Course Introduction and Overview

What is Strategy About?
Why Should You Care About Strategy?
Course Design: Active Learning and AI-Powered Exploration
Course Topics Breakdown
Grading: Your Path to Success in Strategic Management
Activity: Team Up - Forming Your Project Team
Reminders for Next Class ToDo

What is Strategy About?

Our everyday experiences shape our understanding of strategy. We draw insights from strategy games, sports, personal goal-setting, and even military history. However, these sources can also lead to misconceptions:

“Strategy is only for the top brass”: We often associate strategy with generals and CEOs, overlooking its importance at all levels of an organization.
“Strategy is just a plan”: While planning is crucial, strategy also involves execution, adaptation, and learning.
“Strategy must be secretive and complex”: Effective strategies are often clear, communicable, and adaptable.
“Strategy is about beating the competition”: While competition exists, strategy can also be about collaboration and creating value for multiple stakeholders.

Strategic management in organizations often involves navigating uncertainty and ambiguity, especially when making long-term decisions with broad implications. It’s about balancing stability and change: creating an environment where employees can thrive while also helping the organization adapt to a dynamic world. This requires securing and allocating resources effectively to address priorities.

Why Should You Care About Strategy?

As you’re preparing to launch your career, you might be wondering why a course on strategic management is relevant, especially if you’re focused on a specific business function like marketing or finance. Here’s why understanding strategy is crucial for your success:

Thriving in Cross-Functional Teams: Today’s workplace relies heavily on collaboration. Understanding strategy helps you see the bigger picture and how your specialized skills connect with other areas of the business. This makes you a more valuable team player and leader.
Decoding the Job Market: When you’re interviewing for jobs, being able to analyze a company’s strategy and understand how the role you’re applying for fits into their overall plan demonstrates a deeper level of engagement and insight. This can give you a significant edge over other candidates.
Contextualizing Your Work: Even in a specialized role, understanding your company’s strategic goals allows you to see how your work contributes to the bigger picture. This adds meaning and purpose to your daily tasks and helps you demonstrate your value to the organization.
Communicating Effectively: Imagine running into your boss’s boss at the water cooler. Having a grasp of the company’s strategic direction allows you to engage in meaningful conversations and show that you’re not just focused on your own narrow area.
Navigating Your Career: Strategic thinking is essential for career advancement. By understanding how organizations make decisions and adapt to change, you’ll be better equipped to navigate your own career path and make choices that align with your long-term goals.

In short, strategic management is not just for CEOs. It’s a valuable skillset for anyone who wants to thrive in today’s dynamic business world. This course will equip you with the tools and frameworks you need to think strategically, make informed decisions, and contribute to your organization’s success from day one.

Course Design: Active Learning and AI-Powered Exploration

This course is designed to maximize your learning through active participation and hands-on experience. Here’s how:

Flipped Classroom:

Come Prepared: You’ll be assigned engaging readings with helpful illustrations and glossaries to prepare you for in-class activities.
Topic Sessions: These sessions will build upon the readings, extending, contrasting, and complementing the ideas you’ve learned.
Tutorial Sessions: In these sessions, you’ll apply concepts and frameworks to real companies through interactive activities.

Company Analysis Project:

Collaborative and AI-First: You’ll work in groups on a company analysis project, using AI tools like NotebookLM for research, brainstorming, structuring your analysis, and reporting your findings.
Forming Your Group: You’ll have the opportunity to form groups in the first class. We’ll use Canvas’s self-signup group feature to formalize your group so that your group assignments are graded appropriately. [Link to Canvas group self-signup instructions: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/How-do-I-join-a-group-as-a-student/ta-p/468]
In-Class Teamwork: The tutorial sessions are designed to help you complete a significant portion of your group project during class time.

Developing New Skills:

AI as a Thinking Partner: Working with AI requires a new approach. You’ll learn to leverage AI to boost your thinking, cross-check your work, research and brainstorm ideas, and effectively write and report your findings.
AI Tools: You’re welcome to use any AI tool you’re comfortable with for this course.
Hands-On with AI: Tutorial sessions will often involve using AI tools. Bring a computer with a keyboard to participate fully in these activities.

