Week 5 – Final Project

Strategic Plan

Prior to completing this assignment, review your prior research and course submissions related to the company you selected for research in Week 2’s Environmental Scanning interactive assignment. Ensure that you have incorporated the feedback you received from your previous submissions. In your Final Project this week, you will pull the various elements you’ve created together to aid your creation of a Strategic Plan. From the perspective of an executive with the firm, your supervisor has tasked you with creating a strategic plan to grow the business over the next three years using this

Strategic Plan Template

. Continue to access the Mergent  Ashford University Library online database which offers company financials, descriptions, history, property, subsidiaries, officers, and directors and the Business  Insights database. (View the

Mergent tipsheet

and

Business Insights tipsheet

documents for suggested methods of searching Ashford University Library databases generally as well as specific advice for searching these two databases).

Your strategic plan must be future-oriented and must

• Describe the company, the company’s history and its 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion).
• Examine the company’s mission statement and assess its impact on the organization’s activities.
• Explain the current situation of the organization in the market (industry, market, and general environment analysis).
• Add your SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) of your chosen company here. Evaluate areas that offer opportunities for

  Choose three or four areas from your SWOT analysis and assess why the areas you have chosen are essential to your strategic plan

• Summarize the results of your Environmental Scan and Porter’s 5 Forces.

  Evaluate the degree to which they aid in conceptualizing the company’s competitive position in its marketplace.

• Assess the company’s international performance in light of Cultural Barriers, Monetary Exchange Rates, and Political Instability.
• Assess the financial performance and condition of the
• Operational budget: Research and assess the company’s operational budget.
• Assess the performance in terms of key performance indicators.
• In your analysis, be sure to include profitability ratios relevant to your analysis.

  Debt to Equity ratio
  Debt to Assets ratio

• Based on the data, evaluate the overall current financial condition of the company.

  Support your analysis by referring to the company data
  Create a three year end trend analysis

• Assess how your Operational Budget analysis affects your three-year strategic plan.
• Recommend an organizational structure in terms of the organizational design as defined in Abraham (2012) section 2.6.
• Assess the impact of the strategic plan on the organizational culture.
• Strategic Goals: Create measurable core strategic goals for each of the three to four areas addressed from the SWOT analysis, addressing any contingencies associated with the strategies you are recommending and prioritizing them according to ease of achievement and time to completion.
• Recommend marketing positions and opportunities for growth in your strategic plan
• Add specific language to the strategic plan that addresses the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility
• Explain your plan to measure the success of your strategic plan
• Submit the Strategic Plan to the instructor.

The Final Paper

• Must be 10 to 12 double-spaced pages in length (excluding title and reference pages), and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.) resource.
• Must include a title page with the following:

  Title of paper
  Student’s name
  Course name and number
  Instructor’s name
  Date submitted

• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.

  For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources.

• Must use at least five scholarly and/or credible resources (including a minimum of three from the Ashford University Library) other than the textbook.

  The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.

• Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.)guide.
•  (Links to an external site.)Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.

Carefully review the

Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.)

for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.

Required Resources

Text

Abraham, S. (2012).

Strategic management for organizations

. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

• Chapter 10: Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
• Chapter 11: Diversified, Global, and Other Types of Organizations

Web Pages

Grace, F. (2002, June 05).

McDonald’s settles beef over fries (Links to an external site.)

. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mcdonalds-settles-beef-over-fries/

• This web page’s author provides information about McDonald’s experiences in India clashing with cultural norms that will assist you in your International Strategies discussion forum this week.
  Accessibility Statement (Links to an external site.)
  Privacy Policy (Links to an external site.)

Kanna, S. (2014, November 19).

How McDonalds conquered India (Links to an external site.)

. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30115555

• This web page’s author provides information about the adjustments McDonalds made to accommodate a different set of cultural norms in India that will assist you in your International Strategies discussion forum this week.
  Accessibility Statement (Links to an external site.)
  Privacy Policy (Links to an external site.)

Recommended Resources

Articles

Favaro, K. (2014).

How IKEA, Disney, and Berkshire Hathaway succeed with adjacencies (Links to an external site.)

. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/boozandcompany/2014/03/31/how-ikea-disney-and-berkshire-hathaway-succeed-with-adjacencies/

• This article examines some of the best adjacent strategies by well-known companies and may assist you in your International Strategies discussion forum this week.
  Accessibility Statement does not exist.
  Privacy Statement (Links to an external site.)

Fisher, G. S. (2012).

Why global diversification still makes sense (Links to an external site.)

. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/greggfisher/2012/01/17/why-global-diversification-still-makes-sense/

• This article explains global diversification and may assist you in your International Strategies discussion forum this week.
  Accessibility Statement does not exist.
  Privacy Statement (Links to an external site.)

Geromel, R. (2012).

Can we use corporate social responsibility to evaluate companies (Links to an external site.)

? Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ricardogeromel/2012/05/21/csr-corporate-social-responsibility/

• This article considers the impact of using corporate social responsibility when evaluating companies  and may assist you in your Corporate Social Responsibility discussion forum this week.
  Accessibility Statement does not exist.
  Privacy Statement (Links to an external site.)

Guthrie, D. (2014).

A conversation on corporate social responsibility (Links to an external site.)

. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougguthrie/2014/01/09/a-conversation-on-corporate-social-responsibility/

• This article discusses corporate social responsibility and may assist you in your Corporate Social Responsibility discussion forum this week.
  Accessibility Statement does not exist.
  Privacy Statement

Running head:MICROSOFT MISSION STATEMENT

Microsoft Mission Statement

Brea P. Sylvester

BUS402: Strategic Management & Business Policy

Professor Fred Fening

26 January 2020

Brea Sylvester

Brea Sylvester

MICROSOFT MISSION STATEMENT 2

Microsoft Mission Statement

The mission statement by Microsoft, which is one of the world’s largest software

companies, reads: At Microsoft, we work to help people and businesses throughout the world

realize their full potential. This is our mission. Everything we do reflects this mission and the

values that make it possible. The mission statement does offer guidance to the company’s

organizational activities in the sense that they are structured to provide the most help to their

clients. It is not quite as precise as what is suggested by Patrick Hull in his article. The statement

encompasses the fact that the company seeks to help people and businesses through its activities

and values maximize their potential. The report itself is quite vague based on the article by Hull

(2013) since they fail to answer the fundamental four questions that appertain to the creation of a

great mission statement.

The first question is, what does the company do? This is adequately answered by

Microsoft in its mission statement since it highlights the fact that it helps people and businesses.

It gives the company the first element in the mission statement. The second question, based on

the article by (Hull,2013) is How do we do it? And in this case, unfortunately, the Microsoft

mission statement fails to provide information on how it intends to fulfill its promise of

maximizing the potential of the people and businesses it engages. The third question is, who do

we do it for? In this case, the company has laid out its intended target audience as people and

businesses. It also mentions the value that it brings to the business relationship, which is based

on the fourth question (Hull,2013). The problem is, what value does the company carry?

MICROSOFT MISSION STATEMENT 3

According to the 5-star rating system used in the Fortune 500 list, I would rate the

company’s mission statement as 3.1 out of 5. This is because it adheres to most of the rules set

out by (Hull, 2013) in his article, but also fails to mention its activities in detail. Given a chance,I

would rewrite the statement myself as Microsoft is a company that offers solutions in technology

by cheap, trending, and quality products for consumers across the globe. We offer the bridge

between the present and future solutions in cutting edge technology.

MICROSOFT MISSION STATEMENT 4

References

Hull, P. (2013). Answer 4 Questions to Get a Great Mission Statement.Forbes

Harper, C. (2019). https://www.missionstatements.com/fortune_500_mission_statements.html

Surname 1

Microsoft History

Microsoft is a technology based company that began in its operations in the 1990s.It was started by a little known entrepreneur back then known as Bill Gates.The young man had embarked on a mission to tell people in America to be part of the computer revolution that was happening then.He managed to convince people to buy easy to use and pocket friendly PCs or personal computers. He also managed to convince them that it would only run on Microsoft built software, and that it would need to be constantly upgraded. It is through Microsoft and his technological innovation that he became one of the richest men in the world.This was largely facilitated by the technological improvements of the last two decades,starting with the internet boom in the 1990s. The internet was greatly improved by pioneering companies like AOL. This had been largely facilitated by Microsoft’s success since almost 10million copies of their latest software Windows 3.0. This may not mean much in layman’s terms but it meant an equal number in PC sales for the company.

In relation to actual economics however, Microsoft has been able to make a significant contribution to solve the unemployment problem. It has been able to employ 144,000 people in Microsoft working in full time positions across the world. Sixty percent of these employees are in the United States. The technology company had a revenue standing at around 126 billion U.S dollars in year 2019. The company’s employees have been increasing since when the company was founded. In reference to other areas of impact, Microsoft has devoted itself to philanthropic work through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.