ADMS 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Public Company, Strategic Management, Switching Barriers

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aquamarineplatypus838

30 Jan 2016

School

York University

Department

Administrative Studies

Course

ADMS 1000

Professor

Natalie Guriel

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ADMS 1000 Full Course Notes

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Learning objectives: describe the nature of strategic management. 2: describe how organizational resources and capabilities affect firm. Identify key forces in determining an industry"s structure. performance: describe three generic business strategies, explain the nature of corporate strategy. Strategic management consists of the analysis, decisions, implementations, and evaluations a firm undertakes to create and sustain its competitive advantages. There is no consensus on how to actually define the concept of a firm"s strategy. Some definitions are long and complex; others are deceptively simple. Throughout this chapter, strategy is defined as the plans made or the actions taken in an effort to help an organization obtain its intended purposes. Such a definition corresponds with our definition of strategic management, where managers assess their external and internal environments to plan and take actions to pursue organizational goals, either short term or long term. Putting both strategy and strategic management together, a firm can be viewed as a goal-directed entity.

Related Questions

Prepare a Project Proposal that includes the nature of the project, the sources of information you plan to use, and the most important concepts and techniques to be applied.

The outline topics should include the following:

A brief summary of the company you have chosen, such as business lines, and its industry;
Information sources (e.g. industry studies, market share reports, financial statements, etc.);

The analyses you will include in your study. This will likely require a summary review of the material in later sections of the course, such as competitor analysis;

If you have access to, and permission to use, internal company documents, please discuss so in the outline.

You are required to complete a course project that reveals mastery in application of the strategic managerial accounting and performance management concepts emphasised in the course. This involves reporting on a specific organisation within an industry, analysing the firmâs competitive position (e.g., market position, cost competitiveness, market power, innovation, SWOT, etc.), its managerial accounting approach, and the non-financial performance metrics should be used in monitoring firm performance, all aligned with value creation for the chosen firm.

This project should be a formal business report that covers all elements of the strategic management process: mission statement, strategic goals, strategic objectives, actionable plans (if available, analyse the specific budget planning process used by the Firm; if not, search for relevant articles for the subject company and recommend a process that you believe is appropriate for the company), and performance monitoring processes employed by the Firm, including its board of directors. These processes and strategies are to be supported with managerial accounting and performance management concepts.

In selecting a company to analyze, first focus on information availability. If you work for the company, ensure that you can obtain the information required to do a proper job on this assignment. If you choose a company you do not work for, begin your search among larger public companies with ample information available. Company websites are often the best place to begin, in particular the investor relations site. Look for annual reports, quarterly reports, press releases, white papers, and other sources of information (e.g., public filings, such as for the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission at http://www.sec.gov./

Your tasks are to:

Â· Briefly describe the business of the Firm (i.e. industry segments, geographic service area, market position, and size as measured by revenues, employees, and market capitalisation). Describe the mission statement and strategic objectives of the Firm.
Â· Analyse the behaviour of expenses of the business, distinguishing between variable costs and fixed costs (or estimates thereof), describe the relationships between sales volume, costs, and profit. Estimate a break-even point for the Firm and support with relevant calculations and discussion.

Â· Discuss the level of the Firmâs operating leverage.

Â· Assess the budgeting process and procedures for the Firm, bearing in mind the context of the business and its characteristics. Identify methods employed for budgeting, managerial reporting, and control, and make recommendations for improvement. Justify your recommendations.

Â· Summarise the Firmâs performance over the past five years in terms of sales and earnings growth, return on equity, return for shareholders, and non-financial performance measures (e.g. market share, recognition, customer satisfaction).

Â· Analyse the fixed capital needs (i.e. capital expenditures) of the company, and discuss significant capital projects, how they fit with the strategic goals of the Firm. Evaluate risks associated with major capital projects and suggest risk mitigation strategies. Justify your suggestions.

Â· Briefly profile two or three key competitors and analyse the basis for competition (e.g., is it cost? Innovation? Capital intensity? Branding?). Compare the Firm with these key competitors on key performance metrics (e.g., revenue growth, profit margins, return on equity, financial leverage, receivables turnover, payables turnover, asset turnover, operating costs, market share, market share growth, etc.). Identify areas where the Firm may outperform or underperform the peer group, and suggest improvements for weaknesses.

Â· Design a Balanced Scorecard for the Firm.

This project should follow a structured approach and should be prepared and presented as a professional business report.

lilacmanatee501

1.Which of the following key questions do managers not ask when designing the organizational structure?

A. Should the company evaluate its employees?

B. How should the company introduce corrective measures?

C. Who should coordinate the activities to achieve overall strategies?

D. How should information be delivered to managers?

E. What is the most efficient method of linking divisions to each other?

2.Which of the following do companies NOT need to know about differences in political and legal systems?

