IBS Report: structure & marks

Structure Of your IBS Report:

1.Cover page

2.Table of contents

3.Executive summary [10marks]

  1. Any business report includes an Executive Summary. Your main objective at this step is to provide a concise and persuasive outline of your strategic plan for managers to take an action upon it. Keep in mind your audience: your writing must address executive managers of the company.
  2. Briefly justify the innovative side of the firm’s operations and its positive impact in the foreign market, which you selected for firm’s expansion (see previous page).
  3. Briefly outline the major challenges that the firm has being facing in foreign or local markets [worth 3marks].
  4. Briefly outline the main points of your strategic plan, clearly stating why this strategy would be optimal for the firm’s expansion in the foreign market which you selected [worth 3 marks].
  5. Justify the value which your strategic plan will bring to the company [worth

4 marks

  1. Introduction [5 marks]
  2. The process of strategic decision-making starts with a problem diagnosis.
  3. You need to clearly define the strategic problems or challenges that your company is facing in its current markets and industry.
  4. If your firm has already established its presence in foreign markets, analyse and outline what major challenges your firm has been experiencing in its internationalisation efforts.
  5. If your firm is operating within a local market, explain why operations within a local market constrain growth opportunities for your firm and briefly justify the need to expand its operations across borders.
  6. Be concise, and frame your points within a couple of brief paragraphs, as Introduction is included in word count

Intro

Domino’s is a global pizza delivery company with franchising in over 85 million countries. Companies like Domino’s are highly dependable on a low-cost price and deals because of the high competition in their industry. It has been mentioned in their annual report of 2018 that “media reports of illnesses and injuries, whether accurate or not, could force some stores to close or otherwise reduce sales at such stores”.[1] Besides that, franchising stores are affected by changes in political, economic factors. Such as: increases in taxes, inflation rates and tariffs. In 2019, they have faced an issue in UK and Ireland as there was a slowdown in sales from 5.9% growth a year earlier[2].

Companies achieve these positions by configuring and arranging resources and activities to provide either unique value to customers or common value at a uniquely low cost.[3]

5.Strategic plan part [65marks]

  1. Your main objective at this step is to recommend an optimal strategy for expansion in a foreign market to executive managers of your firm.
  2. For a Distinction, your strategic plan must reflect all three components: academic, data and strategic excellence (see slide 15, Introduction into the module). It is important to consider all 5 strategic decisions related to internationalisation in a foreign market (see slide 9, Lecture 1) in your strategic plan.
  3. Demonstrate your academic excellence: find a set of influential academic articles discussing a particular strategy which you recommend to your firm (e.g., on FDI, JVs, licensing, franchising, or strategic alliances) from top IB journals for your references. It will help you if you search for articles for your specific industry (e.g., strategic alliances or M&A in the pharmaceutical industry) [worth 5 marks].

Your task is to apply relevant IB concepts to each of the 5 strategic decisions (with references to academic articles) [worth 10 marks]

You do not need to explain the meaning or give definitions of IB concepts. General theoretical discussion no needed.

  1. Demonstrate your data excellence: the main objective in this component is to analyse three levels of market entry determinants: firm-level (FSAs), industry-level (industry structure), and country-level (institutional distances). The elements of the data work are listed below.

Identify, which determinants (at all three levels) are most likely to affect your firm’s operations in a foreign market and determine the strategic choice of your firm. Justify the selected determinants with references to strategic frameworks:  RBV, TCA, institutional theory. Create a diagram or a flow chart with selected determinants for managers to use in decision-making process [worth5 marks].

Collect the data for all determinants identified and selected in the step above. Use reliable official data sources e.g., Orbis, Passport, Mintel, Statista, and other databases for company, industry and country data). Present your data for all determinants in tables or graphs, and include them in the Appendix. You can use the table templates uploaded in the Data Workshop folders (worth 20 mark)

Political risks

[4]

[5]

  1. Demonstrate your strategic excellence: outline your recommended course of action for all 5 strategic decisions related to your firm’s internationalisation in a foreign market (see slide 9,  Lecture 1).

You need to justify all your 5 strategic choices with the data evidence prepared in the previous step 4 and refer to the created tables in

Appendix:

-whether to become multinational or further expand in foreign markets? [worth5 marks]

-which foreign market to enter (location choice)? [worth 5 marks]

-which entry mode to choose?  [worth 5 marks]

-which ownership mode to choose? [worth 5 marks]

-timing of entry? Worth 5 mark

By looking at the World Bank Group research, it can be seen that in Kazakhstan for a foreign company to be established it must authenticate the documents of the parent company abroad and register the capital contribution to the charter capital of the new company with the National Bank of Kazakhstan within 10 business days of registration what is faster on a global average of IAB (Investing Across Boarders)[6]. By looking at the cost it can be seen that investors are ought to pay 25% of the character capital prior to a state registration with the local branch offices of the Ministry of Justice.

6.Conclusion [5 marks]

  1. Briefly outline what risks your firm may face in the selected foreign market, if your company were to implement your recommended plan of action.
  2. For a strong Distinction, state the risks specific to your market entry strategy and your firm, not merely generic country risks.
  3. Briefly conclude how those risks may affect the

generated revenue, brand reputation and other

benefits of internationalisation in the foreign market, focusing on your firm.

  1. Briefly state how your company could mitigate the identified risks in the foreign market.

7.References

8.Appendices

[mark included in part Strategic plan

[1] http://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReports/PDF/NYSE_DPZ_2018.pdf

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/13/dominos-pizza-rival-deliveries-consumer-habits-chaning

[3] https://hbr.org/2013/06/what-is-the-theory-of-your-firm

[4] https://fragilestatesindex.org/2019/04/07/fragile-states-index-2019-annual-report/

[5] https://www.pcr.uu.se/digitalAssets/667/c_667494-l_1-k_ucdp_world_2018.png

[6] http://iab.worldbank.org/Data/ExploreEconomies/kazakhstan#starting-a-foreign-business