...Principles – 9th edition Intermediate Accounting 14e Intermediate Accounting 14e Intermediate Accounting 14e Microcomputer Applications for Accounting Excel 2010 Microsoft® Excel 2010: A Case Approach, Complete, 1st Edition, copyright 2011 SOUTH WESTERN FEDERAL TAXATION 2012: COMPREHENSIVE, 36th ed. South-Western Federal Taxation 2013: Corporations, Partnerships, Estates and Trusts, 36th Edition Cost Accounting 13th 09 ed. Advanced Accounting 4th 10th ed. Auditing & Assurance Services 13th 10 ed. Core Concepts of Government and Not for Profit Accounting 2nd ed., 2011 ed ACC 499: Accounting Capstone: Custom Edition Author Weygandt, Kimmel & Kieso Weygandt, Kimmel & Kieso Kieso Kieso Kieso O’Leary Publisher Wiley Wiley Wiley Wiley Wiley McGraw Hill ACC307 ACC317 ACC350 ACC401 ACC403 ACC410 ACC499 Hoffman Hoffman Horngren Jeter Arens Granof Selected chapters from accounting texts Pope Weygandt Weygandt Knapp & Rittenburg Schroeder Romney Pope Cengage...
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...importance of a strategic plan for the success of the defined business. Strategic planning is critical to business success. Different from classic business planning, the strategic variety involves vision, mission and outside-of-the-box thinking. Strategic planning describes where you want your company to go, not necessarily how you're going to get there. However, like all other "travel plans," without knowing where you want to go, creating details on how to arrive are meaningless. Strategic planning defines the "where" that your company is heading. Strategic planning is the core of any business. Thompson, A.A., Strickland, A.J., & Gamble, J.E. (2010) Crafting and Executing Strategy: The quest for competitive advantage: Concepts and cases: 2009 custom edition (17th ed). Unlike business plans, there is no one right way to create effective strategic planning. It is, by definition, brainstorming at its best. Strategic planning involves "feel" just as much as it depends on management science. Since it depends on creativity and outside-the-box thinking, there is no perfect way to design a winning strategic plan. The more you understand your company, your industry, and your corporate "wish list," the better a winning strategic plan you'll create. Pearce, John, & Robinson, Richard Strategic Management 12th edition As critical as business planning is to the success of your company, all plans are useless unless followed by action. An additional side benefit of strategic planning is...
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...CBL Case 4: Friendster/Facebook Which strategies should facebook follow in order to sustain the market leader position in the social network market in 3 years? 1. What is strategy formulation and what are strategy choices? Strategy formulation is the process of deciding on the most appropriate strategy to pursue in order to reach the organisation’s vision. After conducting a situational analysis you have a lot of information to process from which you can formulate possible strategies. The different paths to take are the strategy choices you can decide on (Management Study Guide, n.d.). Strategy formulation is the step before strategy implementation, in which the chosen strategy will be put into action. Carefully analysing the situation and formulating the strategy is important, since implementation follows right after and making a mistake in the formulation phase has essential consequences later on (Hill & Jones, 2015). 2. How to formulate strategies? (TOWS matrix) After completing the SWOT analysis you have an overview of internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. But having this information is not enough. In order to formulate a strategy you need to confront the finding and turn the SWOT table into a TOWS matrix. This TOWS matrix confronts all four elements with each other. Based on the confrontation different strategies can be retrieved. The maxi-maxi strategy makes use of strengths to exploit opportunities. The mini-maxi strategy advises...
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...Case 7- “The Evolution of the Small Package Express Delivery Industry, 1973-2010” The small package express delivery industry is a very complex and competitive Industry that take a lot of combating and strategic approach to get them to a profitable state. Many of the companies in the industry have integrate the Porter’s Five Forces model to give each of the companies the possibility to make profits with a low risk of entry and a weak bargaining power of suppliers. There has been an intense rivalry between these company and the strong bargaining power of buyers has had a negative impact over the prices which have begun to lower revenues for some of the companies. The most interesting thing about this specific case was the struggle of the global delivery company DHL to penetrate the American market. However, the focus of this paper is primarily on delivery system of Federal Express (FedEx). The paper will analyze FedEx’s value creation frontier in order to determine which of the four building blocks of competitive advantage the company needs in order to continue their above average profitability. It will also explore the main aspect of product differentiations and capacity control of the company to maintain an edge on their rivals. Furthermore, the efficiency of FedEx will be assessed in regards to its current business model viability in order to recommend a new business level strategy that gives that company a competitive advantage over the rivals in the industry. Additionally...
