MN340 Strategic Management Individual Assignment Project 2026 | Maynooth University

MN340 Individual Project: Integrated Case Analysis

Word Limit: 3,000 words (excluding cover page, appendices, references & 7 slides)  

Weight: 35% of final grade  

Submission Format: PDF report plus 7 slides presentation (1 file only)

Deadline: Friday 09/01/2026 at 18:00pm, Late Penalties Apply.

Assignment Overview

You are a strategic consultant hired by Salesforce or Amazon .The company faces intense competition, slowing growth, and disruptive innovation from startups and competitors. Your task is to develop a comprehensive 3-year strategic plan that integrates strategy development, entrepreneurship and innovation, strategy evaluation, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), strategy implementation, and organisational structure.

The assignment is structured in eight interconnected sections, each aligned with a core topic. You must use reputable and available data from either Salesforce and Slack (2021 Acquisition) or Amazon and Whole Foods (2017 Acquisition) and relevant theories, real-world frameworks (e.g., Porter’s Five Forces, VRIO, Ansoff Matrix, Balanced Scorecard, McKinsey 7S, etc) to support arguments with data, financial projections, and risk analysis.

Report Structure:

Your final submission should be a single, cohesive report, divided into the main parts, as detailed below.

Section 1: The Strategic Journey/development and Context (10%)

This section requires you to provide a demonstrative and narrative analysis of the company’s strategic past. Your analysis must be supported by external research, identifying challenges and opportunities of the chosen business.

Objective: Formulate a clear corporate and business-level strategy, pre-M&A.

Tasks:

1. Conduct a PESTEL and Porter’s Five Forces analysis of the chosen company
2. Perform a SWOT and VRIO analysis
3. From above, propose strategic business issues (challenges and Opportunities)
4. Using the Ansoff Matrix, recommend and justify (T & P) two growth strategies  

Deliverable: 2-pages (max.) strategy map and analysis

Section 2: Entrepreneurship & Innovation (10%)

You will analyse, with theoretical and practical evidence, entrepreneurial and innovative pathways for the company.

Objective: Foster internal & external innovation to complement M&A of the company.

Tasks:

1. Design and discuss an internal venture unit.
2. Propose an open innovation program  
3. Use Christensen’s Disruptive Innovation theory to identify market opportunities.
4. Develop a stage-gate innovation funnel with KPIs  

Deliverable: 2-pages (max.)  Innovation roadmap and org chart 

Section 3: Strategy Evaluation (15%) Objective: Establish metrics and controls Tasks:

1. Develop a Balanced Scorecard with 2 KPIs per perspective 
2. Conduct a scenario planning exercise.
3. Recommend and justify (theoretically and practically) strategy review cadence.

Deliverable: 2-pages (max.) Balanced Scorecard table + scenario matrix & justify

Section 4. Merger & Acquisition (20%)

Objective: Evaluate M&A as a strategic tool for growth (target, focus, valuation, etc).

Tasks:

1. Apply the M&A Strategic Fit Framework (synergy, valuation, risk).
2. Recommend one target with justification using DCF valuation (provide assumptions).
3. Outline post-merger integration risks and mitigation with justification
4. Discuss hostile vs. friendly acquisition considerations.

Deliverable: 2-pages (max.) Acquisition report and outcomes mode

Section 5: Implementation, Recommendations and  Challenges (10%)

Objective:

Analyse the implementation of the new Merger or Acquisition strategy, propose original, well-reasoned recommendations, and potential challenges.

Task:

1. Recommendations with justifications
2. Implementation
3. Challenges

Deliverable: 2-pages (max.) Critical analysis

Section 6 – Organisational Structure (15%)

Objective: Develop a suitable organisational structure post Acquisition.

Task:

1. Design a change management plan using Kotter’s 8-Step Model.
2. Propose a new hybrid structure and justify (theoretical and practical evidence)
3. Simulate a hostile takeover defence if a competitor targets the firm post-Acquisition

Deliverable: 2-pages (max.) New Org. Chart, and Discussion

Section 7 – Data Collection Table,  Bibliography, Citations & formatting (10%)  

Section 8 – Develop Presentation slides (10%)

Executive summary, strategic rationale, M&A recommendation, innovation pipeline, financial impact, implementation roadmap and new organisational structure.

Supplementary readings to Chapters 2, 10 – 17 of the main textbook (Whittington, R., Regner, P., Angwin, D., Johnson, G., and Scholes, K. (2023)):

• Grant, R. M. (2021). Contemporary Strategy Analysis.
• Christensen, C. M. (2013). The Innovator’s Dilemma.
• Gaughan, P. A. (2018). Mergers, Acquisitions, and Corporate Restructurings.
• Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (1996). The Balanced Scorecard.

Requirements for Strategic Management Assignment  

All continuous assessment submissions must be accompanied by a declaration of originality that states the document is compliant with the University’s Plagiarism Policy and the School of Business Plagiarism and Originality policy (noted earlier in this module handbook). This must follow the signing procedures mentioned earlier. Failure to electronically sign the declaration of originality will result in a zero grade for that student.

• The usual academic convention is that the assignment submitted can be plus or minus 10% of the assigned word count. Please note, that work that exceeds the word limit will be penalised by marks being proportionally reduced in each section of the assignment.
• All primary sources and data used must be in English or Irish.  If other languages are used, a translation must be provided.
• Use 1.15 lines spacing, font 12 and use a professional font. Make sure the text is justified on both sides.
• Pages shall be numbered consecutively through the main text.
• You must use the cover page provided and make sure it is signed as per the module’s policy.
• Practical examples must ONLY be drawn from the textbook or lectures.