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Peter F. Bronfman Business Library > Peter F. Bronfman Business Library Guides > 601 Strategy Studies

601 Strategy Studies

Research Consultation Sessions for Strategy Field Study Groups – aka The 601 project

 

“All MBA students here must go through a field study,” he explains. For six to eight months, groups of up to eight students work with a company or organization to do a thorough strategic analysis and make actionable decisions. “In other programs, they might interview the CEO and use Google to get company information. We demand they meet customers, talk to employees and competitors and do surveys.”

Unlike a 20-page study where the decisions have been made, students have to decide what’s important, find the problem and come up with the answer, Peridis says. “We don’t set the structure. The students have to self-organize and learn the realities of that business, make decisions, justify their actions to the company and convince them to apply what they’ve learned. Basically, they’re writing their own case studies.”  Quote from Prof. Theo Peridis, SSB

Do you ever feel like you’re trying to herd mountain lions in a forest when it comes to gathering information and data related to your research needs? It would be great if there was a common way that you could search in the many databases and Internet search engines that are available but as we are painfully aware, this just isn’t the case. Rather than waste time and energy trying to identify the best resources and then trying to figure out the best search strategies to use for researching information about a particular company, competitor, product or industry, you can book a session with one of our research consultants who will work with your group to simplify this part of the information gathering process.

You come up with the questions and we will help you find the information you require.We will identify specific full-text and numeric databases, available only to York University students, Internet sites and other print and electronic resources as well as associations, government agencies, etc. which are directly related to your information needs. However we do not have access to private company financial information.

Scheduling a Research Session

We recommend that one person from the group be responsible for compiling the group’s research questions. This person should submit the overview of the company/organization and research questions via email to Elizabeth Watson watson@yorku.ca along with possible meeting times. She will arrange for a consultant to meet with your group. The research session lasts 1 to 1.5 hours and at this time the consultant will identify resources directly relevant to your research and offer effective and efficient search strategies as well as explore any developing research issues.Please note that we require that the questions be submitted two weeks prior to the group research session date. We will try to meet with you sooner but we are short-staffed at this time and it may not be possible. All research sessions are confidential.

For assistance in developing your research questions, please see the following:

Defining the Problem

The research session is designed to meet your group’s specific needs.In order to do this, we need you to come up with an overview of your research needs and specific research questions. But initially, often the most difficult part, is how to define the problem. A technique that may be useful is the Lotus Blossom. Here’s how to do it!

Start with the central question or basic assumption.List secondary questions or assumptions based on the centre of the blossom. Now repeat the process by listing the tertiary questions or assumptions.These questions or assumptions should serve as the basis for identifying the information you need, to answer your questions and/or to verify your assumptions. The following diagram illustrates the technique.

Planning the Strategy Study

There are many approaches one can take in conducting strategy studies but two of the most popular are: On Competition by Michael Porter and Strategy Safari by Henry Minzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel. An article that compares them is Tale of two strategies , by Raymond Suutari in CMA Management Jul/Aug 1999.

Identifying the key elements

These elements will be different for each strategy study but there are generic categories which you may wish to consider as starting points for the company or organization you are researching..

  • Internal environment , e.g. organizational structure, marketing, human resources, production, financial aspects. location, facilities, stakeholder demands, philosophy/mission, etc.
  • Operating environment – e.g. competitors, suppliers, customers, reputation, market share, etc.
  • General environment – e.g. economic conditions, government regulations, legal issues, technological developments, social responsibility, developing trends (social and economic and political), etc.

Basic questions to ask

The following are basic questions which may help you to define your project:

  • What business is the company/organization in?
  • What are it’s products or what service does it deliver?
  • What are its’ goals?
  • Who are the customers?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the company/organization?
  • What is unique about this company/organization?
  • Who are the competitors or what threatens the company/organization?
  • What are the opportunities?

 

This page created by Elizabeth Watson, October 3rd, 2002 Revised October 2011