Assignment Details
U.S. Autos: Adding new routes
Your response for each question has a word limit, but you may be 10% under or over the stated word limits.
This assignment requires you to answer six questions about the fundamental changes affecting the car industry discussed in the Financial Times article, U.S. Autos: Adding new routes, appearing on pages 7 to 15 of this administrative study guide.
Assignment Questions:
1. Use PESTEL Analysis to identify the trends affecting the US carmakers highlighted in the article, and discuss why they are important using evidence from the article and from wider sources. (10 marks) There is a word limit of 1,200 words for this question.
2. Using evidence suggest whether it would be dangerous for US carmakers to extrapolate the trends happening in the US to overseas markets like the United Kingdom and others. (8 marks) There is a word limit of 200 words for this question.
3. Discuss the rationale behind why Ford and General Motors now describe themselves as providers of all-round transport services? (8 marks) There is a word limit of 300 words for this question.
4. Based on your analysis of the articles ideas, identify and evaluate the generic strategy you would advise a competitor in the U.S. carmaker to adopt if it creates an innovative new product for the transportation market? (8 marks) There is a word limit of 500 words for this question.
5. What are the institutional challenges confronting traditional carmakers like Ford and General Motors creating/entering innovative new markets? (8 marks) There is a word limit of 400 words for this question.
6. Discuss whether Ford or General Motors should use strategic group analysis or a blue ocean strategy to determine who its competition is within the transportation industry. (8 marks) There is a word limit of 400 words for this question.
The purpose of the assignment is to test your understanding of the strategic topics and ideas discussed in the first six weeks of the course. Your responses to each question should not just use bullet points alone, this is unacceptable, please use properly constructed sentences and paragraphs. Generally, the content of your responses for each question should contain four key elements:
clear identification and explanation of your main argument; and
industry evidence supporting your main argument; and
academic ideas / concepts / theory and their supporting references from the course or wider sources that show backing for the validity of your main argument; and
if applicable an assessment/critique of alternative arguments, which illustrates why you have chosen the best one.
It is entirely up to you the number of theoretical ideas and their supporting references you employ. Your decision is constrained by the word count per question and the number of arguments and their supporting references you discover via your background research. My expectation is that a number of academic references should be employed per each question. These academic references will be in addition to any industry references employed to support data or information sources discovered.
