Assignment_description



Working in small groups, students will identify and evaluate an important trend that may have an impact on a specific industry sector in the future. The deliverable will be a PowerPoint presentation (with audio) that will be used as the basis for our class discussion during Week 7.
 * Group Trend Analysis: Due May 9 (25% of grade)**

An important aspect of Competitive Intelligence is the ability to predict where things are going before they happen. Having this type of information allows an organization to get out ahead of its completion. Successful CI professionals have the skills to identify trends that may have an impact in the future and to provide management with critical analyses of the evidence available to support strategic decisions.

This project is intended to lead into the Strategic Positioning Report due later this term. The first step is for the group to choose an industry sector that is of interest to the members. Making this sector relatively narrow will help focus the discussion. For example, instead of scanning the entire food industry, one might look at the beverage sector or the health foods sector. The group should post its choice of industry sector to the Trend Analysis forum on the Course Discussion board no later than Sunday, April 18. The first group to select a particular industry sector will get it. Group work may proceed once approval has been received from the instructor.

Next the group should conduct an environment scan to identify the major forces that may influence the sector. These could include (but are probably not limited to) economic factors, current and shifting demands of customers, market demographics, available resources including manpower and technology, government regulations, etc. Select two or three key trends that you think will have an impact on your chosen industry sector and plot out what you think the changes will look like over the next five to ten years. For example, the aging baby boomer population may change the demand for certain types of food items as it retires and becomes more focused on health issues. This example includes two key trends—demographics and shifting demand— their intersection is the point of interest for the analysis.

Your final product will be a group PowerPoint presentation (with audio) that includes (at a minimum) the following sections:

- **Description of industry sector** - **Identification of key trends and description of their potential impact** - **Analysis of what that impact might mean to the industry sector**—e.g., how migh these trends change the way organizations in that sector function—you should build one or two scenarios that demonstrate your ideas

Try to have FUN working on this assignment! Be as creative and take as many risks as you wish! Creativity is a valuable asset to a CI professional, and this course is a safe zone for testing ideas and sharing insights. There are very few wrong answers in this type of assignment—the most common short coming is being too conservative or limited in one’s vision. The goal is to make a convincing case for what you think might happen in the future and what impact that could have on the industry sector you have chosen. The presentation will be graded on both content and style. As a group, you will need to think about what will make your presentation informative, interesting, and enjoyable for the rest of the class. The presentation should be approximately 10 to 15 minutes long and include audio (instructions for different voice‐over‐PowerPoint options are posted separately in the Assignments folder).

Presentation Grading Rubric: A well‐organized and professionally presented PowerPoint presentation augmented by audio. The presentation should be concise and informative, and the use of audio should enhance the information presented on the slides not simply repeat it.

Presentation: 25 possible points

- **Description of industry sector** (up to 3 points of total grade) - **Identification of key trends** (up to 7 points) - **Analysis of what that impact might mean** (up to 10 points) - **Up to 5 additional points will be given for the organization and creativity** of the presentation including the use of technology and coordination among group members.

Group coordination is very important since all students in the group will receive the same grade for this assignment.