communicate the corporate parent’s nature and its level of influence over the proceeding business segments within its portfolio.

1000 word report on the strategic context of
the FTSE firm selected. The formative is designed to be an introduction to the in-depth strategic analysis that will be required for the summative assessment. The goal of the formative is to provide a sophisticated contextual background on their firm’s strategic intent, performance, and any general opportunities/threats that warrant the need for a fine-grained
strategic assessment/change. The formal details of the summative assessment will be released shortly, and are pending approval by the external examiner. However, the general objectives/goals will remain as a focused analysis on the strategic issues outlined in the formative using further models taught throughout the course to build on the work completed at this stage. A strong strategic analysis needs an appropriate focus and positioning over a
strategic issue, which is the goal of the formative assessment. The formative assessment is designed to support students with the initial elements of the summative assessment. The students will be permitted to re-use and expand elements of this work for their final submission. However, it is highly recommended that the formative submission is edited and adapted to address any feedback/suggestions provided at this stage.
The students should critique, examine, and understand the different strategic decision-making levels within their firms. They should communicate the corporate parent’s nature and its level of influence over the proceeding business segments within its portfolio. The student should point to any explicit statements of ‘strategic’ motivations/intents made by the firm. For example, does the firm state they are interested at growing their portfolio into a
health/wellness market, address climate change/sustainability issues, improving their geographic market coverage, invest in R&D/Technologies, etc. The company data (website/financial reports/FTSE website, etc.) and various external sources (Industry Reports/Press Releases/Bloomberg/Financial Times/etc.) should support this. The student should attempt to paint a broad picture of the FTSE firm; which may include information on market share, key categories, structure, vision/mission, M&As, Mega Trends, and synergies
among the business units, etc from a top level.
The students are then expected to select a corresponding business level/competitive market that is involved in delivering the strategic intent outlined previously. Students should clearly identify the geographic and competitive market that will be analysed in-depth for the summative. Students are encouraged to elaborate on the value propositions, alongside the type of product and/or segment, and general information on how this segment is
competing/developing/acting within a specific geographic region. The students should reflect on the notion of competitive advantage and explicitly state if they believe the firm currently in possession of, at risk of losing, or has an opportunity to obtain it. Some useful tools/frameworks that the students may choose to set this contextual scene are: Porter’s Generic Strategies, Ansoff Matrix, Innovation Posturing Strategies, Value Propositions, etc.