Instructions on Individual Project
COMPANY ASSIGNED: The Men’s Wearhouse Men’s Wearhouse is a men’s dress clothes retailer in the United States. The company has corporate offices in the Westchase area of Houston, Texas, and executive offices in Fremont, California. The company is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The company was founded by George Zimmer in 1973.
AACSB Assessment: The Individual Case Assignment in this class is used to assess student performance for AACSB accreditation. In other words, this assignment is how UHV determines if you have learned certain skills that UHV would like all graduates to know.
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the most critical issue among the critical issues challenging the firm in the external environment. The challenges will be matched with the internal resources and capabilities of the firm in the internal situation for core competences in the dynamic SWOT before the most critical challenging issue needs to be prioritized to call for immediate actions (recommendation). This understanding is very critical for a successful project.
Relationship of the Individual Case Assignment to the Team Project. The Team Project has four parts. As individuals, you analyzed the external and internal environments to identify the most critical issue among the challenges facing the firm. Later, as a team, your goal will be to
work together to craft detailed solutions to the major strategic issue (one is enough) you’ve
identified and present your work at the MBA Case Conference. Your first task within the week after you get your graded individual project is to exchange your projects among team members and prepare a combined better quality external and internal analysis, and fit analysis, and then
you need to work as a team to craft detailed, fully implemental recommendations during the last
four weeks of the term. This is the essence ofthe semester and the essence of a managerial duty.
Your Role: For this assignment, assume that you are a management consultant hired to analyze
the company and to give an honest and thorough assessment of the company’s environment and competitive situation. Your company expects your analyses to be completed by the due dates shown below. As a management consultant, the company you are studying is not a prepared
‘case’ in any textbook. You are required to research the company, and the industry yourself, and to conduct the required analyses requested using the tools, theories, and ideas that you have learned in this class and in the core and elective classes you have completed. The librarians can assist you in finding high quality information. Please watch the short videos for your assistance.
References: You are required to provide appropriate references for all data and for all sources of information that you use in your analyses, and to use the APA format that you learned in
MGMT6351. For any source from the ‘web’, you also should provide an appropriate reference
2 as you would for any other cited reference (author, date, etc.). You also should include the date the url was accessed and the entire web address to reach the cited materials.
Three Parts: The assignment consists of Part I, Part II and Part III.
Part I asks you to provide an analysis of the general environment, and the industry and
the assigned firm’s competitors. You are expected to provide a specific definition of the industry and an in-depth analysis of the industry’s current and future outlook. Please use the questions provided at the end of this document to help you. Your focus in Part I is the external
environment.
Part II requires you to analyze the assigned firm.
Part III is the section where you need to summarize the challenges (strategic issues) from both the general environment and industry. Rank the strategic issues according to their significance to the firm before you match them with the internal capabilities and resources. You need to identify only one major challenge at the end of the Fit Analysis and pave the way for Part IV, Recommendations (which is the essence of the team project). You do not need to provide recommendation in your individual project. All the parts must be typed and double-spaced using font size 12, Times New Roman, 1 inch margins on all sides, spell- and virus-checked. APA style is required.
PART I: EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS
Watch Dr. Wang’s Video on External Environment Analysis
A. General Environmental Analysis: The analysis should include your complete analysis of the general external environment. You should explicitly analyze how any trends you identify in each of the segments in the external environment influence and are changing, or are likely to change, the industry. You should explicitly state the implications. For instance, you may identify
demographic or economic trends, and your analysis should explicitly state how these trends are related to the industry that you are analyzing. For example, if the industry you are analyzing is personal computers and you see an expanding economy in some emerging economies, but a recession and declining disposable incomes in other economies, your analysis should include how these trends are likely to influence the personal computer industry. Do not discuss specific companies in this analysis since they are not in the picture yet. Driving forces section is the conclusion of the general environment analysis.
