Purpose:
This project is the second of three projects. Students will perform an internal environmental analysis using the tools and concepts learned in the course to date. You will also draw from previous business courses to develop an understanding of how organizations develop and manage strategies to establish, safeguard and sustain its position in a competitive market.
Students also have the opportunity to review an organization's objectives and goals and the key functional areas within the organization. Performing an internal environment analysis helps assess a firm's internal resources and capabilities and plays a critical role in formulating strategy by identifying a firm's strengths to capitalize on so that it can effectively overcome weaknesses.
Skill Building:
In this project, you are building many different skills including research, critical thinking, writing and developing analytical skills related to various financial analysis tools and strategy tools used in business.
Outcomes Met With This Project:
- utilize a set of useful analytical skills, tools, and techniques for analyzing a company strategically;
- integrate ideas, concepts, and theories from previously taken functional courses including, accounting, finance, market, business and human resource management;
- analyze and synthesize strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) to generate, prioritize, and implement alternative strategies in order to revise a current plan or write a new plan and present a strategic plan.
Instructions:
Step 1: Research
In completing the report, students will use the chapters in the eBook as a guide and perform research on the company from Project 1 so that they can answer the required elements below in narrative form following the steps.
Note: Your report is based on the results of the research performed and not on any prepared documentation. What this means is that you will research and draw your own conclusions that are supported by the research and the course material rather than the use any source material that puts together any of the tools or techniques whether from the Internet, for-pay websites or any document, video or source material. A zero will be earned for not doing your own analysis.
Library Resources
You will be using scholarly material and Mergent Online to research privately held companies. On the main navigation bar in the classroom select, Resources and then select Library. Select Databases by Title (A - Z). Select M from the alphabet list, and then select Mergent Online.
UMUC library is available for providing resources and services. Seek library support for excellence in your academic pursuit.
Library Support
Extensive library resources and services are available online, 24 hours a day, seven days a week at https://www.umuc.edu/library/index.cfm to support you in your studies. The UMUC Library provides research assistance in creating search strategies, selecting relevant databases, and evaluating and citing resources in a variety of formats via its Ask a Librarian service at https://www.umuc.edu/library/libask/index.cfm.
Scholarly Research in OneSearch
To search for only scholarly resources, you are expected to place a check mark in the space for "Scholarly journals only" before clicking search.
Step 2: Specific Company for All Three Projects
Since each of the learners in this course has been specifically assigned in Project 1 by your instructor to write your independent report on one focal company, the assigned company must be used for all three projects in this course. Learners are not allowed to write their reports on any other company different from the company specifically assigned by your instructor.
The companies that your instructor has assigned to each of you will be used throughout the three projects.
Each of you has been assigned with a specific company in Project 1. Students will use the same company to complete this assignment as they did in Project 1. Students who fail to use the specifically assigned companies on the list or use an unapproved company will receive a zero for the assignment.
Step 3: Preparation for the Project
Before you begin writing the report, you will read the following requirements that will help you meet the writing and APA requirements.
- You will be doing an analysis on the selected company. When doing an analysis you are not merely making statements that may be cited. Instead, you will be supporting the statements made. "Support" is the process of explaining, discussing and analyzing "why" and "how," which is a higher level critical analytical skill that is required. Support is needed to do well on this project.
- Read the grading rubric for the project. Use the grading rubric while writing the report to ensure all requirements are met that will lead to the highest possible grade.
Step 4: How to Set Up the Report
Create a Word or Rich Text Format (RTF) document using 12-point font. The final product cannot be longer than 16 pages in length, which includes all tables and matrices but excludes the title page and reference page(s). Those items identified in the technical analysis should appear under the appropriate heading in the paper. Do no use an Appendix.
Follow the following format using these topics as headings:
- Title page with title, your name, the course number, the instructor's name;
- Introduction
- Company Background Analysis
- Strategic Role of Corporate Strengths/Weaknesses in Internal Strategy Analysis
- Strategic Role of Internal Resources/Departments/Processes
- Strategic Financial Analysis
- Composite Analysis
- Conclusion
- Reference page
Step 5: Introduction
Create an introductory paragraph. The Introduction should clearly and concisely convey the main points of the project's requirements. Review the following website to learn how to write an introductory paragraph: http://www.writing.ucsb.edu/faculty/donelan/intro.html
Step 6: Company Background Analysis
- Provide historical company background analysis from beginning to present
- Perform a strategic analysis of the company's mission, vision and objectives.
