Your Marketing professor is the designated faculty member for this deliverable so please check with your Marketing professor for additional guidance on content, formatting, and grading.

For this deliverable, your team will identify 3 challenges facing your CCC, assess whether each of the identified challenges is viable, and propose a response for each. The only responses that are not allowed are those involving acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures, or dissolution of the CCC. Your deliverable also will indicate the one challenge that you are most likely to pursue.

To identify challenges facing your CCC, the best approach is to examine your CCC’s recent past and explore the reasons why changes occurred. Once you identify the drivers of your CCC’s past

performance, you can scan the business environment for recent changes or impending changes. Much of your Market and Firm deliverable will help you identify the challenges/opportunities your CCC is

facing.

Start by reviewing your Market & Firm Deliverable findings, complete any missing data, and look for

changes or trends.

Review: Firm-level research and analysis.

Review: Your SBU/portfolio analysis.

Review: Competitor research and analysis. Identify direct and indirect competitors who compete at

either the firm or SBU level. For each, research their strengths and weaknesses as competitors.

Now, scan the business environment by considering the drivers below that may affect your CCC:

● Describe any demographic changes that may be relevant to your CCC (e.g., age, gender,

education level, occupation, and family size, etc.).

● Describe any geographic changes that may be relevant to your CCC (e.g., countries, regions, city

sizes, and population density, etc.).

● Describe any changes in social and cultural environments that may be relevant to your CCC

(e.g., cultural values, ethical concerns, behavioral preferences, perceptions of CCC or

competitors, political shifts, etc.).

● Describe any changes in the natural environment that may be relevant to your CCC (e.g.,

availability of raw materials, natural disasters, and natural resources, etc.).

● Describe any changes in the technological environment that may be relevant to your CCC (e.g.,

communication technology, mobile devices, social networks, workflow, cloud computing,

production technology, physical infrastructure, such as roads or airports, etc.)

● Describe any changes in the legal/political environment that may be relevant to your CCC (e.g.,

political unrest, corruption, rule of law, healthcare legislation, level of taxation, legal actions,

anti-trust actions, etc.).

● Describe any changes in the economic environment that may be relevant to your CCC (e.g.,

interest rates, foreign exchange rates, international markets, recession/prosperity,

unemployment, etc.).

● Describe any changes in company organization that may be relevant to your CCC (e.g., changes

in the management team, organization structure, labor relations, strategic focus, etc.).

● Describe any changes regarding supply chains that may be relevant to your CCC (e.g., changes in

suppliers, channels of distribution, physical distribution of products, etc.).

● Describe any changes in competitors that may be relevant to your CCC (e.g., current or

foreseeable potential new entrants, international competition, mergers, strategic shift by a

competitor, trade agreements, tariffs, etc.).

● Other changes and trends that may be relevant to your CCC.

Where do I find this information? DATAMONITOR SWOT Analysis from EBSCOhost, Market Research

Reports from EBSCOhost, articles from Lexis/Nexis Academic, and ABI/Inform Complete-ProQuest.

Consulting Challenge IP Guide – Fall 2020 Page 10

Based upon all your research and analysis, complete the following steps for your deliverable:

1. Identify three challenges or opportunities that your CCC faces either at the corporate level or at

the level of specific SBUs (e.g., brands). Assess the viability of the challenges/opportunities you

identified and map out a possible response to each.

2. For each of the three (3) challenges, explore and evaluate your CCC’s current planned

response (if any) to the challenge.

Is the CCC currently addressing or planning to address this challenge/taking advantage of the

opportunity? If so, how exactly are they doing that and how (in) effective are these measures?

Otherwise, you may assume that there is no planned response at this time.

Where do I find this information? 10-K (access via CCC website), analyst report, market research

reports, trade publications (e.g., WSJ, Bloomberg, and Businessweek, etc.)

3. Viability: Explain how your CCC would be adversely affected or an opportunity be lost if the

challenge is not successfully addressed. Is your team reasonably confident that you can develop

an alternative course of action that will allow your CCC to successfully respond to the challenge?

Provide specific reasons why you think it is feasible for your team to develop an effective course

of action in response to this challenge; e.g., Time requirements? Expertise? Availability of

money and other resources?

Where do I find this information? Lexis/Nexis, Analyst Reports from Investext.

4. Identify a possible solution for each identified challenge:

Briefly list the upside(s), downside(s), and likely reaction from competitors.

If a solution involves a change to your existing marketing strategy, you need to detail how your

CCC’s marketing strategy will change.

If a solution involves entry into a new market, you need to outline how your CCC would position

itself relative to existing competitors and how your current competitors and future competitors

are likely to respond.

Remember, responses involving acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures, or dissolution of your CCC

are not allowed.

Throughout, including any relevant figures, graphs, and analyses from Parts 1 and 2.

Lastly, remember to include your Bibliographic Sources.

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