Assume you are a consultant advising companies regarding strategy. Company X ( to be chosen by you) hires you to provide a consultancy service over the next six months. The company had been doing well until recently when their competitors have adopted a new strategy that seem to be working for them. Company X expects a more demanding competition in the years to come. As a result of such a preliminary forecast, the company has decided to evaluate the existing strategy. Your role, as a consultant, is to conduct an in-depth evaluation of the exiting strategy and make recommendations. Assignment Objectives The objective of the assignment is to evaluate your understanding of strategy and ability to apply your strategy understandings in real-life situations. More specifically, the assignment intends to evaluate:

1. Understanding of the core concepts in strategic management and business policy:

2. Understanding of the various models available to formulate, apply, and monitor company strategy;

3. Understanding effective management of strategy creation and implementation;

4. Application of strategy creation methods; and

5. Application of strategy evaluation methods Directions to Write the Paper This paper project requires you three core tasks. Each task is evaluated on its own merit.

1. You must identify a company for your project. It is recommended that you identify a company with which you are familiar. It is also recommended that you identify a company for which various types of data (e.g., financial reports, company history) are available.

2. Develop an evaluation framework/criteria to be used in conducting the strategy analysis. The framework/criteria should be based on the study materials used in this course.

3. Using the evaluation framework/criteria, conduct the evaluation. The strategy evaluation should be based on facts (e.g., current company strategy(ies), financial information, performance reports, previous strategic plans, market trends, rivals’ positions, etc.). Sources of all facts and information should be documented properly. Organization of the Paper Your paper should be organized and formatted coherently so that the audience (the hiring company leaders and managers and other consultants) see the evaluation contents and procedure clearly. To this effect, you need to:

• Introduce the background of your work (the why of the strategy evaluation and the objectives)

• The methods used to undertake the evaluation

• The outcome of the evaluation

• The recommendations

These four elements should be presented in the paper with sufficient details. You need to use headings and subheadings to clearly mark and signpost boundaries and transitions from one element to another.