Evaluate organization strategy (using business diagnostic tools) to create competitive
PROGRAMME: MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION)
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (CORPORATE LAW)
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (DIGITAL MARKETING)
COURSE CODE: MGT7014
COURSE TITLE: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
COURSE CREDIT: 4
ACADEMIC TEAM
Facilitator(s)
Name : Dr. Chantheney Velu
Campus : Petaling Jaya
Email : chantheney@gmail.com
Head of Programme (Postgraduate)
Name : Asst. Prof. Dr. Raymond Markus Maskrin
Campus : Petaling Jaya
Email : raymond@bac.edu.my
Programme Manager (Postgraduate-ODL)
Name : Ms. Siti Nuriyah
Campus : Petaling Jaya
Email : sitinuriyah.h@veritas.edu.my
INTRODUCTION TO THE UNIT
Strategic management is examined in terms of contents, process and context. The subject covers issues of internal and external environment analysis and associates them with the notion of competitive advantage. Strategy is defined at three levels: corporate, business and functional, nonetheless, it is thoroughly discussed at the business and functional level only. The roles and responsibilities of managers involved in the decision-making process are also highlighted.
Course Learning Outcomes (CLO)
1. Evaluate organization strategy (using business diagnostic tools) to create competitive advantage for the business (C5, PLO2).
2. Integrate accountability and autonomy while creating the strategy performance monitoring measures for business organization (A4, PLO8).
3. Integrate personal skills while developing the completing the assigned task (A4, PLO9).
4. Integrate ethical values and professionalism while interacting with stakeholders to developing strategic planning initiatives for business organization (A4, PLO11).
Teaching Methodologies
Online distance learning mode offers an opportunity for you to learn and engage in content and assessment in a fully supported way. You are expected to engage in approximately 20 contact hoursof online activities as well as further independent study to make up the minimum required hours per semester.
DATE DAY TIME
05 JUL 2025 SAT 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
https://baceducation.zoom.us/my/bacclassroom13
06 JUL 2025 SUN 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
https://baceducation.zoom.us/my/bacclassroom13
19 JUL 2025 SAT 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
https://baceducation.zoom.us/my/bacclassroom13
20 JUL 2025 SUN 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
https://baceducation.zoom.us/my/bacclassroom13
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
Honesty is an essential aspect of academic integrity. Individual students are responsible for doing their own work and for not taking credit for the effort and ideas of others. This includes plagiarism, cheating and not contributing to group projects. This obligation is based on mutual trust and is essential to meeting the goals of this course. Academic dishonesty of any type on exams, quizzes or other graded assessment will not be tolerated.
Some important points about academic integrity:
1. Unless collaboration is explicitly permitted, you should assume that every course assignment or assessment (i.e., exams) is to be completed individually. This means that you are to work on course assignments by yourself – not with your friend, roommate or anyone else. Any violation of this restriction will be considered a violation of the Academic Behaviour Code and will result in an automatic failure for the assignment. If you are struggling with an assignment, you should consult with me during office hours or make an appointment.
2. You are responsible for keeping drafts, references/sources, and backup copies of all of your written assignments, to turn in upon my request until final grades are completed.
3. You should begin your work early. An unforeseen event arising the night before a paper is due is not a legitimate reason for a paper extension. When submitting assignments electronically, you should request confirmation that your assignment has been received or you should save some form of confirmation that your e-mail was sent.
4. You are responsible for taking precautions that your work (especially written work that paraphrases another written source). If I determine that you have copied all or part of an exam or paper from another source (including another student, a web page, a textbook, or other published source), you will receive a failing grade in this course.
5. Turnitin (Tii) and AI similarity below 30% for academic writing (core content) excluding cover page, table of contents, in-text citations, reference list, etc. Should you have any dispute on AI content detection; the onus is on you to provide the required evidence to justify the originality of your content.
