Business 109 Final Group Project Key Points

Business 109 Final Group Project Key Points 

For this project your group (5-6 members) will act as a consulting team for eHarmony. Your job is to identify and detail eHarmony’s current strategy, and to provide strategic recommendations for eHarmony’s top management team regarding their future strategic direction. To do this, you should 1) identify the strategic problem that eHarmony is facing (or will shortly face), 2) employ as many relevant strategic tools (e.g., Porter's 5 Forces, VRIO model, etc) and concepts (e.g., blue ocean strategy, differentiation strategy, etc) as possible to identify eHarmony's current strategy, and to evaluate how they should progress to address their strategic problem. Strategic tools, theories, and concepts should support and clarify your recommendations. At a minimum, your analyses should include evaluating the industry and external environment, including its impact on eHarmony, as well as internal analyses. At the end of the day, your recommendation should reflect your teams studied belief, based on data and analyses, about how eHarmony should proceed to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

Sound analyses are key to doing well on this project, and you should expect to put time and effort into making sure these are correct. Please be clear about the assumptions that underlie your analyses or logic, and specify them where appropriate. “We think” is not sufficient. Quality data (quantitative or qualitative) should back up conclusions. Strategic frameworks and theories should guide your approach to analyzing eHarmony’s strategy and strategic options, and sound analyses and logic should underpin your final recommendations. Use only those tools, frameworks, and concepts that are applicable to understanding eHarmony's strategy and resolving their strategic problem.

You will be graded, in part, on the clarity of your analyses and recommendations. Please edit your writing/figures/tables until they are clear and concise.  

While you will be graded as a group, individual participation will also be assessed confidentially by your group peers. This should reduce any incentives to free-ride on the contributions of your teammates. The limit is 25 pages, including all figures, references, tables, etc. You can double space, single space, and use whatever font you like. However, please make sure it is professional. Also, BE SURE to avoid plagiarism in any form by citing every idea, data element, fact, or quote that is not your own. 

Per the syllabus, this project is due Monday, June 6th, at midnight.  Late projects will not be accepted.

My suggestion for attacking the project is as follows:

1. Read the case thoroughly, individually. Make sure you understand the key pieces of data presented in the case.
2. Meet as a team to discuss the case. During this meeting discuss the strategic problem(s) faced by the firm that need to be solved. It should take you some time to settle on THE strategic problem that should be solved.
3. Make a list of all strategic tools covered in the class. Decide which strategic tools will be most useful in evaluating and solving the strategic problem encountered by eHarmony. Your analyses should provide added insight into the problem, and provide evidence for how to proceed.
4. Think about relevant strategic frameworks and theories, and how they inform the problem identified and the results of your strategic analyses.
5. Meet as a group to discuss your final recommendation, based on your analysis and application of the theory/concepts.
6. Write up your recommendation. Make sure it is presented as clearly and concisely as possible. This should take several rounds of revision, and all team members should be involved in and approve the final product. Lead with a 1 page executive summary, which briefly but completely explains your recommendation and the primary reasons for it.
7. Use the rest of the paper to present and explain relevant analyses, and to support your recommendation.
8. End by listing references from your study. 

The following simple rubric may be helpful as you develop the project:

A: Sound, relevant, feasible, and logical recommendation based on sound analyses. Many strategic tools and frameworks are utilized in an appropriate and convincing way. The recommendation is written professionally, and is clear and concise. References are included where appropriate. No evidence of plagiarism.