By Justin Erickson '25 BSB
February 9, 2023

In MGMT 3004: Strategic Management, competitive analysis is hands-on. Students develop their problem-solving skills as they navigate various frameworks of analytic thinking, utilizing these frameworks to identify companies’ competitive strategies, industry position, resources, and capabilities. 

“Taking MGMT 3004 gave me the ability to approach a problem or a situation by looking at the big picture first, why some things are happening, what’s the end goal, before going into specific details,” said Sabrina Li ‘25 BSB.

Professor Alex Wilson, one of the instructors of MGMT 3004, hopes students will develop an understanding of the factors that enable some firms to perform better than others. He believes that, with the right strategic toolkit, students will be able to solve unstructured business problems in the real world. 

“I want to give students a lens that they can use to evaluate companies, opportunities, and their careers to help them be more successful with the incredible things that they are looking to accomplish,” said Wilson.

In-person case studies prepare students for verbal analysis as they discuss their understandings and apply the frameworks they have learned. 

“It’s like acquiring simple pieces of Lego and seeing how different businesses are utilizing these building blocks to create their own unique story,” said Li.

In the final project and paper, students analyze a company using everything they have learned in the course. In a 4-week span, students not only research a company’s background, but also analyze their future and potential threats and develop recommendations to address those threats.

“It forces one to think about not only the Why? and What?, but more specifically the How? and When? regarding the future,” said Deep Patel ‘24 BSB.

The final paper encourages students to utilize the frameworks they have learned and to think outside the box.

“Once I had a team submit a strong report to my class, which they decided they wanted to pass along to the company they were analyzing,” said Wilson. “To my surprise, this caught the attention of one of their executives! It was incredibly heartening to see a group of students go from zero prior experience with strategy to sharing their insights with executives at major corporations in such a short time.”

In MGMT 3004, the answer is not always the one from the textbook. In most cases, use of the frameworks learned in the course should be coupled with analysis of a firm's environment. By using this strategy, students prepare for a corporate world where each firm’s strategy is reliant on analysis of the environment and industry around them.

“It is impossible to predict the future, but the course shows how extensive analysis goes into decisions, and the truly great leaders and companies are able to adapt and continue to leverage their strengths,” said Caeden Phelps ‘24 BSB.

Wilson’s favorite part of teaching MGMT 3004 is the growth students demonstrate throughout the semester. 

“Every semester I ask the students what they already know about strategy (most common response: ‘very little’) and what they're hoping to learn (most common response: ‘everything’).  That's quite an ask to deliver on! It's a testament to the enthusiasm within the Carlson community and the intellectual horsepower of the students that lets us cover so much ground in such a short period of time.”