strayer bus499 week 1 to week 6
discussionsweek 1
"Strategic Competitiveness" Please respond to the following:
- From the first e-Activity, determine which of the two primary drivers of the competitive landscape is more influential. Explain your rationale.
- Explain which model (I / O model or resource-based model) you believe will best help a firm in the industry you researched earn above-average returns.
"Management’s Responsibility" Please respond to the following:
- From the second e-Activity, determine the level of responsibility management had for the business failure you researched. Provide specific examples to support your response.
- Create a list of three best practices that not only would have helped the company you researched from failure, but would also apply to the rest of the industry your company was part of. Explain your rationale for selecting these best practices.
week 2
week 2 discussion
"Union Pacific Corporation" Please respond to the following:
- Perform an analysis of the social / demographic, technological, economic, environmental / geographic, and political/legal / governmental segments to understand the general environment facing Union Pacific.
- Describe how Union Pacific will be affected by each of these external factors.
2
"Five Forces of Competition Model" Please respond to the following:
- From the e-Activity, analyze the industry you selected using the Five Forces of Competition Model to determine the impact of each of the five forces.
- Based on your analysis, determine if the industry is attractive or unattractive. Explain your rationale.
Week 3 Discussion
"Strong Brands" Please respond to the following:
- Several companies use their brand as a competitive advantage. Given your knowledge about the global economy, identify three brands you believe have the strongest likelihood of remaining a source of advantage in the 21st Century and explain why.
- Explain the effects you believe the Internet’s capabilities will have on the brands you identified in the previous discussion and what the owner of the brand should do in light of them.
2
"Internal Environment" Please respond to the following:
- From the e-Activity, analyze the internal environment of the company you researched to determine that company’s strengths and weaknesses.
- Based on the strengths and weaknesses you discovered, determine what steps the company could take to positively impact the company’s competitiveness. Explain your rationale.
Week 4 Discussion
"Business-Level Strategy" Please respond to the following:
- From the first e-Activity, assess your satisfaction with the company you researched and make recommendations about how that company could modify its business-level strategy to both increase your overall level of satisfaction and to attract new customers. Provide specific examples to support your response.
- Analyze the five business-level strategies discussed in Chapter 4 to determine which strategy the company you researched most likely applies. Determine how your experience with that company might change if it switched to one of the other four strategies (your choice). Explain your rationale.
2
"Apple, Inc: Keeping the “I” in Innovation” Please respond to the following:
- From the second e-Activity and the case study, determine how market commonality and resource similarity impact Apple’s competitive standing in terms of its main rivals. Provide specific examples to support your response.
- Determine what additional steps Apple's competitors are likely to take and how Apple will most likely respond. Explain your rationale.
week 5 discussions
"Diversification" Please respond to the following:
- From the e-Activity, suggest one way the company you researched could increase its level of value-creating diversification. Provide specific examples to support your response.
- Building on the topic above, determine how diversified the company you research could become before it created a negative impact on the company’s bottom line. Explain your rationale.
"Victory Motorcycles" Please respond to the following:
- From the e-Activity and the case study, evaluate the business-level strategy of Victory Motorcycles to determine whether you believe the strategy is appropriate to offset forces in the industry. Provide specific examples to support your response.
- Make recommendations for improving this strategy as well as describing any challenges you foresee in executing those recommendations. Provide specific examples to support your response.
"Executive Pay" Please respond to the following:
- Some evidence suggests that there is a direct and positive relationship between a firm’s size and its top-level managers’ compensation. Explain what inducement you think that relationship provides to upper-level executives.
- Recommend what can be done to influence the relationship so that it serves shareholders’ interests.
"Dr Pepper Snapple Group 2011: Fighting to Prosper in a Highly Competitive Market" Please respond to the following:
- The case study outlines six specific strategies that the firm has chosen to support its strategic direction. Determine which strategy is most likely to benefit the firm. Explain your rationale.
- Briefly outline at least one other strategy the firm could take to support its strategic direction. Illustrate why this new strategy would be successful.
