MBA 6300 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT Guidelines for the Group Project 1. The group project is to be conducted in groups of four.

. The project involves the strategic analysis of two competing companies, using the theories, concepts, and techniques we will learn in class. A one page write-up of the companies you are planning to study is due at the beginning of the third session. The completed projects are due at the start of the eighth session. The maximum length permitted is 20 double-spaced pages (excluding the title page, exhibits, and references). Please use 12-point type, with 1 margins on all sides. Please be sure to number the pages of your project. Deviations from these guidelines will be penalized. 2. Identify partners, form a group, and pick two companies that are broadly comparable and are competing against each other in some specific market (e.g. Schwab vs. Merrill Lynch, Dell vs. HP, AT&T vs. Verizon). You may find it easier from a data availability point of view to work with public companies. However, you are free to pick privately-held companies to analyze if you have access to data about them. Please note: Companies that are featured in the course as cases cannot be used for the group project. 3. Begin your paper with an executive summary: a short section introducing your two companies and highlighting the key issues that you wish to cover in the full report. Pick one or two key issues that you think are most relevant and interesting to these two companies. Be brief and focused; the point here is to give your readers the big picture and encourage them to read the entire document. 4. The next part of the report is the main analysis. This analysis should be geared through addressing the key issues you identified upfront. You may choose to start with an analysis of the environment within which your companies are operating, if it is relevant to your key issues. If so, try to use Porter's Five Forces model here, and / or other frameworks taught in class, and conclude this industry analysis with a reasoned statement about the overall attractiveness of the industry within which your companies are operating. Please note that you should only analyze the environment to the extent that it is relevant to your key issues. Do not mindlessly go through all components of environmental analysis when they are not relevant. 5. In the next section, describe and evaluate each companys strategy, one at a time. Your discussion of business-level strategy may involve such issues as competitive advantage, strategic positioning, and competitive dynamics. Your discussion of corporate-level strategy may include an assessment of each companys strategy with regard to vertical, horizontal, and geographical expansion. Again, be selective in your discussion and focus on those that are relevant to your key issues. Do not include superficial discussions of every aspect of internal analysis or strategy. Conclude this section by jointly comparing and contrasting the strategies and performance of the two competitors along key strategic dimensions. Evaluate the extent of differences or similarities in the two strategies. What

factors account for the differences in strategies given that the firms are operating in similar environments? 6. Finally, develop TWO brief scenarios (say, for the period 2-5 years out, depending on the pace of change in the industry) about likely states of the world relevant to the environment in which the companies compete. The scenarios should be mutually exclusive. Consider naming the scenarios. Based on your earlier analysis, assess how each of the competitors is likely to perform under each scenario, given their current strategy and organization (or the directions in which these are headed). 7. Be sure to clearly reference your data sources, using footnotes or end-notes. Cite web addresses in full where web-based information has been used. In case of verbatim quotes of a sentence or more, it is usually necessary to use quotation marks and to cite page numbers.