Strategy and Creativity Assignment 2

The task:

You will use techniques from Strategy and Creativity to develop a solution to an issue that will be presented to you. The emphasis will be on developing ideas about creative but realistic solutions to the business problem.

The problem:

• A wealthy individual has bought Birnbeck Pier
• It is currently disused and run down
• She wishes to make this a profitable venue
• You must use relevant tools from BOTH Strategy and Creativity to decide upon how this will be done.

Background information:

https://www.piers.org.uk/pier/weston-super-mare-birnbeck-pier/

The link gives some history and background information

The aim of this assignment is to allow you to demonstrate your ability to use Strategy and Creativity methods to create innovation solutions. Therefore you should not be worried or limited by what might actually happen to the pier. Therefore this is partly a ‘fictitious’ problem so you must:

• Ignore any real information about the owner of the pier (i.e it has been bought by a company)
• Assume that our owner has access to funds
• Keep the basic structure of the pier as it is (it is a ‘listed’ building, therefore it cannot be taken down etc.)
• Assume that the local council will permit change of use

Some suggestions for the assignment:

This assignment is about Strategic Choice, Strategic Position and Creating understanding of ‘How’ you will create Competitive advantage. The frameworks for thinking about this are well know to you.

There is no need to do the type of external analysis that was conducted in Assignment 1.

You do however need to do some research:

This is a venue/attraction. You must therefore:

• Identify the competition in the local area (this does not just mean any other piers)
• Identify potential gaps in competitor provision (this does not necessarily mean where there is no competition, but it may do. It might also mean gaps in specific areas – think ‘Differentiation Focus)
• Use (and show clearly in your appendices how) the frameworks to make choices
• Creativity tools must be used to create a range of potential ideas about the use of the pier and to develop a Value Proposition