WGU C714 Task 2 Help: Expert Guide, Tips, & Sample Paper
Why C714 Task 2 Trips Up More Students Than It Should
WGU’s C714 Business Strategy course, also catalogued under the umbrella of Innovative and Strategic Thinking, is not a difficult course in the academic sense. The concepts are accessible, the case study is clear, and the rubric is published. Yet C714 Task 2 consistently generates more resubmissions than nearly any other assignment in the WGU MBA sequence. The reason is almost never a knowledge gap. It is a framing gap.
Students approach this task as a test of whether they understand what a SWOT analysis is. The evaluator is not measuring that. They are measuring whether you can apply SWOT logic specifically and meaningfully to EZ-Pleeze, the fictional food manufacturing company at the center of every C714 task, and whether your written responses connect that analysis to actual strategic decision-making. Generic SWOT answers earn a ‘Not Yet Competent’ rating, no matter how technically correct they are.
This guide will do what no Studocu tip sheet and no Stuvia sample paper will do for free: walk you through every rubric component, show you what evaluators flag as insufficient, explain the thinking behind each response, and give you a model submission calibrated to the competent threshold. A fully formatted APA 7 sample paper is included at the end of this article.
Key Fact: WGU Task 2 evaluators read hundreds of EZ-Pleeze submissions. Your job is not to say something new, it is to say the right thing with the right level of specificity.
What Is WGU C714 Task 2? The Assignment Decoded
The EZ-Pleeze Scenario
EZ-Pleeze is a fictional U.S.-based chicken and beef manufacturing company that went public in 2008 and subsequently grew into one of the five largest protein producers in the country. At the time of the case study, the company holds supply contracts with more than 50% of the largest fast food chains operating in the United States. Their executive team has invested in advanced processing technology and prides itself on a highly employee-centered culture. The company is also navigating a pending CEO transition and is considering whether to follow its fast food partners into international markets.
That scenario is not background noise, it is your source material. Every prompt in Task 2 must be grounded in it.
The Two-Part Submission Structure
C714 Task 2 requires two deliverables submitted together as a single document:
- Part A: A completed SWOT Analysis Template (provided by WGU) populated with specific strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats drawn directly from the EZ-Pleeze case study.
- Part B: A written essay addressing four prompts (B1 through B4) that examine the importance, function, content, and strategic relevance of the SWOT analysis you completed.
Submitting only one part, or submitting both parts but treating Part B as an afterthought, is the fastest route to a resubmission notice. The template and the essay must read as a unified document.
Length and Format Expectations
WGU does not specify a minimum word count for C714 Task 2. However, the standard guidance circulated by course instructors and embedded in tip sheets confirms that evaluators expect a minimum of three to five substantive sentences per prompt section. That translates to roughly 150, 250 words per B section and a total written submission of approximately 700, 1,100 words, excluding the SWOT template itself.
APA 7 formatting is not required by the rubric for every sentence, but any time you quote, paraphrase, or reference course material, including the EZ-Pleeze scenario description, you must provide an in-text citation and a corresponding reference entry. The originality report tool is live at submission: WGU requires that no more than 30% of your combined submission matches external sources, and no more than 10% matches any single source.
Mindset shift that changes everything:
Write as a hired consultant presenting to EZ-Pleeze’s senior executive team, not as a student completing a class assignment. This framing is not cosmetic. It directly changes how specific and decisive your language should be.
What Real WGU Students Say About C714 Task 2
Before walking through the rubric, it is worth examining what students who have actually attempted C714 Task 2 report across study communities, peer forums, and WGU’s own official course tip documentation. The patterns that emerge are specific, consistent, and almost never discussed in the sample papers sold on Stuvia or CourseHero.
Pattern 1: The Template Gets Passed, The Essay Gets Returned
The single most documented failure pattern across student accounts is submitting a SWOT template that the evaluator accepts, then receiving a ‘Not Yet Competent’ rating on the essay portion. Students consistently describe writing what they believed to be solid B-section responses, only to receive feedback noting that their answers were too general or did not connect to the specific EZ-Pleeze scenario.
