For the sector you have been allocated (see Appendix II) you should;
1. Review the marketplace characteristics for the sector allocated by using any public domain information
available and relevant academic literature search (see Section 4). Select a particular case company to
undertake tasks 2-4. Justify the use of the case company including any opportunities / challenges
regarding secondary data availability. (25% of total marks)
2. Highlight and evaluate the corporate strategy of the organisation selected. Is the corporate strategy
effective and is the business model appropriate for the marketplace characteristics? (25% of total
marks)
3. Providing empirical evidence and analysis as appropriate, determine the order winners and market
qualifying criteria and classify the supporting operational process using the Hayes and Wheelwright’s
Volume-Variety matrix, Hoekstra and Romme’s decoupling point models and Lampel and Mintzberg’s
customer order penetration point concept. Is the supporting operational process of your chosen
company appropriate for that market? If not, what should it be? (25% of total marks)
4. Exploiting your evaluation in Task 3, determine the case company’s current operations strategy. Does
the operations strategy fit with the corporate strategy as you defined in Task 2? Hence, develop a
change management plan to either a) realign the case company’s operations strategy or b) improve the
case company’s operations strategy, considering the change levers for each phase. Apply the
Responsible-Accountable-Consult-Inform analysis to identify roles and responsibilities of the senior
management and other roles in the case company. (25% of total marks)
NB if the case company supports more than one market sector then describe what these are but limit your
research to just one.

Getting help /Advice
Plan your time well – the data collection is usually the most time-consuming part of this assignment. All
tutors/lecturers on the course will not give any industry specific help on the assignment to individual
people. You will have to show initiative and self-motivation in undertaking this assignment, which is
meant to be challenging – you are intended to show Mastery. Here are some information resources to help
you get started;
The University’s LibrarySearch can access multiple journal databases NB try different key words and
combinations.
Access the business and economic databases via the University Intranet –

https://intranet.cardiff.ac.uk/students/study/libraries/subject-support/information-resources-for-your-
subject/business,-economics-and-transport.

Use of appropriate texts, industry and analysts reports, consultancy white papers, blogs,
company/institutional websites, and quality newspapers all add value.
Note: In text referencing and bibliography – Harvard style is expected. A strong range and depth of
appropriate literature is expected. Selecting, reviewing, and applying this data to the company context in a
meaningful way is key e.g. a generic PESTLE analysis is just that. These should be dedicated to the
organisation’s current situation and be evidence based.
Report format and word count?
The level of detail in your assignment may well be a trade-off between payoff and time. Whatever you
include in your assignment has to be “value adding” i.e. do not include wasteful words, figures or tables.
Title Page with student number
Summary (or Abstract) (Generally up to 300 words – not included in the word count)
Content – split into four sections as per the four tasks assigned. Each section should be 1000 words
equivalent, +/- 10%. In addition, you are encouraged to make use of tables and/or figures. Be selective
about the use of tables and figures, and ensure you explain what each table / figure means within the main
text. Any tables / figures are in addition to the 1000 words.
Reference list (Not included in the word count)
Bibliography (Not included in the word count)