Word Limit: 3,000 words (excluding cover page, appendices, references & 7 slides)
Weight: 35% of final grade
Submission Format: PDF report plus 7 slides presentation (1 file only)
Deadline: Friday 09/01/2026 at 18:00pm, Late Penalties Apply.
You are a strategic consultant hired by Salesforce or Amazon .The company faces intense competition, slowing growth, and disruptive innovation from startups and competitors. Your task is to develop a comprehensive 3-year strategic plan that integrates strategy development, entrepreneurship and innovation, strategy evaluation, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), strategy implementation, and organisational structure.
The assignment is structured in eight interconnected sections, each aligned with a core topic. You must use reputable and available data from either Salesforce and Slack (2021 Acquisition) or Amazon and Whole Foods (2017 Acquisition) and relevant theories, real-world frameworks (e.g., Porter’s Five Forces, VRIO, Ansoff Matrix, Balanced Scorecard, McKinsey 7S, etc) to support arguments with data, financial projections, and risk analysis.
Your final submission should be a single, cohesive report, divided into the main parts, as detailed below.
This section requires you to provide a demonstrative and narrative analysis of the company’s strategic past. Your analysis must be supported by external research, identifying challenges and opportunities of the chosen business.
Objective:
Formulate a clear corporate and business-level strategy, pre-M&A.
Tasks:
1. Conduct a PESTEL and Porter’s Five Forces analysis of the chosen company
2. Perform a SWOT and VRIO analysis
3. From above, propose strategic business issues (challenges and Opportunities)
4. Using the Ansoff Matrix, recommend and justify (T & P) two growth strategies
Deliverable: 2-pages (max.) strategy map and analysis
You will analyse, with theoretical and practical evidence, entrepreneurial and innovative pathways for the company.
Objective: Foster internal & external innovation to complement M&A of the company.
Tasks:
1. Design and discuss an internal venture unit.
2. Propose an open innovation program
3. Use Christensen’s Disruptive Innovation theory to identify market opportunities.
4. Develop a stage-gate innovation funnel with KPIs
Deliverable: 2-pages (max.) Innovation roadmap and org chart
1. Develop a Balanced Scorecard with 2 KPIs per perspective
2. Conduct a scenario planning exercise.
3. Recommend and justify (theoretically and practically) strategy review cadence.
Deliverable: 2-pages (max.) Balanced Scorecard table + scenario matrix & justify
Objective: Evaluate M&A as a strategic tool for growth (target, focus, valuation, etc).
Tasks:
1. Apply the M&A Strategic Fit Framework (synergy, valuation, risk).
2. Recommend one target with justification using DCF valuation (provide assumptions).
3. Outline post-merger integration risks and mitigation with justification
4. Discuss hostile vs. friendly acquisition considerations.
Deliverable: 2-pages (max.) Acquisition report and outcomes mode
Objective: Analyse the implementation of the new Merger or Acquisition strategy, propose original, well-reasoned recommendations, and potential challenges.
Task:
1. Recommendations with justifications
2. Implementation
3. Challenges
Deliverable: 2-pages (max.) Critical analysis
Objective: Develop a suitable organisational structure post Acquisition.
Task:
1. Design a change management plan using Kotter’s 8-Step Model.
2. Propose a new hybrid structure and justify (theoretical and practical evidence)
3. Simulate a hostile takeover defence if a competitor targets the firm post-Acquisition
Deliverable: 2-pages (max.) New Org. Chart, and Discussion
Executive summary, strategic rationale, M&A recommendation, innovation pipeline, financial impact, implementation roadmap and new organisational structure.
Supplementary readings to Chapters 2, 10 – 17 of the main textbook (Whittington, R., Regner, P., Angwin, D., Johnson, G., and Scholes, K. (2023)):
• Grant, R. M. (2021). Contemporary Strategy Analysis.
• Christensen, C. M. (2013). The Innovator’s Dilemma.
• Gaughan, P. A. (2018). Mergers, Acquisitions, and Corporate Restructurings.
• Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (1996). The Balanced Scorecard.
All continuous assessment submissions must be accompanied by a declaration of originality that states the document is compliant with the University’s Plagiarism Policy and the School of Business Plagiarism and Originality policy (noted earlier in this module handbook). This must follow the signing procedures mentioned earlier. Failure to electronically sign the declaration of originality will result in a zero grade for that student.
• The usual academic convention is that the assignment submitted can be plus or minus 10% of the assigned word count. Please note, that work that exceeds the word limit will be penalised by marks being proportionally reduced in each section of the assignment.
• All primary sources and data used must be in English or Irish. If other languages are used, a translation must be provided.
• Use 1.15 lines spacing, font 12 and use a professional font. Make sure the text is justified on both sides.
• Pages shall be numbered consecutively through the main text.
• You must use the cover page provided and make sure it is signed as per the module’s policy.
• Practical examples must ONLY be drawn from the textbook or lectures.
Please note that you are strictly prohibited from using any AI software to aid you in producing this assignment. This includes the use of AI software to generate ideas even when you have not used the content word for word. The School of Business uses AI detection software that can detect when AI was used to generate ideas, assignment structures, or text. There were several cases last year of students using AI in their assignments and being caught even though free-to-use AI detection software used by the student claimed that no such software could be detected. Do not be one of those students
Best Luck,
Dr Julius Nyiawung
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