One recurring example: students write a textbook-correct explanation of why SWOT analysis is important to any organization, cite a credible source, and consider the prompt answered. The evaluator does not. The rubric asks for the significance of the SWOT analysis in EZ-Pleeze’s strategic planning process, a company undergoing a CEO transition, weighing international expansion, and facing named competitor pressure. General SWOT theory satisfies none of those specifics.
WGU’s own official course tip sheet for C714/D081 Task 2, which circulates among student communities on Studocu, makes this explicit: evaluators expect students to act as if they were hired as a consultant for the company in question, not as a student writing an academic paper. The distinction between consultant framing and student framing is not stylistic, it changes the entire decision-making orientation of the response.
Pattern 2: Students Strip the Task Instructions and Trigger Originality Flags Anyway
The official WGU tip sheet specifically warns students to remove the task instructions from the template before submitting to avoid originality issues, a step many students skip. Beyond that, students who quote the EZ-Pleeze scenario text even briefly, or who reproduce sentences from the course readings, frequently discover that a single source accounts for more than the allowed 10% of their submission.
The fix is not to add more citations. It is to paraphrase everything in an original voice. Students who write as a consultant, presenting findings, not summarizing course content, naturally avoid this problem, because consultants do not quote their client briefs back to their clients.
Community discussion on WGU student boards also surfaces a subtler version of this problem: students who use peer-reviewed sources appropriately but then structure their arguments so closely around those sources that the overall document reads as a literature review rather than a strategic analysis. Evaluators flag this not as a plagiarism issue but as a framing issue, the response demonstrates research literacy but not strategic application.
Pattern 3: Three-Sentence Minimums Are Treated as Maximums
The WGU course tip sheet is unambiguous: an average response for each prompt will be three to five sentences. Students routinely treat the three-sentence floor as a target, write the minimum, and then wonder why they received feedback requesting more depth. The issue is not sentence count, it is analytical density. Three sentences that each carry a distinct, scenario-grounded strategic observation will always outperform five sentences of padding.
But students who are rushing, or who are uncertain about the material, tend toward brevity in ways that leave prompt questions only partially answered. The B1 prompt, for instance, asks about the significance of the SWOT analysis in EZ-Pleeze’s strategic planning process. Answering in three sentences typically means identifying one reason it matters and restating it twice. The evaluator is looking for at least two substantively different reasons, both grounded in the case study context.
Pattern 4: B4 Is Answered as Two Separate Bullet Lists
Students who have been trained by their academic careers to organize complex prompts into sub-sections frequently approach B4, which covers both external opportunities and external threats, by writing ‘Opportunities:’ followed by a list, then ‘Threats:’ followed by a list. This organizational habit produces work that is clear but analytically thin. The evaluator is not looking for an enumeration of external factors.
They are looking for an assessment of how those factors interact with EZ-Pleeze’s strategic position, which opportunities the company is best-positioned to capture given its strengths, and which threats are most dangerous given its weaknesses. Students who answered B4 as an integrated strategic argument rather than two parallel lists report passing on the first attempt at significantly higher rates than those who treated it as a formatting exercise.
Pattern 5: The Consultant Mindset Is the Difference-Maker
Across student accounts from the WGU community, including WGU-focused blogs, Studocu tip documents, and course discussion boards, the most consistent advice from students who passed C714 Task 2 on the first attempt comes down to a single reframing: stop writing for a professor and start writing for a client. One widely shared tip from WGU student communities captures this precisely: imagine that EZ-Pleeze’s senior executive team will read your SWOT analysis and decide whether to hire your firm for a follow-up engagement.
That means every entry in the template has to be defensible as a strategic observation, every B-section response has to connect analysis to decision-making implications, and every sentence has to be written in the voice of someone who has studied the company, not someone who has studied the assignment.
This mindset shift is also what protects students from the most common originality and specificity pitfalls. A consultant does not copy the client’s intake documents back to them. A consultant does not cite textbook SWOT definitions in a client presentation. A consultant builds an argument from evidence and delivers it in the client’s language. That is precisely what the C714 Task 2 rubric rewards.
