The individual report is your reflection on the Back Bay Simulation undertaken in session 6.

Prepare and submit an essay form reflection about the simulation experience, your individual results, and your analysis of the simulation. Briefly outline the actions you took during the 8 rounds of the simulation. The most important task is to do analysis of the firm’s success and failures, explaining what decisions were correct, and what you could have done differently. Use the theories and frameworks we have discussed in the unit as analytical tools and to support your view.

The Simulation Foreground Reading: Back Bay Battery document will be provided to students closer to date. Students will be advised via the iLearn announcement.

Back Bay Battery simulation

This simulation is designed to bridge theories in strategic management, innovation and the impact of an emerging, disruptive technology to the real-world context in which managers must make decisions about investing in innovative technologies under conditions of uncertainty. The simulation presents you the challenges associated with making investment choices under uncertain and highly constraining real world conditions.

In playing the simulation, you will learn that:

1. Disruptive innovations are often not good enough for a firm’s existing best customers, but managers need to keep an eye on whether these innovations have attributes that are “good enough” for some other set of customers, and what the performance trajectory looks like.
2. Sometimes the best opportunity for a product is not visible early on, and it takes time to develop. Closely watching the market and building strategy in an emergent way is helpful in these circumstances.
3. Getting the timing and level of R&D spending right is very difficult for a manager. One has to carefully allocate funds based on evolution of the firm’s strategy.
4. The need to meet specific short-term financial targets can constrain a company’s ability and willingness to innovate.
5. When confronted with a potentially disruptive innovation, the manager is best positioned to invest in it when the core business is healthy. At the same time, he/she needs to be “impatient for profit” with the new disruptive business, trying to get it profitable as quickly as possible.

Your role in the simulation

Students play the role of a business unit manager at the Back Bay Battery company, who faces the dilemma of balancing a portfolio of investment strategies across products in the rechargeable battery market space. Players have to manage R&D investment trade-offs between sustaining investment in the unit’s existing battery business verses investing in a new, potentially disruptive battery technology.

You must decide which market opportunities to pursue, each of which offers the student varying levels of market intelligence and differing short- and long-term payoff prospects.

You manage the investment portfolios over 8 simulated years. Throughout the simulation, you are forced to address a number of challenges, including timing and level of investment across both mature and new technology businesses, choices regarding market opportunities and inherent product performance characteristics, requirements to meet constraining financial objectives and constant trade-offs between investment options; all in the context of uncertain market information.

Please ensure the following for this assignment

Please ensure your full name, student number, unit code (MGSM850), unit name (Strategic Frameworks), and lecturer (Andrew Mikhail - TUESDAY morning class OR Dr. Miles Yang - TUESDAY evening class) is clearly visible on your assignment. It is important that you link your reflection back to suitable frameworks and theories discussed in the unit using appropriate referencing. You are encouraged to also search for additional literature (e.g., academic articles) to support your writing.

Max 1000 words with 11 pt font with 1.5 spacing. You will be penalized 5 marks for every extra 100 words.

Please note: This assignment is an individual assessment. Plagiarism - the use of others' words without attribution - is considered a serious offence, and may result in failure for the unit. Spot checks to detect plagiarism from internet sources will be conducted.

The marking criteria, which will be applied to this assignment, will be made available on the class iLearn page.

Submission

Students are to submit 1 x soft-copy and 1 x hard-copy of their individual report on the due date as listed in the box above. The soft-copy submission will be submitted to Turnitin via the MGSM iLearn portal, a program used to ensure the originality of the work undertaken by the submitter. The hard-copy submission will be used for marking purposes by the lecturer. The hard-copy submission should be single sided and stapled at the top left-hand corner.

Extensions and penalties:

No extensions will be granted. There will be a deduction of 10% of the total available marks made from the total awarded mark for each 24 hour period or part thereof that the submission is late (for example, 25 hours late in submission – 20% penalty). This penalty does not apply for cases in which an application for special consideration is made and approved. No submission will be accepted after solutions have been posted.

Duration: 30min presentation plus 10min discussion per group (duration is subject to change)

Format: Oral class group presentation

Date: During sessions 8 - 10 depending on group allocation

You will be a member of a group of students and assigned to a particular industry/sector or company for the purposes of this assignment. Your group must conduct a comprehensive strategic analysis as described below. Please note: if your group would like to work on a specific organisation (e.g., your employer or your own start-up), please contact the lecturer to confirm if the organisation is suitable for this assignment.

This assessment task will be marked in the following ways:

• 15% of the total 30% weighting - The group as a whole will be marked according to the quality of the final presentation that will be delivered in class.
• 15% of the total 30% weighting - Each group member will be marked according to the quality of the delivery of their oral presentation, as well as how well the group members deal with questions from both the audience and the lecturer.

As part of the submission, the group is also required to provide, on one page, a statement of exactly what each member did for this task, signed off by each member of the group. If there are sizable discrepancies concerning contributions within the group, the lecturer reserves the right to apportion marks unequally.

Groups must ensure that all members contribute equally to the assignment. Should any difficulty occur with this, the group should talk with the lecturer as soon as possible. At the time of handing in the assignment the group should agree on what percentage of the mark each person should receive. You should indicate this information on the cover sheet of the assignment.

If the group assesses the contribution of each member as equal, each would receive 100% of the final mark. In cases where the group decides that some members did not contribute equally, this should be reflected in the percentage (if there is problem in the group, please tell me sooner rather than later).

The case study and presentation times (subject to change) for each group will be determined in Week 3.

Use the frameworks and concepts from the course to identify and discuss the appropriate key features and strategic factors of the company that has been assigned to you.

The following suggestions may assist you in preparing the group assignment. This is not a template to be replicated but a starting point for you to further develop.

Use recent and older data from multiple sources (i.e. from the past 1-5 years and with references) to:

• Structure of the industry and key participants (who are the rivals?)
• Demand - supply characteristics, growth, prospects for the future (Threats and opportunities)
• Environmental factors-  e.g. changes in technology, and other global influences
• Profitability of the industry and who captures the profits
• Basis of competition between industry participants; strategic groups; rivalry, etc.
• Sources of competitive advantage in the industry- Key competitive success factors
• Study the formulation & implementation of strategy of the nominated company that has been assigned to your group.
• Detail the way in which the nominated company has evolved/positioned itself/implemented its strategy in recent years in the industry/sector. Focus on a resources and capabilities view to show how competitive advantage has been built.
• Determine/ conclude what the strategic issues are for the future of the firm.
• In line with your strategic analysis make recommendations for the future that could improve the company’s strategy/positioning. Explain your criteria for doing so (i.e. show how the recommendations logically link to your strategic analysis).

A marking criterion matrix for both the industry/sector and nominated company will be made available on the class iLearn page which and will be applied to this assessment. Students/groups should follow the marking criterion matrix related to their allocated assignment.

Submission:

Groups are to submit 1 x soft-copy and 1 x hard-copy of their presentation slides to the lecturer on the day of the group's presentation. The soft-copy submission must be submitted to Turnitin via the MGSM iLearn portal, a program used to ensure the originality of the work undertaken by the submitter.

Duration: 3 hours plus 10 minutes reading time

Format: Closed book final examination

You are expected to present yourself for examination at the time and place designated in the MGSM examination timetable. The timetable will be available on 18 July 2018 at https://students.mgsm.edu.au/sydney-students/units/exams/

The final examination will be closed book and will consist of single case study and four mandatory questions covering content from your unit materials, as well as exercise and group discussions. More details on the exam will be provided over the term. University final exam conditions apply.