WGU D361 Task 2 Example and Guide: Competitive Analysis (SWOT, Strategic Graphs, SMART Goals)
Updated on: Aug 11, 2026
Executive Summary
D361 Task 2 asks you to step back from the quarter-by-quarter decisions of Task 1 and assess your simulated business’s overall competitive position; a SWOT analysis, an interpretation of your strategic market graphs, and one forward-looking SMART goal. The skill being tested is synthesis: can you look at six quarters of your own history and turn it into a coherent strategic argument, not four disconnected sections that happen to share a cover page.
D361 Task 2 Assignment
The graduate applies the competencies from across the business core curriculum, demonstrating the ability to lead the implementation of the mission, strategy, and goals of an organization.
Introduction
For this task, you will create a report on the competitive position of the company from your completed Marketplace Simulations business simulation referenced in Task 1.
You must receive confirmation that you successfully passed Task 1: Business Performance Report before submitting Task 2: Competitive Analysis of this performance assessment.
Scenario
As a leader in your business, you are responsible for reporting to other stakeholders about the competitive position of your business during its first six quarters. Your report will provide an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) facing the business. It will also address the competitive position of the business in the marketplace and organizational goal setting.
Provide a written report containing the following:
Note: It is recommended that you use the attached “Competitive Analysis Template” to structure this report.
D361 Task 2 Example
Cycle 2 The Future
Business Performance Report
Student ID:
Date:
C1. Business Overview
The simulated
company is a bicycle manufacturing and retail start-up operating in a highly
competitive sector. Given the increased calls for sustainability living and the
reduction of fossil fuel emissions, multiple bicycle manufacturing and retail
have been emerging but are yet to address the market demand and needs (Xames et
al., 2023). The business deals with 3D-printed carbon fiber bicycles, developed
to test demand and scalability in multiple global markets. The business will
begin by exproring the New York markert,
before switching to Rio de Janeiro, then Amsterdam, and subsequently Bangalore.
The opening of these outlets aligns with the demand-led market entry strategy, where
focus is on locations with robust cycling cultures, higher disposable income,
and early adoptions to minimize risks of early failures (Puneeth
& Nethravathi, 2021).
The firm produces
a diversified portfolio of bicycles to appeal to multiple customer segments.
The speed segment bicycles consumers looking for the lightest, fastest, most
aerodynamic bike on the market. The second pool of product is mid-range
recreational bicycles targeting casual and fitness cyclists. Lastly, the brand
features consumers that use a bicycle for adventure, exercise, and sport. Also,
they like the challenge of riding on difficult terrain. Featuring a wide range
portfolio increases the ability of the firm to post good financial
performances. The business focused on custom-built upon order, where production
volume correlated with observed demand. By eliminating finished-goods inventory,
the brand is able to achieve rapid design adjustments in response to customer
preferences.
The
manufacturing technique for products was a centralized micro-factory model. The
technique involves the assembling of different part at a central plan. The
approach was crucial in ensuring quality, capital investment moderation and
application of unique research and development models. This approach supported
a SMART operational objective of reducing unit production costs by at least 15%
within six quarters while maintaining quality. Overall, the brand pursued a
SMART growth strategy involving boosting the brand s presence, low
manufacturing and operational costs and targeting unmet demand.
C2. Financial Analysis
The
simulation process features three critical topics for financial management.
These three topics were:
- Marketing (advertising and internet marketing)
- Store expenses
- Research and development
Advertising and Internet Marketing
Several
decisions made during the business simulation that relates to Marketing
(advertising and internet marketing). Specifically, during the simulation
process, focus was on internet marketing. Internet or digital marketing entails
all practices that aims at creating brand awareness and reaching target
customers who include cycling enthusiasts, commuters, and younger demographics.
The selection
of internet advertisement was contributed to consumer trends and perceived
impact on financial performances. For a start, the changing consumer behavior, where
bicycle buyers were increasingly researching products online before visiting
physical stores triggered a need to align with the trend. Although traditional
marketing practices were effective, switching to a cost-effective alternative
like digital was inevitable. Also, the switch was contributed the option s measurable
performance metrics that would boost financial performances analysis. Given that digital platforms utilized data to
prove performance, it assisted with better allocation of marketing resources.
