I have now graded all of the assignments. You should have by now received a note from me with your grade, how I arrived at it and some personal feedback on your paper.
Overall, the class met my expectations:
Grade range: 9.3 - 13.7 / 15
Grade average: 12.4 / 15
Here are some overall thoughts and feedback:
- I was looking to see good academic research and analysis. Top grades went to papers where specific references were cited for definitions and that those references were from respected, reliable sources
- top grades went to papers that not onld defined competitive analysis, but contrasted with competitive intelligence, business intelligence, market research, etc.
- top grades went to those who pointed out that there are other types of competitors than direct and indirect
- top grades went to the papers that included an example of what an excellent competitive analysis looked like. (Most of those, by the way, came from business plans that are on file in Sam Thiara's office. There were also a couple of outstanding professional competitive analysis referenced)
- top grades went to those who gave 5 examples of competitve research methods that they used for their project (vs. saying one must complete a SWOT analysis, for example.)
- In Part 2, I was looking to see that you applied the best practices you learned from Part 1 in your team project (e.g. created a competitive array/matrix, a SWOT, etc.)
- in spite of all the warnings and reminders, at least one person neglected to hand in a hard copy and lost 10%. Another didn't attach their comp. analysis and lost 5%
- At least one student lost 10% for not including any references. (I was going to dock the person 50% to make a point, but the paper was otherwise well done. I will next time, though.)
- most papers were very nicely formatted, included tables of contents, page numbers, appendices etc. Those papers earned 8+/10.
