writing-assignment-final (2)

docx

School

Harvard University *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

1102

Subject

Communications

Date

Nov 24, 2024

Type

docx

Pages

Uploaded by GeneralInternet11514

BUS409W-FINAL WRITING ASSIGNMENT The purpose of this essay is to determine key insights regarding the external and internal environments of a company. To determine the key insights, we will be conducting analyses using the four main tools learned in class (PESTEL, Porter’s Five Forces, Value Chain and VRIO). When writing the essay, these key insights represent the claims of the essay. Throughout the essay, I will be looking to see if each claim is well-supported through the arguments and evidence provided. Overall together this essay from a skills perspective is focused on demonstrating each student’s critical thinking skills. The instructions in Part 1 outline what needs to be covered while the instructions in Part 2 outline the specific requirements of the essay. Keep in mind that the purpose of including the list of requirements in Part 2 is to help promote critical thinking and writing well NOT to punish. Please read each part carefully. INSTRUCTIONS PART 1: 1) Introduction a. No longer than 1-2 paragraphs, under 200 words. b. Provide a brief overview of what will be discussed in this essay plus your thesis statement. i. Thesis statement should be the 1-2 lines that summarize the key insights (your claim) from the external and internal analyses. c. Background i. 1-2 short paragraphs providing a brief background on the industry and company being analyzed. ii. In the brief overview, please briefly mention the industry and company that will be analyzed. Provide some general information such as What does this industry do? What is the size of the industry? What is this company’s mission and vision? Who is the CEO? When did this company form? Where is it headquartered? What is the current market capitalization size of the company? 2) General Environment- a. Please identify TWO (previously 3) important trends in the general environment and describe why these are of concern to this industry. i. Trends should be from different categories of the PESTEL tool. Please do not include definitions of each category. b. Explain what the trend is and WHY this is a new and upcoming trend and WHY this is important to the industry. c. Support each trend with at least 2 pieces of evidence. 3) Industry Environment a. Once more, clearly state what industry will be analyzed. b. Analyze each of the five forces. i. Please clearly state whether the overall strength of the force is high or low. ii. Identify issues that determine whether strength of the force is high or low. iii. Support your analysis with at least two pieces of evidence per force.

iv. For clarity, please clearly identify which force you are analyzing at the beginning of each paragraph. c. Based on the above analysis, please explain the overall profitability of this industry. i. Support your answer with information found in the above analysis. 4) Value Chain Analysis a. Conduct an analysis of the company’s Value Chain by selecting TWO of the firm’s primary activities that create the most value. (No need to analyze the secondary activities.) i. Under each primary activity, clearly identify at least ONE specific individual activity that the firm is engaging in that create value. ii. Explain HOW and WHY value is created with at least 2 pieces of evidence per individual activity. iii. Again for clarity, please clearly identify which activity you are analyzing at the beginning of each paragraph and also utilize the same terminology in the textbook. 5) VRIO Analysis: a. Pick an activity from #4 that creates value. b. Explain how that individual activity contributes to a single Resource or Capability that is VRIO. i. For each letter of the VRIO analysis, please support WHY that resource and/or capability fits with at least two pieces of evidence. ii. For Example: If the VRIO Resource/Capability is Brand Image, in the Value Chain Analysis you need to describe what activities are conducted that contribute to Brand Image being valuable. 6) SWOT Analysis a. Based on the above analyses, please conduct a SWOT Analysis (except for Weaknesses), highlighting one to two items per category. Again, please support your answer as to WHY it is a Strength, Opportunity or Threat using at least 2 reasons supported with citations per category. (Minimum of 6 supporting reasons). b. Refer to the Reporting Strategic Insights video for tips. 7) Brief Conclusion a. 1 to 2 paragraphs, under 200 words. b. Again reiterate your claim (your insights) and key details. i. Think of the conclusion as a summary of the paper. INSTRUCTIONS PART 2: Format: (25% penalty) 1) Length: 10-15 pages-no less no more, a. Include all references, tables and/or graphs in the page count. All tables and/or graphs should go to the end of the paper. b. Please do not exceed this nor write less. The ability to write with detail yet concisely is also a skill and part of your grade. 2) Use Times New Roman, size 12, double spaced. Please no headers aside from your name and ‘BUS409W: Final Writing Assignment”.

a. For the References page only, use single-spaced line spacing. 3) Citations must use APA formatting correctly (Alphabetical, hanging indentation, etc.) 4) AVOID: a. using definition-like topic sentences such as: “This paper will analyze the smartphone industry using Porter’s Five Forces. Porter’s Five Forces includes…” “The force measures….” “We will now analyze the industry using PESTEL. PESTEL stands for….” b. Talking directly to the reader c. Using any personal pronouns (I, you, they, etc.) 5) Submit as an MS Word format. a. See the below link for access to MS Office. b. https://www.farmingdale.edu/information-technology/software/ 6) Failure to adhere to any of the above will lead to 25% penalty. Draft vs. Final (25% Penalty) 1) Comments on the drafts must be changed. a. To check, I will conduct a side by side comparison of the drafts vs. final essays. b. For each comment, a significant change must be made from the draft to final version. 2) Failure to make significant changes will lead to a 25% penalty. Citations/Reference Requirements (50% penalty) 1) Minimum of 20 unique sources, these must also all be from 2010 and onward. a. Same sources can be used more than once but must have at least 20 different sources. b. If referencing different pages within the company’s website, please list separately on the References page but will be counted as a single source for this requirement. c. If certain citations are behind a paywall (such as IBIS World), I will ask for proof of payment. 2) A minimum of 10 citations of the 20 citations must be… a. From 2022 and onwards. b. Includes the latest Company’s 10-K/Annual Report, accessed from the company’s website or SEC directly. c. Primary sources such as: Statistics released by US Government, Company’s 10-K/Annual Report, company website. i. Statistics from Statista are secondary not primary. d. Nationwide newspapers and trade publications such as: Barrons, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Fortune Magazine, Hoover’s, etc. 3) A minimum of 10 of the 20 citations must include a specific number. (These 10 can overlap with #2) a. Statistics from Statista will count toward this number. 4) Failure to adhere to any of the above will lead to 50% penalty. Plagiarism: (50% penalty if not adhered to) 1) Never use any site that provides an analysis which is then copied. a. Example of sites that are not allowed include bizfluent.com, cheatsheet.com, cheshnotes.com, fernfortuniversity.com, panmore.com, jurevicius.com, gurufocus.com,