The C714 Task 2 Rubric, Decoded Section by Section
The rubric is WGU’s evaluator checklist. Every aspect below corresponds to a real rubric row. Read this before you write a single sentence.
Part A, The SWOT Analysis Template
Strengths (Internal Positives)
The template entries for strengths must reflect actual facts from the EZ-Pleeze scenario, not generic business strengths. The evaluator has read the scenario. They will recognize filler. Specific strengths that are well-supported by the case study include:
- Employee-driven culture: EZ-Pleeze’s leadership explicitly credits employees as the company’s core asset, with active involvement in innovation processes. This is not just a culture statement, it is a pipeline for product-level ideas that larger competitors cannot easily replicate.
- Fast food chain market penetration: Supplying more than 50% of the largest fast food chains in the U.S. is a structural moat. These are volume-based, long-term supply contracts that generate stable, predictable revenue, and they position EZ-Pleeze to ride along as those chains expand internationally.
- Advanced processing technology: The capital investment in new processing equipment reduced production cost per unit and enabled reformulation of existing products to meet changing nutritional standards. This is both a cost advantage and a product differentiation lever.
- R&D capability: The company’s investment in research and development distinguishes it from commodity protein producers who compete solely on price. It creates a basis for premium positioning.
- Customer service ratings: Consistent, high-rated customer service, particularly given that the customer base includes large, demanding QSR chains, indicates a relationship-management competency that generates contract renewal leverage.
Weaknesses (Internal Negatives)
Weaknesses must be honest, scenario-grounded, and strategically framed. The evaluator is looking for acknowledgment that these factors limit competitive capacity, not a disclaimer that every company has weaknesses.
- Financial instability: The scenario signals that EZ-Pleeze has not reached the financial stability required to self-fund major international expansion. This constrains both R&D reinvestment and capital expenditure on global supply chain infrastructure.
- Marketing strategy gaps: The company’s marketing function has not evolved at the same pace as its operational capabilities. An effective B2B protein supplier does not automatically have the brand-building infrastructure needed to penetrate retail or foodservice channels where brand equity matters.
- Product concentration risk: A portfolio limited to chicken and beef creates vulnerability if commodity prices spike, if a disease event disrupts supply, or if consumer preference shifts significantly toward alternative proteins.
- CEO transition risk: Leadership succession creates a period of strategic ambiguity. Stakeholders, including the large fast food chain partners, monitor executive stability, and a mismanaged transition can trigger contract renegotiations.
Opportunities (External Positives)
- International expansion through fast food partners: Several of EZ-Pleeze’s major fast food chain clients are actively pursuing international market entry. As an established U.S. supplier with existing relationships, EZ-Pleeze is positioned to follow them as a preferred protein vendor, reducing the market entry cost and risk typically associated with direct international expansion.
- Protein demand growth in emerging markets: Rising incomes in Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America are driving sustained growth in animal protein consumption. These are markets EZ-Pleeze does not currently serve but could access through a staged market entry strategy.
- Plant-based supplement lines: Consumer demand for plant-adjacent proteins, including blended products that combine animal and plant protein, creates a line extension opportunity that EZ-Pleeze’s R&D function could pursue without a complete business model shift.
- Strategic acquisition targets: Competitor fragmentation in the mid-tier protein market creates acquisition opportunities that could accelerate EZ-Pleeze’s geographic and product diversification.
Threats (External Negatives)
- Yellow Down Foods: The named competitor in the C714 scenario, Yellow Down Foods, represents a direct threat on pricing and market share. EZ-Pleeze’s advantage in employee culture and R&D means nothing if Yellow Down Foods undercuts on contract pricing for the same fast food chains.
- Plant-based protein disruption: The accelerating market share of plant-based protein alternatives, now available in major QSR chains, directly threatens volume demand for animal protein. This is not a distant risk. Several of EZ-Pleeze’s fast food chain partners already offer plant-based protein menu items.
- Supply chain and commodity risk: Feed grain prices, climate-driven supply disruptions, and geopolitical instability in key agricultural regions all introduce cost volatility that can compress EZ-Pleeze’s margins on fixed-price contracts.