Testing Your Knowledge:

Pen-and-Paper Case Tests: To ensure you can apply the concepts independently, you’ll take a pen-and-paper case test at the end of each of the three main course sections. These tests will assess your ability to analyze and solve strategic challenges without relying on AI.
Preparing for the Tests: The class activities and debriefs will help you prepare for the case tests. Focus on understanding the analytical logic behind the AI’s responses and how it arrives at its answers. Ask the AI to explain its work, and learn from those explanations as you work on the company project and classroom activities.

Technology Requirements:

AI Tools: AI tools generally work on any modern browser.
Device Choice: A tablet with a keyboard might work, but a laptop with a full keyboard is recommended for optimal comfort and efficiency when working with large amounts of text and detailed prompts.

Course Topics Breakdown

This course is divided into three major sections:

Analyzing the External Environment: We’ll explore key tools for assessing the external environment, with a focus on Porter’s Five Forces framework for industry analysis. This will help you understand the competitive dynamics and attractiveness of different industries.
Evaluating Organizational Resources and Competitive Advantage: We’ll delve into principles and tools for evaluating organizational resources and capabilities. This section covers competitive advantage analysis, its relationship with innovation, and how to create compelling customer value propositions. We’ll also connect these ideas to insights from our industry structure analysis.
Competing in Multiple Markets and Strategy Execution: We’ll examine why and how firms compete across multiple product and geographic markets. This includes understanding the role of corporate headquarters, the importance of organizational structure, and the complexities of strategy execution. Finally, we’ll emphasize that strategy is a continuous cycle of analysis, formulation, implementation, and adaptation, rather than a one-time event.

Grading: Your Path to Success in Strategic Management

In this course, your grade will reflect your overall engagement and mastery of strategic management concepts. We’ll use a variety of assessments to evaluate your progress, including a major company analysis project, quizzes, case tests, exit tickets, and class participation.

Grading Breakdown

Deliverable	Grade Points %
Company Analysis Project (Group)	50%
Pre-class Reading Quiz	20%
Case Test	20%
Exit Ticket Submissions	5%
Attendance	5%

Company Analysis Project

This project forms the core of your learning experience. You’ll work in groups to conduct an in-depth analysis of a real company, applying the concepts and frameworks we cover throughout the semester. The project is divided into five phases:

Phase	Points	Deadline
Dry Run Project	100	01/23
Industry Analysis	100	02/13
Business Strategy Analysis	100	03/20
Corporate Strategy Analysis	100	04/08
Strategic Initiative	100	04/22

Each phase of the project builds upon the previous one, allowing you to progressively deepen your understanding and demonstrate your skills.

Important Considerations

Weighted Grading: While each component has a specific point value, your final grade will be calculated based on the weighted percentages shown in the table. For example, the three case tests might total 300 points, but they will ultimately contribute 20% to your overall grade.
Rubrics: Detailed rubrics will be provided for each phase of the company analysis project and other major assignments. These rubrics will outline the specific criteria and expectations for each assignment, helping you focus your efforts and achieve your best work.
Actionable Insights: Your analyses, whether for case tests or the project, must result in actionable insights. Imagine you’re presenting to the top management team and board of directors. Your insights should be clear, relevant, and provide a basis for decision-making.
Active Participation: Active participation in class discussions and activities is essential. It demonstrates your engagement and allows you to learn from your peers.
Time Management: The course schedule is designed to be manageable, but it’s important to plan your time effectively to keep up with readings, assignments, and project deadlines.
Late Submissions: Unexcused late submissions will be penalized 5% of the total points and may be graded at my discretion.
Attendance: Attendance will be tracked through name card pick-ups and returns, and exit tickets submissions. You can monitor your attendance record on Canvas. Exit tickets are tied to in-class activities and reflect your active participation.

Activity: Team Up - Forming Your Project Team

Follow the link and complete the activity.

Exit Ticket Assignment

Reflection: “How I Met My Team”

Complete exit ticket assignment on Canvas “How I Met My Team,” reflecting on the team formation process.

Prompts for reflection:

Which pieces of information on the cards were most influential in your decision-making?

Does your team have a good mix of business function expertise?

What other factors did you consider when choosing your team?

Limit your response to 200 words.

Complete submission before leaving the classroom. Submission past class hours will not be graded.

Reminders for Next Class ToDo

Complete Introduction to Strategy reading and take the quiz.
Email your team and company selection. Please include section number or class meeting time in your email.
Need help? Have questions? Take advantage of walk-in office hours. Office at Mervis 247.