Explain how the organisations identify and appraise the competitive opportunities from more sustainable operations.

Summary: An essay of 2,500 words +/- 10% (excluding appendices and references).

Details: Choose two competing UK organisations (e.g., companies) in a sector of your choice, critically compare their operations strategies to achieve both market competitiveness and sustainability. You are expected to
Use business model canvases to analyse both organisations’ competitive strategies.
Explain how the organisations identify and appraise the competitive opportunities from more sustainable operations.
Explicitly show the connection between each organisation’s strategy to one or more SDGs. Does the strategy correspond to one or more targets under the SDG(s)?
Briefly describe the transformation processes and outputs of the organisations.
Analyse the impact of changes on the organisations and employees, and their implication for operations managers.
Critically compare both organisations’ operations strategies in sustainability. Describe the differences and explain why.

Format:
There is no standard or set structure for the report. The number of sections/sub-sections will vary depending on how you organize the work. It should contain an introduction, a conclusion and a section on references/ appendices. Revisions of the business model and value proposition canvases including the final can be added in appendices and will not be considered within the word count. 12 font size for body. 1.5 lines spacing.
Tables and figure should be put in the text (instead of appendices) in principle, unless they are too big/wide to fit.
All figures and tables should be numbered with clear descriptions, and properly credited to the sources if you do not create them. You are strongly encouraged to create your own visuals (diagrams, plots, figures, etc.) to illustrate the qualitative and quantitative analyses and outcomes.

Referencing/Bibliography:
Harvard style is to be used. In the Harvard system, the author name followed by the date of publication indicates the cited reference. An alphabetical list of references is then added at the end of the paper.
You must accurately acknowledge the contributions of others by proper citations and references. Please log in https://www.citethemrightonline.com/ with your school ID and password to learn more about proper referencing.
In the bibliography/references you should not put any source which you do not use or cite in the main text.
All citations of books or proceedings should include the page number(s) of the book/proceedings, where your argument is supported. For example, Porter (1980, p.50).
You are expected to read all sources in the bibliography of your report. The references should unambiguously support your arguments where they are cited. Irrelevant citations/references can be considered academic dishonest.
All the referred sources should be freely available online or through our library. If you use any private source, attach to the appendices a scan copy of the source page where you refer in your report.
All referred materials should be written in English.

Use of English language
For those having problems with the language, please take extra care in ensuring that the reader/examiner can understand what you write. Try to use simple, short sentences. Do not try to translate from your language word for word, as it does not read well.
Avoid long paragraphs (>300 words.)
Use the spell-check and grammar check options as this will help you eliminate a significant number of errors.
Note that your mark depends on the assessors’ perception. Bad writing and messy structure which hinder assessors’ understanding will affect your marks in almost every aspect. Keep the question “how readers understand my arguments?” in mind when you write.

Links to resources
https://strategyzer.com
https://assets.strategyzer.com/assets/resources/the-business-model-canvas.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/user/businessmodeltv

https://sdgs.un.org/goals