Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Here are some links:
https://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/dissertation.html
https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/essay.dissertation.html

It sounds like a first step is choosing a company to start. Do you have any connections to any executives of any companies? Are there any companies your are interested in? If so I would start with a web search for that company. If they are publically traded get the annual report. Call the company and tell them what you are up to. Many will be very helpful.


Unfortunately, you are going to have to do your research before you can start writing. No one can do this for you. Pick a company you are interested in. If you do not have any ideas for a company, look at a sector you are interested and research who the major players are. This will give you a great starting point.

Mike

I would pick a company in a business you know something about-- a sport, a hobby, a passion. Start with a SWOT analysis on that company and its main competitors. Public companies are easier to do research -- you can read their annual report online and they frequently have press releases which will be filed and retained. I would not be hesitant to contact that company and interview someone in sales, markting, management or even their PR person. Trade mag's in that industry will be another resource to define industry trends.

From there, ideas will start to bubble up. When I wrote my masters thesis I'd find that reading one article would lead me to another thread. So just start reading and writing. My thesis took turns I didn't anticipate so be open-- it will come together and be great.

Just as an aside hint-- these books for reference can be expensive. Used book sites as alibris and the library saved me hundreds-- probably closer to 1K.

I had another thought. Why not pick a company or industry that you admire and would see yourself working for after school? If you follow my suggestion of interviewing someone in the company you will start to build a rapport for a future hire. Looking back, I did two practial projects in the industry I ended up working in. I didn't plan it that way, but I should have.

You should do your own SWOT.

I can see there would be plenty of info to draw from and I can visualize the many threads you can expand on. My thesis was on green marketing -- history, trends-- and I got into marketing to kids - leading to they are being taught early on to be enviro conscious, much more socially conscious than their parents were. I found a lot of data where kids mail campaigns have made a difference-- such as forcing burger King to quit using rainforest beef. And while I don't have the exact # on me, since fast food relies on kids for about 1/3 of their biz, its no small wonder they made a difference.

Besides the usual stuff, you could go into the effect of kids and enviro issues, trends to healthy eating (KFC going grilled), McDonalds into salads (they could care less about salads, they got into it cause if one person wants one, they lost the rest of the group for lunch), the demographics, their store placement strategy (how they can have 5 in a smaller town without cannibalizing on each other), franchise owner history (how selected, their demographics, how a franchisee usually owns more than one), etc etc.

Spend time on the outline to define where exactly you want it to go.