Capstone Project Outline (Strategic Plan)
Your complete capstone project, Strategic Plan, which you work on during this course, has usually following parts in the written text (the PowerPoint presentation will be based on the complete finalized text):
Cover Page (include your name and the company name)
Cover Sheet
Table of Contents
Executive Summary – This is a full summary of the report, not an abstract nor an introduction. It should summarize all content.
Part I – Environmental Scan and Competitive Analysis
The environmental scan will help you identify the strategic problem(s) the competitors are facing (performance challenges), which must be addressed by your newly proposed (innovative, creative and entrepreneurial but feasible) strategies.
– Company Profile and Highlights for Each Competitor
Company background and profile
Company mission, vision, and values
Company’s current corporate and business level strategies, goals & objectives, organizational structure, and organizational culture
Identify (with your team) industry’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and analyze the company’s performance using the KPIs
Compare the company’s performance to its competitors (use the performance analysis of other team members for their companies) and/or to the industry averages
– Strategic Problem of the Competitors
– PESTEL Analysis to identify external threats and opportunities
– Porter’s Five Forces Analysis to understand the competitive environment and the profit potential of the industry
– Strategic Group Mapping to identify competitive positioning
– Porter’s Diamond Model (for the same country as PESTEL) to understand the national competitive advantage of the industry
– VRIO Analysis of resources, capabilities, and core competences for each competitor to identify competitive advantages
– SWOT Analysis for each competitor
Part II – Strategy Development and Implementation
– Stakeholder Analysis
– TOWS Analysis – Includes corporate strategies
– Corporate (directional) strategy recommended by you based on the TOWS Matrix
– SBU Analysis and the business level (competitive) and investment strategies recommended by you based on the SBU analysis (SBUs are found in the companies annual report or 10K)
– Global Strategy (if applicable)
– Functional Strategies (marketing, financial, operations, Innovation/R&D, IS/IT, HR) for a selected SBU
– Organizational Culture recommended by you through the lens of Competing Values Framework (CVF)
– Organizational Structure recommended by you
Part III – Evaluation and Control
– Milestone Table for the next five years
– Pro Forma Financial Statements for the next five years
– Benchmarking
– Balanced Scorecard (with SMART goals)
– Identification of bottlenecks and red flags (challenges)
– Contingency planning
Bibliography
Appendices
