Question:

Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 400-600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas:

You are talking with Mike and Tiffany at lunch. "You've done some great research and brought up some good ideas to implement in the presentation," you say. "There is one element that we are missing."

"One of the most important aspects of the strategy: our competitors," Tiffany states. "I've already done some analysis, and there are many in the global market. It seems like there are several office furniture companies thriving, but not as many custom furniture manufacturers," Mike elaborates.

Question 1: Who are your top 2 global competitors in the market? You need to identify two top global competitors in the selected country. This would be the companies that FCF would be competing with when looking to penetrate into that country's furniture market.

Question 2: Provide a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis for each competitor. You must pull together a SWOT analysis for both top global competitors. Try to capture at least two strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats you identified from your research of the two global competitors.

Question 3: Why are they direct competitors? Explain why the two top global competitors would be direct competitors to FCF if they compete in the selected country's furniture market.

Question 4: What is their competitive advantage? Describe the competitive advantage that each global competitor exhibits when competing in the targeted market. Your response should be an objective assessment (based on the research you conducted on each competitor)

Question 5: Could you form a cooperative strategy with any of the competitors? Based on your research, you need to state if it is possible and/or feasible to form a cooperative strategy (results in a win-win relationship) with one or both of the global competitors.
If so, how?
If not, why?

Question 6: What strategies could you use to build a competitive market profile? This question is really asking what approaches and techniques you would use to help you to build a competitive market profile. Refer back to what competitive market profile is and then visualize what tools and other approaches do you need to utilize to gather pertinent data in that profile.

Question 7: What is a balanced scorecard? Just provide a high-level description of what a balanced scorecard is and why its used as a tool.