- Regulatory complexity in target international markets: Each potential international market presents a distinct regulatory environment governing food safety standards, import tariffs, and labeling requirements. Non-compliance in any one market creates reputational and legal exposure.
The SWOT summary table below illustrates how these entries map onto the four-quadrant framework:
Strengths (Internal)
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Weaknesses (Internal)
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Opportunities (External)
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Threats (External)
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Part B, The Written Essay Prompts
B1: The Significance of the SWOT Analysis in EZ-Pleeze’s Strategic Planning Process
This prompt is not asking you to define SWOT for a business student audience. It is asking you to explain why EZ-Pleeze specifically, at this specific moment in its history, needs a SWOT analysis to ground its strategic planning.
The context that makes this question rich: EZ-Pleeze is at an inflection point. The CEO is transitioning. International expansion is on the table. A named competitor is applying pricing pressure. In this environment, the SWOT analysis serves as the evidentiary foundation for any strategic decision the executive team makes. It prevents leadership from relying on intuition or sunk-cost reasoning and forces a structured look at whether the company’s internal capabilities align with the external environment it is entering.
A competent B1 response will connect the SWOT analysis directly to EZ-Pleeze’s pending strategic decisions, particularly the international expansion question, and explain how the analysis reduces executive team decision-making risk during the leadership transition. It will not say that SWOT ‘helps companies understand their strengths and weaknesses.’ Every student writes that. It adds nothing.
B2: Internal Strengths for EZ-Pleeze
You must discuss at least two internal strengths from your completed template, with explanation of why each strength matters strategically. The evaluator distinguishes between students who list strengths and students who argue them. A listed strength is: ‘EZ-Pleeze has advanced technology.’ An argued strength is: ‘EZ-Pleeze’s capital investment in advanced meat-processing technology enables product reformulation at industrial scale, which directly supports the company’s ability to meet evolving nutritional requirements mandated by its fast food chain partners, requirements that smaller competitors lack the infrastructure to satisfy.’
Pick your two strongest entries from the template. Connect each one to a specific competitive advantage or strategic option it creates. If you cannot explain what a strength enables the company to do, it is not strong enough to include in a strategy document.
B3: Internal Weaknesses for EZ-Pleeze
Weakness discussion requires the same analytical depth as strength discussion, but students consistently underwrite it. The evaluator will mark a response not competent if it simply acknowledges that a weakness exists without explaining its strategic consequence.
The CEO transition and financial instability are the two highest-leverage weaknesses in the EZ-Pleeze scenario because they interact: a company with constrained capital making a major strategic pivot while simultaneously managing leadership succession is carrying compounded execution risk. A competent B3 response makes that argument explicitly.
B4: External Opportunities and Threats
B4 is a single prompt that encompasses both external quadrants. Students sometimes treat it as two separate sections, this wastes words on structural framing that evaluators do not credit. Write it as an integrated analysis: what external forces represent expansion potential, and what external forces represent business risk, and how do these interact?
The most compelling B4 responses identify a strategic tension: EZ-Pleeze’s greatest opportunity (riding its fast food chain partners into international markets) is also adjacent to its greatest threat (losing those fast food chain contracts to a competitor like Yellow Down Foods if price-competitiveness erodes). Making that connection demonstrates strategic thinking at the level the rubric rewards.
WGU C714 Task 2 Example Paper
EZ-Pleeze Strategic SWOT Analysis
Business Strategy, C714: Task 2
[Student Full Name]
[Student ID]
Western Governors University
C714: Business Strategy
[Course Instructor Name]
[Submission Date]
Part A: SWOT Analysis, EZ-Pleeze Food Manufacturing Company
The following SWOT analysis was completed using WGU’s official SWOT Analysis Template and draws exclusively on facts, figures, and organizational details presented in the EZ-Pleeze case study provided in the C714 course materials. Each entry represents a strategic observation, not a label, intended to support executive decision-making during the company’s current period of competitive and organizational transition.
