Operational : 4

It is apparent that you did not understand the assignment as you wrote about Palo Alto Networks.  The assignment was not for you to select a company, but to use the acquisition of Ticketmaster by Live Nation to demonstrate your understanding of a horizontal acquisition. 

Your paper for week four had you explore the horizontal integration strategy of Live Nation to improve its position in the industry.  You needed to read Chapter 6 -Assurance of Learning Exercise #1 related to Live Nation (https://www.livenationentertainment.com/) and respond to the following questions:

· How has the company used horizontal mergers and acquisitions to strengthen its competitive position?

· Are these moves primarily offensive or defensive? Please explain.

· Has either Live Nation or Ticketmaster achieved any type of advantage based on the timing of its strategic moves?  

Again, you did not note that the acquisition of Ticketmaster by Live Nation was a horizontal strategy, and did not describe in enough detail what industry both are in and the reason for it being a horizontal acquisition.   What I am looking for is for you to connect this to our course work and course definitions to demonstrate your understanding of the course material. 

You should have seen through your research that Ticketmaster is also in the music industry with key entertainer performers contracted through them.  This is what made the merger a horizontal one.  It was not because of the selling of tickets as that would be a vertical integration strategy.

You submitted your paper on time. Your cover page did  meet our requirements.  

You did include an introductory paragraph, but it did not fully meet the requirements of such a paragraph as the reader is left not knowing what the purpose of your paper is about, basically, the three components of the assignment worded in your own words.   Your introduction clearly notes that you did not understand the assignment. 

You did include a concluding paragraph, however it did not summarize how your paper met the requirements of the assignment as you wrote about the wrong company.

You did have five sentences in your paper about Ticketmaster and Live Nation, but clearly did not meet the three requirements of the assignment. 

You provided two non-course references which did not meet our scholarly/peer reviewed source requirement.  You did not provide the web link for the article and that doesn't meet APA requirements.  You were required to include our text as a reference and you did.  Finally, you did not include the Live Nation website in your reference list as this was included as part of the assignment requirement.  

I'm actually very puzzled by the focus of your paper.