Final Project: Slide Presentation (group work)

▶ Final Project

• In this assignment, you will thoroughly analyze a brand of your choice to investigate possibilities for how it may use technology to enhance its capacities.
• You will be tasked with identifying 3 different ideas to leverage technology to (1) enhance a brand’s existing strategy and/or (2) meet the evolving needs of its consumers
• You will be required to view the website of the store (and physical locations if possible) and conduct research on the brand as a whole.
• The strategy will begin in Spring 2023. The report should be addressed to the CEO, Executive Board, and investors.

The presentation should be addressed to the CEO of the selected brand. Assume that you are building a case. Your goal is to demonstrate what you have thoroughly researched and that you have understood the business. This will ultimately help you make your 3 strategic/specific technology recommendations, which will present opportunities for incremental revenue and/or cost savings.

1. Executive Summary The KEY is to include the 3 recommendations here (see point F. below) and explain how much incremental revenue these initiatives will add.
2. Current State of Retailer (financial state of the business, employees, future growth strategies etc.)
3. Retailer’s Competitive Environment (Discuss and analyze the competitive environment. Prepare a SWOT analysis as an appendix)
4. Current Customer Facing Technologies What technologies does Ralph Lauren use? This should be broken down into (i) Digital Technologies (Mobile, Tablet, Laptop Voice-enabled and Desktop) and (ii) In-Store Technologies.
5. Technology Assessment What technologies does your brand need? Research how other brands are leveraging tech to meet evolving consumer needs and business demands, but strive for innovation and novelty. Recommend 3 technological initiatives to the firm’s CEO that could be incorporated into their strategy, explaining their potential and impact.

6. Customer Journey Map the customer journey from beginning to end for a relevant consumer. What happens from the time a customer starts to consider a purchase to the final purchase. Ensure that you reference your proposed technology initiatives and how it would benefit the customer journey.

7. Conclusion – summary of your slide

This is the creative part of your presentation. Make sure to have fun with this. The audience is the CEO, Executive Board, and investors. People have short attention spans and this is especially true in corporate situations. If they are not listening to your verbal pitch, then there needs to be a strong visual presentation that can be referred to.

• When creating the deck, make sure that the template you are working with bears a strong branding resemblance to the brand. Refer to the brand website as a creative source. It can be as simple with a logo placement on each slide.
• Think deeply about your presentation and ensure that all of the important details that your specific audience cares about are addressed in the visuals.
• You have done the research and supported your arguments in the Written Report. Therefore, in the presentation component, you should clearly articulate your clear point-of-view and ideas.
• This is your opportunity to talk through your creative ideas and sell your strategy!
• You are encouraged to have a few “dry runs” of your presentation prior to recording. You will have 15 min to present including Q&A.
• Presentations that exceed 15 mins are subject to reduced grades.

• Ensure that the presentation includes the following:

• • Cover page including company logo and title of the document

• • Contents page with corresponding page numbers

• • Each page numbered

• • Conclusion page – summarize the top-line projected results

• • Endnotes or Footnotes (on each slide)
  • Reference Page

When creating a report or presentation, it is the student’s responsibility to research a wide range of information and assess, analyze, and draft a robust report in the student’s own words. Plagiarism is the use of another person’s words or ideas in any academic work using books, journals, internet postings, or other student papers without proper acknowledgement. For further information on proper acknowledgement and plagiarism, including expectations for paraphrasing source material and proper forms of citation in research and writing, students should consult the Chicago Manual of Style (cf. Turabian, 6th edition). The University Learning Center also provides useful online resources to help students understand and avoid plagiarism.

Useful sources of information about retail companies can be found in Business of Fashion, Vogue Business, Bloomberg, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times, Women’s Wear Daily, company annual reports, g