Course Project: environmental scanning and analysis of the value chain

Course Project (25% of grade)     Submission deadline   12 April 

The course project may be completed individually or in groups of 2 or 3. It is your choice whether to work alone or in a group. The requirements, explained below, are the same whether one works alone or in a group.

Select two companies in the same industry from the list below:

INDUSTRY                                      COMPANIES

Pharmaceutical             Takeda, Eli Lilly, Roche, AstraZeneca, Bayer

Automotive                     Volvo, BMW, Honda, Dongfeng, GM

Energy                           Chevron, LUKOIL, TOTAL, Exxon Mobil, Equinor

Industrial machinery     Black & Decker, IDEX Corp, Pall Corp, Middleby Corp, Xylem

Aerospace-Defense         General Dynamics, United Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Finmeccanica, Thales

1   Conductenvironmental scanning and analysis of the value chain for the two companies selected. Summarize the findings of the analysis in a SWOT table.                                                                                                  About 1600 words        

2   Analyze and evaluate corporate governance and strategies (corporate and global) of the two companies. Approximately equal weigh on corporate governance and strategies.                                                About 1600 words

3   Taking into account the competitive dynamics of the market the two companies operate in as well as your analysis and evaluation in points 1 and 2 above, comment on issues that, in your opinion, the two companies should pay attention to and if there is anything that the companies should do differently. For instance, strengthen corporate governance, do more acquisitions, change strategy/ies, enter strategic alliances, restructure, subcontract, etc.                                                                                                                   About 1000 words

Executive summary:      After the project has been completed, you must write a

one-page long,executive summary and attach it in thebeginning of the project.

The executive summary is NOT a collection of randomly selected sentences from

the body of the paperbut it must read as an integrated whole and summarize the

major points.                                                                           About 300 words

Total Length:     4500 words (+/-10%).

Sources:      You are expected to use no less than five (5) sources, two of which may be the websites of the two companies selected (webpages in the same website count as ONE source). The textbook does NOT count as a source. Sources other than in English language are acceptable provided they have been translated in English by you.

All sources used must be dated after 2015 and included in the list of references.                             

Unreferenced and undated Internet sources are NOT acceptable.

For co-authored projects, the contribution of each student must be clearly indicated on the cover page.Although the project will be marked as an integrated whole there may be cases that the contribution of each member will be marked separately.

Projects must be handed in person, in hard copy

As per course syllabus (p. 3) the mark for the project includes a 5% component for presentation and answering questions from the floor.