Assignment 1: Strategic Management and Strategic Competitiveness
Due Week 2 and worth 300 points
Choose one (1) public corporation in an industry with which you are familiar. Research the company on its own Website, the public filings on the Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR database (http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml), in the University's online databases, and any other sources you can find. The annual report will often provide insights that can help address some of these questions.
Write a four to six (4-6) page paper in which you:
- Assess how globalization and technology changes have impacted the corporation you researched.
- Apply the industrial organization model and the resource-based model to determine how your corporation could earn above-average returns.
- Assess how the vision statement and mission statement of the corporation influence its overall success.
- Evaluate how each category of stakeholder impacts the overall success of this corporation.
- Use at least two (2) quality references. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not quality as academic resources.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
- Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
- Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
- Determine ways in which the vision, mission, and stakeholders of a firm impact that firm’s overall success.
- Use technology and information resources to research issues in business administration.
- Write clearly and concisely about business administration using proper writing mechanics.
Assignment 2: External and Internal Environments
Due Week 4 and worth 350 points
Choose an industry you have not yet written about in this course, and one publicly traded corporation within that industry. Research the company on its own Website, the public filings on the Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR database (http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml), in the University's online databases, and any other sources you can find. The annual report will often provide insights that can help address some of these questions.
Write an eight to ten (8-10) page paper in which you:
- Choose the two (2) segments of the general environment that would rank highest in their influence on the corporation you chose. Assess how these segments affect the corporation you chose and the industry in which it operates.
- Considering the five (5) forces of competition, choose the two (2) that you estimate are the most significant for the corporation you chose. Evaluate how well the company has addressed these two (2) forces in the recent past.
- With the same two (2) forces in mind, predict what the company might do to improve its ability to address these forces in the near future.
- Assess the external threats affecting this corporation and the opportunities available to the corporation. Give your opinions on how the corporation should deal with the most serious threat and the greatest opportunity. Justify your answer.
- Give your opinion on the corporation's greatest strengths and most significant weaknesses. Choose the strategy or tactic the corporation should select to take maximum advantage of its strengths, and the strategy or tactic the corporation should select to fix its most significant weakness. Justify your choices.
- Determine the company’s resources, capabilities, and core competencies.
- Analyze the company’s value chain to determine where they can create value using the resources, capabilities, and core competencies discussed above.
- Use at least three (3) quality references. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not quality as academic resources.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
- Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
- Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required page length.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
- Identify how the six segments of the general environment affect an industry and its firms.
- Identify the five forces of competition.
- Analyze the external environment for opportunities and threats that impact the firm.
- Analyze the internal environment of a company for strengths and weaknesses that impact the firm’s competitiveness.
- Use technology and information resources to research issues in business administration.
- Write clearly and concisely about business administration using proper writing mechanics.
Assignment 3: Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies
Due Week 6 and worth 300 points
Choose an industry you have not yet written about in this course, and one publicly traded corporation within that industry. Research the company on its own Website, the public filings on the Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR database (http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml), in the University's online databases, and any other sources you can find. The annual report will often provide insights that can help address some of these questions.
Write a six to eight (6-8) page paper in which you:
- Analyze the business-level strategies for the corporation you chose to determine the business-level strategy you think is most important to the long-term success of the firm and whether or not you judge this to be a good choice. Justify your opinion.
- Analyze the corporate-level strategies for the corporation you chose to determine the corporate-level strategy you think is most important to the long-term success of the firm and whether or not you judge this to be a good choice. Justify your opinion.
- Analyze the competitive environment to determine the corporation's most significant competitor. Compare their strategies at each level and evaluate which company you think is most likely to be successful in the long term. Justify your choice.
- Determine whether your choice from Question 3 would differ in slow-cycle and fast-cycle markets.
- Use at least three (3) quality references. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not quality as academic resources.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
- Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
- Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required page length.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
- Identify various levels and types of strategy in a firm.
- Use technology and information resources to research issues in business administration.
- Write clearly and concisely about business administration using proper writing mechanics
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Rating:
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Solution: strayer bus499 week 1 to week 6