Assignment
I. Executive Summary
A two page maximum overview of your paper. This two page summary should incorporate all the major points you want to emphasize from your paper. Many times in business, your co-workers and supervisors will only read the executive summary so this summary should hit on all of the important information. How well you construct this summary will be a major factor in your grade. This is NOT an introduction to your paper. This summary should include all the main points that you believe are most important. It requires you to use your best judgment and should be completed after the entire paper has been finished.
II. INDUSTRY ANALYSIS
In this section, briefly describe the industry you are analyzing and determine the industry's boundaries by describing the basic customer needs that are served.
(This section should contain INDUSTRY information and NOT company information. The company will be analyzed in Part 2 of this outline. DO NOT analyze the company until Part 2.) Please focus on the company's dominant or core business.when doing this industry analysis.
A. PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
Determine what stage of the product life cycle the industry is in and justify your answer based on the information you have obtained. (ie. BACK IT UP, PROVE IT TO ME with information in the case, research etc.)
Choices include:
Emerging/Growth; Maturity; Decline;
B. GENERAL ENVIRONMENT
1) Demographic trends
2) Economic trends
3) Political/Legal trends
4) Sociocultural trends
5) Technological trends
6) Global trends
7) Physical environment trends
C. COMPETITOR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
Research and analyze at least two major competitors specifically for strengths and weaknesses.
III. ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
A. STRATEGY EVALUATION
1. What is the company's mission?
2. What is the company's generic business level strategy Back this up with information in the case or your research. Your choices include:
Low cost leadership, Differentiation, Focused low cost leadership, Focused differentiation, Best cost provider
How successful is the company at pursuing this strategy? Explain your reasoning.
3. What are the company's corporate level/multi-productstrategies.Back this up with information in the case or that you have researched.
How successful is the company at pursuing this strategy? Explain your reasoning.
If applicable, evaluate the portfolio of businesses in terms of the Boston Consulting Group Matrix .
B. CORE AND DISTINCTIVE COMPETENCIES
What are the company's core and distinctive competencies?
(back this up with research)
IV. References
All references used should be included at the end of this paper. You must have at least 10 credible references for this individual assignment.
The library subscribes to Business Source Complete. This online database is a great place to start your research. You can access this database from home by stopping at the library and asking them for remote access (make sure you take a current student id with you).
Make sure that your references state the original publication name, date, volume and author according to APA guidelines.