MSM 6650 Strategic Management Homework- Troy University
Length: 10 to 20 pages.
1) Go online and get the latest couple of annual report (10K filing) for your company. Read through it and take some preliminary notes.
2) What are the major competitors to your firm? (Find at least 3 that are closest in total revenue size to your company, then list their names and ticker symbols).
3) Provide your firm's mission and vision statements. Do these look to be appropriately stated? First, just retype what they say they are. THEN, do a quick analysis of them and support your answers accordingly (you'll analyze them again in a later part of the project).
4) What are your firm's major strategies and/or strategic objectives? (note: All firms have strategies and objectives, which should be in the annual shareholders' report or 10-K). Do these look to be in alignment with your firm's stated mission and vision? (NOTE: Name the type of strategy or strategies that the company says they are pursuing.)
5) Compare your firm's strategies and strategic objectives to those of the competitors. What issues do you note? Are they struggling toward the same markets, similar objectives, and similar business models, or, are they completely different? (NOTE: What you are doing here is comparing the areas, strategies, markets, etc., in which your company is actually competing with other companies.).
6) Do some non-academic research (i.e. use "Google") and find out what you can about any serious issues the members of the firm's Board of Directors might have (for example, a CEO arrested for something, turnover within the Board of Directors, vacant positions, etc.). What did you find? (NOTE: What you are looking for here are ethical and legal violations committed by members of the Board of Directors)
7) Based on information from the annual report and/or 10K, how would you describe your firm's current financial condition? Normally, one would use financial ratios and other pertinent income and balance sheet data to support an analysis. However, because many of you have not had any financial analysis courses in your educational program, it is acceptable to stick with those that are being reported by the company that you are reporting on, or those that are reported by other competitors in the industry. Remember, the information you are looking for is in almost definitely in the annual filings (10Ks) for the competitors you identified earlier. Make sure you discuss Net Income, and at least 2 other ratios reported by industry analysts or other competitors. (I suggest that you use Net Income, Quick Ratio, Return on Assets, Return on Equity, and either Market Share or Total Revenue. If you don't know how to calculate one of the ratios, you should be able to Google it fairly easily.)
8) Create a table for your financial analysis in the following format:
9) Industry Avg Your Company Competitor 1 Competitor 2 Competitor 3
i. Net Income
ii. Quick Ratio
iii. Return on Assets
iv. Return on Equity
v. Total Revenue
10) Go back to the information you discovered when doing your PESTEL and Porter's Five Forces analyses, only this time reconsider these models in light of the company you have been assigned. Based on the information you have for your firm, plus what you have for your firm's competitors, note any areas where your company might be stronger or weaker than the competitors mentioned earlier, or the industry average.
11) Finally, review what you know about your company and the competitors mentioned earlier. Describe at least 20 strengths and 20 Weaknesses that apply to your firm in particular, as it relates to other companies (remember, strengths and weaknesses are only factors if they cause the company to be significantly different from other companies or the industry average.). Strengths and Weaknesses are similar to Opportunities and Threats, except...
i. Do NOT apply to the entire industry, but rather apply mostly to YOUR company.
ii. Are clearly in the control or influence of your company.
iii. Are discussed only as they relate to competitors and/or the industry averages.
iv. Are NOT something the company can choose to do. That is, they are not actions a company can take.
12) Create tables of Strengths and Weaknesses in the same way as you did using the two models of the previous writing homework.
Format your homework according to the following formatting requirements:
(1) The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
(2) The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the homework, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
(3) Also include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.