Posted: September 13th, 2017

Report about shell company: Explain and assess the importance of capabilities and how they contribute to the competitive advantage of the organisation Custom Essay

You are to undertake a Resource Based
Analysis of an organisation with which you are familiar. As part of this analysis you should use appropriate tools and frameworks to identify and evaluate the extent to which your chosen organisation has a sustainable competitive advantage.

All assignments should:
• Explain and assess the importance of capabilities and how they contribute to the competitive advantage of the organisation.

• Identify and analyse your selected organisation’s resources and capabilities.

• Use a variety of tools and frameworks to evaluate strategic capability (Value Chains, Balanced Scorecard, Benchmarking, Ratio analysis, VRIN)

All students are to choose a different company. All students must notify the module leader (via the discussion board on x-stream) of their choice of company before they start the assignment.

Word Limit: 3000 Words + Appendices

All assignments must be fully referenced

All assignments will be scanned for Plagiarism using TURNITIN
please see the structure for the assignment how it will be :

Hi Everyone

I thought it would be useful to say a few things about the assignment as module leader. I realise many of you have started it and some have yet to start but I hope this advice helps.

The first thing that you all need to do is to read the assignment very carefully, I realise that is an obvious statement but the question is several parts. The first is the process of explaining and applying the ideas developed in the module.

All students will need to have a working knowledge of the Resource Based of the Firm. This can be found in Chapter 5 of Grant. The importance of having a set of capabilities that offer some kind of advantage can be illustrated by a reading of the Kodak case (An example of a company that clearly misunderstood the needs of customers and the changing dynamics of the industry) and Bang & Olufsen whose distinctive capabilities enable them to charge premium prices for what are in effect luxury products. In the Kodak Case study you also saw the example of Fuji who leveraged a specific set of capabilities to create success in an industry where Kodak had so obviously failed.

In the IBM case study in week 2 there was also some glimpse of the future where CEO’s were asked about the capabilities ( Agility, Values, Strong Leadership, Collaboration ) of the future – How many of the firm’s that you have chosen have these capabilities.

In week 3 you were asked to look at the article by Cesare Mainardi. This looks at the importance of having a capabilities driven strategy – where the external environment is turbulent and dynamic having distinctive capabilities becomes vital to firm survival.

So it is important for you all to use the case studies and readings from the early part of the module to develop your understanding of the basic principles. If you look at the marking scheme being able to demonstrate a good grasp of these principles is a prerequisite for achieving higher level marks. Evidence of reading is important here. For those looking to extend the theoretical analysis lecture 5 examined the role of Knowledge in the development of capabilities while lecture 6 evaluated the need to create capabilities that were dynamic. The readings for both these lectures provide examples and illustrations which hopefully will give you ideas to apply to your own organisation.

It goes without saying that you need to do extensive research into your chosen company. Amazon for example have over 10 years of company reports available on their website so for those students doing that organisation please note that the case study you used for Business Strategy stopped in 2002. There is a wealth of information available to you so please see a librarian for advice and guidance about locating company information.

http://libraryonline.leedsmet.ac.uk/pages/resources/for_your_subject/business_and_management/how_do_i_find_information_on/company_information

Please do not just rely on the company’s own information. Obtain third party analysis – The Financial Times, Fortune, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, The Economist etc.

Using (and explaining) these principles (alongside your research ) you can then set about the assignment itself. All assignments should start with some kind of introduction. I have included an introduction below from a previous assignment

Research in Motion (RIM) A Multinational corporation, a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of innovative solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market. The company provides platforms and solutions including email, phone, short messaging service (SMS),internet and intranet-based applications. The company is the creator of flagship BlackBerry branded wireless handheld/smartphone and related solutions. It operates in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. It is headquartered in Ontario, Canada and employs about 12,000 people. (Datamonitor 2009)

As you can see the student attempts to describe the scale and scope of the organisation. A good introduction should also provide the reader with direction – what are you going to do and how are you going to do it.

The actual structure of the assignment is up to you – some students have integrated the identification of capabilities and others have used a more formal structure taking each part in turn ( Please see Appendix One for an example that has been used in the past )

I have also placed a spread sheet on Blackboard which illustrates a way to organise the identification of Resources and Capabilities. As you can see from that particular example the student has taken quite a systematic approach to identifying and analysing the resources and capabilities of the organisation. This can be placed in the appendices leaving you room in the main body of the assignment for discussion and analysis. Which of your company’s resources and capabilities are threshold and which provide some kind of advantage and do you think that advantage provides a durable advantage (See lecture 3, 4 and 6 ).

