International Business Paper (Ford Motor Company)

FINANCIAL  INFORMATION:  

Also,  provide  revenue  and  profit  numbers  for  2007-­‐2012.    Show  

how  they  survived  (or  suffered)  the  2008-­‐2009  global  recession.  

I  want  a  table  similar  to  the  following:  

2007  

2008  

2009  

2010  

2011  

2012  

Revenue  

Profits  

In  addition  to  verbiage  explaining  the  financials  (how  they  grew,  how  they  leveraged  growth  etc.)  and  the  company’s  handling  of  the  global  recession  of  2008-­‐2010.  Only  including  the  table  will  receive  minimum  points.    Explanations  are  vital.  

4-­‐QUADRANT  SWOT  WITH  5  BULLET  POINTS  IN  EACH  QUADRANT                                                                                                                      

This  will  be  an  expanded  version  of  the  4-­‐Quadrant  SWOT  that  you  submit  for  your  Rough  Draft  assignment.     FIVE  concise   bullet  points  per  category.    Much  of  this  information  can  be  found  in  the  Annual  Report  (especially  Strengths  and  Opportunities,  other  websites  can  offer  candid  opinions  of  Weaknesses  and  Threats.  

DETAILED  EXPLANATION  OF  EACH  BULLET  POINT.    This  will  be  in  

the  pages  after  the  4-­‐Quadrant.    Provide  an  explanation  for  EACH  bullet  point—why  it  is  a  strength,  weakness,  opportunity  or  threat.    For  example:    If  you  put  “Strong  Management  Team”  as  a  strength,  it  would  like  something  like:  

 STRENGTHS  

• Strong  Management  Team—Top  leadership  has  a  combined  97  years  experience  in  the  industry.    New  CEO  Dilbert  has  a  proven  track  record  of  increasing  profitability.  

• Next  bullet  point-­‐-­‐    

I  want  to  see  a  paragraph  for  each  bullet  point  in  the  order  the  bullet  points  are  presented  within  the  categories.    This  is  the  place  for  additional  verbiage,  not  the  bullet  points.  

SUMMARY  AND  YOUR  PREDICTIONS  

Conclude  the  paper  with  an  in  depth  (at  least  one  full  page)  analysis  on  the  company's  financial  and  economic  forecast  (this  can  include  the  companies  own  forecasts,  but  I  also  want  to  know  YOUR  opinions).  Make  inferences  about  the  company's  future  success  based  on  yearly  profits  or  losses,  industry  and  economic  overhauls  and  its  success  relative  to  its  competitors.    These  are  you  opinions  and  should  be  presented  thoughtfully  and  forcefully  in  that  you  truly  believe  them.  

I  expect  a  lot  of  cited  material  in  the  research/data  sections  of  the  paper.    I  expect  the  summary/conclusions  to  be  primarily  YOUR  thoughts  that  are:  

• Well  thought  out  

• Clearly  presented  

• Well  defended.    What  in  the  body  of  the  work  makes  

you  come  to  those  conclusions?  

(This  would  be  a  good  place  to  use  information  from  the  stock  

and  industry  analysts)  

REFERENCES  

There  must  be  at  least  10  distinct  references  in  addition  to  the  Annual  Report  (these  will  give  a  balance  to  the  company’s  opinion  of  itself).    For  example,  2  references  to  a  single  Yahoo  Finance  article  will  count  as  1  reference.    Two  separate  Yahoo  Finance  articles  will  count  as  two.    However,  I  do  not  want  to  see  all  articles  from  the  same  source—10  references  from  Yahoo  Finance  (or  any  single  source)  is  not  acceptable  as  a  single  source  of  information  can  give  a  slanted  opinion  (one  way  or  the  other)  that  may  not  be  shared  by  the  rest  of  the  world.  

All  quoted  material  must  be  cited.    Anything  over  3  lines  must  be  indented  in  quotations  with  the  cited  reference  immediately  following.    Non-­‐cited  direct  quotes  can  be  construed  as  plagiarism  and  could  result  in  a  grade  of  zero.  

You  will  see  3  assignments  relating  to  this  project:  

1. Company  selection—select  a  publicly  held  multi-­‐ national  companies.    All  I  want  is  a  name  and  their  stock  ticker.    Easy  25  points.  

2. Rough  Draft—a  four  quadrant  SWOT  of  your  selected  

company  with  at  least  3  bullet  points  and  6  references.    This  is  worth  50  points  and  it  shows  that  you  are  working  on  the  project,  which  is  the  main  reason  for  it.    Waiting  too  long  to  start  on  this  will  be  easily  seen.  

3. The  final  project  worth  150  points.    See  below  for  

expectations  

See  Quiz  and  Assignment  Schedule  for  due  dates    

What  I  am  expecting  from  the  project  

The  above  will  also  serve  as  a  grading  rubric  with  various  points  

assigned  to  each  section.    Total  possible  is  150  points  and  value  by  category  does  vary.    I  do  not  publish  the  points  by  category  prior  to  grading,  as  all  sections  should  be  treated  with  equal  importance.    However,  I  will  tell  you  that  I  do  not  give  points  for  the  Cover  Page,  so  don’t  spend  an  abnormal  amount  of  time  on  it.  

Information  available  from  Annual  Report:                                                                   The  company's  financial  ratios  will  indicate  if  it  has  high  liquidity,  low  inventory  turnover  and  a  good  book  value.  Cite  its  low  debt,  

few  competitors,  abundance  of  natural  resources  and  high  

quarterly  profits  as  other  potential  strengths,  if  applicable.        

The  Annual  Report  can  also  explain  some  of  the  company's  weaknesses.  Using  the  same  ratios,  cite  if  the  company  yields  a  low  return  on  assets,  has  a  low  accounts  receivable  turnover  and  has  a  poor  gross  profit  margin.        

Explore  the  opportunities  of  the  company.  Explain  the  benefits  of  any  type  of  partnerships,  mergers  or  acquisitions  faced  by  the  organization.  Include  other  opportunities  like  enhanced  technology,  an  increase  in  market  share  or  perhaps  the  unveiling  of  new  products  aimed  at  a  new  demographic.        

Discuss the  threats  to  the  company's  profitability.  List  the  strengths  of  different  competitors,  outdated  products  or  merchandise,  negative  economic  or  industry  conditions  and  frequent  changes  in  management.