Assessment - Business Strategy

Assignment Brief

As part of the formal assessment for the HNC/D programme you are required to submit an assignment for each module. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

After completing the module you should be able to:

- Understand the process of strategic planning

- Formulate a new strategy

- Understand approaches to strategy evaluation

- Understand how to implement a chosen strategy

Assignment Context

Read the full BBC news article titled “Djokovic and Nishikori make Uniqlo a tennis winner”.

After reading the BBC news article you are required to research more information about the Uniqlo business strategy*, perhaps by accessing the Uniqlo website company.

Alternatively you are permitted to base your assignment answers on any other organization / business of your choice.

Using the information provided in the news article, any other reading / research that you have done, and your understanding of business strategy as a topic you are required to respond to the following assignment tasks:

Assignment Tasks

Task 1 (suggested word count of 800 words)

- Assess how the „Mission?, „Vision?, „Objectives?, „Goals? and „Core Competencies?, and any other factors, have to be considered when formulating strategic plans. You could provide examples from the Uniqlo (or your chosen organisation) business strategy of each of these strategic terms / elements in your analysis.

- Evaluate how effective the BCG growth – share matrix technique would be for the organisation when developing its strategic plans.

Task 2 (suggested word count of 800 words)

- Conduct an environmental and organisational audit for Uniqlo (or your chosen organisation). You should analyse the strategic position of the business and assess the significance of executing stakeholder analysis when formulating a new strategy.

Task 3 (suggested word count of 800 words)

- Analyse the appropriateness of alternative strategies (e.g. Market entry, limited growth, retrenchment etc) for the Uniqlo business (or your chosen organization) and using the results of your analysis suggest an appropriate future strategy for the organisation taking care to justify the choice of strategy.

Task 4(suggested word count of 600 words)

Imagine that you are now part of the senior management team of the Uniqlo organisation (or your selected organisation) and that you have to implement the recommended business strategy.

Analyse the likely human, and other, resources that would be required to implement the future strategy and outline two appropriate SMART targets. Evaluate why SMART targets are important to the achievement of the strategy?