Individual participation and contribution to online classes and forums

During the term, you will be expected to participate and make high-quality contributions to the iLearn forum discussions and weekly online classes. High marks are awarded to those who stimulate discussion and foster peer-to-peer learning in the online classes and iLearn forum discussions. You are highly encouraged to contribute to discussions as this provides the easiest and most time-efficient mechanism by which comprehensive feedback loops can be achieved. Your contributions will be marked according to the following rubric:

Format: Max of 1000 words with 12pt font size and 2.54 cm with 1.5 line spacing. This excludes appendices or exhibits.

The individual report is your reflection on the Back Bay Simulation (Topic 6).

Prepare and submit an essay form report about the simulation experience, your individual results, and your analysis of the simulation. Include an evaluation of the firm’s success and failures, explaining what decisions were correct, and what you could have done differently. Use unit topics and readings as analytical tools and references.

See also the Simulation Foreground Reading: Back Bay Battery document in Topic 6 of the iLearn unit 

Marking guide will be available in iLearn

Back Bay Battery Simulation

This simulation is designed to bridge theories in 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 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.

Length:

• Part A Report – not more than 5 slides and no more than 5,000 words, not including appendices and references
• Part B Report (includes Part A report) – not more than 15 slides and no more than 5000 words, not including appendices and references.

Format: Each report is to be in the form of a “McKinsey Deck” - see the following links for a description of the anatomy of a McKinsey PowerPoint Deck:

• http://workingwithmckinsey.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/Client-Ready-McKinsey-Decks.html  and
• http://workingwithmckinsey.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/Anatomy-of-a-McKinsey-Presentation-Page.html)
• Annotate slides, giving details of key theories and frameworks used, sources and additional data – please make sure to reference these accurately.
• In your report, you should be careful to include information that will assist in evaluating your options and recommendations, eg:
  • The frameworks you used to perform the analysis and arrive at the options/recommendations
  • The timeframe that your strategy/report covers
  • References for any external information you use in the report (including theoretical models). If you are not sure how to properly reference a source, take advantage of the information available through the MQ Library: https://www.mq.edu.au/on_campus/library/research/referencing/

Pay close attention to acknowledging all sources of data, especially existing internal company documents, plans, market research studies etc. In particular, you should cite any references fully and in an acceptable style as noted in the Student Handbook.

The document should be presented in a professional manner, in line with what would be presented by consultants to a management board. Specifically, it is vital that your document is easy to read.

The group report requires you to do a strategic analysis of a business and provide the executive with a deck that clearly identifies the competitive environment and industry trends, the key issues facing the firm, your view of the strategic options and risks and recommendations for future actions. Your group should choose a firm that at least one member of the team is very familiar with. This may be a company that they currently or previously worked for. For this assignment your group will take the role of strategy consultants advising the firm’s executive (note that this is an exercise and you are not in reality advising the firm’s executive). Your two reports should be of the quality expected of top tier management consultants.

The Part A report should detail your analysis of the internal and external environments and identify the key trends and the issues facing the firm. The Part B report is the final report, including Part A report, and should present the strategic options available to the firm, the recommended strategic action and the risks in implementation.

Student groups must ensure that all members contribute equally to the presentation of their project. 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 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).

As part of the written submission, the group is also required to provide, on one page, a statement of exactly what each member did for the project, 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.

Marking guide will be available in iLearn. 

Please ensure all participants full names, the unit code (MGSM850), unit name (Strategic Frameworks), lecturer (Randal Tame), as well as the topic presented is clearly visible on your presentation front page.

Format: Online Open book exam – 3 hours and 20 mins reading time.

The online exam format will be open-book. More details will be provided over the term.

The online exam will cover content from:

• Unit materials
• Exercises and Group Discussions.

Please note that to pass the subject, students must pass the online exam and perform satisfactorily in each assessment component.