A. If host government approval is necessary for making direct investments

B. If specific departments have the authority to give approval for business deals

C. If firms must hire outside consultants to teach them about the local system

D. If English is spoken

E. If legal and political processes often differ in target countries

3. Changes in strategy require ________.

A. a low-cost leadership strategy

B. chains of command

C. decentralization

D. adjustments in structure

E. accountability

4. Which of the following statements does NOT describe a mission statement?

A. The mission statement guides decisions such as which industries to enter.

B. Mission statements explain the effect of company's operations on stakeholders.

C. A mission statement is a written statement of why a company exists.

D. The mission statement of an international business depends on its type of business.

E. A mission statement identifies and selects an organization's objectives.

5. Which of the following is NOT a question to ask before going global?

A. Is your company a start-up?

B. Have you or your employees lived in other cultures for a long time?

C. Do you or your employees speak other languages?

D. Will you need to adapt your product?

E. Is your company's infrastructure able to handle international activities?

6.When designing structure, managers must consider the degree of ________ needed among various groups within the firm.

A. funding

B. leadership

C. focus

D. adaptation

E. coordination

7. Which of the following strategies is NOT business-level strategy?

A. A brand strategy

B. A growth strategy

C. A differentiation strategy

D. A focus strategy

E. A low-cost leadership strategy

8. For self-managed teams, experts suggest all of the basic guidelines except ________.

A. ignoring cultural differences in self-managed teams

B. using selection tests to identify the employees likely to perform well in a team

C. training local managers at the parent company

D. adapting self-managed work teams to the national culture of each subsidiary

E. adapting the integration process of work teams to each national culture

skytortoise316

Over the past few years, the number of start-up companies attracted to either doing business themselves in the cloud, or specifically creating applications for others to use in the cloud, has grown significantly. A few but very promising enterprises have launched applications in âcontainerâ technology, which enables companies, programmers, or other enterprises to both launch and run applications solely in the cloud. There is still a lot of room in this emerging marketplace, and you are diving in. The product youâve developed has a unique angle to tap into the local-grown/local-made/local-paid movement thatâs also growing larger every day. Your initial market is your own small city, which operates independently but which is linked economically and via public safety provision to another small city sitting directly across a river separating the two. Once youâve been able to launch your company in your city, you plan to approach the âsister cityâ leaders, then the county, state, and eventually go national. Itâs too soon now, but your future plans entail an IPO offering to accomplish all this. Eventually, you hope to be able to re-imagine your product to go global. You have big plans, are close to being tapped out financially and you now need to plan for additional investors. Address the following considerations as they apply to your product launch. 1.Describe an agency relationship and how it may/will take shape for your small company. As the sole employee and investor in your startup, what agency conflicts might arise? 2.Six months have transpired, and youâve been able to add two employees. In this new arrangement, what agency disputes might now develop that need to be addressed, and how might you address them? What resources do you need to use or consider? 3.Another three months have passed. You are now ready to expand to your sister city and you need more capital. You decide the wisest path is to sell some stock to outside investors, but you will maintain control over your company by holding onto the majority of the stock. In this new scenario, what type of agency conflict might occur? How can you address this in advance? 4.The IPO was a success, and you have a robust number of shareholders. With board support, you determine it is time to hire a financial manager to help your firm achieve current goals and set new ones appropriate to the firmâs growth strategy. What professional strengths and skills will an individual seeking this position need to possess? 5.Another consideration you feel you need to address at this point, now that your firmâs stock is publicly traded, is how to sustain the high ethical standards youâve fostered thus far as you move into the firmâs future. What strategies can your management team implement to conduct your business with both personal and professional integrity? What steps can you take to ensure that ethical considerations for financial and other management decisions are embedded into the firmâs culture? 6.Congratulations - you are now at Year One, and everything is moving along faster than you anticipated. While this is great, you are at the point where you need to raise additional capital from outside lenders. With this decision, what type of agency costs might the company incur? How might a lender mitigate any agency costs? 7.Year Two rolls around. Your company has been able to expand beyond your local communities and into to localities and governments in half the counties of the state. The stakes are getting bigger and you welcome the idea of high-level input to ensure the company keeps growing and expanding. You cash out the majority of your stock and turn the company over to an elected board of directors. Neither you nor any other stockholders own a controlling interest (which is also the situation at most public companies). List six potential managerial behaviors the new board might take that could harm your companyâs value, and what steps overall can put into place to avoid or mitigate these. 8.You are also aware from your prior career and from your research, that corporate governance can affect shareholder value. This greatly concerns you, as you still have lofty plans for your companyâs growth and eventual global trajectory. Questions youâve identified that need to be addressed at this stage include: a) What is corporate governance?; b) What five corporate governance provisions are internal to a firm and are under its control?; c) What characteristics of the board of directors usually lead to effective corporate governance?; d) What characteristics of the board of directors signal ineffective or problematic governance practices?; e) How can regulatory agencies and legal systems affect corporate governance? If there are differences in local versus national levels, expand upon these. 9.Lastly, one of your new board members is very concerned with âblockholders.â What is block ownership? How does it affect corporate governance? Explain the pros and cons.

ADMS 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Public Company, Strategic Management, Switching Barriers

ADMS 1000 Full Course Notes

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