Capstone

Final Research Paper - Part 4

Assignment Details

A major requirement of this course is an individual paper applying some of the concepts covered during the course of the term. The student should focus on his/her chosen company to research that theme to observe how Strategic Management works in the real world. To cover the theory on the chosen company, students are asked to use any two journal, white papers, magazine or academic articles, found in your annotated bibliography, such as:

· White paper. Intel Xeon processor family for servers with hyper-threading technology. www.intel.com

· A META Group white paper. The right Intel platform for the right job: Making a sound choice between 64 and 128 bits. www.metagroup.com

· Intel’s chip won’t be down forever. Business Week magazine.

· Getting in Intel’s face. Business Week magazine.

· Inside Intel. It’s moving at double time to head off competitors. Business Week magazine.

To complete your research paper, carefully read this procedure and fill out the tables using relevant information from your one page proposed readings.

1. Future Market Needs

· In Exhibit 1 enter the Name of the Firm and the Name of the Organization’s SBU (Strategic Business Unit) whose environment you want to segment.

· In column 2 enter the Descriptions of Needs that are currently served by the organizational unit and number them in column 1.

· When the list of the current needs is complete, write a brief Label (i.e., acronym) for each need in column 3.

Exhibit 1. Future Environmental Needs

Name of The Firm:	________________________________
SBU:	________________________________
(1) Number	(2) Description of the Need	(3) Label

2. Need-Technology Couples

· At the top of Exhibit 2 transcribe the Number and the Label of the First Need.

· In column 2, describe the Competing Technologies which you expect to serve the identified need during the period of 5-10 years from now.

· In column 3, assign a Label to each Need-Technology couple.

· In column 1, Number the couples.

· If at any state of the strategic segmentation process you find that the number of alternatives exceeds the number of boxes provided in Exhibit 2, create Exhibits 2A, 2B, 2N as necessary.

Exhibit 2. Need-Technology Couples

Name of The Firm:	________________________________
Number and Label:	________________________________
(1) Need-Technology Number	(2) Description of the Technologies	(3) Need-Technology Label

3. Identification of Strategic Business Areas

· A template example of the final tree which you will develop is shown in Exhibit 3.

· Into the box at the top of Exhibit 3, transcribe from Exhibit 2, the Need Technology Label which you want to segment into SBAs.

· Enter the names of Geographic Locations in which the need will exist during the next 5-10 years.

· In boxes labeled Customer Types, enter the names of distinctive customer groups in each geographic location.

· If at any state of the strategic segmentation process you find that the number of alternatives exceeds the number of boxes provided in Exhibit 3, create Exhibits 3A, 3B, 3N as necessary.

Exhibit 3. Identification of SBAs

Need-Technology

Geographic Location

Customer Types

SBA Name & Number

Customer Types

SBA Name & Number

Note:

4. Final Paper

The Exhibits 1, 2 and 3 should be added to your Final Paper, either as Part 6 or as an Appendix.

Students should choose areas in which they would like to become more knowledgeable (or an industry in which the student would like to obtain employment). Also, if possible, students should include any relevant personal experiences, as these will enrich the paper.

Recommendations:

For some good ideas of strategic management issues or themes to include in your term paper, see:

a) Textbook

b) Syllabus

c) Cited articles in the last 5 years from major strategy journals such as: Academy of Mangement Journal, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Organization Studies AND

d) Check annual reports, industry reports and business press magazines such as Fortune, WSJ, Business Week, etc.

To find information about the procedure and fill out the tables, see:

e) Textbook - Appendix (SBA Segmentation Exercise)