MG5596 Strategic Management Assignment Brief 2026 | Brunel University

MG5596 Assignment Brief

Main Objective of the Assessment

The main objectives of this assessment are to:

• Describe and critically evaluate current strategic management theories and analytical concepts.
• Describe and critically evaluate key conflicts and dilemmas in strategic practice such as: logical versus creative thinking; environmental versus resource determinism; industry leadership versus followership; competition versus co-operation; and profitability versus corporate responsibility.
• Critically discuss how organisations apply (and should apply) strategic management theories and concepts to cope with key conflicts and dilemmas in their particular situations.

Description of the Assessment Scenario

The article published in Financial Times below provides a snapshot of the Renewable Energy Industry.

Inside the AI race: can data centres ever truly be green?

In the hills of what used to be coal country in western Pennsylvania, artificial intelligence is giving new life to a decommissioned coal plant. Now being converted into a giant gas-powered facility, it will supply new US data centres needing “round-the-clock reliable power”, said the company behind the project, Homer City Redevelopment. “This project is an investment in the future.” The plant is expected to be the largest in the US, producing up to 4.5 gigawatts of electricity — enough to power several San Francisco-sized cities.

This is just one of more than 85 gas-fired power facilities in development around the world to supply data centres and meet their burgeoning energy demands from AI, Global Energy Monitor research shows.

From the deserts of the United Arab Emirates to the outskirts of Ireland’s capital, the energy demands of AI applications and training running through these centres are driving the surge of investment into fossil fuels. This threatens to subvert global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which are the main driver of climate change. To limit rising temperatures, global emissions must fall by about half by 2030. Tech companies point to their record as big investors in clean energy in an effort to deal with their emissions, but much of this is backed by green power credits. This is a controversial form of investing in the build-out of clean energy because it is far from guaranteed to compensate for actual energy consumption. Data centres’ climate problem goes well beyond new gas infrastructure. Just as relevant is the added pressure on existing electricity grids still in large part powered by coal, oil and gas.

In the UAE, the petrostate that is positioning itself as an AI hub, a flagship 5GW data centre cluster project involving OpenAI’s Stargate is expected to use the equivalent of one billion cubic feet of gas a day. The energy demands of AI’s learning phase are high and volatile, while those of a data centre are high and constant. Both are poorly matched with the patterns of solar and wind, which wax and wane during the course of a day and a year, sometimes unpredictably. Mike Hemsley, deputy director at the Energy Transitions Commission think-tank, said: “AI needs a spiky profile while doing deep learning,” which means powering a data centre using clean energy is still a purely “theoretical” idea. Data centres are “scrambling for gas turbines because that’s the most obvious choice”, he added. Even as tech companies have become some of the world’s biggest investors in clean energy, their investments have not solved the conundrum of how to ensure stable supply during cloudy or windless times of the day. “Our data centres have to run 100 per cent of the time so we can’t even consider using [renewables] as a primary source,” Simon Tusha, founder of US data centre provider TECfusions, told the Financial Times.

Based on current deployment trends, the International Energy Agency expects greenhouse gases from data centre energy consumption to double in the next five years as a proportion of global emissions from burning fossil fuels. The rush for gas is also leading to a global supply crunch for new turbines. “While the consciousness around the environment comes in and comes out, it will come back in,” said Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s former climate minister. “I don’t think the future is going to be ‘burn, baby, burn’, gas-fired data centres everywhere. That’s not viable because that kills our planet — and explain that to your 20-year-old.”

Ireland, Europe’s capital for “hyperscaler” cloud data providers, in May said it was not on track to hit its climate targets because its emissions are falling too slowly across electricity, transport, industry and agriculture. Data centres account for more than a fifth of the country’s electricity demands, in a grid system where more than half of power production comes from fossil fuels. The growth of these centres in the previous decade was concentrated around Dublin, leading to a de facto ban on new facilities since 2021 because of grid capacity issues. Despite this, the Big Tech companies including Amazon, Meta and Google, which operate some of Ireland’s power-hungry centres, report their energy use is already, or is on track to be, “100 per cent matched” with renewable energy at a global scale this year. To bridge the gap between the use and supply, the tech companies buy clean energy credits, or can make these investments directly through power purchase agreements. For example, when a company pays for wind or solar energy to be produced for a decade, it earns the right to claim credits representing the additional clean energy. But these arrangements are usually purely financial in nature — meaning the data centre is still supplied with power by the central electricity grid. Credits do not have to match the location where energy is being used, nor the time of day when it is needed (FT, 2025). More information can be found here https://www.ft.com/content/0f6111a8-0249-4a28-aef4-1854fc8b46f1.