The growth in
internet marketing expenses across the quarter and growth of earnings before
interest and taxes proves the impact of the inclusion of the element. The
internet marketing expenses grew from $ 9,000 in Q3 to 44,000 in Q6, while
those of advertising shrunk from $ 76,549 in Q3 to 75,062 in Q6 suggesting
switch to the former. At the same time, EBIT grew from $ -1,113,434 in Q4 to
$-528,325 in Q6. Although sales performances and other expenses were involved
in the improved profitability performances, internet marketing could explain
the growth in online purchasers.
Store Expenses
The
simulation selected to maintain a high level of store operating expenses across
all six quarters, particularly after expanding retail presence. Store expenses are every cost associated with
operating the company s physical outlets. This expense is crucial during
financial planning and management. As part of store expenses, the firm focused
on prime locations, in-store staff training and quality customer service
experiences.
The decision
to invest significantly on store expenses was informed by the need for customer
acquisition, product testing, and after-sales service. The management
understood early that investing in stores was crucial in attracting consumers
who prefer store experience over online platform. These walk-through customers
prefer locations that meet their tastes and preferences, which explains the
need for massive investments. Furthermore, the management understood that
product testing was essential before the purchase of the product, which explain
the decision to invest in areas where testing would be convenient, while
customers enjoy the entire process. Lastly, the management needed an outlet,
where customers can make inquiry post-purchase, which improves its reputation
as a customer-friendly brand.
The decision
to increase stores expenses had significant effect on overall income statement
performances. Notably, the item was one of the leading cost drivers outside
excess capacity cost and R&D. The stores revenues were $ 200,000 in Q1 and
$ 136,000 in Q6. Despite the decrease in store expenses across simulation, it
remained a leading cost driver. The high expense rate was also responsible for overall
operating losses in the early stages of the business. However, the management
argued that that reducing store expenses too early would undermine brand
credibility and customer experience.
Research and Development
The company
chose to invest significantly in R&D in earlier quarters before gradual reduction
in the final quarters, including Quarter 6. R&D is paramount to a
technology driven firm such as this bicycle producer. The department is
responsible for introducing new designs and its investment depends on a brand s
strategic practice.
The early
massive investment was critical because of multiple reasons. Firstly, massive
investment was crucial for the development of competitive bicycle designs.
Given that the firm is operating in a competitive sector and consumer
preferences keep changing, innovation led by R&D department was vital.
Heavy investment in R&D ensures the development of new prototypes
consistently (Looney et al., 2022). Additionally, it was necessary for the
business to improve product reliability and performance. Investing in R&D
guarantees the improvement of the quality of a product as any defect is spotted
and dealt with earlier (MengDie et al., 2023).
Moreover, investment in R&D was responsible for the establishment of a
differentiated product lineup. The reduction in R&D investments in the
latter stages was contributed by the need to preserve cash and redirect funds
toward marketing and store operations. This decision reflects a transition from
product development to market expansion.
The R&D
investment had massive impact on the profitability performances of the company.
Notably, the item was the leading cost driver, especially in Q4 and Q5, where
the total values were $1,001,786 and $ 422,489 respectively. However, the
decline in costs in the later periods helped reduce total operating expenses in
later quarters, partially offsetting rising marketing and store costs. The
reduction not only eased cost burden on profits, but also it prevented
scenarios where if competitors continue innovating and margins decrease.
Overall, the decision to manage R&D cost helped turn-around the brand s
performances.
In conclusion, the financial performance of the business
during its first six quarters reflects a growth-oriented strategy. Decisions to
invest in marketing, store expenses, and research and development were keen on
growth rather than maximizing early profits. Although these decisions contributed
in financial losses in the initial quarters, they positioned the company for
sustainable growth and improved profitability in future periods. Accordingly,
it can be argued that in the first six quarters of the simulation, the
strategic decisions made aligns with a start-up operating in a competitive
industry.
D. References
Looney, E., Buscariolli,
A., Yang, M., Raymond, G., Buonassisi, T., & Peters, I. M. (2022). Prototyping
styles accelerate hardware development.
doi:10.26434/chemrxiv-2022-k4dk
MengDie, Z., ShiYu, L., Law, S. H.,
& Ong, T. S. (2023). Economic policy uncertainty, government subsidy and R&D
investment: evidence from the Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturing
industry. Economic Policy, 31(2). http://10.57030/23364890.cemj.31.2.9
83
Puneeth, B. R., & Nethravathi, P. S. (2021). Bicycle industry in India and
its challenges A case study. International Journal of Case Studies in Business,
IT and Education (IJCSBE), 5(2), 62-74.
http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3976932
Xames, M. D., Shefa, J., &
Sarwar, F. (2023). Bicycle industry as a post-pandemic green recovery driver
in an emerging economy: a SWOT analysis. Environmental Science and
Pollution Research, 30(22), 61511-61522. https://10.1007/s11356-022-21985-2
Understanding the Assignment
Three functional parts, each testing something different:
- Part A (SWOT) tests whether you can honestly assess your own business’s position — one real strength, one real weakness, one still-unmet opportunity, one still-unresolved threat.
