One exhibition and Two pages of writing are included in this case analysis project. Please carefully read the directions before making a decision. If you are unable to guarantee quality work that at

1. Executive Summary: (not to exceed 1 page)

Write the executive summary in the form of a consulting letter but do not write your name at the end. The executive summary is a concise and persuasive summary of the report. It outlines the recommendations that you make as well as the supporting evidence for your recommendations. It must be concise enough to give the reader all the relevant information needed to assess your recommendations, yet comprehensive enough to convince the reader of the thoroughness of your analysis. It should stand on its own. If the executive summary were to become detached from the rest of your report, it should still be able to get your message across to your reader.

An executive summary should contain, at minimum, the following:

o the strategy that you recommend.

o the implications of implementing your strategy, both financial and non-financial.

o how you will finance any costs associated with your recommended strategy; and

o the expected benefits of your recommended strategy.

Generally, more effective executive summaries are written in a persuasive tone that outlines the context for the decision and develops a clear and coherent argument for accepting the recommendations of the writer.

Executive summary must be one page. It must not exceed one page. Begin external assessment with a new page.

VIII. Criteria and Evaluation of Alternatives by Criteria (about 1.5 pages)

In this section, first, you should outline and justify the three or four criteria (not more than four) by which you will evaluate the strategic alternatives developed in the preceding section. There should be some financial and some non-financial criteria. Financial criteria often include net present value and payback period. Other financial criteria may be dictated by the circumstances of the case. For example, there may be the need to achieve a certain return on investment in order
to attract investors. Values and preferences of the managers or other stakeholders, as outlined in internal assessment, may influence non-financial criteria. In addition to the effect on shareholders (which may be captured in terms of profitability or net present value), another important criterion is the effect of decisions on other stakeholders. These stakeholders may include customers, employees, environment, government, community, etc.

Here are two criteria that are required for your case analysis: (1) Net Present Value (2) Effect on Various Stakeholders (other than shareholders). Among the stakeholders, at least choose customers, employees, and environment (sustainability) as stakeholders. You may also add other stakeholders, depending on their relevance. In addition, you may choose one or two other criteria that may be relevant to your case analysis. However, be careful to choose output-oriented criteria rather than input-oriented criteria (such as level of investment, ease of implementation, etc.).

Further, as noted in the Implementable Strategic Alternatives section, each alternative must be feasible, legitimate, and relevant. Thus, feasibility (taking into account external and internal assessment), legitimacy (consistency with the organization’s mission), and relevance (addressing key issues) cannot be used as criteria for evaluation. In addition, your strategic alternatives should be strong enough to produce positive results within five years. If it is impossible to get positive results of your strategy in five years, you may extend your evaluation
of the alternatives to ten years. Finally, your criteria and evaluation should be structured as provided in Exhibit E rather than having a laundry list of criteria.

Once you have chosen the criteria by which you will assess the alternatives, you must then evaluate each of the alternatives using (all) these criteria. Besides financial and non-financial costs and benefits, consider risks involved in the alternatives. What financial projections and computations need to be made will depend on your criteria (Keep in mind that you must have some financial and some non-financial criteria).

Do not get misled by the apparent precision of the numbers in your forecasts. These numbers may represent an average of a range of values from pessimistic to optimistic scenarios. In fact, the numbers may change dramatically depending on your assumptions. All assumptions must be realistic, defendable, and clearly presented in the exhibits. You may comment on the sensitivity of your findings with respect to your starting assumptions. Please remember that this is a strategy assignment, and not an accounting one. You may thus adopt accounting procedures accordingly. If you choose to use strictly accounting guidelines, however, feel free to do so.

There are two ways of writing this section. You may choose to write it either way:

a) Evaluate both alternatives by criterion one in the first paragraph, followed by evaluating both alternatives by criterion two in the second paragraph and so on; or

b) Evaluating the first alternative by all the criteria in the first paragraph, followed by evaluating the second alternative by all the criteria in the second paragraph, and so on.

Exhibits 8-9: Strategic Alternative Net Present Value (NPV) Analysis (not more than one page for each exhibit, i.e., maximum two pages for Exhibits 8-9; single or double space, 12 point font). Avoid running text, except 2-3 lines of conclusion. For the numbers, you may avoid the use of decimals and/or represent the numbers in 000’s or millions to save space. See page 24 (last exhibit) of the Case: Westover Inn (A) in the course package for an example to use for team assignment and team exams. For the assignment you may use the same format or a summary format to show the financial revenues and costs of each alternative.

IX. Recommendation and its Implementation (about 0.5 page)

Drawn from the previous sections of the report, state your strategy recommendation, followed by an implementation discussion. You should include a brief reiteration of the recommended strategy and a discussion of how it meets the selected criteria. If it has not been explicitly stated before, the recommendation should cover all relevant aspects of strategy, structure, control, resources, culture, etc. as applicable in the case. Never recommend a combination (of two or more alternatives) that was not proposed as a single alternative in the strategic alternatives section and was not evaluated in comparison with the other alternative in the previous section.

The implementation discussion will describe how the recommended strategy will be translated or made into reality. Discuss the relevant action steps, their timing, and implementation budget with respect to the issues of structure, process, control, resources and culture. Be sure to address how you will finance any costs/investments associated with your recommended strategy as well as its expected benefits.

Please do not suggest that the company should study the issues further and then decide about its strategies. You have been selected as a consulting company to analyze, synthesize, and make recommendations for the company’s strategy for the next five years.

Exhibit 11: Add an exhibit on action steps, their timings, and levels of investment to support your implementation discussion.

[Implementation Schedule / Action Plan (one-half page, double space, 12 point font); Use bullet form and avoid running text, except 2-3 lines of conclusion. Be sure to show the timeline, actions, and the level of investment for each step for the normal planning horizon of strategies, which is about 5 years.]

See the below as an example-

Exhibit : Implementation Schedule / Action Plan

Strategic Objective 1: Expand payment services

➢ Increase revenue Stream

➢ Key performance Measure: Net Profit

➢ Actions: Developing revenue target, marketing strategy, communication channel, training staffs to be in line with internal operational efficiency

➢ Allocate Resources: HR, Finance Manager, Marketing and Sales personnel

➢ Timeline: Five year period

Strategic Objective 2: Focus strategy in new Market in the developing countries

➢ Increase Revenue streams

➢ KPI: Net profit, Revenue growth rate

➢ Action: Developing revenue target, marketing strategy, communication and team interaction, and training staff.

➢ Allocate Resources: HR, Finance Manager, Marketing and Sales personnel

➢ Timeline: Five year period

The two strategies will be implemented as project an each project will be allocated a projects managers and team of staffs that will be responsible for developing plans, executing the plans and evaluating the plans to gauge whether the sale expectation are met. Each plan has Time Horizon of five year period.

X. Limitations and Critique of Recommendation (about 0.5 page)

In this section, you should discuss the implications of your recommendation as well as its limitations. For example, are there any negative consequences to your recommended strategy?

What are other costs or risks that were not considered at the time of evaluation of alternatives? How can they be minimized? Is your recommended solution able to address all the underlying issues, or does it have limitations? Do you foresee changes that will impact on your recommendations? This section can help strengthen your strategic alternatives. For example, if you are writing limitations that you may have control over, you may prefer to incorporate ways of dealing with them in your alternatives. In other words, this section should represent things that you may not have control over.