COURSE CONTENT
TOPIC COURSE CONTENT OUTLINE
1 Fundamentals of Strategic Management
2 Strategic Management Model
3 Roles of Top Management in Strategic Management
4 Strategy Formula
5 Strategic Business Environment Analysis
6 Internal Analysis
7 Competitive and Portfolio Analysis
8 Strategy Selection, Implementation, Evaluation and Control
9 Strategy Implementation
10 Current Trends in Strategic Management
GRADING SCHEME
GRADE MARKS GRADE POINT (GPA) STATUS
A 80 – 100 4.00 Pass
A- 75 – 79 3.67 Pass
B+ 70 – 74 3.33 Pass
B 65 – 69 3.00 Pass
B- 60 – 64 2.67 Conditional Pass
(Subject to CGPA Achievement ≥ 3.00)
C+ 55 – 59 2.33 Fail
C 50 – 54 2.00
C- 45 – 49 1.67
D+ 40 – 44 1.33
D 35 – 39 1.00
F 0 – 34 0.00
COURSE PASSING REQUIREMENTS
1 To pass this module, you MUST satisfy ALL of the following criteria:
a. PASS at least one (1) Formative Assessment with a minimum mark of 65% (B).
b. PASS ALL of the Summative Assessments with a minimum mark of 65% (B) for each Summative Assessment.
c. Achieve Overall Mark of at least 65% (B) for the course.
2. If you do not meet the criteria listed above, you will fail this course and you will have to RETAKE this module when it is offered next. The current fee for each module in the programme is MYR 1,500.00. Please refer to the VUC Fee Policy for further details.
SUMMARY OF ASSESSMENT
ASSESSMENT TITLE WEIGHTED PERCENTAGE LENGTH DUE DATE
Formative Assessment 1
Coursera Quiz 20% N/A 27/07/2025
SUNDAY
Formative Assessment 2
Individual Written Assignment 30% 2,500-word 27/07/2025
SUNDAY
Summative Assessment A
Case Study
(COMPULSORY PASS) 50% 4,000-word 27/07/2025
SUNDAY
Formative Assessment 1: Coursera Quiz
Title : Strategic management: Be Competitive
Institution : Macquarie University
Instructors : Associate Professor Ralf Wilden
Link : CLICK HERE to access your Coursera quizzes
About this Course :
The ability to think strategically in today’s global, high-tech business environment is critical to ensuring your organisation survives – and grows – into the future. By breaking down business strategy and value creation to its essential elements, you’ll develop your strategic thinking skills. And through structured learning activities including video lectures, quizzes, discussion prompts and written assessments you’ll discover how to improve your organisation’s competitiveness.
This course focuses on the key principles behind the latest thinking in value co-creation, strategy and marketing, and teaches you how to apply them. By learning how to continuously plan, monitor, analyse and assess all that is necessary for an organisation to meet its goals and objectives, you will be better prepared to take your organisation forward in a viable strategic direction.
Week Topic No. of Questions
Week 1 The Importance of Value for Competitive Strategy 10
Week 2 Know Your Customers and Competitors 10
Week 3 Know Your Industry 10
Week 4 Know Your Competitive Options 10
Week 5 Know Your Organisation 5
Week 6 Develop and Evaluate Your Strategic Options 10
TOTAL 55
In order to access this online assessment in the Coursera platform, please ensure that you are logged into the platform with your VUC student email ID and password to avoid any fee or charges.
Formative Assessment 2: Individual Written Assignment
Select an industry in the country that you are currently employed in. Conduct comprehensive research on the selected industry, and answer ALL the three questions below:
1) Provide a brief background of the selected industry. Conduct a critical industry analysis using Porter’s Five forces analysis, highlighting the impact of the forces on industry players. (500 words)
(20 marks)
2) Critically examine the various grand strategies deployed by key industry players (MNCs) in the selected country, at the Corporate Level, and the effectiveness of these strategies, given the dynamics of the selected industry and the relative business environment. (750 words)
(30 marks)
3) Globalisation has accelerated in recent years with the growth of multinational companies and the expansion of economic collaboration among countries. Critically evaluate, using relevant examples, the implications of globalisation on strategic management decisions for the selected industry. (1250 words)
(50 marks)
(Total: 100 marks)
Guidelines for Individual Written Assessment
1) Prepare a report around 2,500 words within an acceptable variation of less than 1000 words above such a requirement.
2) A minimum of 10 journal article references is required for this assignment. Please ensure that citations for sources and bibliography are properly given in the test of your essay. You must use the Harvard referencing / citation style. The overall grading will take this into consideration.
Submission Requirements for Individual Written Assignment Preparation
1) Your assignment will be anonymously marked so you must not identify yourself other than by using your student number anywhere on, or within, the assignment.
2) Proper page break and heading for each question.
3) Coursework must be submitted using point, font style (Times New Roman), font size twelve (12), and one-and-a-half (1.5) line spaced.