B. Competitive Analysis of the Industry: This analysis will delve deeply into the specific industry of the assigned firm (as opposed to the general environmental analysis). Your analysis should provide a thorough and comprehensive examination of the economic features of the industry, the key success factors of the industry (that is, what any firm in the industry must do
have any hope of thriving), and an analysis of the assigned firm’s competitors. Although you will undoubtedly read about your assigned firm while researching its competitors, in Part II you will
3 do the examination of the assigned firm (e.g. financial analysis) and report on your assigned firm in detail there. In Part I, your focus is on the competitors. You must include at least one strategic group map in this analysis, however, mapping your firm and competitors within the industry to find its closest competitors (competitive
‘group’). Please see the example, Illustration Capsule 3.1, in the text on page 69. Note, to prepare for the competition, it is advisable to prepare multiple strategic group maps to better understand
how your firm ‘fits’ in the competitive landscape.
C. Five Forces Analysis: Your analysis of the five forces should be thorough and comprehensive. After analyzing all the five forces, provide a summary of the five forces that should include an analysis of the industry attractiveness based on the collective strength of the five forces. Your analysis should clearly address profitability of the industry for an “average” firm. You are required to provide a table summarizing your findings using the format shown
below. You should evaluate the industry attractiveness of the firm’s two or three most important businesses/business segments because the industry attractiveness in terms of industry profitability potential is the whole logic for the five forces analysis. Without this summery, you fail the purpose of this analysis. Your analysis of five forces should be thorough and comprehensive. The summary of the five forces analysis must include an analysis of the industry attractiveness based on the collective strength of the five forces. Industry attractiveness is defined as its long-term profit potential of the industry, One Two Three Now Future Now Future Now Future Buyer Leverage Supplier Leverage Threat of New Entrants Threat of Substitutes Intensity of Rivalry Profit Potential
Key Success Factors (KSFs): From your analysis, identify the most significant factors (best practices or benchmarks) in the industry (maximum 4) that all firms in the industry must do sufficiently well in order to survive and prosper in that industry (e.g. the attributes of products or services, the firm competencies or capabilities, etc.). Later in the project, when you make
4 recommendations and craft a strategy, you should address these KSFs. If your KSFs are offtrack, then your strategy will be off-track, too. You don’t want to spend your time rapidly climbing a ladder (being efficient), only to find your ladder is placed on the wrong wall (ineffective). To help identify KSFs, answer the following three questions: 1. How do customers choose among competing brands? What attributes of the products and/or services are crucial? 2. What resources and competitive capabilities does the firm need to deliver the products /services customers choose? 3. How can a seller achieve a sustainable competitive advantage?
PART II: INTERNAL ANALYSIS
Watch Dr. Wang’s Video on Internal Environment Analysis and Fit Analysis
1. Firm Core:
A. Leadership is all about relationship between the leaders (top management team) and its followers, and focuses on how leaders influence followers to achieve organizational goals via change. People influence one another by communicating ideas, motivate people to support the ideas and motivate people to implement the ideas, not about leaders or leaders
‘demographics’.
B. Generic Strategy. What is the generic strategy of your focal company, low cost (broad or focus), differentiation (broad or focus), or best cost (combination of LC and D)? You need to identify the strategy before providing justifications and evidences. Your strategic
analysis should focus on the company’s current strategy and the components of the strategy.
a) Please use this table as a framework for analyzing the current business strategy for the company. For example, if you think the company is pursuing a best cost provider strategy, your analysis should include a rationale based on strategic target, basis of competitive advantage, and so on (all the items on the first column of this table).