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...Distinctive competence Name Institution Date of submission Distinctive competence refers to a set of actions or capabilities that a firm is capable of doing well compared to its opponents and which offers it an advantage over the competitors. Distinctive competence is that which is unique that is done well by a firm and sets the firm different from the competitors (KOZAMI, 2010). Distinctive competence describes that unique or exceptional feature of an organization that its competitors does not possess .Distinctive competence is of many forms. This could be strong brands, skills, and patents Distinctive competence lies in various areas that include marketing activities that are unique and technology. A company requires developing strategy that uses distinctive competence to have the competitive advantage over the competitors. Distinctive competence of a company changes with time as other firms develop new capabilities. Distinctive competence also changes with market needs. Companies need to recognize their distinctive competence by cautious analysis (KOZAMI, 2010). There are many aspects that make distinctive competence. The aspects may be a function of a marketplace, design service the company supplies or its quality and higher service. Recognizing competitive advantage establishes the procedure for leveraging of resources and the determining the best circumstances in exploring business development options. For example, imaging is the distinctive competence...
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...STRATEGY Compulsory formative assignment RYANAIR – THE LOW FARES AIRLINE CASE STUDY SummaryThe study case invites us to assess the success of Ryanair’s strategy in a highly competitive environment. For this purpose, we will successively evaluate its competitive positioning, its internal competencies, and its sustainability. We will conclude that Ryanair had followed until 2009 a low cost strategy, that its key resources and competences did satisfy such strategy in 2009 and that its principal competitive advantage, namely its position of leader of the low cost airline market, can be regarded as sustainable. | 1484 words (excluding tables) Introduction Ryanair was created in 1985 by Tony Ryan as a conventional airline company aiming at operating flights between Ireland and London. In 1991, financial difficulties led to its transformation into a low cost carrier, with Southwest Airlines as a model. Michael O’Leary was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the company soon after. Since then, the company has experienced rapid expansion. It was floated on the Dublin Stock exchange in 1997 and quoted on the NASDASQ in 2002. In 2009, traffic reached 66,5m passengers with a fleet of 232 Boeing 737-800, 41 bases and profit was over €318 m. The study case invites us to evaluate the success of Ryanair’s strategy in a highly competitive environment. For this purpose, we will successively assess its competitive positioning, its internal competencies, and its...
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...forces model is quite useful and it provides a number of benefits , its most contribution is that it's a relevant tool to help organizations find the fundamental structuring components of their given business operation. It is the map showing where the company is and where they hope or want to be (Flesicher, 2007).Further more Schmidt (p.82, 2010) adds that “The model help to identify where the power is in the present business situation, This is important both in understanding the might of a company’s current competitive situation and the power of a position that the company wants to move to.”By understanding where the intensity is, the model can be used to identify the areas of strength, to improve failings and prevent mistakes; also strategic analysts often use the theory to know if new products or services are potentially profitable (Roy, 2011). The five forces model is a tool for analysising the competitive environment as Henry (p.70, 2008) states that “It allows an organization to determine the attractiveness or profit potential of a given market by examining the interaction of the Porter’s five forces .” it’s the altogether power of these five forces that eventually determines an organization’s return on investment or the profit potential within a given market. Porter (2008) adds that by examining all the five forces an organization is able to analyse its potential to compete effectively in a market . The five forces model also allows the...
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...organizational goals. Most companies understand that a happy employee is a productive employee. Pfizer understands that concept and that is why they have launched their new program, PfizerWorks; whereby shifting tedious and time consuming tasks offshore. PfizerWorks is the brainchild of Jordan Cohen, the architect and head of this new program. Cohen recalls seeing one of his recruits from the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., a new father stay late at the office one night to crunch number and search for information on the Web. To Cohen, it didn’t seem like the time best spent (Jones & George, 2011, p. 322). This observation brought about the creation of ‘PfizerWorks’ which is a tool that addresses the concerns of employees having to do tedious and time consuming tasks. An article in Business Week highlights the concerns of Pfizer’s employee, David Cain as noted in Essentials of Contemporary Management (2011): David Cain loves his job. Well, most of it anyway. Cain finds real satisfaction in...
