Five innovation bets, each ranked by imitation window against payback, get deliberately uneven money in the Week 7 portfolio memo for DDBA 8161. Searches like "ddba 8161 week 7 assignment example", "ddba8161 week 7 sample" and "ddba 8161 week 7 example" land here.
What a finished DDBA 8161 Week 7 portfolio memo looks like
Four pages in memo form, addressed to the firm's chief technology officer, with one exhibit: a table of five projects. Each row carries the project, its estimated payback period, the rival's estimated time to copy a successful result, and the difference in months. A new low-odor formulation pays back in three years but could be reverse-engineered by the rival within one, so its row shows a negative gap. A co-development program with two automotive customers shows the largest positive gap, because the rival would have to earn the same customer trust. The memo rejects the strategic-buckets method associated with Cooper and colleagues, which sets category shares first, and argues from McGrath's case that advantages are increasingly temporary that the window itself should drive allocation.
How a DDBA 8161 Week 7 example is structured
The allocation comes first, stated so a busy reader could stop there: most of the money to the co-development program and a process upgrade, the remainder spread across three smaller bets. The rival is introduced next, a larger coatings firm with a record of matching new products quickly, because every estimate in the exhibit depends on it. The exhibit follows, and the memo explains how each copying estimate was reached, from the rival's lab capacity and past response times. The method section names the approach being rejected and states what it does well before arguing against it. A section on the negative-gap project argues that it should still receive a small allocation, as a signal of capability, while conceding it cannot earn a return protected from copying. The memo closes on the review date and the evidence that would reorder the ranking.
The split, first
Allocation and its shape come before any exhibit. A technology officer reading two sentences knows where the money goes and why most of it goes to two projects, and the rest of the memo defends that answer.
The competitor's response record
The competitor is a larger coatings firm that has matched past launches quickly. Its lab capacity and history are the basis for every copying estimate, and the memo states that basis before any number appears.
Payback set against imitation
Each project's row compares two durations. Where copying would arrive before payback, the project cannot earn a protected return, however novel it is, and the table shows that gap in months.
Buckets, and why not
Setting category shares before ranking projects protects exploratory work from being starved. The memo grants that strength, then argues that in a market with a fast follower the imitation window is the better guide.
The negative-gap bet
The low-odor formulation receives a small allocation anyway, justified as a capability signal to customers. The memo concedes that the return will be competed away and caps the spending to match.
Where marks go in DDBA 8161 Week 7
Memos in this week are weighed for the argument behind the unevenness. A split that looks chosen for balance, or that mirrors category shares without saying why, collects format credit and little analysis. Graders read the copying column closely: estimates must rest on something observable about the rival, such as lab capacity or response history, and a column filled with round guesses is decoration. The rejected method has to be stated fairly, and a memo that caricatures strategic buckets loses the literature credit it was reaching for. The negative-gap project is where judgment shows, since funding it at all requires a reason the ranking does not supply. Format counts as well, and burying the recommendation below the exhibit forfeits points for no gain.
Get a DDBA 8161 Week 7 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 7 memo prompt, the rubric and the project list you were given, and a portfolio memo with its imitation exhibit is returned within 24-48h, with the first one free. When the case identifies the competitor, include what it says about that firm's past responses.
DDBA 8161 Week 7 questions, answered
Where do the copying estimates come from?
From the rival's observable behavior: how long it took to match earlier launches, what its labs can analyze, which customers it already serves. For a composite firm, the estimates are stated as reasoning with their basis. Your own case may supply a named competitor with a public record, and the estimates can then be sourced to announcements and filings.
Is uneven funding always the right answer?
No, and the memo would change its advice if the gaps were similar across projects. Uneven funding follows from uneven protection. When every project faces the same imitation window, other criteria, such as strategic fit or risk, decide the split. The memo's claim is only that protection should be measured before money is divided.
Does the memo need a financial model?
A payback estimate per project is usually enough at this stage, and the example uses nothing more. Some sections expect net present value, and if yours is one of them, the imitation window can shorten the cash-flow horizon instead of appearing as a separate column. The argument about protection works either way, provided the numbers and the rival are connected.