Did they clearly identify which business-level strategy the firm is pursuing?

Peer Review Instructions

Peer Review-

Your assignment is to review a Current-state Analysis and provide constructive feedback to the authors. They will have an opportunity to make revisions based on your feedback and submit them later in the course for a grade, so your helpful comments are important. Ideally their analysis lays the groundwork for recommendations they make about the firm’s strategic choices.

Each of your members should read the document separately first, then meet as a team to discuss it. Your deliverable is a written review in bullet-point format – a thorough review should be two or more pages of concise, bullet-point comments. Note that the quality of review you submit will be considered in your team’s final project grade. In other words, a strong review written by your team will reflect positively on your own project grade (and vice versa).

Below are questions to help drive your discussion (Not required to address them all) – you may want to divide discussion leadership among team members by topic heading:

Overview

• Begin by reviewing the document for compliance with the instructions for the assignment – including such technical items as total number of pages, margins, etc.; and such content items as whether both internal and external factors were analyzed.
• Is the document one cohesive summary or a patchwork of points? Improvements?
• How objective is the document: did the authors provide an unbiased analysis or did it read as advocates or adversaries of the company? How might they revise it to be more objective?

External Analysis

• How comprehensive is the analysis of the general environment? Did the authors use the diagram to identify many of the key elements in the environment that may be opportunities for firms in the industry? Were some useful elements left out? Which should they add?
• How accurate is the Five-Forces analysis? How could it be improved? How well did the authors assess the overall threat level facing all the firms in the industry?
• How well is the external analysis discussed? In the body of the write up, did the authors correctly choose to focus on just the key opportunities and threats?

Internal Analysis

• Review the chart in the Current-state Analysis to determine how extensive a list of resources and capabilities the authors were able to identify and VRIO evaluate. Offer suggestions for potential resources that the authors may research further.
• How accurate are each of their VRIO evaluations and the conclusions they draw about competitive potential? How could they be improved?
• How well is the internal analysis discussed? Of course, there would not be enough space in the body of the document to discuss the separate VRIO analyses for each of the resources/capabilities listed in the chart.  The authors should focus on the two or three key resources/capabilities, and summarize their potential competitive impact.  How well did they accomplish that in their document?  How could it be improved?  Should they have chosen to concentrate the discussion on any of the other items listed instead?  What should they conclude about the competitive implications of their firm’s resources and capabilities?

Business-level Strategic Choices

• Did they clearly identify which business-level strategy the firm is pursuing?
  • Cost Leadership Strategy – a determination to be THE lowest-cost provider – Not necessarily price!
  • Product Differentiation Strategy – a focus primarily on a variety of creative bases to differentiate from rivals
• How much evidence have they provided to support their determination of which strategy the firm is primarily pursuing?
  • In almost all cases, the firm is either attempting to be the Cost Leader in the industry OR striving to be a product differentiator.
  • Recall our class discussion about the difficulty of a firm effectively pursuing both – especially the organizational requirements that are sometimes at odds
• How thorough were they on the VRIO question of value – specifically, how well did they apply their findings in the external and internal analysis to inform this question of value?
  • Did they adequately account for the competitive landscape?
  • What’s in the general environment?
• To what extent did the team account for the factors impacting imitation? How could this be improved
• Overall how persuasively did they discuss the competitive implications of the firm’s business-level strategy? How could they have done better? What other evidence should they pursue?

Are you open to revisions?

• If members of your team are open to further reviews of the document after revisions have been made:
  • indicate your team’s willingness at the end of your Peer Review
  • Include the email address of a member of your team
• Constructive feedback is simply good for all parties: good for receivers, because it helps them improve their work; and for providers, because the process of reviewing causes them to gain a sharpened understanding of their own work.
• This is optional, but recommended!