Final Project

Principles of Management Final Project: Case Study Analysis

This project is designed to have you apply what you have learned in this course to a true business case.

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Select a business with which you are very familiar.

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Briefly

describe the company.

What is its purpose/mission? Organizational structure?

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Conduct a S.W.O.T. analysis.

Based on the information you already have, identify the company's internal

strengths and weaknesses. Evaluate relevant components of the business environment. Having identified

the opportunities and threats and strengths and weaknesses, consider what they mean (or should mean) to

the company. Is the company in a strong competitive position? Why or why not?

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Determine the corporate-level strategy.

Justify your assessments. What has been the company’s

competitive advantage? Identify what contributes the most to or detracts from the company’s competitive

advantage.

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Analyze business-level strategy.

Using

Porter's five forces model,

discuss the company's business-level

strategy and describe how it competes. If Porter’s model has revealed the threats to the company from the

environment, can the company deal with these threats? How should it change its business-level strategy to

counter them?

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Identify the issues uncovered.

Identify any problems/issues, or areas in need of improvement that were

uncovered by your analysis. Is “organizational change” an issue? In addition, conflict, power, and politics

may be important issues. Focus on those issues that you can evaluate most thoroughly. Based on your

analysis, try to analyze why problems in these areas are occurring.

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Make recommendations.

Recommend strategies and actions the company can take to resolve/capitalize on

issues you’ve identified Remember, your recommendations should follow from your analysis, and should

use tools/strategies discussed in class and in your book.

General Guidelines

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This project does not entail interviews.

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Your paper must be 4-5 pages (double-spaced, 1 inch margins), standard 12pt font.

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Due Dates: March 30, 2015