4) You are advice to include page number of your work for each discussion question. Pages must be numbered consecutively throughout the text
Formative Assessment 2: Individual Written Assignment Marking Rubrics
0 – 4 5 – 9 10 – 13 14 – 17 18 – 20
Application
Q1
(20%) Not able to apply any new idea or knowledge to a given problem. Limited ability to apply new idea or knowledge. Able to apply new idea or knowledge to a given problem with assistance from lecturer or student. Able to apply new idea or knowledge to a given problem independently. Able to apply new idea or knowledge to a given problem and able to propose alternative applications.
0 – 8 9 – 17 18 – 22 23 – 26 27 – 30
Analysis
Q2
(30%) Not able to organize and analyse gathered information or data and fails to define the factors that contribute to the problem/issue or explain the root of the problem. Finds difficulty in organizing and analysing gathered information or data and finds difficulty in explaining the factors that neither contribute to the problem/issue nor explains the root of the problem. Able to organize and analyse gathered information or data, but does not clearly describe the factors that contribute to
the problem/issue or clearly explain the root of the problem. Able to organize and analyse gathered information or data, clearly describe the factors that contribute to the problem/issue or explain the possible roots of the problem. Able to organize and analyse gathered information or data, clearly describe the factors that contribute to the problem/issue or explain the root of the problem.
0 – 14 15 – 24 25 – 35 36 – 42 43 – 50
Evaluate
Q3
(50%) Not able to select appropriate alternative solution. Able to evaluate several solutions but not able to select an appropriate solution with maximum assistance. Able to evaluate several solutions and able to select a solution that partially solves a problem with minimum assistance. Able to evaluate several solutions and clearly and accurately select alternative solutions without assistance. Able to evaluate several solutions and able to clearly and accurately select alternative solutions in detail.
Summative Assessment A: Case Study
Refer to the journal article (details below), which will be the starting point of your research into the global pharmaceutical industry. Conduct further research pertaining to the industry by looking up industry related information, journal articles, company-based material and so forth.
Journal article: A comprehensive study on Industry 4.0 in the pharmaceutical industry for sustainable development.
Sharma, D., Patel, P. & Shah, M. A comprehensive study on Industry 4.0 in the pharmaceutical industry for sustainable development. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 90088–90098 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26856-y
Required:
Select a pharmaceutical (manufacturing) company which is a key player in the global pharmaceutical (manufacturing) industry. Utilising strategic management concepts that you have learnt in this course you are required to detail out a management report using the journal article that has been provided as your starting point, followed by your own secondary research pertaining to the industry and the strategies deployed by industry players. It is advised that your management report is presented in the following format:
1) Introduction
a) Brief introduction to the report
b) Brief introduction of the company background
c) Industry background/current business challenges the industry is facing
(400 words) (10 marks)
2) Strategic Analysis
2.1 Internal Analysis –Value Chain Analysis or VRIO, and the BCG Matrix. A discussion on the core competencies and capabilities is vital in this section.
2.2 External Analysis
1. PESTEL
2. Porter’s 5 Forces
3. CPM (competitor analysis)
2.3 SWOT-TOWS Matrix
1. Current strategic position and generation of strategic options
(1200 words) (30 marks)
3) Evaluate four of the strategic options generated in 2.3 above, and rank them. Select two best strategies and provide a cost and benefit analysis for both strategies, with justification for their choice. Strategic recommendations as a way forward must be based on the Ansoff’s Matrix and generic strategies.
This section would require you to provide detailed plans to move the company forward based on the selected strategies, as well as an examination of the risks involved and suggestions on overcoming the risks.
(1200 words) (30 marks)
4) Corporate social responsibility and Environmental sustainability
This section would require you to critically evaluate the company’s corporate social responsibility practices and the company’s environmental sustainability strategies. Critically evaluate whether these practices contribute to the company’s competitive advantage.
(800 words) (20 marks)
5) Using the context of the organization, its situation and potential strategies recommended above, reflect on the crucial importance of leadership required for a CEO to ensure strategic success.
(400 words) (10 marks)
Guidelines for Summative Assessment A Preparation
1) Prepare a report around 4,000 words within an acceptable variation of less than 1000 words above such a requirement.
2) A minimum of 15 journal article references is required for this assignment. Please ensure that citations for sources and bibliography are properly given in the test of your essay. You must use the Harvard referencing / citation style. The overall grading will take this into consideration.
Submission Requirements for Summative Assessment A
1) Your assignment will be anonymously marked so you must not identify yourself other than by using your student number anywhere on, or within, the assignment.