Looking to the scenario and context given in the FT article above, as a head of strategy in one of the leading energy companies (choose a global energy company), the board of directors of your chosen company has asked you to carry out a strategic review of the Renewable Energy Industry and provide a report that assesses the company’s recent strategic developments, current strategic position and future strategic options aligned with the SDGs. The report must address the following key aspects:

1. RECENT PAST (5-10 years): Strategic developments

Research and critically analyse the strategic developments of the chosen company within the context of the renewable energy industry over the past 5 to 10 years. Choose the duration of time for the study most appropriate for understanding the key strategic developments that have influenced the long-term direction of the company to the present day. Identify any changes in the strategy that the company has made during the period in question, critically analyse and evaluate how and why these changes were made (700 words 10%+).

2. CURRENT: Strategic situation

Building on your analysis undertaken in section 1, provide a critical analysis and evaluation of the company’s current strategic situation at the time of writing which relates to the previous section.

Pay particular attention to:

The company’s strategic macro, industry and competitive environment and changes and trends in that environment using the appropriate tools (PESTEL, 5 Forces etc.). The company’s endowment of internal resources, role of leadership, emanating from decisions made in the recent past locating this evaluation within the context of Resource Based View theory (RBV). The analysis and evaluation must also provide a synopsis (SWOT and TOWS analysis) which is meaningful for the strategic choices it is able to make for the future that are the subject of task 3 below (1,000 words 10%+).

3. FUTURE: Strategic choices

Based on your research and analysis undertaken for tasks 1 and 2 above, recommend a limited range of distinctively different strategic choices of your own creation available to the company for the future. Critically evaluate and assess the choices available leading to recommendations for the company’s strategic direction forward. Make clear the assumptions you have made as a basis for the strategic choices and ensure that they take account of potential uncertainties and strategic changes (800 words 10%+).

Reference

Financial Times. (2025). ‘Inside the AI race: can data centres ever truly be green?’, FT, August 7, 2025. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/0f6111a8-0249- 4a28-aef4-1854fc8b46f1 (Accessed August 12, 2025)

Individual Report Guidance:

• Very well researched (breadth and depth) report; current evidence from reliable sources, use appropriate techniques, frameworks, and models of strategic analysis.
• Provide a critical appreciation and application of relevant literature and strategy tools, models, frameworks, theories to support argument.
• Take ownership of the content, be prepared to debate and argue a personal position, and evidence evaluative skills.
• Avoid descriptive account and provide more interpretation, analysis and evaluation.
• Analyse relevant theoretical concepts in a critical manner and evaluation of material.
• Provide logical flow of ideas.

Poster should be:

• Well presented (Highlighting the results of the analysis; showing the logic underlying the conclusions reached.)
• Be visually attractive with an appropriate mix of text and visual forms of data presentation.
• Be meticulously referenced.
• Be written to a professional standard.

Structure

• Title Page (Excluded from the word count)
• Executive summary (one page, excluded from the word count)
• Table of Contents (Excluded from the word count)
• List of Figures (Excluded from the word count)
• List of Tables (Excluded from the word count)
• Body of the report (RECENT PAST: Strategic developments (700 Words 10%+); 2. CURRENT: Strategic situation (1,000 Words 10%+); 3.

FUTURE: Strategic choices (800 Words 10%+)

• References (Excluded from the word count)
• Appendices (Label the Appendices appropriately)

Note: Provide page numbers, apply a numbering scheme to the headings and subheadings, citations/references using the Harvard style of academic convention, write in the 3rd person (e.g. This report will analyse…) to emphasise objectivity, use formal language and avoid slangs, jargons and contractions (don’t or can’t etc.), provide professional layout and presentation, grammatically correct with no typographical errors. Font style Ariel, size 11, standard margins, justified text alignment and 1½ spacing.

PG mark bands and grade point bands [Senate Regulation 3] are:

Submission Instructions

Coursework must be submitted electronically via the University’s WISEflow system. The required file format for this report is Adobe PDF. Your student ID number must be used as the file name (e.g. 0123456.pdf). You must ensure that you upload your file in the correct format and complete the Wiseflow coversheet before submitting your assignment.

Please note that submissions of ‘.pages / .docx etc’ documents will not be accepted and must be converted to the approved format.

MG5596 Marking Criteria

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