Superior Essay Writers | Structure and Assessmen

Structure and Assessmen

Structure and Assessment

The best papers will contain a discussion of the context and background of the organisation, the international strategy issues it faces, and recommendations to the CEO. Make sure your discussion of the context is brief and focussed, though – the focus of this assignment is on strategic options and proposals as to how those options might be pursued.

Papers will be assessed using the following criteria:
(1) Identification of critical issues in the firm’s strategy;
(2) Appropriate application of course concepts;
(3) Use of data to support analysis;
(4) Creativity / originality of ideas and quality of recommendations;
(5) Cogency of logic;
(6) Organisation of the assignment (e.g., is the assignment well-structured, does it have a clear and functional lay-out, is it reader-friendly? are all sources of information properly acknowledged?);
(7) Expression (e.g., how well you can communicate your ideas in a brief written report. This includes, but is not limited, to spelling and grammar).
An important aspect of strategic thinking is the ability to ask the right questions and to bring clarity and structure to ambiguous situations. It is your job to decide how to structure your analysis. Bear in mind that criteria 1-5 are more important than 6 and 7, but a poorly organised assignment and sloppy language demonstrate little respect for the reader (remember, you are writing for the CEO of the organisation).

The organization is McDonald’s. Don’t change the organization and Don’t use other concepts except course concepts.

Background: McDonald’s is trying to occupy Laos marketing. There is lots issues when McDonald entry Laos marketing.

Use the Course Concepts as below:

1. Lafley & Martin (2013) “Playing To Win,”
Watch the Youtube interview of Lafely (Rooney, 2013) and identify the key theoretical concepts/models underlying his comments about how to have a winning strategy. They recommend five key questions (as follow), what can you learn about theory of International Business Strategy from them:
1) What is winning? (Lafley & Martin 2013): Answering this entails defining the company’s purpose.
2) Where am I going to play to win? (Lafley & Martin 2013): Answering this entails defining the company’s competitive advantage in specific markets.
3) How am I going to win where I play? (Lafley & Martin 2013): Answering this entails deciding how the company can create value, and sustain the customers’ “willingness to pay”.
4) What are my core competencies that are going to enable me to win? (Lafley & Martin 2013): Answering this entails defining the company’s capabilities and its uniqueness and imitability of its products or services in delivering what the consumers want.
5) What management systems and measures are going to help me execute? (Lafley & Martin 2013): Answering this entails identifying the company’s organisational culture, marketing, and operational systems and how to keep them productive in executing its strategies.
2. VRIO Checklist
Monitoring the internal resources or capabilities in corporate strategy
Theory
Barney (2002) suggested that the competency of an organisation is a key aspect for strategic review. In order to audit the capabilities and resources which contribute to the organisation’s competency we should address the following four questions about VRIO:

Value:
?   do the organisation’s products/services/contribution provide customer value?
?   do the resources and capabilities provide a competitive advantage?
Rarity:
?   how rare are the organisation’s resources and capabilities?
?   Do their competitors have similar resources and capabilities?
Imitability:
?   Are the organisation’s resources and capabilities:
__tangible?
__intangible?
?   Is it easy to imitate organisation’s resources and capabilities?
?   Is it costly to imitate the organisation’s resources and capabilities?
Organization:
?   How is the organisation approaching the development, exploitation and leverage of the potential of its resources and capabilities?
?   How is the organisation approaching the development, exploitation complementary assets?
?   How is the organisation managing social complexity?
?   How is the organisation approaching invisible relationships to make imitation more difficult?
3.   ADDING value scorecard
How to monitor the value added in corporate strategy and markets
Theory
Porter (1987; 2008) suggested that the value creation may be developed by innovation such as developing new technologies or new approaches to the market. But the important aspect of value relates to whether the customers
http://www.ghemawat.com/management/files/academicresources/adding%20valuefeb2012.pdf )
Lafley, A.G. & Martin, R.L. 2013. Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works. Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, MA.
Rooney J.2013, “A.G. Lafley defines effective business strategy,” Forbes 22 march 2013, http://www.forbes.com/companies/procter-gamble/
are willing to pay for that technology, etc.
Practice
Ghemawat (2007) has taken these concepts of ‘value chain’ and ‘willingness to pay’ and developed a framework and a tool for the practical application of these concepts: the ADDING value scorecard.   This was originally aimed at international competitive strategy assessment, but it can be adopted to examine the strategic alternatives in the public sector. The ADDING value scorecard refers to six value components namely:
Adding volume,
Differentiation or increasing willingness-to-pay,
Increasing industry attractiveness,
Normalizing risk and
Generation of knowledge and resources.
How Lafely (Rooney 2013) seems to interpret these aspects is suggested as follows (see Table B).
References:
Barney, J.B. 1996. “The resource-based theory of the firm” Organization Science. Vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 469.
Barney, J.B. 2002. Gaining and Sustaining Competitive Advantage. 2nd edn Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, pp. 159 – 172.
Ghemawat, P, 2007, “Global value creation: ADDING value scorecard”, in: Ghemawat, P, 2007, Redefining Global Strategy: crossing borders in a world where differences still matter, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing, Ch.4, pp.65-104.
(see also http://www.ghemawat.com/books_redefining-global-strategy )