Step 7: Strategic Role of Corporate Strengths/Weaknesses in Internal Strategy Analysis
Perform an analysis on:
·
- Corporate-level strategies
- Create a partial SWOT table and perform a SW analysis and address the strategic inferences/implications (Discuss what strategies would allow the company to capitalize on its major strengths and what strategies would allow the company to improve upon its major weaknesses.)
- Create an IFE matrix analysis and address the strategic inferences/implications
- Develop a Grand Strategy Matrix with an analysis that discusses the strategic inferences/implications at a corporate level and business-unit-level.
Step 8: Strategic Role of Internal Resources/Departments/Processes
Perform an analysis on:
- Business-level strategies
- Evaluate the company's product line, target market and its competition to identify its competitive advantage
- Identify and explain business-level strategies
- Develop a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix and address the strategic inferences/implications.
- Functional-level strategies
- Assess the company's interactions with its stakeholders, the organizational structure, the organizational culture, and communication/decision making among managers within human resources, marketing production, operations, finance and accounting, R&D, and computer information systems, which can be accomplished by viewing the company's website, interviews, and surveys.
- Explain how these strategies align with the company's vision and mission statements.
Step 9: Strategic Financial Analysis For the Last Reported Fiscal Year
- Use the company's income statement and balance sheet to calculate no less than a total of ten (10) key financial ratios to the business. There must be a mix of four different key categories inclusive of the leverage, liquidity, profitability, and efficiency ratios so that the ratios do not all come from the same category. The specific ratios selection must come from the following categories.
- Leverage Ratios (Long term debt ratio, Total debt ratio, Debt-to-equity ratio, Times interest earned ratio, and Cash coverage ratio).
- Liquidity Ratios (Net working capital to total assets ratio, current ratio, quick ratio, and cash ratio)
- Efficiency Ratios (Asset turnover ratio, Average collection period, Inventory turnover ratio, and Days sales outstanding)
- Profitability Ratios (Net profit margin, Return on assets, and Return on equity)
- Quote industry financial average ratios that correlate to the 10 financial ratios for the focal company.
- Discuss corporate financial standing based on financial ratio analysis. Include whether the company's financial ratio is a strength, a weakness or a neutral factor.
Note: If copied directly from the Internet, a zero will be assigned. When placing any table or figure in a table, it must be explained in detail.
Step 10: Composite Analysis
- Develop a Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM) analysis and address the strategic inferences/implications.
- Develop a composite and consistent view on internal factor strategy analysis based on the qualitative and quantitative analytical outcomes
Step 11: Conclusion
Create a concluding paragraph. The Conclusion is intended to emphasize the purpose/significance of the analysis, emphasize the significance/consequence of findings, and indicate the wider applications that are derived from the main points of the project's requirements. Review the following website to learn how to write a concluding paragraph: http://www.writing.ucsb.edu/faculty/donelan/concl.html
Step 12: Submit the Report in the Assignment Folder
Submitting the project to the Assignment Folder is considered the student's final product and therefore ready for grading by the instructor. It is incumbent upon the student to verify the project is the correct submission. No exceptions will be considered by the instructor.
Report Requirements to Follow
In writing the report,
- Use the grading rubric while completing the project to ensure all requirements are met that will lead to the highest possible grade.
- Third person writing is required. Third person means that there are no words such as "I, me, my, we, or us" (first person writing), nor is there use of "you or your" (second person writing).
- Contractions are not used in business writing, so do not use them.
- No direct quotes except for mission statement and vision statement. For all other source material used in the analysis, you will not use direct quotation marks but will instead paraphrase. What this means is that you will put the ideas of an author or article into your own words rather than lifting directly from a source document. You may not use more than four consecutive words from a source document, as doing so would require direct quotation marks. Changing words from a passage does not exclude the passage from having quotation marks. If more than four consecutive words are used from source documents, this material will not be included in the grade and could lead to allegations of academic dishonesty.
- Use in-text citations and provide a reference list that contains the reference associated with each in-text citation.
- You may not use books in completing this project.
- Provide the page or paragraph number in every in-text citation presented.
- You may not use Fort Fern University, Ibis World or any other for-fee website.
