| Course | MGT 494 Strategic Management |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 1 |
| Paper type | Strategic management paper |
| Length | About 1,044 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Aspen University |
| Program | Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MGT 494 Module 1
A Growth Goal Is Not a Strategy: Testing an Independent Seed Company's Plan Against the Kernel of Good Strategy
Student Name
Business Administration Program, Aspen University
MGT 494: Strategic Management
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
A Growth Goal Is Not a Strategy: Testing an Independent Seed Company's Plan Against the Kernel of Good Strategy
Turkey River Seed Company, a composite family-owned business in Elkader, Iowa, has bred and sold corn and soybean seed since 1946. It sells about $185 million of seed a year to some 6,000 farmers in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and northern Illinois through a network of 140 farmer-dealers, and employs 260 people in breeding, production, sales and agronomy. It competes against three global seed companies that together hold most of the United States corn seed market, and against a shrinking number of other independents. Its corn hybrids carry insect and herbicide traits licensed from the large companies. The board recently approved a five-year plan. The new chief executive, the founder's granddaughter, has asked whether it amounts to a strategy.
What Strategy Is
Rumelt (2011) argued that much of what organizations call strategy is not strategy at all. Good strategy has a kernel of three parts: a diagnosis that defines the nature of the challenge, a guiding policy that sets an overall approach to dealing with it and a set of coherent actions designed to carry out the policy. Bad strategy, by contrast, mistakes goals for strategy, fails to face the challenge, uses fluff in place of analysis or lists unrelated objectives. A strategy should explain how an organization will overcome its obstacles, not only what it hopes to achieve.
Strategy as Distinct Activities
Porter (1996) separated strategy from operational effectiveness. Many companies try to run the same activities better than rivals, but improvements in effectiveness are quickly copied. Strategy instead means choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value, accepting trade-offs about what not to do and making activities fit together so they reinforce each other. A competitive advantage built on a system of fitting activities is harder to imitate than one built on a single feature.
Stating a Strategy
Collis and Rukstad (2008) observed that most executives cannot state their company's strategy simply. They proposed that a strategy statement should define the objective, the single precise goal the strategy is meant to achieve; the scope, the customers, offerings and geography where the company will compete and, by implication, where it will not; and the advantage, what the company will do differently or better that makes customers choose it.
Testing the Current Plan
| Element | What the five-year plan contains | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnosis | None; the plan begins with a revenue goal | Missing: no statement of the company's central challenge |
| Guiding policy | "Grow in all markets and all products" | Missing: no choice about where or how to compete |
| Coherent actions | Eleven projects, from soybean breeding to a new website | Weak: projects do not reinforce each other |
| Objective | $250 million in sales by 2031 | Present but not tied to profitability |
| Scope | Four states, corn and soybeans, all farm sizes | Too broad to guide trade-offs |
| Advantage | "Quality seed and great service" | Generic: every competitor claims it |
Why the Plan Looks This Way
The five-year plan was assembled the way many plans are. Each department head submitted projects, the finance team added them up and the board set a revenue goal large enough to justify them. No one was asked to explain what obstacle stood between the company and its goal. Rumelt describes this pattern as a list of objectives dressed as strategy: everyone's wishes appear, so no one has to choose. The eleven projects are not bad in themselves; the problem is that nothing in the plan says which matter most or how they work together.
What the Company Faces
A first diagnosis suggests the core challenge: Turkey River pays to license the same traits its largest competitors sell, so it cannot win on traits, and it cannot match their research budgets. Its farmer-dealers, local testing plots and long relationships are its distinctive assets, but the plan treats them as background rather than as the basis of strategy. Meanwhile, consolidation among farms is shrinking the number of customers, and large farms increasingly buy direct from the biggest seed companies.
A Draft Strategy Statement
Objective: earn a 9% operating margin by 2031 while holding share in the northern Corn Belt. Scope: corn and soybean seed for farms of 300 to 3,000 acres in Iowa, southern Minnesota, Wisconsin and northern Illinois, sold through farmer-dealers; not the largest farms, which buy direct from global firms, and not markets outside the region. Advantage: hybrids and varieties tested on 400 local plots and recommended field by field by dealers and agronomists who know each farm, an advice-based relationship the large firms' sales models cannot easily match.
Trade-Offs the Draft Implies
A strategy is only real if it says no to something. The draft gives up pursuit of the largest farms, which several sales managers have courted with deep discounts. It gives up expansion into Nebraska and the Dakotas, which appeared in the five-year plan. It directs breeding money toward varieties suited to the region's soils and shorter seasons rather than broad national releases. And it asks the company to invest in agronomists and testing plots before marketing. Each choice will disappoint someone inside the company, which is why Porter calls trade-offs the essence of strategy.
