I'm only taking one class this semester, Strategic Management, also known as, Capstone. The lecture part of the course is live streaming, which means I could attend class live or I could watch it online because it's recorded. I watch the hour and fifteen minute lecture every week online. The midterm and final exams are based on material covered in lecture, mostly from the book and other sources of material. The exams will be taken in the testing lab. The lab part of the course is a face to face class. The lab is where I'll be quizzed every week about what was covered in the lecture. The lab instructor will go over strategic case studies and my five member team will take turns with other teams solving different strategic dilemmas. The lab meets once a week for an hour and twenty minutes.
The class is setup like a corporation. The guy giving the lecture calls himself the CEO of Applied Strategy Incorporated. Class is called training meetings. My lab instructor is my SBU (Strategic Business Unit) manager. My fellow classmates and myself are the employees. We get paid in the form of grades, "grade income". Quizzes are called Interviews, etc...
Throughout the semester there will be 3 big projects on top of the exams and quizzes: 10-K Integration Project, Industry Analysis, and a Strategic Analysis. The theme this semester is the retail grocery industry. The 10-K Integration project is an individual project. Each member of my team had to select a different one of eight retail grocery companies that were approved by our CEO. I'll be doing my 10-K report on Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. A 10-K is an annual report publicly traded companies file with the Security Exchange and Commission (SEC). I will be digging into the business analysis section of the 10-K, and then apply what I discover there to the industry analysis and strategic analysis frameworks developed in the training meetings(class). My 10-K project will be a 15 page analysis. It's due February 3rd.
The Industry Analysis project is a team project, where each team represents a consulting firm. My team will use our 5 different 10-K projects on different companies in the retail grocery industry to write a 15-20 page industry analysis and give a 12 minute presentation about the industry. The goal is to conduct a competitive analysis of the retail grocery industry.
The Strategic Analysis project is also a team project. My consulting team will prepare a strategic analysis on Winn Dixie. This will also be both a 15-20 page paper and a 12 minute presentation. All teams will examine the same firm, and will address the same general strategic issue. The goal is to provide a strategic recommendation for the firm.
There are about 25 different lab sections for the course and each lab instructor gets to select one team from their lab to enter The Great Capstone Case Competition, which is the culminating event for this class and for my experience at the UCF College of Business. After hearing each team in the SBU labs present their strategic analysis, each SBU manager will choose one team from his/her SBU lab to advance to the semi-finals of The Great Capstone Case Competition. The SBU managers will be looking for teams that can think strategically and also work well together as a consulting team, and deliver a rigorous, competent presentation of those ideas. The selected teams from across Capstone SBU labs will be seeded into several semi-final groups, and each team in each group will deliver their presentation to a panel of judges, comprised of experts, including members of the UCF Executive MBA program, UCF Business faculty, and/or executives from Winn Dixie. The judges will pick a winner from each semifinalist group to advance to the finals. Teams that advance to the finals will receive awards for their efforts. The finals will be judged by a panel comprised of faculty experts, industry experts representing the Dean's Advisory Council, members of the UCF College of Business Hall of Fame, The Wall Street Journal, and/or Winn Dixie.
My team is in it to win The Great Capstone Case Competition. I'm excited to work hard with my team throughout the semester in hopes of making it to the semi-finals and moving on to win in the final round. This class isn't like anything I've ever taken before. It's intense and complicated and I love it! Hoping for a successful semester!
PS: I was nominated by my team to be our team leader! These days when I look in the mirror, I see someone that has grown so much confidence since the first semester at Valencia back in 2009.