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...has been further compounded by the 2008 financial crisis and the resulting economic crisis (Hill & Jones, 2010), which have led to diminished consumer spending and sluggish demand. These factors have forced most western companies explore new markets for their products, cut costs and source for cheap inputs for their value chains (Cheng, 2009). Companies competing on the international level face a lot of choices in terms of resource allocation, and balancing authority between head office and the business units. Many industries are now so competitive that firms must adopt a transnational strategy (Bartlett and Sumantra, 1991). This involves a simultaneous focus on Reducing costs, Transferring skills and Products, and Boosting Local responsiveness. Implementing such a strategy may not be easy. This essay will discuss how it is hard for a company to implement a transnational strategy to enter and compete in foreign market. Transnational Strategy: a tug of war In this competitive world, many industries are finding it hard to compete in a single market. This is due to increased competition from other established companies. Therefore, companies often tend to come up with strategies across boarders. These are strategies that help a company to compete at the international market, and at the same time maintain its domestic market (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1998). It is crucial for the management of that particular company to be aware of the many international factors, which are of importance...
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...Strategic Management Analysis Tools BUSI/600 – Business Research Methods October 14th, 2011 Abstract In this paper the author has decided to conduct an in-depth analysis on the strategic management analysis tools. In this paper the author will speak on several types of analysis tools and distinguish how each has a distinguishing role in the organizations planning process. In this literature review, the author will cover the SWOT Analysis, the PEST Analysis, the Value Chain Analysis, Porter’ Five Model, Four Corner’s Analysis, Boston Consulting Group Growth-Share Matrix, General Electric Matrix, and the Strategic Early Warning Systems. Hopefully, after the completion of this review the readers will have a clear understanding of how each of the analysis operate and can be applied to any organization or group. SWOT Analysis The SWOT Analysis is a technique that was developed by Albert Humphrey, who was in charge of a research project in the 1960’s and 1970’s at Stanford University using data from many organizations over the world. The ultimate goal of the study was to reveal why corporate planning was failing. After the results were formulated, Humphrey could identify many areas of concern and the tools Humphrey needed to investigate each of these areas were called a SOFT analysis (Ghazinoory, Zadeh & Memariani, 2007). Humphrey and the team used the categories “What is good in the present is Satisfactory, good in the future is...
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...Academic Report on Strategic Management by Diana Romanova 100878 Strategy & Communication EHM3.SC-02 December 10, 2012 Abstract The purpose of the report is to discuss the current strategy of the Carnival Corporation, the world leader in the cruise industry. Based on the external and internal situation analysis the new growth strategy is formulated. The recommendations on the strategy implementation and evaluation are provided by terms of the various strategic theories and models. The projected internationalization strategy may result in the improvement of the financial business situation, by increasing the corporation’s profit margins and shareholder value, and non-financial indicators, for example, brand awareness. Moreover the company can adapt the proposed scenario for entering new markets in the future. 2|Page Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 4 Situation Analysis ...................................................................................................................... 5 Strategic Direction ..................................................................................................................... 6 Formulating a strategy ..............................................
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...Stakeholders, Shareholders and Wealth Maximization V. Sivarama Krishnan, University of Central Oklahoma ABSTRACT This paper attempts reconciliation between the two somewhat extreme views espoused by the shareholder wealth maximization paradigm and the stakeholder theory. The stakeholder theory challenges the basic premise built into corporate finance theory, teaching and practice. Corporate finance theory, teaching and the typically recommended practice are all built on the premise that the primary goal of a corporation should be shareholder wealth value maximization. Extant theoretical and empirical research in financial economics also generally accept shareholder wealth maximization as the normative and ideal goal on which all business decisions should be based. This paradigm assumes that there are no externalities and all the participants engaged in transactions with the firm are voluntary players competing in free, fair and competitive markets. A very different view is offered by what is loosely called stakeholder theory. The stakeholder theory posits that the focus on shareholders and firm value is misplaced and managers should be concerned with all stakeholders of the firm. The paper attempts to address what is felt as a lack of dialogue between the two camps. INTRODUCTION Corporate finance theory, teaching and the typically recommended practice at least in the US are all built on the premise that the primary goal of a corporation should be the maximization...