2) Proper page break and heading for each question.
3) Coursework must be submitted using point, font style (Times New Roman), font size twelve (12), and one-and-a-half (1.5) line spaced.
4) You are advice to include page number of your work for each discussion question. Pages must be numbered consecutively throughout the text
Summative Assessment A: Case Study Marking Rubrics
0 – 2 3 – 5 6 – 7 7.5 – 8.5 9 – 10
Problem
Identification
Q1
(10%) Not able to explain a problem, even with assistance. Able to partially explain a problem with maximum assistance. Able to explain a problem with minimum assistance. Independently able to explain a problem clearly without assistance. Able to provide explanation of problem very clearly and accurately.
0 – 8 9 – 17 18 – 22 23 – 26 27 – 30
Application
Q2
(30%) Not able to apply any new idea or knowledge to a given problem. Limited ability to apply new idea or knowledge. Able to apply new idea or knowledge to a given problem with assistance from lecturer or student. Able to apply new idea or knowledge to a given problem independently. Able to apply new idea or knowledge to a given problem and able to propose alternative applications.
0 – 8 9 – 17 18 – 22 23 – 26 27 – 30
Analysis
Q3
(30%) Not able to organize and analyse gathered information or data and fails to define the factors that contribute to the problem/issue or explain the root of the problem. Finds difficulty in organizing and analysing gathered information or data and finds difficulty in explaining the factors that neither contribute to the problem/issue nor explains the root of the problem. Able to organize and analyse gathered information or data, but does not clearly describe the factors that contribute to
the problem/issue or clearly explain the root of the problem. Able to organize and analyse gathered information or data, clearly describe the factors that contribute to the problem/issue or explain the possible roots of the problem. Able to organize and analyse gathered information or data, clearly describe the factors that contribute to the problem/issue or explain the root of the problem.
0 – 8 9 – 17 18 – 22 23 – 26 27 – 30
Generation of Solutions
Q4
(20%) Not able to solve problems or offer alternative solutions. Able to solve problems or offer alternative solutions with maximum assistance. Able to partially solves problems or provide alternative solutions with some assistance. Able to solve problems or provide alternative solutions well without assistance. Able to solve problems and provide alternative solutions with accuracy, clarity and detailed.
0 – 2 3 – 5 6 – 7 7.5 – 8.5 9 – 10
Generation of Solutions
Q5
(10%) Not able to solve problems or offer alternative solutions. Able to solve problems or offer alternative solutions with maximum assistance. Able to partially solves problems or provide alternative solutions with some assistance. Able to solve problems or provide alternative solutions well without assistance. Able to solve problems and provide alternative solutions with accuracy, clarity and detailed.
The required textbook(s) which are available online are:
Main Reference:
David, F. R., (2016) Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases, 16th Edition. Pearson Education
Additional References:
1) Exploring Strategy: Text and Cases (11th Edition) 11th Editionby Gerry Johnson (Author), Richard Whittington (Author), Patrick Regnér (Author), Kevan Scholes (Author), Duncan Angwin (Author) 2017
2) Fitzroy, Peter / Hulbert, James M. / O’shannassy, Timothy, (2016), Strategic Management: The Challenge of Creating Value, Routledge
There are additional supplemental readings that will be posted according to weekly topics and it is highly encouraged that you read these in addition to the required textbook readings. The teaching methods in this unit are much applied and interactive thus students are expected to participate in online forum discussions and case-based learning.
VUC School of Business, Communication, Law & Digital Transformation
Name : Asst. Prof. Dr. Raymond Markus, Head of School & Program (PG)
Campus : Petaling Jaya
Email : raymond@bac.edu.my
Name : Ms. Rosita Thevarajah, Program Manager (PG-CVT)
Campus : Petaling Jaya
Email : rositadevi@veritas.edu.my
Name : Ms. Edwina Buma Fernandez, Programme Manager (PG-ODL)
Campus : Petaling Jaya
Email : edwina.f@veritas.edu.my
Name : Mr. Joshua Lee, Head of Program (UG)
Campus : Petaling Jaya
Email : joshua@bac.edu.my
Name : Jeremy Jong, Program Coordinator (DBA)
Campus : Petaling Jaya
Email : jeremy.j@veritas.edu.my
Name : Siti Nuriyah, Programme Coordinator (PG-ODL)
Campus : Petaling Jaya