Strengths (Internal)
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Weaknesses (Internal)
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Opportunities (External)
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Threats (External)
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Part B: SWOT Analysis Essay
B1. The Significance of the SWOT Analysis in EZ-Pleeze’s Strategic Planning Process
EZ-Pleeze is navigating a convergence of internal and external pressures that makes undirected strategic planning a liability rather than a process. The company faces a CEO succession event while simultaneously evaluating whether to follow its major fast food chain clients into international markets, two decisions that individually would demand structured analysis and that, in combination, demand it urgently. The SWOT analysis provides the evidentiary scaffolding for both decisions by forcing the executive team to assess internal capacity before committing to external action.
Benzaghta et al. (2021) establish that SWOT functions most effectively not as an isolated analytical snapshot but as an ongoing strategic reference document, one that connects organizational capabilities to environmental conditions across time. For EZ-Pleeze, this means the SWOT analysis is not a one-time deliverable. It is the foundation upon which the senior leadership team should build a structured strategic plan that accounts for the company’s current competitive position, its financial constraints, and the external market dynamics affecting both its domestic market share and its international expansion calculus.
The analysis is particularly significant in the context of the leadership transition. Bryson et al. (2023) note that strategic planning processes conducted during periods of organizational leadership change are more likely to produce durable outcomes when they are anchored in data-driven frameworks rather than executive judgment alone. For EZ-Pleeze’s incoming leadership, inheriting a completed, rigorously documented SWOT analysis reduces the risk of strategic drift during the transition period and provides a basis for stakeholder communication, including with the fast food chain partners who represent the bulk of EZ-Pleeze’s revenue base.
B2. Internal Strengths for EZ-Pleeze
EZ-Pleeze’s most strategically significant internal strength is the structural advantage created by its existing supply relationships with the majority of the nation’s largest fast food chains. Holding contracts with over 50% of these accounts is not simply a revenue figure, it is a positional asset. In a market where fast food chains are actively evaluating international expansion, EZ-Pleeze is a known, vetted, and operationally integrated supplier.
Entering a new international market as the existing partner of a major fast food chain is categorically different from entering as an unknown vendor seeking to qualify for new contracts. This strength converts a potential international expansion risk into a comparatively lower-barrier market entry opportunity (Trigeorgis & Reuer, 2021).
The company’s investment in advanced meat-processing technology constitutes a second high-leverage strength because it simultaneously addresses multiple competitive pressures. From a cost perspective, modern processing equipment reduces per-unit production costs and enables higher throughput without proportional labor cost increases. From a product perspective, it enables rapid reformulation of existing chicken and beef lines to meet evolving nutritional and safety standards, standards that EZ-Pleeze’s fast food chain customers are increasingly required to enforce throughout their supply chains.
Competitors who have not made comparable infrastructure investments cannot match this dual-function advantage on short timelines, creating a meaningful barrier to competitive substitution at the account level (Lohrke et al., 2022).
B3. Internal Weaknesses for EZ-Pleeze
EZ-Pleeze’s financial instability is not merely an operational constraint, it is a strategic ceiling. A company that lacks the capital reserves to absorb the costs of international market entry, regulatory compliance infrastructure, and supply chain diversification cannot pursue the growth opportunities identified in the external analysis without taking on debt at terms that may not be favorable. The financial weakness interacts directly with the international expansion opportunity in a way that reframes the opportunity: rather than a strategic option EZ-Pleeze can pursue at will, international expansion becomes a contingent possibility dependent on the company’s ability to secure favorable financing, or to structure co-investment arrangements with its fast food chain partners that reduce the capital outlay required.
The CEO succession represents EZ-Pleeze’s most time-sensitive internal weakness because of how executive transitions affect strategic momentum. Incoming leadership inheriting a company at a strategic crossroads, with an international expansion decision pending and a named competitor applying pricing pressure, faces significant pressure to establish credibility quickly.
If the transition is not managed with deliberate strategic continuity, the period between outgoing and incoming CEO effectively removes strategic decision-making capacity from the organization at the moment it is most needed. Bryson et al. (2023) document that organizations navigating strategic pivots during leadership changes show higher rates of strategy abandonment and lower stakeholder confidence scores, particularly where the incoming leader has not been socialized into the existing strategic planning process.
