Ayesha Niazi
Today’s Agenda
Strategising
Place in POLC framework
Corporate vs Business Strategy
How strategises emerge
Understand strategy as trade-offs, discipline, and focus.
Conduct internal analysis to develop strategy.
SWOT
Conduct external analysis to develop strategy.
PESTEL
Industry Analysis
Discussion Questions:
1. Planning is a key component to the P-O-L-C framework. What
type of planning do you think the founders of Flat World
Knowledge engaged in?
2. What competitive advantages does Flat World Knowledge
possess?
3. What are Flat World Knowledge’s key strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats?
4. How might the extensive textbook industry experience the Flat
World Knowledge founders possess help or hinder their
strategy formulation and ultimate success or failure?
Case Study: FlatWorld Knowledge
5. Based on Porter’s strategies summarized in the figure
below, which type of strategy do you see FlatWorld
Knowledge employing? Support your response.
Figure
SWOT Analysis of Flat World
Knowledge
Flat World Knowledge is a new college textbook company that operates with the tagline vision of
“Free textbooks. Online. Anytime. Anywhere. Anyone”.*
Strengths
Great management team.
Great college business textbooks.
Experienced author pool.
Proprietary technology.
Weaknesses
Limited number of books.
New technology.
Relatively small firm size.
Opportunities
External pressure to lower higher education costs, including textbook prices.
Internet savvy students and professors.
Professors and students largely displeased with current textbook model.
Technology allows textbook customization
Threats
Strong competitors.
Competitors are few, very large, and global.
Substitute technologies exist.