Strategic Positioning of NEOs

The purpose of this assignment is to assess the current strategic positioning of an industry in NE space.  Teams will choose a single industry and/or niche industry they wish to explore and next decide whether they wish to specialize in dot.coms (“clicks,” pure plays, cyber- or virtual firms) only or traditional firms that also have a significant Web presence (“clicks and bricks”) only.  The point is to narrow the investigation enough so that the team may be able to come up with generalizations that are meaningful.

The bottom line of this assignment is to assess the extent to which the industry is responding to the demands for "net-enhancement."  Are there a few industry leaders or a lot?  What makes them "leaders"?  Is there a generic strategy emerging in the industry?

Focus on competitive advantage.  What makes some firms leaders in this industry?  What elements of competitive advantage are they exploiting?  Is it sustainable?

You may want to coordinate the choice of industry with the industry analysis and the individual strategy briefings you are doing .  There could be a lot of synergies here.

Sections of the White Paper

 Cover the following topics:

 Section 1.  Purpose of the Project: Its Main Goals

-Describe the selection of the industry/niche and clicks versus clicks and bricks

 Section 2.  Research Methods used

                    -Describe these methods quickly

 Section 3.  Data Analysis

 -Derive generalizations about what you have discovered (Example: “The low rate of use of the Web to transform the niche we investigated suggests that there could be a major shake-up if the Web begins to steal many more sales through its lower cost structure.  There is some evidence that it doing this, which we infer from the secondary data sources we consulted….”

-Infer which firms have developed competitive advantage and argue whether it is sustainable or not

Section IV. Conclusion

                        -What are the managerial implications for what you discovered?  How would this affect the strategic planning for the industry/niche you worked with?

 Deliverables

 One MSWord format report emailed to the instructor by the due date, including:

1.      Team member names and email addresses.

2.      a 10 page minimum white paper on your major findings