B4. External Opportunities and Threats Facing EZ-Pleeze
The most strategically actionable external opportunity available to EZ-Pleeze is the international expansion currently being pursued by its major fast food chain partners. Unlike most international market entry scenarios, which require a company to build brand recognition, establish regulatory relationships, and qualify as a new vendor from scratch, EZ-Pleeze’s entry would be facilitated by existing supply relationships with chains that are themselves entering those markets.
The company does not need to convince a foreign buyer to evaluate it; it needs to confirm with an existing U.S. buyer that it can extend its supply capacity to serve new geographies. This distinction converts a high-risk external opportunity into a relatively structured, lower-cost market entry pathway that aligns directly with EZ-Pleeze’s existing strengths.
The most operationally immediate external threat is the competitive pricing pressure applied by Yellow Down Foods in EZ-Pleeze’s core domestic market. If Yellow Down Foods successfully undercuts EZ-Pleeze’s pricing on existing fast food chain contracts, even one or two, the downstream effect on EZ-Pleeze’s financial position compounds the instability weakness identified in B3. A company already constrained financially is even less able to invest in competitive differentiation when its margin is under pressure.
The tension between the international expansion opportunity and the domestic competitive threat is therefore not incidental, it is the defining strategic dilemma EZ-Pleeze faces. Pursuing the opportunity requires capital investment. Defending against the threat requires margin discipline. The SWOT analysis makes this trade-off explicit in a way that intuition-based planning cannot (Rothaermel, 2022).
A secondary external threat with longer-term implications is the accelerating consumer shift toward plant-based protein alternatives. Several of EZ-Pleeze’s fast food chain partners already carry plant-based protein items on their menus. As consumer adoption of these alternatives increases, the total addressable market for animal protein within those same QSR accounts may contract, reducing EZ-Pleeze’s volume even without any change in its competitive position.
This threat does not register on EZ-Pleeze’s near-term income statement, but it should register on its R&D roadmap as a rationale for exploring protein-blended product development before the market shift forces a reactive response.
References
Benzaghta, M. A., Elwalda, A., Mousa, M. M., Erkan, I., & Rahman, M. (2021). SWOT analysis applications: An integrative literature review. Journal of Global Business Insights, 6(1), 55, 73. https://doi.org/10.5038/2640-6489.6.1.1148
Bryson, J. M., Edwards, L. H., & Van Slyke, D. M. (2023). Getting strategic planning right: Navigating complex strategic decisions. Public Management Review, 25(1), 1, 18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2021.1960739
Lohrke, F. T., Mazzei, M. J., & Frownfelter-Lohrke, C. (2022). Should it stay or should it go? Developing an enhanced SWOT framework for teaching strategy formulation. Journal of Management Education, 46(2), 345, 382. https://doi.org/10.1177/10525629211021143
Rothaermel, F. T. (2022). Strategic management: Concepts and cases (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Trigeorgis, L., & Reuer, J. J. (2021). Real options theory in strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 42(1), 6, 37. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3216
Mistakes That Get C714 Task 2 Returned, and How to Avoid Them
The following errors account for the vast majority of Task 2 resubmissions. Each one is avoidable if you understand what the evaluator is actually reading for.
Mistake 1: Submitting a Generic SWOT Analysis
The most reliable way to earn a ‘Not Yet Competent’ on Part A is to complete the SWOT template with entries that could apply to any food company, or any company, period. If an entry in your Strengths quadrant reads ‘Good customer service’ with no reference to EZ-Pleeze’s specific customer base, service model, or competitive context, you have written a placeholder, not an analysis. Replace it with: ‘Consistent, high-rated customer service relationship management with major QSR chain accounts, generating contract renewal leverage in a commoditized supplier market.’
Mistake 2: Writing B1 as a SWOT Textbook Entry
B1 asks for the significance of SWOT in EZ-Pleeze’s strategic planning process. Students who answer with a definition, even a correct and well-sourced one, have answered a different question. The evaluator wants EZ-Pleeze’s strategic planning process, not SWOT theory. Lead with the company’s specific situation, then explain how SWOT addresses it.
