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CMI Unit 518 Assignment Help — Developing Organisational Strategy

Porter (1980), Ansoff (1957), Johnson Scholes Whittington SAF, Evaluate Depth, Management Report Format

CMI Unit 518 assignment help for Developing Organisational Strategy, the strategic management unit of the CMI Level 5 Diploma. The service covers management report format at Evaluate depth, with Porter’s Five Forces applied to competitive environment analysis, Ansoff’s growth matrix used to evaluate strategic direction options, and the SAF criteria from Johnson, Scholes and Whittington used to evaluate strategic choices.

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What CMI Unit 518 Covers

CMI Unit 518, Developing Organisational Strategy, requires you to evaluate how an organisation develops its strategy, the environmental analysis that informs strategic choices, the strategic options available, and the criteria by which strategic choices are evaluated and selected. The command verb is Evaluate, you must assess the quality of the strategic analysis and the appropriateness of the strategic choices made, not produce a summary of strategic management frameworks.

CMI Unit 518 Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcome 1: Understand the context for organisational strategy. The strategic position of the organisation, PESTLE for the macro environment, Porter’s Five Forces for the competitive environment, SWOT synthesis.

Learning Outcome 2: Understand approaches to developing strategy. Strategic direction options (Ansoff matrix), generic competitive strategies (Porter), and the process of strategy formulation.

Learning Outcome 3: Know how to evaluate and select strategic options. The SAF criteria, Suitability, Acceptability, Feasibility, as the evaluative framework for strategic choice.

Strategic Analysis — Understanding the Strategic Position

PESTLE provides macro-environmental context, the broad forces that affect all organisations in the environment. The output of PESTLE for Unit 518 is not a list of factors but an assessment of the most significant forces and their strategic implications for the specific organisation.

Porter’s Five Forces (Competitive Strategy, Free Press, 1980) provides the competitive environment analysis, the industry-level forces that determine competitive intensity and long-run profitability:

Threat of New Entrants: How easy is it for new competitors to enter the market? Barriers to entry, capital requirements, regulatory barriers, brand loyalty, economies of scale, switching costs, determine whether incumbents can sustain above-average returns. High barriers protect existing players; low barriers attract new competition.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers: How much power do suppliers have to raise prices or reduce quality? Supplier power is high when: there are few suppliers, the supplier’s input is critical and has no close substitute, or switching suppliers is costly.

Bargaining Power of Buyers: How much power do customers have to demand lower prices or higher quality? Buyer power is high when: buyers are few and large, products are undifferentiated (easy to switch), or buyers are price-sensitive.

Threat of Substitutes: The risk that customers switch to a different product or service that meets the same need in a different way. Not just direct competitors, the threat of substitution from different product categories (email substituting for postal mail; streaming substituting for cinema).

Competitive Rivalry: The intensity of competition among existing players. High rivalry drives down prices and margins. Factors increasing rivalry: many roughly equal competitors, slow market growth, high fixed costs (competitors must generate volume to cover fixed costs), undifferentiated products, high exit barriers.

At Evaluate depth: Apply Five Forces to identify which forces are most significant for the organisation’s industry and evaluate their strategic implications. Which forces are most threatening to long-run profitability? What strategic choices would address the most significant forces?

Limitation for Distinction: Porter’s Five Forces was developed for analysis of commercial competitive markets. It is less directly applicable to public sector organisations (NHS Trusts do not compete on price in the traditional sense) or platform businesses (where network effects create dynamics that the Five Forces model does not capture well). Brandenburger and Nalebuff (1996) extended the model with a sixth force, Complementors, organisations whose products or services make yours more valuable.

SWOT synthesis: SWOT connects the external analysis (Opportunities and Threats from PESTLE and Five Forces) to the internal analysis (Strengths and Weaknesses from capability and resource assessment). At Evaluate depth: evaluate which internal strengths position the organisation to exploit which external opportunities, and which internal weaknesses make it most vulnerable to which external threats.

Ansoff (1957) — Strategic Direction Options

Igor Ansoff’s growth matrix (Harvard Business Review, 35(5), 1957) provides four strategic direction options based on the combination of existing/new markets and existing/new products:

Market Penetration (existing products, existing markets): Grow market share in the current market with current products, through pricing, promotion, distribution improvement, or competitive displacement. Lowest risk option (known market, known product). Limitation: market share gains in mature markets often come at competitors’ expense and may trigger retaliation.

