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Critical Review – 20 marks MGB309: Managing Strategically Semester 1, 2020 Strategic evaluation of Case Organisation’s Situation Due: 11:59pm, Wednesday April 8 Monday April 27 Word Length: 2000 words Weighting:40% Type:Individual Background: You are a new graduate working for a global strategy consulting firm. Your about to commence working on your first client project. Glenda Tsang, the Senior Partner you work for, has asked all members of your team to individually analysis the company’s situation. She is a firm believer in the benefits of diversity and would like your independent expert views prior to bringing the team together to discuss the project. She would like each of you to prepare an overview of the strategic issue facing the client. Strategic evaluation report Glenda has requested that in your report you include: 1. identify the key success factors that are the major determinants of success in the organisation's industry; and 2. analyse the case organisation's resources and capabilities to identify its distinctive competencies. 3. summarise the client’s situation as a SMART problem statement(s) that articulates the client’s needs, reflects the main challenges, and point towards the necessary analyses to be conducted to evaluate strategic options. The report will need to address all three elements and how you structure the report is up to you. However, Glenda does prefer for key insights/conclusions to be delivered up-front, with no surprises. She often says “Suspense kills! If your audience knows your key conclusions from the get-go, the rest of the report can walk them through how you came to that decision, it’s easier for them to follow your line of reasoning!” So, as a general guide, think of the report as having 4 parts: 1. Executive summary – single page that contains all the key points from your report 2. Key success factors for client’s industry 3. Clients distinctive competencies 4. Problem statement – what is the key challenge(s) facing the client, remember to make it SMART! Glenda senses that you are nervous, and she takes you for a coffee to provide some guidance on what she is looking for. She notes this is not a standard university essay and that you need to add value beyond just properly using a framework or two. She is after the insights you draw from the frameworks/tools not a demonstration that you can “use” a collection of tools. She notes that as an analyst your key job is to “not to analysis but synthesis! It is the ability the put together the pieces. It is the capacity to synthesis rather than to just analysis, it is seeing the big picture, crossing boundaries, being able to combine disparate pieces into an arresting whole. To sort our what really matters, by absorbing the detail in the data and providing back meaning. Data is useless until patterns are imposed on them. This requires you to edit, withhold, highlight, and know what to exclude as much as what to include. We add value through sense-making and sense-giving in order to provide others with the insights and resources to take action in order to make a positive difference!” She left you with your now cold coffee to digest what she had said. General Guidelines for completing the report The focus is on the logic of your argument and how well your report builds a clear coherent business case for decision makers. This means part of your task is to decide what information to include your report and what information is interesting but not important. The writing will need to be crisp and precise. Focus on the quality of your analysis rather than quantity. To this end, if appropriate, you can use bullet points. Note, there are multiple potential correct answers to the case. The quality of your report comes down to how well you can justify your conclusions and how persuasive your argument/analysis is. Therefore, you will need to consider not just what you say but how you say it. This report will require you to apply techniques covered during weeks 1-5 of MGB309. Not all the techniques will necessarily be applicable or helpful. Part of your job is to use the rights tools and techniques for the job. Note, the list of tools/frameworks we cover in class and the ones covered in the textbook are not exhaustive, so feel free to go beyond this list if there are other tools you feel will be useful. Adequately applying all the tools will not guarantee a good grade. It is only part of the process, a good report requires that you synthesis this information to build a compelling case rather than just report findings. No references are required for this report, but it does require that you demonstrate your understanding of strategic management through application of your strategic analysis knowledge. However, if you do use a framework, statistics, you do need to acknowledge where you got it from. Use footnotes to acknowledge, as these are less intrusive. In summary, the aim of your report is to define the situation facing the client. You are demonstrating your understanding of the situation in order to establish agreement on the business-critical issues the client wants to resolve. Your report needs to articulate what short-term and long-term decisions need to be made to address issue? Note, your recommendation for how to address the issues is the focus of assessment item 2. KangaTech 9-619-049 R E V : A U G U S T 1 4 , 2 0 1 9 Professor Karim R. Lakhani; Doctoral Student Patrick J. Ferguson; and Sarah Fleischer, Jin Hyun Paik, and Steven Randazzo (Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard) prepared this case. It was reviewed and approved before publication by a company designate. Funding for the development of this case was provided by Harvard Business School and not by the company. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright © 2019 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to www.hbsp.harvard.edu. This publication may not be digitized, photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the permission of Harvard Business School. K A R I M R . L A K H A N I P A T R I C K J . F E R G U S O N S A R A H F L E I S C H E R J I N H Y U N P A I K S T E V E N R A N D A Z Z O KangaTech “If KangaTech was around 10 years ago, then I might have played 100 more games in the AFL. For me, it was really a huge help for the last couple of years of my career.” — Jarrad Waite, former Australian Football League player1 On a warm January afternoon in 2019, Steve Saunders and Carl Dilena, (see Exhibit 1 for biographies), two of the co-founders of KangaTech, wrapped up the latest round of discussions with other KangaTech board members about the future direction of their sports-technology start-up. Focused on injury prediction and prevention in elite sport, the Melbourne, Australia-based KangaTech prepared to launch a new model of their core product, an integrated exercise frame and software system that used strength testing and training to identify and mitigate the risk of soft-tissue and joint injuries (see Exhibit 2 for overview of product). The team was excited about the new product and was confident that it improved upon many of the features of the previous model. However, Saunders and his fellow board members couldn’t help but think about the long-term strategy of the company. Spun off in November 2015 out of an internal R&D initiative at the North Melbourne Football Club, KangaTech spent the past three years squarely focused on product development and gaining early traction in the elite sports markets in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia (see Exhibit 3 for company timeline). As of early 2019, KangaTech had users across a number of different sites, including professional teams in the National Basketball Association, the English Premier League, and the Australian Football League (see Exhibit 4 for a breakdown of the company’s current customers). The company also underwent a successful round of financing recently, and the proceeds of which were used to fund the development of the new version of the KangaTech product. Off the back of this recent success, the co-founders were focused on how they might be able to navigate the future ahead of them. Dilena explained, “We are going through a pretty robust strategy discussion at the moment. It is one of those decision points for us as to how we best proceed. We’ve been largely product-based and product-development-based until now. How do we scale up? How do 1 Jarrad Waite played 16-seasons at Carlton and North Melbourne football clubs. This document is authorized for use only in Dr Bernd Irmer's 1SEM20_MGB309 Managing Strategy at Queensland University of Technology from Feb 2020 to Jun 2020. 619-049 KangaTech 2 we take that next quantum leap as an organization? Part of that discussion has been looking at where we see the best market opportunities in terms of sector and geography.” Specifically, over the past 12 months KangaTech had weighed three options for unlocking the full commercial value of the company’s technology: 1) Going deeper into the sports market; 2) Expanding into the allied health market; or, 3) Pursuing contracts in the defense industry. Evaluating the merits of each of these options was not straight forward. Which market had the greatest upside? Which market would expose the firm to the greatest risk? Which of these opportunities held the most promise for KangaTech? How should the company prioritize its market expansion? From Idea to Prototype Coming off another middling season after five years of underperformance and inconsistent attendance numbers, the North Melbourne Football Club in the Australian Football League looked to make a change in a big way (the AFL is the pre-eminent competition for Australian-rules football). The club recruited Steve Saunders, a leading sports scientist and physiotherapist, in 2010. Saunders came to North Melbourne with a mandate to train and recondition the players to maximize on-field performance and minimize injuries. “I was approached to come on as a high-performance director. The