Firm Assignment

This short activity helps you choose the organization you will analyze throughout the course as a part of the “Firm Specific” checkpoints and final paper. The sooner you select your firm, the easier the rest of the semester will be. This assignment also ensures that every student chooses a unique firm that allows for original strategic thinking.

Please complete the steps below by the end of Week One.

Step One: Choose your organization

Pick a real organization that you are genuinely curious about. It can be large or small, public or private, for-profit or nonprofit, local or global. Many of the strongest analyses come from small or mid-sized organizations or companies with which students have experience. Organizations that receive very heavy online analysis make it harder to do your own thinking, so consider looking beyond the most obvious names.

You may choose an employer, a past employer, a local business, a regional company, a niche brand, or any organization with enough publicly available information to support your analysis.

Step Two: Provide your basic details

Submit the following information in Canvas:

1. Name of the organization
2. Industry or sector
3. A short description of what the organization does
4. Why you selected it
5. What you hope to learn by studying it
6. One question you already have about the organization or its strategy

This is not a formal analysis. I simply want to know which organization you chose and why.

Step Three: Confirm that it allows for original work

In your submission, please answer this question:

Can you find factual information about the organization without relying on websites that offer pre-written analyses

Step Four: Step Five

What were doing:

Start with the firms mission and vision to understand what the company says its trying to do (or what it should be trying to do).

Your task:

• Option A: Find your firms actual mission (and vision if possible) statements from authentic company materials (website, annual report, etc.). Paste it in and cite the source.
• Option B (if you cant find A): Write a short mission statement you think would genuinely fit the firm. One solid sentence or two is enough.

Then give me:

A brief evaluation of whether the mission (and vision) are effective, using ideas from Chapter 2 clarity, specificity, strategic direction, etc.

No need for a full essay. Just tell me what works, what doesnt, and why.

Format:

200-400 words total

Goal:

Understand your firms mission before we move on to deeper analysis.

Step Five:

What were doing:

Now lets zoom out and look at the industry, not the firm. Porters Five Forces gives us a clean way to evaluate competitive pressure in the industry.

Your task:

1. For each force, list the key parties and the specific pressures they create.
2. Rate each forces strength (Strong / Moderate / Weak) with a short explanation.
3. Conclude whether the overall industry is positioned for high profitability.

Target length: 300-400 words

Step 6:

What were doing:

Looking at your firms actual strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats along with an analysis of their competence.

Your task:

• SWOT: Give me 35 firmspecific items per quadrant. Add a short because… justification for each. A bullet list or 2×2 matrix chart can both work well for this.
• Competence ladder: Tell me whether the firms highest level is competence, core competence, or distinctive competence, and say why (1-2 paragraphs).

Target length: 400 words