Business Environmental Analysis (External Environment)
2. Collect at least 12 articles/reports on the company. Enough research must be done to adequately fulfill the requirements of the business summary report, ethics analysis and final presentation. Articles taken from the companys website are not valid. All articles must be from independent sources, i.e. sources that are not affiliated with the company being studied.
Information Sources:
Annual Report (required) Print cover page
SEC Filing 10-K Report (required except for foreign companies) Print cover page
New York Times (required)
Wall Street Journal (required)
Any other independent sources (Business and Company Resource Center, Crain Economist Magazine, Barron USA Today, Business Week Online, MotleyFool.com, CNBC.com, MSNBC.com, Ameriquest.com or other online or offline publications)
No Wikipedia, No articles taken from the companywebsite
Submit a bibliography of your twelve articles along with the articles themselves
3. Business Summary Report Write 2-3 pages summarizing your company business. The following points must be covered: Describe the product or service being offered. If there are many products or services, place them into logical groups. What is special about the company? When was it founded? What was the company overall revenue in 2007? What was the company net-income for 2007? Describe the demographics of the targeted customer base; age, gender, income group, nationality, and other defining characteristics.
What is the size of the industry in which the company operates? i.e. Sales and number of competitors. Identify three big challenges that the company is facing. Be specific. Identify at least 3 competitors.
What share of the market does your company have? i.e. (Company sales)/(total sales in the industry).
Visit www.CNBC.com. Search the video library for an interview with the CEO of your company.
On what exact date was the interview conducted? Determine the management style of the CEO. What strikes you about the interview?
4. Environmental Analysis (External Environment) Review the articles and materials that were collected in step one including the annual report and 10-K. Identify 1 -5 changes in the company general environment and 1-5 changes in the companytask environment. Submit a summary of the findings. 3 pages.
5. Ethics Analysis -Identify 2-4 current and past significant ethical dilemmas that the company has faced. What was the nature of the violation(s)? Explicitly state the two choices the company faced. Who was impacted? How did the managers address the concern? How would you have handled the situation(s)? Use the concepts of ethics and corporate social responsibility in your analysis.
6. Conduct a BCG matrix analysis of company.
7. Prepare PowerPoint slides for final presentation of recommendations for the chosed company. The presentation should include the following:
– the greatest challenge that the company is facing currently
– other challenges (optional)
– 3-4 specific recommendations for your company to overcome its greatest challenge. Recommendations must be grounded in/supported by the techniques and concepts presented during the semester. E.g. If you recommend that a company lower its prices to match its competitor, you must recommend ways for the company to also cut its costs. If you recommend that the company expand its market reach, you must state where the new market opportunities are. Presentation should be no longer than 10 minutes.
Paper should be written in 1 1/2 spaces and a 12 point pitch