Market Development (existing products, new markets): Expand into new geographic markets or new customer segments with existing products. Moderate risk, the product is proven, but the market is unknown.

Product Development (new products, existing markets): Develop new products or significantly improve products for existing customers. Moderate risk, the market is known, but product development introduces technical and commercial risk.

Diversification (new products, new markets): Enter new markets with new products. Highest risk, both the market and the product are unknown. Ansoff characterised diversification as a strategic move made when the existing market is saturated or declining, not as a default growth strategy.

At Evaluate depth: Evaluate which Ansoff direction is most appropriate for the organisation’s specific strategic position, its current strengths, the competitive environment assessment from Five Forces, and the external opportunities identified in PESTLE. The most common error: selecting a higher-risk direction (diversification) when a lower-risk option (market penetration or development) would achieve the growth objective.

Johnson, Scholes and Whittington — SAF Criteria

Johnson, Scholes and Whittington (Exploring Corporate Strategy, 8th edn., Prentice Hall, 2008) provide the SAF criteria as the evaluative framework for strategic choice. Three questions must be answered for each strategic option:

Suitability: Does the strategy address the strategic position, does it build on strengths, exploit opportunities, address weaknesses, and respond to threats? Is it consistent with the mission and values of the organisation? A strategy that is well-executed but not suitable to the strategic position will not create long-term value.

Acceptability: Will the strategy be accepted by key stakeholders? Who benefits and who bears risk or loss? Shareholder return expectations, employee impact, customer impact, regulatory acceptance. A strategy that is suitable and feasible but unacceptable to a key stakeholder group will face resistance that undermines delivery.

Feasibility: Can the strategy actually be implemented, does the organisation have or can it develop the resources, capabilities, and systems required? A strategy that is suitable and acceptable but not feasible is an aspiration, not a strategy.

At Evaluate depth: Apply SAF criteria to evaluate the organisation’s strategic choices, not as a checklist but as a diagnostic tool. Which SAF criterion is most significantly at risk for each strategic option? A strategy with a suitability gap (wrong direction for the competitive position) will fail regardless of how well it is executed. A strategy with a feasibility gap (resource or capability deficiency) will fail regardless of stakeholder acceptance.

CMI Unit 518 — Pass, Merit, and Distinction

Pass: PESTLE and SWOT applied. Porter’s Five Forces described. Ansoff matrix options listed. SAF criteria explained. Management report format.

Merit: Porter’s Five Forces applied to identify the two or three most significant competitive forces with strategic implications assessed. Ansoff direction evaluated against the strategic position, why is this direction appropriate given the Five Forces analysis? SAF criteria applied to evaluate strategic options, which SAF criterion is the most significant constraint? SMART strategic recommendations.

Distinction: Porter limitation named (inapplicable to public sector/platform businesses; Complementors omitted). SWOT critically evaluated, are the “strengths” genuinely distinctive capabilities or generic descriptors? SAF applied to conclude which strategic option best satisfies all three criteria across the range of stakeholder interests identified. Original conclusion: what is the single most significant strategic choice the organisation needs to make to improve its competitive position, and which SAF criterion most constrains the available options?

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CMI Unit 518 — Common Questions

What is Porter’s Five Forces and how is it used in CMI Unit 518?

Porter’s Five Forces (Competitive Strategy, 1980) analyses the competitive environment through five forces: threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitutes, and competitive rivalry. For Unit 518, the Five Forces analysis identifies which competitive forces are most significant for the organisation’s industry and evaluates their implications for the strategic choices available. It is not a template to fill in, it is an analytical tool for evaluating competitive pressure and long-run profitability.

What are the SAF criteria for CMI Unit 518?

SAF stands for Suitability, Acceptability, and Feasibility, three criteria developed by Johnson, Scholes and Whittington for evaluating strategic options. Suitability: does the strategy address the strategic position? Acceptability: will key stakeholders accept it? Feasibility: does the organisation have the resources and capabilities to implement it? For Unit 518, SAF is applied to evaluate which strategic option most effectively satisfies all three criteria.

How do I get CMI Unit 518 help?

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The CIPD’s communications factsheet provides evidence on internal communication strategy and practice that directly supports the frameworks assessed in this CMI Level 5 unit.

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