Research a company

Professional Application #1

Company Overview

In this project you will gather information about a U.S. public company that has operations in your local area. Financial information about a company is useful when one understands a company’s lines of business and strategies for achieving success. So this first project asks you to select a company and gather information about its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The next project will have you complete financial analysis and match your analysis to the qualitative information you have about this company, so remember that this project is asking you to understand how this company makes money and next you will analyze the financial statements.

Step 1: Select a U.S. public company with operations in your local area.

Your instructor has screened a set of retail companies that fit the following criteria:

· A US public company

· Positive income for the last three years

· Positive total stockholders’ equity for the last three years

· Operations in Kansas – and nationwide in many areas.

You may select a company from the instructor-provided list or get approval from your instructor to study another company that also fits these criteria.

Step 2: Research the company.

Read about your company from at least two sources:

1. You must obtain the SWOT Analysis from Marketline for your company, available in the database Business Source Complete at the Mabee Library website. Go to https://washburn.edu/mabee/ . See the handout on locating company information for assistance in locating this resource.

NOTE: Do not google SWOT for your company and use whatever you find. Use Business Source Complete which is a professional business resource, so that you will be familiar with it for your future business classes and other research that you do.

2. Obtain one other source:

a. the Management Discussion and Analysis in the most recent 10-K SEC filing

b. an analysis from another subscription investment source, such as Morningstar or ValueLine available through Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

c. an analysis from a high-quality internet investing website such as Motley Fool or Seeking Alpha

See the separate handout on Finding Company Information to help you with this step.

Step 3: Visit the store -- or browse its website

From your reading in Step 2, identify the observable features of the business that you can check out from visiting the location in person or on the Internet. Do you see evidence of the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats that the “experts” discussed? How do your observations fit with the company analyses? Can you reconcile any differences between what you see and what was described about the company? You must explicitly include information from your visit or virtual visit in your report.

Step 4: Gather information through an interview, webcast, or podcast. Choose one of the alternatives below:

A) Interview:

Because face-to-face interviews may be difficult to arrange, alternatives can be arranged. If you have a relationship with an employee at your company, you can still do an interview, but otherwise move on to alternatives (B) or (C). If you have a contact, ask this person about their perspective on their company and the Topeka location. What is the employee’s perspective on the strengths and opportunities of the business? It is more difficult to ask about weaknesses and threats, but you can ask about the “challenges” present for the business. If you explain, “I am working on a project for my college accounting class about [your company], and I need to add the perspective of a local manager to my other research. Can you help me?”, most people will want to be helpful. If no employee is able to participate, select another alternative.

B) Company quarterly earnings webcast.

Many companies allow investors into meetings in which the company announces its quarterly or annual earnings by allowing the public to listen live at the time and then to listen later as a webcast. To see if your company has a quarterly earnings webcast, go to the link for Investor Relations or Investor Information or About Us or something similar from the company homepage, typically at the bottom of the webpage. Look for a link to Quarterly Earnings Announcements or Quarterly Results or something similar. You want to LISTEN rather than READ. Choose the most recent webcast. Not all companies will have a quarterly webcast posted, so you may need to select another alternative.

C) Retail outlook webcast

Only if you can’t get information on your specific company should you pursue one of the following webcasts that provide an overall look at the retail industry. Listen to one webcast and incorporate this information as it pertains to understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your company.

Retail Leader webcasts from EnsembleIQ, Chicago, IL, a business-to-business information and media company. Look through the videos at https://retailleader.com/videos for someone else’s interview with your company – WalMart, Walgreens and others are here. Or look for a general retail video that provide you with information about current retail challenges such as What Retailers and Brands Need to Know about AI or Retail Experience Begins with the Network.

Step 5: Write a report that will put together your sources of information about the company to communicate your insight into the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for your company’s operations. Remember that you can support your discussion with quotes from your sources, but any quotes must be documented with inline references and a reference list. See the separate handout on References.

Grading

Points	Criteria
20	Demonstrates an understanding of the lines of business of the company and how it makes money
40	Identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
20	Research plan of the MarketLine SWOT report, another published sources, a site visit, and an interview or webcast completed and documented.
20	Uses standard English construction and logical organization to clearly present ideas

1