find a problem that Men’s Wearhouse and research with financial data to support it. finally, give a solution.
The purpose of this assignment is to identify a problem for a brand/product of your choice and to propose an idea for what the company could do about it. You will present your idea including a discussion of the problem in a brief presentation (about 10 slides) to a smaller group of students in class.
Examples of problems are a decline in sales, brand erosion, or loss of market share. For any problem that you identify you need to come up with a plausible explanation that you then build on when presenting your idea: “I think company X has lost market share because of (your analysis of why it happened), and therefore one remedy for this situation could be to do (your solution).”
You cannot select J. Crew since we will be analyzing that company in class.
What you need to do
Research your topic/ industry. Your presentation needs to include data that illustrates or explains the problem/ opportunity. The data can be similar to what will be included in many of the cases we cover this semester: e.g., market share data, industry growth, consumer behavior. You should start by using the sources available through the library, primarily the Mintel and Passport databases.
The intended audience for your presentation is decision makers within the company for which you are providing a solution. Your presentation of about 10 slides should be created in Powerpoint and needs to include both text and visuals.
You need to include at least two graphs, which need to be created by you, not copy/pasted from another source (using more graphs will typically allow you to include more relevant information in a persuasive way). The graph should present data relevant to the case you are making and could, e.g., cover industry trends or differences between consumer segments. For ideas about creating informative graphs, look up sources about “storytelling with data.”
Tips:
DO use a problem driven order of the presentation: a) present the problem, b) explain what factors have contributed to the problem (could include both external changes and poor decisions by the company), c) present your recommendation
DO include at least two graphs based on data that will support your storyline (e.g., one graph with data that shows the problem, and one graph with data that illustrates a relevant external change). Feel free to include more graphs – two graphs is just the minimum requirement.
DO NOT include a “company background” slide – you will assume that you are presenting to people who know the company well, e.g., think of yourself as a consultant that has been asked to provide a solution for a client
DO NOT include a slide with a SWOT analysis – for such as short presentation you want to focus on reasons for the specific problem.
DO NOT put together a laundry list of ideas in your recommendation. Instead, focus on one or a few related ideas and explain them in more detail (e.g., “we should change or target market and we will reach those new consumers by doing XYZ”).