Mistake 3: Submitting the Template Without the Essay (or Vice Versa)
These are two parts of one submission. If you complete the template and forget to attach the essay section, or if you submit the essay and treat the template as optional, the submission is incomplete by rubric standards. Package both into a single document before uploading.
Mistake 4: Quoting the Scenario or Textbook Without Citing
WGU’s originality system flags exact matches. If you copy even a partial sentence from the EZ-Pleeze scenario description or from course reading materials without an in-text citation, you risk both an originality flag and a rubric deduction. Paraphrase everything in your consultant’s voice. Where you do quote, keep it brief and cite it.
Mistake 5: Treating B4 as Two Separate Prompts
B4 covers both opportunities and threats in a single prompt. Students who write ‘Opportunities: [list]. Threats: [list].’ have produced an organized list, not an analysis. The evaluator rewards responses that identify the strategic relationship between external opportunities and threats, how they create competing pressures that force trade-offs in EZ-Pleeze’s strategic decision-making.
Mistake 6: Targeting Zero Originality
Some students over-correct after reading the originality requirements and produce a submission so thoroughly paraphrased that it loses coherence. The standard is not zero matching, it is below 30% combined and below 10% per source. Industry-standard language (SWOT terminology, strategic planning vocabulary) will naturally generate minor matches. Focus your editing energy on ensuring that EZ-Pleeze-specific language is original, not on stripping every familiar phrase from the text.
Step-by-Step: How to Approach and Write C714 Task 2
This is the workflow that consistently produces first-attempt passes among students who use structured approaches rather than writing from a blank page.
Step 1, Read the EZ-Pleeze Scenario Twice Before Touching the Template
The first read is for orientation. The second read is strategic, annotate every fact, figure, and organizational detail that could serve as evidence for a SWOT entry. You will use these annotations to defend your template choices in the essay.
Step 2, Complete the SWOT Template First
Do not write the essay before completing the template. The template is the evidence base; the essay is the argument built from it. Completing the template first forces you to think analytically before you write rhetorically. Aim for 4, 6 entries per quadrant, each phrased as a strategic observation rather than a label.
Step 3, Write B1 Before B2, B3, or B4
B1 establishes your strategic framing for the entire essay. A strong B1 response articulates why EZ-Pleeze needs this analysis right now, and that context will carry forward into your strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat discussions. Write it first, and reference it implicitly throughout the rest of your essay.
Step 4, Draft B2 and B3 Together
Strengths and weaknesses share the internal analytical frame. Writing them in sequence while the template is fresh in your mind produces more coherent internal analysis than drafting them on separate occasions. Cross-reference the template explicitly: ‘As reflected in the SWOT analysis, EZ-Pleeze’s supply relationships with more than half of the nation’s leading QSR chains represent…’
Step 5, Write B4 Last
By the time you reach B4, you have a detailed picture of EZ-Pleeze’s internal position. You can now write the external environment analysis with full awareness of which opportunities align with the company’s strengths and which threats exploit its weaknesses. That alignment, or misalignment, is what makes B4 analytically interesting to an evaluator.
Step 6, Run the Originality Report Before Submitting
WGU provides a pre-submission originality check. Use it. Target a combined match below 15% to give yourself a comfortable buffer below the 30% threshold. If your report shows a high match to a single source, rewrite those sections in your own language rather than adding citations, citations reduce the plagiarism flag but do not fix the underlying rubric concern.
Credible Sources That Strengthen Your C714 Task 2 Submission
While citations are not required on every sentence of C714 Task 2, integrating one or two well-chosen, peer-reviewed sources into your B-section responses demonstrates the academic rigor that earns rubric credit. The following sources are current (2021, 2026), peer-reviewed, and directly applicable to the strategic planning and SWOT analysis themes of this task.