A First Look at Results
The company's own figures support the draft's focus. Sales to farms of 300 to 3,000 acres earn an average gross margin of 41%, against 29% on sales to farms above 3,000 acres, where discounts are deep. Farmers who receive a field visit from a company agronomist renew at 88%, against 71% for those who do not. These numbers are preliminary, but they suggest that advice is already where the company earns its margin.
What Comes Next
The draft is a hypothesis. Later modules will test it against the industry's structure, the company's resources, its business-level choices, corporate options such as acquisitions and the demands of implementation.
Conclusion
Turkey River's five-year plan is a goal and a list of projects, not a strategy. Rumelt's kernel shows that it lacks a diagnosis and a guiding policy, Porter's view of strategy explains why its projects do not fit and Collis and Rukstad's framework produces a draft statement grounded in the company's real assets. The rest of the capstone will test whether that draft holds.
References
Collis, D. J., & Rukstad, M. G. (2008). Can you say what your strategy is? Harvard Business Review, 86(4), 82-90.
Porter, M. E. (1996). What is strategy? Harvard Business Review, 74(6), 61-78.
Rumelt, R. P. (2011). Good strategy, bad strategy: The difference and why it matters. Crown Business.
Reading the MGT 494 Module 1 assignment instructions
Aspen describes MGT 494 as the capstone in which students formulate, implement and evaluate strategy using what they learned across the business program, and it often begins by asking what strategy and competitive advantage are. The Module 1 prompt in your classroom governs; this example starts a company analysis that later modules continue. Define strategy and competitive advantage with scholarly sources. Introduce the company and its situation with facts such as sales, customers, rivals and results. Test its current plan against a framework that distinguishes strategy from goals, element by element. Identify what is missing. Draft a strategy statement with an objective, scope and source of advantage that later analysis can test, and say what it gives up.
How this MGT 494 Module 1 example is built
The paper introduces Turkey River Seed Company, founded in 1946, with $185 million in sales and 260 employees. Its five-year plan sets a goal of $250 million and lists eleven projects, from a new website to a soybean breeding expansion. Rumelt's book on good and bad strategy describes the kernel and warns against mistaking goals for strategy. Porter's 1996 essay insists that strategy means trade-offs and activities that fit. Collis and Rukstad's 2008 essay proposes a statement of objective, scope and advantage. A table tests the plan: no diagnosis of the company's challenge, no guiding policy and projects that do not reinforce each other. The draft statement proposes winning in the northern Corn Belt by giving farmers locally tested seed and agronomic advice that large rivals' dealers cannot match.
MGT 494 Module 1 rubric: what earns full marks
Opening strategy papers are graded on precise definitions, accurate use of strategy frameworks and an honest assessment of a real or realistic company. This example uses Rumelt's kernel to show that a revenue target and a project list do not make a strategy. Porter's emphasis on trade-offs explains why the eleven projects pull in different directions. Collis and Rukstad's framework turns the critique into a draft statement. The table makes the assessment checkable. The draft is offered as a hypothesis for later modules, names the trade-offs it implies and is checked against early margin and renewal figures.
MGT 494 Module 1 help: mistakes that cost marks
First capstone papers often describe a company's mission and goals and call that its strategy. Test the plan against a framework that separates strategy from aspiration. Another weakness is praising the company without identifying a real challenge; good strategy starts with a diagnosis. Use scholarly sources for definitions. Gather facts: size, customers, rivals and results. Look for whether activities fit together or pull apart. Draft a strategy statement with objective, scope and advantage, even if later modules revise it. Finally, keep the company the same across the capstone, so each module builds on the last. Name what the draft strategy gives up.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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MGT 494 Module 1 questions, answered
What does MGT 494 Module 1 usually ask for?
Aspen's MGT 494 capstone opens with strategy and competitive advantage, so a paper defining them and assessing one company's strategy is typical. Read your classroom prompt.
What is the kernel of good strategy?
Rumelt's three elements: a diagnosis of the challenge, a guiding policy for dealing with it and coherent actions that carry out the policy.
Is a growth goal a strategy?
No. Rumelt argues that goals describe what an organization wants, while strategy explains how it will overcome the obstacles to getting there.
Where can I find a free MGT 494 Module 1 sample paper?
The example above tests an independent seed company's plan against research on what strategy is and drafts a strategy statement.
What should a strategy statement include?
Collis and Rukstad recommend stating the objective, the scope where the company will compete and the advantage that will let it win.