BP&S- 2011-13 Project- Scope Analysis

a) The project on scope analysis is designed to be an application of learning to a live context. The sessions on strategy in a multi business company were intended to be an appreciation of issues involved in corporate strategy and diversification; specifically the decision to enter new businesses. You need to be familiar with the related readings including the handouts (eg. the note Scope of Firms and their Economic Performance has an overview of some research in this area). b) This project proposes to examine the relationship between scope expansion of firms and the performance of the firm. Scope expansion here will deal with an increase in global scope and acquisitions will be considered as a key avenue by firms for going international. Other avenues e.g. alliances may be considered where acquisitions do not apply. For more pl see the note Scope....; overseas investments follow a geographic scope expansion to begin with but this could lead to a vertical scope expansion issue or even a horizontal scope expansion. Our interest is in a final assessment of the key factors that could explain scope expansion and performance (or poor performance). These factors may be in line with conceptual frameworks that are in place or there could be some new possible explanation. Pl look up management presentations, interviews, analyst reports, management discussion & analysis in the annual reports or other credible sources that may describe the logic of the overseas investments. c) A typical template for assessing performance follows...

supplement to Project B.xlsx

d) In addition to the metrics in the excel above, pl chart the stock performance by indexing the stock and the market (NSE30) to a common date and then tracking relative performance (see below for a simple illustration)

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e) The structure for the note on the company should have brief segments dealing with its history including overseas investments in the past seven years (vertical or horizontal scope), lines of business, main products/ markets, management, industry dynamics, competition, performance over time (financial and market) and outlook. While these may be distinct sections, pl do not treat this as a form filling exercise. The intent is to obtain a good understanding of the company based on this note for which you might need to know among other things, the spread of the plants/ facilities, competitive strengths, sector trends, market shares, stock price performance over the past five years relative to competition, the index . f) Pl look up and include all relevant management quotes (with sources) that may assist in capturing the reasoning of the strategic moves towards geographic scope expansion. g) Follow proper citations, dates/ sources of information as endnotes and ensure you attribute all sources at the relevant section in the note itself. The list of references/ end notes must be complete; by way of an example if some input arises from the companys web site, give the full link as also the date accessed. By way of reiteration, the report needs to not merely list references at the tail but also have links to end notes within the text itself so as to enable further exploration, if desired. h) As defined in the outline, Project B carries 20%. The cocos are requested to manage the assignment of a distinct company for each group. The names listed in the accompanying file must be assigned (or chosen by a group as the cocos deem best); additional names may be selected (pl ensure these names have eligible overseas acquisitions) to expand the list to 30 names. i) You may need to look up online resources (including business school case studies and analyst reports) and our databases for the project related preparatory work. For cases listed on ECCH, I may be able to help get you a hard copy. j) Submissions, under five pages, are to be completed by (TBA) and are to be uploaded on ephorus.