Your final project for this course is to prepare a Competitive Impact Summary to guide decision-making in the face of what your research demonstrates to be existing competitive threats to a publically traded firm of your choice. You are to identify and describe threats on the basis of Porters' Five Forces, and determine actionable medium-term strategies to maximize net benefit to this firm, of existing lines of production or service.
You are to assume that you have been tasked with preparation of this impact assessment because, in your capacity as a firm-wide product and services manager, you are uniquely aware of the economic circumstances and factors that result in price and output combinations of your firm. Your task is to establish the economic facts which currently affect your firm, clearly demonstrating the economic position of the firm. This document will guide firm mid-level managers in the face of perceived competitive threats, such as current or prospective changes in the price of a major competitor's good or service. Specifically, you are to determine what economic evidence and theory demonstrates regarding price and output decisions, in the short and medium term, given the threat assessment that you are able to outline using Porter's Five Forces, and the analytical tools introduced in relationship to each variety of threat.
The project is divided into three milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. Preliminary milestones will be submitted in Modules Three and Six. The final submission will occur in Module Eight.
Milestone 1: Description of Firm and Representative Competitor - Due in Module 3
Milestone 2: Production and Industry Analysis - Due in Module 6
Milestone 3: Final Project Submission - Due in Module 8
In this assignment you will demonstrates your mastery of the following course outcomes:
- Assess supply and demand factors to make business decisions that affect quantity supplied.
- Demonstrate how supply and demand curves will adjust to shifts in managerial decision-making
- Apply pricing theory and concepts of supply to maximize profitability
- Apply input-output analysis to predict economic changes to maximize profits
- Analyze basic game theory to make decisions in business environments
- Perform optimization analysis, risk analysis, estimation and techniques for evaluation to facilitate managerial decision-making
- Examine the legal and ethical issues and challenges involved in competitive decision-making
- Recommend strategies for managerial decision-making
MILESTONE 1
Description of Firm and Representative Competitor
- Select a U.S.-based publicly traded firm of your choice (your focus firm); using NAICS Codes and the Securities Exchange Commission's (SEC) EDGAR Search Tools, and obtain the focus firm's 10-K filing ("Annual Report," a mandatory document filed yearly with the SEC); use the 10-K report and other data to describe the general nature of the firm, its product and the industry of which it is a part (your focus industry).
- Using NAICS Codes and the Securities Exchange Commission's (SEC) EDGAR Search Tools, identify one other major U.S.-based publically-traded firm which competes with your focus firm (your competitor firm), in this industry. Be sure to define your industry focus as narrowly as possible, as you select your focus and competitor firms. Assess and describe factors that distinguish this firm's product demand from that of your focus firm.
- Identify one substitute product sold by the competitor firm. Compute the Cross Price Elasticity of Demand for the substitute good and assess implications of a change in the price of this good on demand for your focus firm's produce. Identify and describe one complement good and determine implications if this is a multiproduct firm.
- Analyze and describe the following in quantitative and qualitative terms:Determinants of market demand for your focus firm's product and/or service other than price.
- Compute an Arc Elasticity of Demand for your focus firm's primary product. Use this measure to approximate Own Price Elasticity and assess the sensitivity of this product to changes in price. Determine whether Income Elasticity is an important consideration for primary products produced by this firm.
Your Description of Firm and Representative Competitor should be presented in a 2-3 page.