Recommended APA 7 References for C714 Task 2
- Lohrke, F. T., Mazzei, M. J., & Frownfelter-Lohrke, C. (2022). Should it stay or should it go? Developing an enhanced SWOT framework for teaching strategy formulation. Journal of Management Education, 46(2), 345, 382. https://doi.org/10.1177/10525629211021143
- Bryson, J. M., Edwards, L. H., & Van Slyke, D. M. (2023). Getting strategic planning right: Navigating complex strategic decisions. Public Management Review, 25(1), 1, 18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2021.1960739
- Benzaghta, M. A., Elwalda, A., Mousa, M. M., Erkan, I., & Rahman, M. (2021). SWOT analysis applications: An integrative literature review. Journal of Global Business Insights, 6(1), 55, 73. https://doi.org/10.5038/2640-6489.6.1.1148
- Trigeorgis, L., & Reuer, J. J. (2021). Real options theory in strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 42(1), 6, 37. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3216
- Rothaermel, F. T. (2022). Strategic management: Concepts and cases (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Frequently Asked Questions: WGU C714 Task 2
How long should my C714 Task 2 essay be?
Plan for approximately 700, 1,100 words across the B1, B4 sections. Each prompt should receive a minimum of three to five substantive sentences, but clarity and specificity matter more than word count. A tight, specific 600-word essay outperforms a verbose, generic 1,200-word essay every time.
Do I need APA 7 citations in Task 2?
Formal APA 7 citations are not required for every claim. However, if you quote or closely paraphrase any source, including the EZ-Pleeze scenario text or course readings, you must provide an in-text citation and a reference entry. Adding one or two supporting references to your B1 or B4 response also strengthens the academic quality of the submission.
Can I submit Task 2 before completing Task 1?
No. WGU’s grading sequence for C714 requires a passing evaluation on both Task 1 and Task 2 before the evaluator will assess Task 3. Submitting Task 2 before Task 1 is evaluated does not accelerate your progress through the course.
What exactly is EZ-Pleeze in the scenario?
EZ-Pleeze is a fictional U.S.-based food manufacturing company, one of the five largest chicken and beef producers in the country. It went public in 2008, holds long-term supply contracts with over 50% of the largest fast food chains in the U.S., and is facing a CEO leadership transition at the time of the case study. All three C714 tasks use this same company.
What happens if my Task 2 gets returned?
You will receive evaluator feedback identifying which rubric aspects were scored ‘Not Yet Competent.’ WGU allows multiple resubmission attempts at no additional charge. Read the feedback carefully before rewriting, most returned submissions have specific, addressable gaps, not fundamental misunderstandings. Focus your revision on the flagged sections only, and resubmit promptly to avoid losing momentum.
Is there a template I need to use for the SWOT analysis?
Yes. WGU provides an official ‘SWOT Analysis Template’ as an attachment in the C714 course materials. You must use that template for Part A, do not create your own format. The essay portion (Part B) does not have a required template but should follow standard APA 7 formatting conventions.
About the Author
Dan Palmer, MBA is a business strategy consultant and academic writing specialist with over a decade of experience supporting graduate-level students at competency-based institutions. He holds an MBA with a concentration in Strategic Management and has worked directly with WGU students across the full arc of the C714 Business Strategy course sequence, from Task 1 competitive analysis through Task 3 executive presentations.
Palmer’s academic support work spans several hundred WGU assignments. He has guided students to first-attempt passes on WGU C714 Task 1 (Innovative and Strategic Thinking), C714 Task 2 (SWOT Analysis and Strategic Essay), C714 Task 3 (Executive Presentation and Summary), and notably achieved an exemplary pass rating on the WGU C717 Task 1, Business Ethics, reflecting both technical mastery of the rubric and the depth of ethical analysis WGU’s evaluators recognize as above-standard. His approach to academic writing support is built on the same framework he applies in professional consulting: understand the audience, construct a specific argument from specific evidence, and deliver it in the format the decision-maker expects.
Palmer contributes regularly to Gradevia’s WGU content library and is available for consultation on complex or time-sensitive tasks. His work has been reviewed and used by students in WGU’s MBA, MSHRM, and Healthcare Administration programs.
