2- Diversification

MGMT 3280
Minimum requirements for term project presentations and papers
Dr. Ford-Eickhoff
Individually and as a team, you will analyze the strategic situation of an existing company and its
industry. You will research and analyze the current and past situations for the firm. Based on
these, the major focus of the analysis and presentation should be on the future direction of the
firm and on a recommended course of action.
The following are the minimum requirements that all teams should include in their papers and
presentations. Beyond these minimum requirements, teams have a great deal of latitude to
decide what to include.
Each team member should champion at least one viable alternative corporate-level strategy for
the future. Corporate-level strategies are at the highest level of thinking and are about why the
organization exists. For example, if a company that produces cheese goes into the theme park
business, this would be unrelated diversification. If it goes into the business of raising dairy
cows, this would be related diversification. Corporate-level strategies are not competitive,
functional-level strategies (such as creating better marketing campaigns, extending product lines,
improving operations to be more efficient, etc.) that you have been learning about in the courses
in your major.
Each member of the team must have a different corporate-level strategic option that you think
your company should pursue in the future. The available strategies are shown in the outline at
the end of this assignment and are discussed fully in your Dess et. al (9th ed.) text in chapters 5, 6
and 7. It is your strategic idea that must be different from other teammates’ ideas. For example,
two or more team members might think your company should pursue International Expansion (a
strategy in the outline list) in the future, but you would need to identify and support different new
geographical areas for your company to enter, different reasons for doing so, different companies
that your company might ally with, etc.
Each team member should write and submit a paper that shows your own work on the project.
Your section should include a cover page with your name (at a minimum), subheadings for the
various topics you wrote (for example, strengths, Porter’s Five Forces, your viable alternative
strategy, why your team chose the strategy it did to recommend, etc.) The strategy you are
championing should be clearly identified in one of your subheadings. Examples of articulating
the strategies and mechanisms are shown below the table at the end of this assignment. Any
exhibits should be fully integrated in the text rather than having a lot of attachments at the end.
This paper should be double-spaced. In double-spaced typing, you indent paragraphs but do not
put a blank line between paragraphs. Put page numbers at the top right corner.
In addition, you should provide a bibliography of the sources you personally used in APA format
at the end of your paper. For a major term project like this, you should use a substantial number
of sources and certainly not rely solely on the company website or three or four articles. Your
sources should include articles from a variety of sources so that you get a more balanced picture
of your company. You should use in-text citations to give credit where credit is due.
Everything included in your team presentation must be included somewhere in the individual
papers. However, note that your presentation will be organized as a cohesive team presentation
in every respect.
The individual papers will be submitted electronically by each team member as a Microsoft
Word document to Canvas. The due date for these individual papers is shown in the syllabus.
You must submit your individual paper to Canvas by the deadline or you will lose all the
points on the term project assignment.
The team presentation should, at a minimum, include:
1. SWOT, general environment, and competitive environment analyses;
2. a financial analysis describing the current financial condition of your company;
3. at least one viable alternative corporate-level strategy from the outline per team member
(each team member should write about and present at least one different alternative
strategy);
4. One recommended strategy (should not be to do all of the alternative strategies; your
team needs to make the tough choices). You need to justify your reasons for choosing
this particular strategy out of the several good alternatives you have discussed before
presenting your recommended strategy.
All of these minimum requirements and all additional information your team chooses to include
should be incorporated somewhere in the individual papers.
It is helpful to think of yourselves as consultants trying to really impress the chief executives of
your company with your thoughtful analysis and well-prepared team presentation. You will have
to bring your audience up to speed about the company a little more than you would have to with
the executives of the company, but this is a good place to start in thinking about how to approach
this assignment.
The presentation should be 30 – 40 minutes long followed by a question-and-answer period in
which classmates in the audience will participate. Each team member should be involved in the
presentation approximately an equal amount of time. You want to organize the presentation to
build a foundation (i.e., the first part of the presentation) with all of your background information
(i.e., SWOT and environment analyses, financial analysis, and any other background) followed
by your viable alternative strategies and your recommended strategy. Each team member needs
to present the strategy that he or she is championing, and all of these strategies should be
different from the ideas of other team members. At least half of your team presentation should
be spent discussing the alternative strategies and your recommended strategy. All team members
will lose points if the presentation is longer or shorter than this range or if at least half of your
time is not spent discussing the alternative strategies for the future.

The presentations will be graded on content and delivery. Content includes factors such as the
presentation being accurate, complete, specific, detailed, and error free. Recommendations
should be specific and well developed. Recommendations should be fully supported, and
attention should be given to how the recommendations could be implemented.
Delivery includes factors such as the presentation being interesting, lively and clear. Public
speaking skills, such as eye contact with the audience and voice projection, should be professional
and well-practiced. Very little, if any, of the presentation should involve reading directly from a
document, monitor or screen. There should be very little redundancy among speakers/sections of
the presentation. Attire should be business professional for this presentation.
You should use PowerPoint in your presentation, and one team member needs to submit your
PowerPoint file to the link on Canvas by 9:00 a.m. the day your team presents. Each team
member must have a slide that clearly identifies the strategy and mechanism you are
championing to show when you begin speaking (see examples of how to articulate the strategies
and mechanisms at the end of this assignment).
One hundred points will be available to each individual on the team for the presentation. Up to
80 points will be based on the quality of the content and presentation for that individual. Up to
15 points will be based on how well each individual of the team coordinates with the rest of the
team in the presentation. And up to 5 points will be based on how effectively each team member
answers questions about any part of the presentation (not just your own portion of the
presentation) after the presentation is concluded. Deductions from this presentation grade will
then be taken if you do not follow the minimum requirements for the paper described above
(everything in your presentation was in the paper, format, quality of sources, etc.). The
presentation and paper comprise 90% of the total grade on the term project.
One hundred points will be available to each individual based on his or her peer evaluations of
the quality of the individual’s work and contribution to the team project. The peer evaluations
comprise the final 10% of the total grade on the term project.
In order for all teams to have the same amount of time to complete the term project, all papers
are due the same day and everything in the team presentation must be in the papers. This due
date appears on the class syllabus.
Corporate-level Strategies
STRATEGIES MECHANISMS
Growth:
A. Diversification:
1. Related (aka concentric):
a. Horizontal Integration
b. Vertical Integration:
(1) Forward
(2) Backward
2. Unrelated (aka conglomerate or
vertical or
hierarchical):
a. Corporate parenting
b. Restructuring
c. Portfolio management
——————————————————
B. International expansion
Mechanisms for diversification:
Mergers
Acquisitions
Divestments
Internal development
Strategic alliances
Joint ventures
———————————————–
International modes of entry:
Exporting
Licensing
Franchising
Strategic alliance
Joint venture
Wholly-owned subsidiary
Turnaround (should only be recommended in
cases of severe financial distress for the project)
Mechanisms:
Cost cutting
Selective product/market pruning
Productivity improvements
Examples of articulating strategies and mechanisms:
Growth through Related Diversification, specifically through Forward Vertical
Integration, and accomplished through the mechanism of merger.
Growth through Unrelated Diversification, specifically through Portfolio Management,
and accomplished through the mechanism of acquisition.
Growth through International expansion and accomplished through the mode of entry of
exporting.