COMM032: Project Management & Business Strategy Business Strategy Assignment

Your assignment: EDF Energys strategic position in the marketplace

Submission date Submission format Where to submit

Tuesday, 20th March, 16:00 Please submit your document as a PDF via Ulearn and include your name and URN on the title page. Via ULearn

COMM032: Project Management & Business Strategy Business Strategy Assignment

Aim:
The aim of this coursework is to assess whether students can: 1) apply strategic thinking to specific organisations in their competitive environments; 2) develop cohesive strategic arguments after approaching the organisations strategy from a number of different perspectives; 3) summarise and present these arguments effectively.

Format:
Assessment of the coursework will be based on a written submission of about 2500 words. Please indicate a word count at the end of the work. For submissions exceeding 3000 words, 10% will be deducted from the overall mark. Use diagrams, tables and charts wherever these would help you to communicate clearly. If you quote some facts from some resources [1] then the appropriate references must be listed separately in an appendix.

Submission:
Completed coursework must be submitted via ULearn by 16:00 on Tuesday, 20th March 2012. The standard late submission penalties apply (please refer to your student handbook for details).

Collaboration:
Students are encouraged to discuss the case study in groups and share the collection and analysis of information. However: Individual written assessments are required! Joint work will not be accepted! Copying is plagiarism! Your answers must be in your own words. Where you have quoted text from another source this must be clearly indicated and referenced (see above). Submissions will be checked by TurnItIn.

Resources:
In undertaking research for this coursework students should consider various sources of information including: The EDF Energy published financial statements; The EDF Energy corporate website (edfenergy.com); Media comment and analysis (BBC News, The Times, The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Economist).

Feedback:
Feedback forms will be emailed to each student by 10th April, 2012.

COMM032: Project Management & Business Strategy Business Strategy Assignment

Assessment Criteria
Less than 40%: The student has clearly failed to reach the learning objectives. Between 40% and 50%: The student has demonstrated a basic understanding of the concepts presented in the module but has not applied them appropriately in the context. The report is not presented in a coherent fashion and most findings lack support from either good arguments or external references. Between 50% and 60%: The student can use the concepts presented in the lecture but has not used them to their full potential. Too many of the presented findings in the report are either not very convincing or not backed up by sound arguments or external references. Between 60% and 70%: The student can apply the concepts presented in the lectures and applied them mostly correctly and appropriately in the context required. The report is wellstructured but some findings are either not very convincing or not backed up by sound arguments or external references. Between 70% and 80%: The student is comfortable with the concepts presented in the lectures and applies them correctly in the context required. The report is well-structured and some good arguments are put forward to support most findings together with some wellresearched external references. Above 80%: The student is very comfortable with the concepts presented in the lecture and applies them correctly and appropriately in the context required. Furthermore, the report is well-structure and findings are underpinned by convincing arguments supported by a good number of well-researched external references.

COMM032: Project Management & Business Strategy Business Strategy Assignment The subject of this coursework is EDF Energy, the UK based energy company. Please write your report as if you were an external business consultant writing up your analysis of EDF Energy to be presented to its board of directors. Within your report you must address the following three questions: 1) Analyse EDF Energys market position using Porters five forces. In particular, assess the strength of each of the forces. [40%] 2) Describe EDF Energys business and competitive environment using PEST and SWOT analysis to illustrate your answer. [40%] 3) Based on your analysis in Question 1) and 2) recommend and evaluate one or more strategies how EDF Energy might sustain or achieve a competitive advantage. Conclude with a short summary discussing whether or not you believe that EDF Energy will survive and prosper over the next decade. [20%] To help you with the format of the report, I would suggest the following structure: Introduction: Give a brief overview of EDF and the aim of the report; Internal analysis: This deals with Question 1; External analysis: PEST (Question 2); Summary of findings: SWOT (Question 2); Recommendations and Conclusion: Question 3 To help you answer the 3 question, you might want to consider: placing each of EDF Energys UK business units on the Boston Matrix to evaluate its overall portfolio strategy; what use EDF Energy has made of mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and divestitures; what influence the French parent company (EDF Group) has on EDF Energys strategy; whether vertical integration is an important strategic consideration for EDF Energy; what core competences and distinctive capabilities EDF Energy possesses; what regulations EDF Energy must demonstrate compliance with and whether this presents any strategic opportunities.