External and Internal Environments

In this assignment, you are to use the same corporation you selected and focused on for Assignment 1.

Using the corporation you chose from Assignment 1: Strategic Management and Strategic Competitiveness, examine the industry in which the entity operates. Use any or all of the following resources to conduct research on the company:

• Company website.
• Public filings from the Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR database.
• Strayer University’s online databases.
• The Nexis Uni database,
• Other miscellaneous sources. Note: the company’s annual report will often provide insights that other resources may not include.

Requirements

Write a four- to six-page paper in which you do the following:

• Choose the two segments of the general environment that would rank highest in their influence on the corporation you chose. Assess how these segments affect the corporation you chose and the industry in which it operates.
• Considering the five forces of competition, choose two forces of competition that you estimate are the most significant for the corporation you chose. Evaluate how well the company has addressed these forces in the recent past.
• With the same two forces in mind, predict what the company might do to improve its ability to address these forces in the near future.
• Assess the external threats affecting this corporation and the opportunities available to the corporation. Give your opinions on how the corporation should deal with the most serious threat and the greatest opportunity. Justify your answer.
• Give your opinion on the corporation’s greatest strengths and most significant weaknesses. Choose the strategy or tactic the corporation should select to take maximum advantage of its strengths, and the strategy or tactic the corporation should select to fix its most significant weakness. Justify your choices.
• Determine the company’s resources, capabilities, and core competencies.
• Go to Basic Search: Strayer University Online Library to locate quality references. Note: Wikipedia and similar websites do not qualify as academic resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• This course requires use of new Strayer Writing Standards (SWS). The format is different than other Strayer University courses. Please take a moment to review the SWS documentation for details.
• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; references must follow SWS or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required page length.

Use the Assignment 2 Template [DOC] to ensure that your assignment meets the above requirements.

The specific course learning outcome associated with this assignment is as follows:

• Analyze the effects of the general environment, competition, threats, opportunities, strengths, and weaknesses relative to a corporation.

Grading for this assignment will be based on answer quality, logic and organization of the paper, and language and writing skills, using the scoring rubric.