Once you have identified the resources and capabilities of your organisations you will need to make some kind of evaluation.

Some students have used the value chain ( see below )

And of course there is financial analysis ( lecture 8 ) which also enables a degree of benchmarking to be carried out with close competitors ( see lecture 8 ). The skill here is to identify the methods of analysis that fit the organisation you have chosen. Please also use the performance data that is available to you easily. The FT publishes the share price / PE Ratio / Trading Volume etc on a daily basis for UK registered companies.

I have also sent out to all students a copy of an article by Kaplan and Norton on the Balanced Scorecard which widens out the area of performance analysis to include factors such as customer service.

Also be creative – secondary performance data is everywhere

http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/go/bmac

http://www.stonewall.org.uk/at_work/stonewall_top_100_employers/4925.asp

http://features.thesundaytimes.co.uk/public/best100companies/live/template

http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/Best-Global-Brands-2011.aspx

http://www.instituteofcustomerservice.com/1711-8860/UK-Customer-Satisfaction-Index-results-January-2012-Top-5-organisations-in-each-sector.html

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2011/index.html

research the area and your company thoroughly

After Easter I will be looking at the importance of good leadership in the development of capabilities. In the last lecture I will be offering you a critique of the RBV and some ideas for drawing conclusions on what you have done. The reading attached ( Richard D’Aveni – The Age of Temporary Advantage ) to this lecture is very useful in helping you to construct a conclusion and finishing your assignment in a critical way.

Please also finish with a good conclusion that pulls together the key points – a good conclusion draws together the main strands of your assignment and reinforces the key points that you wish to make – more importantly it will be the last thing the marker reads so leave them with a good impression.

I have placed the generic feedback that accompanied last year’s results on the Blackboard site ( see the assessment folder ). Please read this as it may help you to assess your own work. The assignment and marking criteria has been available since the start of the module so please read them carefully.

Finally, please start your assignment early, writing is a craft that takes time. If you leave it to the last minute it will be difficult. Do the reading, collect your information and start writing. Get you self a working draft which you can then edit, adapt and improve. Use the help available to you

and try to attend the remaining lectures and tutorials.

Please note All excerpts from previous assignments have been submitted to Turnitin so please do not use them in your own work. The advice here is not prescriptive and if you have done your assignment differently it does not mean it is wrong. Please reference your work very carefully as 100% of all assignments will be scanned via Turnitin.

Appendix One

1.0 Aims and Objectives

2.0 Introduction

3.0 PART 1: Importance of capabilities and how they contribute to competitive advantage at Research in Motion.
3.1 Capabilities, Strategy, Competitive Advantage and RBV
3.2RIM’s Competitive Advantage
3.3 RIM’s Capabilities

4.0 Part 2: Analysing Resources, Competencies, Core Competencies, & Dynamic Capabilities
4.1 Resources
4.2 Competencies
4.3 Core competencies (C.C)
4.4 Dynamic capabilities (D.C)

5.0 Part 3: Diagnosing and Evaluating Strategic Capability.
5.1 Value Chain(V.C)
5.2 Benchmarking

6.0 Conclusion

7.0 Bibliography

8.0 Appendix

Contents

1.0 Part 1: an introduction to plc and the RBV
1.1 Objectives
1.2 Introduction
1.3 Capabilities, strategy, competitive advantage RBV
1.4 Limitations of the RBV

2.0 Part 2: analysis of plc Resources and capabilities
2.1 plc resources
2.2 plc capabilities

3.0 Part 3: analysis and evaluation of plc Competencies, Core competencies, Competitive advantage and Dynamic Capabilities
3.1 Competencies
3.2 Core Competencies – C.C
3.3 plc Competitive Advantage
3.4 Dynamic Capabilities

4.0 Part 4: evaluating plc’s strategic capability using relevant tools and frameworks
4.1 Diagnosing Strategic Capabilities
4.2 Benchmarking
4.3 Balanced Scorecard (B.S)

5.0 Part 5: conclusions and recommendations
5.1 Conclusions and Recommendations

6.0 Bibliography