Guidelines for the group presentations and the company
report
The group presentations
I expect all of you to be in class when the groups
will present. You are encouraged to ask questions
after the presentation is over. The material is NOT going to be part of the
final exam.
The scope of the presentation is for you
to get familiar with business strategies and conduct of major companies, to
link what you learn in class to the dynamics of the market and to improve on
searching for relevant information and disseminating it in an efficient way.
This exercise should help you master your analytic and presentation skills and
team capabilities, which are valued high on the job market.
What I would like the company analyses to touch
on:
-
general info
about the company (sales, number of employees, brief history of the firm, etc)
– this part should be VERY brief
-
description of the main
products;
-
what is the relevant market in which the firm operates? How did the
market change in recent years (is it a growing industry, a declining one?);
what is its exposure to the international markets
-
what are the
firm’s main competitors? How are they doing? (any recent changes in market
shares for example)
-
how close the competition’s
products are to the ones produced by the firm you’re analyzing? Do you think
the brand loyalty for the firm is high or low?
-
how easy it is to enter this market?
-
any costs advantages the firm has?
-
is the firm able to price discriminate? If yes, what type(s) of
discrimination it uses?
-
what are new products
introduced by the firm on the market and how are they doing? any recent changes
in strategy?
-
what are the
main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats of the company (what is called SWOT analysis)
-
graph the evolution of the
price of its stock, why do you think the price is where it is and would you
invest in the company (short term / long term) – why or why not
The Library
provides full-text online access to information related to specific companies. There
are several databases you could use. One is “Business
Source Premier”. Go on library’s website. On the left side click on
“Databases A-Z” and scroll until you find the above mentioned database. Once
you click on the link a search menu appears. You than need to type the name of
the company. On the next screen, on the left side you can choose to have the
results of the search limited to “Company profiles” or “SWOT analyses” or
“Newspapers” or “Industry profiles” and so on. Once you narrow the search, you
get another outcome. Let’s say you click on “Company profiles”. You will than
have the opportunity to click on a pdf link called “Datamonitor Report”. That
is a relatively recent report on the company and is a good starting point for your
research. You than can build on the info you find there. As I said, there are
other databases the library has subscription to. Again, on the main web page of
the library you click on “Databases A-Z” and than search by subject guide and
choose from the menu “Business” as a subject. You will than get the databases
related with Business. You should check at least “Hoovers
I offer you the
opportunity to submit once a draft of your presentation to me and have
feedback. If you want to take advantage of this opportunity then the leader
should send me the Power Point file no later than one
week before the presentation.
General notes:
- Presentations will be 18 minutes long. This means that you are going to be time constrained, which implies that you need to do a good summary of the material.
- Focus on the relevant information and try to present it in a meaningful way. Don’t overwhelm your classmates with tons of information (especially tons of numbers nobody will remember; many times a picture says a story better than words, numbers etc).
-
- The entire group should work for the presentation. The leaders have the responsibility to report to me any cases in which a member of a group does not fulfill his/her job. In such a case, the score for the presentation for that member will be much lower than the score for the group.
- No more than 16 slides. Too much/ too small text on a slide implies that nobody is going to read that slide. Try to make a point, explain why what are you talking about is important. Bring examples and/or graphs that help making the presentation livelier. People will not remember your entire presentation but should get at least one important idea out of it. Make sure you stress that idea.
- Be prepared for questions after the presentation. You should gather information to try to anticipate questions. Discuss this in group. However, you are not asked to become an Encyclopedia on the subject.
- The presentation should be done in Power Point. Bring it on
a USB drive and download it on the computer in classroom before the class
starts.
- You should have a list of references at the end of the presentation.
- Being nicely dressed should help making you a good impression to the audience but it is not a requirement.
- Each member of the group should present.
- Prepare for the presentation. Speak without reading from notes or slides and establish eye contact with the audience. You need to pay attention to the time limit. The way in which you talk can make the difference: if you are talking at the same pace and with the same tonality you risk your classmates will fall asleep. The first thing the audience will notice is how much confidence you have in making the presentation. Smile, feel comfortable, think positively, this is your opportunity to shine in front of your colleagues.
The company report
This is an individual
assignment. That means that:
- each of you
should do it, it is not one report per group
- reports should
not be the same across people in the same group
The report is due
at the beginning of the class when the group presentations take place. You
need to write in your area of research for the group presentation (MENTION WHAT
WAS THAT AREA OF RESEARCH at the beginning), I need to see what you contributed
to the group presentation and found by researching the topic. If there are 3
students in a group I expect 3 different individual reports. You should not
write about what your teammates researched on.
Think how you
can connect the material with what we learn in class and mention what you found
interesting. The report should not be slides from the group presentation.
The report
should be typewritten 2-5 pages Times New Roman 12 single spaced. Include a
list of references at the end.
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