note: This is a signature assignment that will
be graded using the special rubric below to assess Information Literacy.
Current Event Blog 3
For this SLP submission you will be asked to
submit your third blog entry about another important aspect of the strategic
management process and to provide examples based on current events pulled from
recent articles from reputable sources. (You will need to use at least five
peer-reviewed articles for this assignment.) Peer-reviewed articles can be
located by using the Trident Online Library. Please make sure that you
cite/reference correctly in APA.
For this Signature Assignment, the articles
for your blog entry must be no older than 12 months old.
For your third SLP discuss the importance of
the strategy formulation and planning phase. Identify five recent
peer-reviewed articles that discuss a recent major strategic effort on the part
of an organization. What would you have recommended if you were sitting at
the strategy planning table? Examples of such an effort might include mergers,
buy-outs, sell-offs, introduction of innovative products, strategic marketing
campaigns, and the like.
Discuss to what extent you believe this effort
will succeed given the organization’s external environment. What is the
takeaway for your reading audience? That is, what strategic planning
lessons can be learned from the situation you highlighted in your blog entry?
SLP Assignment Expectations
Your SLP assignment should be a minimum of
3 pages in length.
You are required to use APA formatting and you
are required to cite and reference your sources. There should be a minimum of
five reputable sources cited and referenced in your paper.
Please make sure you review the assignment
rubric prior to writing your assignment.
Module 4 – Case
Strategy Implementation
& Evaluation
Case Assignment
Please note that this assignment is unique in
that your written communication skills will be assessed. This assignment
also includes a specialized rubric focused specifically on written
communication.
After reviewing the book section, presentation
materials, and additional readings you will be asked to compose an
argumentative essay where you will argue for or against the thesis identified
below regarding the implementation process of a strategic management
plan. Here is the thesis statement you are expected to support or refute
using well-reasoned arguments:
The successful implementation of the strategic
management plan in a large corporation like Dish is highly reliant on
measurement and evaluation efforts during and after the implementation
phase.
In responding to this assignment you should
continue your review of the information available on Dish. Identifying
strategies over the past couple of years that did not work out so well versus
strategies that succeeded might be helpful in supporting key arguments.
Some questions to ask yourself in formulating your arguments might include:
What barriers might have gotten in the way of any less successful
strategies? And what type of strategic evaluation efforts do you
think are necessary to keep an eye on progress in a large company like
Dish? How does measurement of implementation processes help assure
success? How does the evaluation process help to assure future success?
In this assignment, make sure you clearly
identify the position you are taking with respect to the thesis. Your
essay should include an introduction, and well developed arguments in support
of your position. You should wrap up your essay with a conclusion.
Assignment Expectations
Your case assignment should be a minimum of 5
pages in length.
You are required to use APA formatting and you
are required to cite and reference your sources. There should be a
minimum of three reputable sources cited and referenced in your paper but more
is preferred.
Please make sure you review theassignment rubric prior to writing your assignment. Keep
in mind that this rubric is a different rubric from what you are used to as it
focuses on the assessment of your writing skills.
Module 4 – SLP
Strategy Implementation
& Evaluation
Current Event Blog 4
For this SLP submission you will be asked to
submit your fourth blog entry about another important aspect of the strategic
management process and to provide examples based on current events pulled from
recent articles from reputable sources (such as a major national news source
like the NY Times, Business Week, etc.).
Recall that the main article(s) for each of
your blog entries must be no older than 4 months old. If
you use an older article as your primary focal article, you will be asked to
redo the assignment. You may, of course, use older sources to support
your discussion but the article serving as the main focus of your paper must be
recent.
This final blog entry will be related to your
case assignment in that it will deal with Comcast. For this assignment
consider the short news article related to Verizon by Albanesius (2014) and the
Nakashima (2014) article that discusses a deal made between Disney and the Dish
Network. The articles deal with plans to provide video content on mobile
devices and on home televisions in an a la carte manner. As you
know, Cable companies tend to bundle programming to cause customers to want to
buy more premium packages to accommodate their home entertainment
desires. The players in the industry have been avoiding the a la carte
approach to programming in order to cause customers to pay more through the
bundling strategy.
Your assignment will be to present to your
blog reading audience an argument as to whether you believe that Comcast is
strategically poised to compete with upcoming changes in the environment
related to providing an a la carte approach to programming. What
should large cable companies like Comcast be doing now so as not to go the way
of Kodak?
Make sure you provide at least two very recent
articles to support your key points (no older than 4 months old).
SLP Assignment Expectations
Your SLP assignment should be a minimum of 4-5
pages in length.
You are required to use APA formatting and you
are required to cite and reference your sources. There should be a
minimum of three reputable sources cited and referenced in your
paper.
Please make sure you review the assignment
rubric prior to writing your assignment.