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...MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION - BOOK LIST MBA YEAR 1 MODULE Management and Organisational Behaviour Management and Organisational Behaviour Managerial Economics TEXTBOOK Prescribed Book: Contemporary Management 4th Edition Recommended Book: Management and Organisational Behaviuor Prescribed Book: Managerial Economics - An Analysis of Business Issues 3rd Edition AUTHOR / EDITOR Garett Jones PUBLISHER McGrawHill Laurie J.Mullins Prentice Hall Howard Davies & Pun-Lee Lam Prentice Hall Managerial Economics Recommended Book: Economics for South African Mohr P, Faurie and Associates Students 3rd Edition Prescribed Book: Applied Business Statistics: Methods Trevor Wegner and Applications Recommended Book: Quantitative Methods for Decision Makers 4th Edition Van Schalk Managerial Statistics Juta Managerial Statistics Mike Wisniewski Prentice Hall Prescribed Book: Management Management Information Information Systems Systems - Managing the Digital Firm 9th Edition Recommended Book: Management Essentials of Business Information Systems Information Systems 7th Edition Prescribed Book: Accounting for NonFinancial and Accounting Students 6th Managerial Edition Accounting Recommended Book: Fundamentals of Cost and Financial and Management Accounting 5th Managerial Edition Accounting Marketing Management Marketing Management Kenneth C Laudon, Jane P Laudon Prentice Hall Kenneth C Laudon, Jane P Laudon Prentice Hall Dyson JR ...
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...Strategic Plan Part I: Conceptualizing a Business Danielle Jones BUS/475 June 15, 2011 Professor Kwadwo Ofori-Brobbey Conceptualizing a Business In today’s dynamic business environment, organizations have to develop strategic plans to gain a competitive advantage. Planning is a vital function of running a successful business and must coincide with an organization’s mission, vision, and values. Each of these components reveals the nature of an organization, its intention, long-term goals, and logic for its actions. More important, these components establish the framework, which plot the course of an organizations future. The purpose of this paper is to give the reader an informed view of the important role these components play when formulating a strategic plan. This paper will illustrate this point by creating a vision, mission, and values for Jones Day Spa a fictitious organization. Furthermore, this present work is intended to meet the following objectives: • Provide a company overview including the vision, mission, and values • Analyze how the vision, mission, and values guide the organization’s strategic direction • Evaluate how the organization addresses customer needs and critique how they achieve a competitive advantage Jones Day Spa Vision, Mission and Values Vision Jones Day Spa (JDA) ultimate objective is to become the preferred spa of choice customers go to enhance their natural beauty. We strive to create a serene...
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...Assignment #3 A New Strategy for Kodak BUS 599 Strayer University 12/7/14 Just like Google is synonymous with looking up information today, Kodak was once synonymous with the photographic industry. The Eastman Kodak Co. was founded in New Jersey on October 24, 1901 by George Eastman. Kodak saw early success due to his development in 1884 of silver halide paper-based photographic roll film. With this technology, he was able to create the first portable camera in 1888. The camera utilized George’s own patented film and was developed using his own proprietary method (Hill & Jones, 2013). On top of that, the company produced the plastics and chemicals needed to produce the film. The combination of all these factors resulted in Kodak being becoming one of the most profitable countries in the U.S. At a previous sales job of mine, every month I would sit down with my supervisor and go over S.M.A.R.T goals. S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym used as a guide to setting objectives. The ‘S’ stands for specific. With this, the business should focus on one area of improvement and try to improve it. The ‘M’ stands for measurable. Once you find your area of improvement you should try to quantify it. For example a business have a measurable goal to increase their capital by a total of $5 million dollars. The ‘A’ stands for attainable. This stage focuses on the plan of action of getting to your goal. “You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to...
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