- Part B (Competitive Analysis) tests whether you can read your own strategic data and connect it to specific decisions you made, not just describe what a graph shows.
- Part C (Recommendations) tests whether you can translate that analysis into one concrete, well-formed forward-looking goal.
Why WGU Uses This Assignment
Every business leader eventually has to answer a version of this exact question: given where we are and how we got here, what should we do next? Task 1 tested whether you could explain a specific past decision’s financial consequence. Task 2 tests something one level up — whether you can synthesize an entire strategic position and commit to a defensible next move, which is a distinctly different, more senior skill than explaining a single quarter’s numbers.
Part A: SWOT Analysis
What SWOT actually is: Strengths and Weaknesses are internal — things within your control (pricing, staffing, production capacity, marketing spend). Opportunities and Threats are external — driven by competitors and market conditions you don’t directly control.
The constraint worth reading twice: your Opportunity must be one that “has not been met,” and your Threat must be one that “has not been resolved.” This isn’t a minor wording detail — picking an opportunity you already captured, or a threat you already neutralized, doesn’t satisfy the requirement, since the point is identifying what’s still actionable heading into Quarters 7–9.
A Correction Worth Knowing
Here’s something genuinely useful that most quick explanations of SWOT get wrong. The popular story credits either Albert Humphrey or four Harvard Business School professors with inventing SWOT analysis in the 1960s. Recent peer-reviewed historical research — based on archival research and direct interviews with the people involved — found this popular origin story doesn’t hold up. The technique actually began as “SOFT” (Satisfactory, Opportunities, Faults, Threats) at the Stanford Research Institute in the mid-1960s, developed under Robert Franklin Stewart, and was only later relabeled to the SWOT acronym still in use today. The “Harvard professors” attribution traces to what the researchers call an “academic urban legend” rather than the actual historical record.
This isn’t just trivia — understanding that SWOT originated as a dialogue-based planning process (managers grading planning issues with evidence, discussing them across the organization) rather than a static four-box template reinforces exactly what the rubric is testing: your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats need to be evidenced and argued, not just listed.
A2 — Justification: each of the four components needs its own evidence-based justification tied to your specific six quarters — not an assertion. Treat this the same way Task 1 asked you to trace a decision to a financial statement line: name the specific evidence (a metric, a trend, a competitor action) behind each SWOT component.
Part B: Competitive Analysis (Strategic Graphs)
B1 — Selecting three graphs: They must come specifically from the Market section of the Quarter 7 strategic graphs (which cover Quarters 1–6), complete with legend and full context. With 21 options available, the strongest submissions choose three graphs that work together to tell one coherent competitive story — for example, Market Share, Total Clicks, and Advertising Expenses could together tell a connected story about a marketing-driven share gain, rather than three unrelated metrics that don’t build on each other.
B2 — Analysis: This is where most points are actually won or lost. The rubric wants you to tie each graph’s trend back to a specific decision you made — not a general description of what the line shows. Many of these graphs include competitor data alongside your own, which is worth using directly: a strong analysis often explains your position relative to a competitor’s visible move, not just your own trajectory in isolation.
Recent peer-reviewed research on business simulation games specifically found that simulations are most effective at developing genuine decision-making skill when students are pushed to analyze and justify the connection between their choices and the resulting outcomes — not simply observe results passively. That’s precisely the difference between a B2 response that describes a graph and one that argues from it.
Part C: Recommendations (SMART Goal)
The actual origin of SMART, briefly: the framework was introduced by George Doran in a 1981 article in Management Review, originally standing for Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, and Time-related (the “A” and “R” have shifted slightly across later popularizations — WGU’s version uses Achievable and Relevant). Doran’s original point, often lost in later simplifications, was that not every objective needs to hit all five criteria with equal rigor — some objectives are better served by a clear action plan than by forcing an artificial numeric target. For this task, though, the rubric expects all five criteria addressed explicitly.
