Benchmark - Microsoft

Running Head: MICROSOFT

MICROSOFT 2

MICROSOFT

Lakisha Trammel

GCU

1/12/2021

In the MD&A of the 2019 annual report, Microsoft highlighted various factors such as increasing revenues, a potential rise in market-share due to new product (Azure), stiff competition and emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) as the main factors influencing its future business viability. According to Microsoft, the future will be influenced by AI and Microsoft is confident that it will expand market share due to its new product called Azure. The four key issues are business, market for equity, the management and exhibits. These four issues have been expanded significantly in the report and a summary is included in this study.

The first issue is the exhibit that seeks to disclose the schedules for other reports the periods ending as well as the date of release. Among such include the income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, shareholders’ equity statements, reports of independent account firms and finally the notes to financial statement (Nadella & London, 2018). These are most import documents to the investors because they give financial position of the company. It is from her that investors know whether company is making profits or losses. Such documents either scars away investors or invites them in.

The second issue is the executive and the management. The company has seven senior management offices. The company is lead by a chief executive officer. Below the chief executive office are five executive vice presidents. The company resident doubles as the chief legal officer. The chief executive office`s name is Satya Nadella who was, according to the 2019 10K report, appoint in the year 2014. The chief marketing officer, one of the vice presidents was appointed in the year 2016. Other vice presidents have always been appointing from the human resource pool that the company has trained over the years.

Business: this issue covers the company mission and vision about the future. It is in this section that the company explains its products. Among the products offered by the company include operating system, server application, tools to manage server and desktop, video games, cross device productivity application and also business solution application. The ambition that drives the business in the to create more personal computing power, to improve on the artificial intelligent and finally to reinvent productive. The latest of its product is the Azure SQL database where AI is incorporated in server management (Microsoft, 2019).

The last issue addressed is the market for registration of the common stock. In this section, the available information is about the prices of the shares sold in the market. In accordance with April 2019, there had been 8, 547, 612 shares that were purchased at $ 122.85 and this was approximated to $ 14.55 billion. The dividend was declared on June 12 the same and after recording on august 15, the were paid on September 12. Each share received $ 0.46 and this total to $ 3.516 billion. The Microsoft continues that $ 7.7 billion was return as repurchases to shareholders.

References

Fitchett, L. (2019). A Strategic Audit of Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft, (2019). Annual Report 2019- Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer. Retrieved from https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar19/index.html

Nadella, S., & London, S. (2018). Microsoft’s Next Act. The McKinsey Quarterly.