strategic thinking

You are required to explore deeply a topic that develops your personal interest and engagement within the domain of strategic thinking and general management.

•    Great thinkers in strategy, policy, general management, leadership, national or international leadership
•    Teaching and learning strategy
•    Advanced principles of strategy (or systems, or critical thinking)
Getting started
Here are some suggestions on topics, and questions to guide your initial investigation.
Great generals
•    Includes political, military, general managers, big business founders.  Plus those that contribute to social or cultural capital
•    Napoleon (France), Mahatma Ghandi (India), Nelson Mandella (South Africa), Steve Jobs (US), Bill Gates (US), Martin Luther King (USA)
•    Could include an event e.g. the handling of the subprime crisis in the USA or the BP spill and how they were handled from a strategic point of view and a critical analysis of their actions.

Suggested components of a report in the genre of an essay for this topic:

•    Introduction and overview: “Napoleon was a great, bad man”
•    Body of the Report
•    Where person born, grew up, key influences on their early life, the society in which they grew up
•    What did the person achieve? Challenges overcome? Greatest moments?
•    Who thinks the person was ‘great’? Why?
•    Who thinks the person was not ‘great’ (or even, evil)? Why?
•    The lessons one can learn from the person’s life (e.g. what to do? What not to do?)
•    The lessons I have learned from this person?
•    Optional extra: How would this person cope in today’s world? (How would they adapt? Would anyone give them a job or a customer order? …)
•    Summary and conclusions. e.g. “Napoleon was a great, bad man”… based on your evaluation of the evidence you presented

This assignment assesses your ability to critically analyse the external environment of a firm and assess the impact of trends upon the firm’s strategy. This task also assesses your ability to critically evaluate the usefulness and relevance of a firm’s internal resources and capabilities in the light of industry developments. You are expected to produce a report of 3,500 – 4,000 (+/-10%) words that uses appropriate tools, frameworks and concepts in order to identify the key development in the operating environment of an organisation. Your analysis should make use of quality and up to date data and opinion from a wide range of reliable sources. It is not necessary to recommend specific alternative strategic directions.

You should base your assignment on a company of your choice within the pharmaceutical industry. This could be:
• Drugs and pharmaceuticals production
• Medical devices
• Research and development
• Distribution
• Marketing
• Pharmacies
• (others