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Paper Instructions:

Formulate strategic business decisions from a management, leadership and organizational design perspective.
In this Assessment, you will culminate one course outcome by demonstrating an ability to make strategic business decisions:

Strategy is often a complex puzzle that requires both leadership and management oriented decision-making, critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. Strategic thinking, in general, requires the understanding of intricate design structures and networks within an organization. Choosing the appropriate strategic approach can be a daunting task, requiring business acumen and professional competencies that leaders and managers possess, such as professional communication (verbal, written, body language), planning, organization, analysis, reasoning skills, persistence, time management, perseverance, and much more. To meet the challenges in this Assessment, you must be ready to use a combination of such professional competencies and business acumen to formulate strategic business decisions from a leadership, management and organizational design perspective. Essentially, you are analyzing a business to construct a business case.

To complete this Assessment, your professor will provide a list of industries and companies. You will choose two companies from the list that operate within one of the industries provided. You will assume the role of Chief Operating Officer (CEO) for one of your chosen companies, and the other company will be a major competitor. In a narrated PowerPoint presentation, your goal is to make strategic decisions from a management, leadership, and organizational design perspective by meeting the following criteria:

·        Identify two companies that operate within the same industry from the list of industries and companies that your Professor has provided. You will assume the role of CEO for one of your chosen companies, and the other company will be a competitor that operates in the same industry with similar products. As the CEO, you will make strategic decisions from a leadership or a management perspective. Your audience is the executive management team of your organization.
·        As the CEO, provide a thorough synopsis of your chosen company by introducing the brand, industry, products, target market, etc. Be sure to use leadership abilities to inspire your audience through your communication of this information.
·        From a management perspective, provide a high-level synopsis of the organizational design of your chosen company.
·        From a management perspective, provide a thorough environmental analysis on the state of your chosen industry and your company’s market position within the industry.
·        From a management perspective, analyze the financial condition of your chosen company.
·        From a management perspective, conduct a thorough analysis on your competitor to explain its market position and competitive advantages within your chosen industry.
·        Using strategic decision-making abilities, decide on which of the five generic strategies your company employs, and why this strategy works better than others for your company.
·        From a leadership perspective, explain how your chosen generic strategy positions your company within the market by building competitive advantages against your chosen competitor company.
·        From a management perspective, provide reasoning on the potential for your company to achieve competitive advantage in the market based on lower costs. If your company is not positioned as a low cost leader, explain why not. If it is positioned as a low cost leader, explain why it leads to sustainable competitive advantage.
·        From a management perspective, provide reasoning on the potential for your company to achieve competitive advantage in the market based on differentiating the company’s products from the offerings of rivals. If your company is not positioned as a differentiator, explain why not. If it is positioned as a differentiator, explain why it leads to sustainable competitive advantage.
·        From a management perspective, provide reasoning on the potential for your company to achieve competitive advantage in the market based on being a best-cost provider. If your company is not positioned as a best-cost provider, explain why not. If it is positioned as a best-cost provider, explain why it leads to sustainable competitive advantage.
·        From a management perspective, formulate and explain your company’s offensive or defensive strategy to improve its market position in the next year.
·        From a leadership perspective, design a plan to position your chosen company to be a first mover, a fast follower, or a late mover to ensure competitive advantage.
·        From a management perspective, compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of extending your company’s scope of operations via vertical integration.
·        From a management perspective, determine the conditions that favor outsourcing certain value chain activities to outside parties for your company.
·        Use a minimum of three peer-reviewed research resources (including your textbook) to substantiate your thoughts, opinions, ideas, etc.
Use as many concepts from Chapters 5 and 6 of your textbook to complete this Assessment as possible. You are the professional and will need to determine how many slides and how long the presentation should be to meet the requirements of this Assessment. You are capable of making such decisions at this level of your degree program. Take the initiative to be the problem solver and strategic decision-maker. Each slide should have a verbal narration and notes. Your slides should be professionally designed.

Be sure to review the Competency Assessment Checklist Rubric in order to understand the criteria on which you will be evaluated.
Minimum Submission Requirements
·        This Assessment should be a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
·        Respond to the questions in a thorough manner, providing specific examples of concepts, topics, definitions, and other elements asked for in the questions. Your presentation should be highly organized, logical, and focused.
·        Your presentation must be written in Standard English and demonstrate exceptional content, organization, style, and grammar and mechanics.
·        Your presentation 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.
·        A separate slide at the end of your research presentation should contain a list of references, in APA format. Use your textbook, the Library, and the internet for research.
·        Be sure to cite both in-text and reference list citations were appropriate and reference all sources.  Your sources and content should follow proper APA citation style. Review the APA formatting and citation style resources found in the Writing Center. The Writing Center can be found in the Academic Success Center in the Academic Tools area of your course.
If work submitted for this competency assessment does not meet the minimum submission requirements, it will be returned without being scored.