Assignment

ToolsCorp Corporation is a fictitious company that does not exist anywhere. For the purpose of this course, it is located in Tennessee. As members of the senior management team of ToolsCorp Corporation, your group has been asked to prepare a neat and organized report for the Strategic Officers Steering Committee (SOS-C) of ToolsCorp Corporation. The purpose of this paper is to obtain permission from them to go forward with the next step (developing a full-blown business plan) for ToolsCorp's strategic initiative to break into the global marketplace.

Your group's paper should discuss the following (at a minimum):

• A complete strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis (including at least 5 factors from each category and full explanations of why each factor is important and why it was placed in the category) of the environment that exists within ToolsCorp and the environment that ToolsCorp is proposing

• An outline of the business plan to be developed for ToolsCorp's strategic initiative

• A full mission statement containing the nine components and presented in a well written paragraph

• Key operating principles as you will apply them

• A preliminary market analysis of the market(s) into which ToolsCorp expands

• The one-year, five-year, and ten-year strategic objectives of the strategic initiatives presented as one strategic proposal for each time frame (3 strategic proposals in all), complete with implementation plans, potential ramifications, and feedback mechanisms

• The additional material that your group considers necessary to support the case for going forward with ToolsCorp's global strategic initiative (This is not optional, you must input additional material.)

Background Information

ToolsCorp Corporation is a fictitious company that does not exist anywhere. For the purpose of this course, it is located it in Tennessee. It builds power tools, lawn mowers, lawn furniture, microwaves, and ranges. All products are manufactured locally and sold through large retailers that place sales papers inserted in every Wednesday and Sunday paper. Although they have a thriving business in the United States and Canada, ToolsCorp is trying to break into the global marketplace.

Deliverable Length

The deliverable length is at least 15 pages (cover page and reference page not included). As graduate business students, you are required to provide a well-researched and analyzed comprehensive response to every assignment question. Brief, vague, generic, or nondefinitive responses will not earn good grades.

This group project requires a minimum of 15 scholarly sources, a minimum of 1 per page. You are welcome and encouraged to use the David textbook and the course materials for this course, but other viable research sources are required.

For references, use the APA guide that is available as shown in the Virtual Campus under "Interactive Learning."

Remember that any paper longer than 10 pages requires the submission of an Executive Summary.

Nine Essential Componentsof a Mission Statement

COMPONENTS OF AN EFFECTIVE MISSION STATEMENT

Mission statements can and do vary in length, content, format and specificity. Most practitioners and academicians of strategic management consider an effectively written mission statement to exhibit nine characteristics or mission statement components. Since a mission statement is often the most visible and public part of the strategic management process, it is important that it include most, if not all, of these essential components. Components and corresponding questions that a mission statement should answer are given here.

1. Customers: Who are the enterprise's customers?
2. Products or services: What are the firm's major products or services?
3. Markets: Where does the firm compete?
4. Technology: What is the firm's basic technology?
5. Concern for survival, growth, and profitability: What is the firm's commitment towards economic objectives?
6. Philosophy: What are the basic beliefs, core values, aspirations and philosophical priorities of the firm?
7. Self-concept: What are the firm's major strengths and competitive advantages?
8. Concern for public image: What is the firm's public image?
9. Concern for employees: What is the firm's attitude/orientation towards employees?