-What are the SWOT implications for USA Today as it looks toward its future? What strengths and opportunities can USA Today leverage as it looks for a competitive advantage in the distribution of news and information? three.png Critical Analysis Under this section, you will: Identifying problems and/or opportunities, Surface alternatives to address the problems and/or opportunities, and Evaluating the Pros and Cons of the Alternatives. Each of these will be explained below followed by the format you should use for this section. DO NOT PREDETERMINE THE RECOMMENDATIONS YOU THINK FIT THE CASE! This will bias your analysis. It is best to develop your recommendations after completion of the case analysis. The cases can be fun because they make you think, but this can also be a great struggle. By the end of the semester the process should become second nature, but only if you practice your abilities to analyze. Identifying problems and/or opportunities After you have updated the business case, you must develop a framework from which to look at developing strategic alternatives. The first step is to brainstorm problems and/or opportunities and then turn these into problem/opportunity statements. You should not focus on alternatives to these statements at this point because this can limit your brainstorming analysis. A problem/opportunity statement is a two sided coin. In example above Unit 1, ULO 3: Evaluate business models to understand how businesses create value for customers. You may have analyzed alternative business models. If in your team’s brainstorming process, you feel that the business should evaluate alternative business models, you could frame this as: Problem #1: Business X needs to consider alternate business models. (This should be used to if the business’ current model is no longer viable.) You should include a brief justification of this problem related to your case analysis. Opportunity #1: Business has an opportunity to consider alternate business models. (This should be used to if the business wants to shift or add to its current model.) You should include a brief justification of this problem as stated in your case analysis. You can brainstorm a series of problem and opportunity statements. For your Case #1 and Case #2 you should limit your problem and opportunity statements to four. These should be what your team considers to be the most important issues to be addressed. If you have more than four, you can list additional statements at the end of your case, but do not conduct alternative analysis or include in your recommendations. For Case #3, since this covers all units (and is worth almost twice the points), you should have no more than eight problem/opportunity statements. Surface alternatives to address the problems and/or opportunities After identifying each problem or opportunity, your next step is to determine alternatives to solve the problem. When surfacing alternative strategies to a problem, you must identify more than one alternative. If you limit yourself to one alternative you limit the choices you can make and limit your thinking processes. If a problem has only one solution, it isn’t really a problem it is just something that has not been acted upon. The approach you should use to identify alternatives is to brainstorm all of the possible alternatives you or your group can surface and then determine what alternatives are relevant. Use course and unit concepts and your knowledge base for suggestions. This requires looking at the problem and finding out how marketing strategy principles would provide a solution. Alternatives should be statements. They don’t need to be justified, they are evaluated in the Pros and Cons. Evaluating the Pros and Cons of the Alternatives Each alternative will have its own pros and cons. These are strengths and weaknesses associated with the alternatives. The pros and cons provide the information that will be used by you to decide which of the alternatives will be recommended. Pros and cons should be fact based and ideally linked to cited research (using APA 7th edition). Note that in this class there is no expectation of primary research so your focus should be on secondary research. In your actual business’ environment, you may need to conduct or use primary research to justify action. For example, assume that an opportunity exists to change the business model outlined above and Alternative #1 is: Reposition the company’s product image to be higher quality than competitors. Pros can include (these are generic because they are not linked to research sources): Differentiates your products from competition (could require your team using positioning maps). Allows for higher prices increasing your margins (could require an analysis of competitive prices and break even points). Will allow for higher quality products with higher quality materials (you may want to link this to the consumer decision process). Cons can include: May require an increase in promotional budget to reposition products (use case related details if provided). Higher quality products could require a new sales approach for distributors (use case related details if provided). This may require targeting new market segments resulting in increased costs (use case related details if provided). Critical Analysis Section Format (Each problem/or opportunity with alternatives plus pros and cons should result in 1-2 pages of content. Four problems or opportunity is a max of 8 pages.) The write-up should outlined as follows: Problem/Opportunity #1 Statement: Short paragraph with statement and justification. Alternative Solution #1 (Statement) Pros: #1) Short Sentence or sentences justifying as a pro with citations as needed. #2) Short Sentence or sentences justifying as a pro with citations as needed. #3) etc. Cons: #1) Short Sentence or sentences justifying as a con with citations as needed. #2) Short Sentence or sentences justifying as a con with citations as needed. #3) etc. Alternative Solution #2 (Statement) Pros: As above Cons: As above Alternative Solution #X. Problem #2 Statement: Alternative Solution #1 (Statement) Pros: As above Cons: As above Alternative Solution #X… Opportunity #X Statement: Alternative Solution #1 (Statement) Pros: As above Cons: As above Alternative Solution #X…