b) Your analysis should include descriptions of the company’s strategies along all the components described in this figure (e.g. R&D and product design to initiatives to build competitive advantage and to respond to changing conditions, etc.).C. Organizational structure has three levels: infrastructure (framework—organizational chart); social structure (interactions among people who occupy the positions defined in the organizational chart) and super structure (values and culture that guide people in their behavior in their interactions in the organization). You need analysis for whether structure fits strategy in the process of implementations. Classical Wisdom indicates: P = f(S+S), which says that firm performance is the function of strategy and structure.5D. Organizational culture is the beliefs, values and assumption that guide the firm members how to behave toward people outside the organization and toward one another in the organization. There are three components: CEO/founder influence, structure, and compensation that function as reinforcement system.2. Value chain analysis: For the value chain analysis, please refer to pages 108-125 of the text. Your value chain analysis should include analysis for the company and for at least ONE of the competitors you identified so that you can assess the company’s cost competitiveness in relation to its rivals. Be sure to identify major activities undertaken to deliver value to the customer, and value chain activities that firm does more or less well (or more or less efficiently/cost effectively) than competitors. Your analysis should help you understand the internal cost structures of the firm (vis -a- its competitors), and the resources and capabilities of the firm (which you will present separately in final report for the Team Project).3. Financial analysis of the company: Financial analysis should include all the ratios mentioned in Table 4-1 of the text. Please provide an interpretation of the financial ratios. That is, explaincompletely what the numbers mean in terms of the financial health of the company.Financial Analysis is only part of the internal analysis to study how you have accomplished the financial objectives. Short-term objectives (in three years) will reflect how the strategic objectives have been done so that you can have rooms for your recommendations. You need comparisons at least for three years for the company, its industry and its major competitor. Without comparisons, there will be no true analysis. Also, from the three-year analysis, you will possibly find certain trend and pattern for future planning, while five-year analysis is a norm.PART III: STRATEGIC FIT ANALYSISStrategic Fit/Critical Issues Analysis: Critical issues should be the most challenging issues coming from driving forces or industry success factors (Reiterate them). A table after a brief review will serve the purpose better. Out of these issues, the most significant one is identified for immediate actions in the recommendations. Without the correct anchor in this section, your external and internal environment analysis does not serve any purpose and there is no logic flow of both your individual project and team project. You need to justify how and why it is the most significant issue facing the company. Since you have analyzed all the critical issues, you do not need to analyze them all over again in detail in this section, but to crystalize your decision. You should see a nice flow from the external analyses to the summaries (DFs and KSFs), and then to the fit analysis between your external challenges and internal capabilities and resources to make conclusion of your opportunities and threat before you discuss your6 alternatives of how to achieve your optimal solution for the future challenges and firm survival (Your individual project does not include alternatives and recommendations, which are the tasks for the final team term project). The same is true with the internal analysis and SW. Can you build a link among these factors so that it can help to make decisions in your company concerning strategic priority and resource allocation for the coming year(s)? That is how strategy is crafted (not simply made). After all, what is the two most challenging issue that you need to address immediately? Without the correct anchor in this section, your team project goes nowhere.SWOT Analysis: (You are advised to study the sample projects for better understanding.) You should also provide a summary of the SWOT analysis in a table that summarizes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. SWOT analysis should be put at the very end of the Strategic Fit analysis. SWOT should be a concise summary of your environment analyses, not a replicate of the analysis done for the situational analysis (analysis on the internal and external environments). This is the match between the external challenges and internal resources and capabilities. S & W – come from internal analysis – Strengths – Company’s core competencies – Weakness – Company’s inability to overcome its challenges O & T – come from external analysis – Opportunities – If company has resources to overcome or meet its challenges. – Threats – Things that are beyond the company’s control, where the firm has no or very weak capabilities and resources to overcome or meet its challenges.Process: External environment => Challenges (DFs & KSFs) => Firm resources and capabilities(positive or negative) Yes or No; If Yes, strong, medium or week? Strong => Strength =>Opportunity;If medium, can we improve it? If yes, => Strength => Opportunity; If no =weakness =>Threat;If weak or no capabilities => Weakness => Threat;If DF is disruptive and WT, firm is doomed;If DF is ongoing challenge, and WT, firm has no capability to make use of opportunitybecause opportunity without capability is only an illusion.