Recognise the major forces shaping the global business environment and gain an understanding of the changing global business environment

Assignment Brief

LEVEL/ LEFEL 4

MODULE CODE/ COD Y MODIWL: LCBB4005 THE GLOBAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

ASSESSMENT TYPE/ MATH O ASESU: ASSIGNMENT ASSESSMENT/COMPONENT/ ASESIAD/CYDRAN: 1

COMPONENT WEIGHTING/ PWYSAU’R CYDRAN: 50% WORD COUNT/ NIFER Y GEIRIAU: 2000 WORDS SUBMISSION DETAILS/ MANYLION CYFLWYNO:

• Make sure that Your Name , Your Student Number, Your Module Title, Assignment Title and Your Module Lecturer’s Name are clearly shown on the front page of your assignment

• All assignments must be submitted electronically to Moodle.

• DO NOT put this form into Turnitin or it will match many similarities with other students’ submissions.

1. Explain the major forces shaping the business environment of the car manufacturing industry. In your analysis, you should explain how the industry has changed in the last few years.

2. Provide a critical assessment of the opportunities and challenges that these forces present and discuss how firms can best position themselves to gain a competitive advantage.

You should use the academic frameworks learnt in class such as PESTEL, SWOT, Porter’s 5 Forces, Product Life Cycle, Porters Value chain, etc.

Total – 2,000 words

Research-informed Literature

Your work must be informed and supported by scholarly material that is relevant to and focused on the task(s) set. You should provide evidence that you have accessed a wide range of sources, which may be academic, governmental and industrial; these sources may include academic journal articles, textbooks, current news articles, organisational documents, and websites. You should consider the credibility of your sources; academic journals are normally highly credible sources while websites require careful consideration/selection and should be used sparingly. Any sources you use should be current and up-to-date, mostly published within the last five years or so, though seminal/important works in the field may be older. You must provide evidence of your research/own reading throughout your work, using in- text citations in the main body of your work and a reference list that is alphabetical at the end of your work. Please use the Harvard referencing system.

Specific to this assignment: You should show a wide level of reading and provide a minimum of 8 references from a variety of sources including books, recent academic journals, current news articles, organisational documents and websites.

Knowledge and Understanding of Subject

Your work must demonstrate the growing extent of your knowledge and understanding of concepts and underlying principles associated with the subject area. Knowledge relates to the facts, information and skills you have acquired through your learning. You demonstrate your understanding by interpreting the meaning of the facts and information (knowledge). This means that you need to select and include in your work the concepts, techniques, models, theories, etc. appropriate to the task(s) set. You should be able to explain the theories, concepts, etc. meaningfully to show your understanding. Your mark/grade will also depend upon the extent to which you demonstrate your knowledge and understanding; ideally each should be complete and detailed, with comprehensive coverage.

Specific to this assignment: The analytical tools have been specified in each of the tasks. You do not need to explain these in depth, but introduce them briefly before applying them.

Analysis

Your work must contain evidence of logical, analytical thinking, evaluation and synthesis. For example, to examine and break information down into parts, make inferences, compile, compare and contrast information. This means not just describing What! but also justifying: Why? How? When? Who? Where? At all times, you must provide justification for your arguments and judgements. Evidence that you have reflected upon the ideas of others within the subject area is crucial to you providing a reasoned and informed debate within your work. Furthermore, you should provide evidence that you are able to make sound judgements and convincing arguments using data and concepts. Sound, valid conclusions are necessary and must be derived from the content of your work. There should be no new information presented within your conclusion. Where relevant, alternative solutions and recommendations may be proposed.

Specific to this assignment: Do not just provide material and data but analyse the information! It is crucial to show the impact of your environmental analysis on the industry.

Practical Application and Deployment

You should be able to demonstrate how the subject-related concepts and ideas relate to real world situations or a particular context. How do they work in practice? You will deploy models, methods, techniques, and/or theories, in that context, to assess current situations, perhaps to formulate plans or solutions to solve problems, some of which may be innovative and creative. This is likely to involve, for instance, the use of real world examples and cases, the application of a model within an organisation and/or benchmarking one organisation against others based on stated criteria. You should show awareness of the limitations of concepts and theories when applied in particular contexts