Please finish this Firm Audit

Task: Choose a firm within the industry your team analyzed. Ex: If your team analyzed the Fast Food Industry, you could choose McDonalds on which to perform a firm audit. (Subaru please)

Format: 5 page report – 12 font Arial / 1.5 spaced / 1″ margins. Students may choose to provide a 1-2 page narrative summary and 3-4 pages of “outline” style body OR provide 5 pages of narrative.

Due Date: 5/18/18 at 12:00 midnight with no penalty. Students who submit by 5/11/18 at midnight will be afforded a 1/3 letter grade bonus.

This is a firm audit and I expect those issues relevant to the firm to be explored. I would not expect a complete Porters 5 Forces or PESTEL analysis at the firm level as they are Industry level tools. However, certain issues identified in your Industry Analysis may be more relevant to specific firms. Ex: A McDonalds Firm Audit would likely include a discussion on Healthy Eating and how they are addressing the topic that would have been mentioned in your PESTEL analysis of the industry.

I would strongly suggest you mention the following:

competitors and competitive advantage. Remember, competitive advantage is identified through 3 metrics: Shareholder Value / Economic Value of Product/Service and Accounting or Financial performance.(Return on Assets / Equity etc compared to competition)

Mission / Vision

Your subject company’s place in the industry based on Revenue or other metrics

Core Competencies

The following chapters from the book will help: 4 – 10 with some possible use for chapters 11 / 12.

In your conclusion I would like you to make a clear statement about what the company needs to do to gain or sustain its competitive advantage. If you think they have competitive advantage state your support for that and what should they do to maintain that advantage. If they do not have competitive advantage state your support for that and what they need to do to gain it. Your strategy to gain or sustain competitive advantage does not need to be robust but, should give some indication the path forward. Example: I think Google needs to continue to utilize its innovative business strategy to maintain its competitive advantage in the search engine industry. The company has a flat hierarchy and its 80-10-10 rule has been successful based on the creative people they have hired etc.