C1 — The goal itself: one goal, covering hypothetical Quarters 7–9. The checklist’s own example is instructive: “be the market share leader in the speed industry” is not SMART — it’s an ambition with no number, no specific segment, and no deadline. “Have 40% market share for the Millennial Speed bike by the end of Quarter 8” is SMART — specific segment, specific number, specific date.
C2 — Explanation: don’t just restate the goal. Explain why it was chosen and connect it explicitly to a specific business function — marketing, operations, HR, R&D — the same way Task 1 asked you to name a specific expense line, not just describe a general trend.
Parts D & E: Sources and Professional Communication
Part D is genuinely optional here — a meaningful difference from Task 1. You don’t need to cite the simulation itself, and most students complete this task without any outside sources at all. If you do reference something external, cite it properly; otherwise, don’t force citations in where they aren’t needed. Part E is the same Grammarly for Education gate as every other performance assessment — review the feedback before submitting.
Common Mistakes
- Choosing an Opportunity or Threat that’s already been resolved, which directly violates the A1 requirement
- Writing SWOT components that sound generic rather than genuinely specific to your own six quarters
- Selecting three graphs that don’t connect into one coherent competitive narrative
- Describing what a graph shows without naming the specific decision that produced it
- Writing a SMART goal that’s really just a restated ambition, missing a number or a deadline
- Forgetting the Quarter 6-vs-Quarter 7 timing distinction for the SWOT
Self-Assessment Checklist
- Are all four SWOT components specific to my own business, evidenced rather than asserted?
- Is my Opportunity genuinely unmet and my Threat genuinely unresolved, as of Quarter 6?
- Do my three graphs build one coherent story rather than three disconnected data points?
- Does every graph analysis name a specific decision, not just describe a trend?
- Does my SMART goal hit all five criteria explicitly?
- Does my C2 explanation connect the goal to a specific business function?
Frequently Asked Questions
- Do I need outside sources for this task? No — most students complete Task 2 without any outside sources, and the simulation itself never requires citation. Only cite something if you actually reference outside material.
- Can my SWOT reflect Quarter 7 instead of Quarter 6? No — the rubric specifically asks for the business as it stood at the end of Quarter 6, even though you’re accessing the graphs from within Quarter 7.
- Do the three strategic graphs need to be related to each other? Not strictly required, but strongly recommended — three graphs that build one coherent competitive story make Part B2’s analysis significantly easier to write well than three unrelated metrics.
- What makes a SMART goal “achievable” in a simulation context? Ground it in your actual Quarter 6 trajectory — a goal that would require an implausible jump from your current trend line is harder to justify as achievable than one that extends a trend already in motion.
- Is getting help with this task against WGU’s academic integrity policy? Tutoring, coaching, and editing support are a normal, accepted part of studying — most university policies explicitly support students getting this kind of help.
Related Learning Resources
- WGU C203 Task 1 Guide: Personal Leadership Assessment and Profile
- WGU D361 Task 1 Guide: Business Performance Report
- WGU C206 Task 2 Guide: Ethics Audit, Ethical Dilemmas, and Training Program Design
- WGU C205 Task 1 Guide: Leading Teams — Team Dynamics and Group Development (KUM1)
- WGU C206 Task 1 Guide: How to Build a Professional Communication Portfolio
- C207 QUM3 Task 2 Guide: How to Nail Every Rubric Line on Your Decision Tree Analysis
- C207 QUM3 Task 1 Guide: Regression Analysis Example
References & Further Reading
- Puyt, R. W., Lie, F. B., & Wilderom, C. P. M. (2023). The Origins of SWOT Analysis. Long Range Planning, 56(3), Article 102304. — A peer-reviewed historical study using archival research and direct interviews to correct the popular but inaccurate account of SWOT analysis’s origins, tracing it to Robert Franklin Stewart’s SOFT approach at the Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s rather than the commonly credited Harvard Business School story.
- Doran, G. T. (1981). “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives.” Management Review, 70(11), 35–36. — The original primary source introducing the SMART framework, cited directly here since it’s the actual origin of the model this section applies, not a later secondary summary of it.
- Vélez, A., & Alonso, R. K. (2025). Business Simulation Games for the Development of Decision Making: Systematic Review. Education Sciences, 15(2), 168. — A recent peer-reviewed systematic review finding that business simulation games most effectively build decision-making skill when students actively analyze and justify the connection between their choices and resulting outcomes, the basis for this guide’s emphasis on tying graph trends to specific decisions rather than describing them passively.