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

marketingteacher.com, managementstudyguide.com, marketing91.com, mbaskool.com, mbacrystalball.com, mba-tutorials.com, pestleanalysis.com, pdfagile.com, swotandpestle.com, research-methodology.net, or any other similar amateur website as a source. This list is not exhaustive but a growing list of sites. Ultimately the professor has final say whether or not referenced sites are considered blacklisted site. 5) Turnitin MUST show a score LOWER than 25%. a. The Company’s 10-K will be manually subtracted from Turninit score. b. Turnitin scores can be automatically checked after you submit your paper on Brightspace. 6) AI/ChatGPT/Bard, etc: a. Anything generated by AI must be reworded completely and also must be supported by finding specific evidence/facts. Simply rewording AI generated sentences is NOT enough. b. For any sentence/paragraph, ChatGPT detectors of the professor’s choice must also show lower than 10% probability of being written by AI. 7) Failure to adhere to any of the above will lead to 50% penalty. Weak Examples: 1) Example #1: “Establishes players are protected from new entrants due to the auto industry's high barriers for newcomers; from capital requirements and brand loyalty to regulations that necessitate extensive research and development. Established companies use this protection from disruptors as a hedge against disruptors entering their market share while simultaneously maintaining equilibrium in the industry (Brown 2019).” a. Citation is descriptive rather than being fact based. None of the information includes specific facts or numbers that provide details on the high barriers, capital requirements and/or brand loyalty. b. Citation is also generalized and does not provide any information specific to the industry. This information can be applied to any industry. c. Above is also most likely written by AI (ChatGPT) hence also form of plagiarism. d. Citation is not from a primary nor a newspaper or trade publication or company website. e. Citation is old. 2) Example #2: “General Motors can gain a competitive advantage by meeting the needs of customers and improving the overall ownership experience (Teece, 1997)” a. This does not provide specific evidence on how GM meets the needs of customers and improves overall ownership experience and is an opinion. b. Citation is not from a primary nor a newspaper or trade publication or company website. c. Citation is old. HOW TO USE AI AS A STARTING POINT VS. FINAL OUTPUT ChatGPT: Supply Chain Management: Apple's control over its supply chain is a critical aspect of its operations. The company works closely with suppliers to ensure a steady flow of high-quality components. This helps in reducing costs, maintaining quality standards, and minimizing lead times.  This provides hints that looking into how Apple reduces costs, maintains standards and reducing production times could be things I as the writer can explore more deeply.

How that was fixed: The supply chain activities of Apple occur mainly outside the US (Apple, 2022). Apple works to ensure high quality products are delivered to their consumers by utilizing a strict Supplier Code of Conduct. As part of the Code of Conduct, in 2022, Apple conducted over 800 assessments in over 50 countries. Likewise, since 2020, Apple declined business to nine percent of prospective suppliers due to the supplier’s inability to meet its standards (Apple, 2023). Second, in addition to the Supplier Code of Conduct, Apple utilizes a Supplier Employee Development Fund. This fund aims to improve workers’ education and skill development opportunities as well as employees’ voice. As a result of this program, in 2022, Apple was able to receive feedback from 459,000 people leading to various supply chain implementations (Apple, 2023). The above activities in Apple’s Supply Chain was able to increase the company’s operating margin to 30.1%, compared to 29.8% in FY2021 (Apple, 2022).  What I did was look up more information on how Apple manages its supply chain. Using that as a starting point, I was able to find details that show HOW Apple created value (Code of Conduct and Supplier Employee Development Fund) and WHY these created value (assessments, declining potential business partners, employee generated supply chain implementations). Recommended Resources:  For Porter’s Five Forces: Exhibit 3.5 from Textbook  For Value Chain: Videos Value Chain analysis using VRIO (Week 7 Learning Module) and Firm’s Value Creation Process (Week 8 Learning Module).  For VRIO: Video Internal Analysis: The VRIO Framework (Week 6 Learning Module). Other Resources:  Library: https://www.farmingdale.edu/library/  Business Insights: https://hs1.farmingdale.edu:2155/ps/start.do? p=GBIB&u=sunyfarm_main  Newspapers such as NYT, WSJ, Barron’s:  https://www.farmingdale.edu/library/research-guides/newspaper-resources.shtml  Nexis Uni:  https://hs1.farmingdale.edu:2209/bisacademicresearchhome?crid=b0a7082e-22ed-48df- a3ba-9d69947e0558&pdmfid=1516831&pdisurlapi=true o -Go to Discover Topics  Business  Statista: https://hs1.farmingdale.edu:2290/  Writing Center, Greenley Hall, Room 220; https://www.farmingdale.edu/writing-center/  APA site: https://apastyle.apa.org o -Download the Guides!  Purdue OWL: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/purdue_owl.html

writing-assignment-final (2)

Related Documents