Essay Instructions: American Airlines
1. Is the firm’s strategy consistent with its internal resources and capabilities,
as well as the external environment?
2. What changes should be made in the current strategy, and in resources,
capabilities, and core competencies to improve or sustain overall
performance?
To answer these questions, you will have to analyze every aspect of the firm and
its environment, and integrate your findings into a comprehensive understanding
of the firm’s current situation and what can realistically be done to improve it.
Importantly you will want to support your conclusions with logical analysis. The
“why” portion of your analysis is as important as the “what.”
The body of the paper must not exceed 20 pages, single-sided, double-spaced
with one-inch margins and using 12-point font. The executive summary, title
page, table of contents, references, and appendices do not count in the 20-page
limit. Please remember to use APA format.
Both substance and style are important in effective written communication.
Below you will find a few tips on both style and substance in writing. These tips
should be viewed as suggestive of the type of things found in a high-quality,
comprehensive report that still permits a great deal of latitude in terms of style
and scope.
I. Title Page
The firm’s name and the names of all team members should be highlighted.
The course name and number, my name, and the date should also appear.
II. Executive Summary
Begin your report with one single-spaced page summarizing your findings. Do
not include supporting evidence. The purpose of the summary is to stress the
highlights for the busy investor who wants to know your work but does not have
the time to read your entire report. Please provide one copy of this page for each
member of the class on the day you present your project.
III. Table of Contents
Begin numbering your pages here and continue consecutive page numbers
throughout the rest of the paper.
IV. Analysis of the Industry
Begin with a definition of the industry in which your firm competes. The focus of
your analysis should be on the underlying economic attractiveness of the industry
and current or projected trends that may be expecte
industry, whether on the supply or demand side (be sure to indicate what the
impact is expected to be and why). Remember to keep your level of analysis at
the industry level. Individual firms, including your own, are not a part of this
analysis.
V. Analysis of Competitors.
Identify 2-3 firms that you believe are the most important competitors for your
firm and indicate why you believe each firm is an important competitor. This will
comprise identification of current competitive position, key resources/capabilities,
and source(s) of competitive advantage, identify their current position in the
industry and prepare a competitor profile for each firm, including their
competencies. Keep your focus on the competitors; do not analyze your firm
here.
VI. Firm Analysis
The focus of this section is on an internal analysis of your selected firm. This
would include identification of current competitive position, key
resources/capabilities, and source(s) of competitive advantage. Remember to be
objective and to explain and support your conclusions where needed. This is to
be a dynamic analysis of the firm's current and future value creation capability. If
your analysis shows a firm that is weak and vulnerable, that is the conclusion you
should report.
VII. Recommendations.
In this section you integrate your findings from the previous sections to identify
problems and opportunities that must be addressed by your firm, and then make
realistic recommendations for addressing them. Some examples of the types of
issues that are often included are: Does the strategy of the firm address the
opportunities for value creation presented by the external environment? Is it
consistent with the overall capabilities and competencies of the firm? Are there
trends in the environment that may undermine or enhance current advantages?
How does your focus firm match up against the competitors that you profiled?
What will be the impact on your recommendations of these rivals and how will
they respond to them? These are examples, not a checklist. All conclusions
should follow naturally from, and be supported by, your prior analysis.
A generic example of a well-supported conclusion/recommendation follows:
Based on the large lead X company has over its competitors in the development
of the key technologies important in this industry, and the strong barriers to
imitation that prevent competition from matching these core competencies in the
near future, threats from current competitors are unlikely. However, strong
pressures from the sole industry supplier of the custom widgets critical to our
product are forcing down profit margins and limiting the amount of money
available for investment in the R&D necessary to maintain our technological
advantage. Therefore, we recommend that X Company engages in a joint
venture with a small widget manufacturer to develop a second supplier. We have
the knowledge required to develop our partner’s capabilities, and by starting
small we can prevent retaliation from our current supplier. Because it will be set
up as a joint venture, we will be creating a secondary source that will not be
available to our competitors (unless we want it to be) thereby creating another
source of competitive advantage.
Note that the information regarding competitor capabilities and supplier power
comes from prior sections of the paper, which supports your conclusions and
recommendations. A good paper will have several well-supported and internally
consistent recommendations that present an integrated and implementable
strategic option for the firm.
VI. References
Please cite sources of all numbers and quotes using APA format. All reference
material used for the paper must be included in a reference section. All citations
must be complete (authors, titles, dates, volume numbers, page numbers, etc.).
Electronic citations must include the complete site address.
