Business Policies and Strategies

/in /by

Business Policies and Strategies 

Part 1 Reading task Coulter, chap. 2 & 4

 Write 500–600 words that respond to the following
questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation
for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use
examples to reinforce your ideas:

You plan to hold a weekly breakfast meeting with your team
of strategic planners to practice assessing an industry. For the upcoming
week’s breakfast meeting, you told your team that they should be prepared to
discuss the business environment or industry analysis of the digital music
distribution industry.

  • Identify
    the major players in the industry, and how they are each currently
    competing.
  • Discuss
    at least three current issues that this industry faces; they could be
    favorable or unfavorable to the industry
  • Which
    of the major competitors has the best chance of survival, given the issues
    identified?

Part 2

Prepare, in a table format, a SWOTT analysis on any real
company in the auto industry. As you prepare your analysis, it must be based on
the following definitions for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats,
and trends.

  • Strengths: These are
    characteristics of a company that are stronger than its competitors are.
    If a company is good at something, but its competitors are as well, then
    it is not strength.
  • Weaknesses: These are
    characteristics of a company that are weaker than its competitors are. If
    a company is weak at something, but its competitors are as well, then it
    is not a weakness.
  • Opportunities: These
    are issues that are external to a company that can affect the company and
    its competitors in a favorable way.
  • Threats: These
    are issues that are external to a company that can affect the company and
    its competitors in an unfavorable way.
  • Trends: These
    are developing opportunities and threats.

Deliverable Format

The table should have columns with the following labels:

  • Strength
  • Weakness
  • Opportunity
  • Threat
  • Trend

It should have at least eight rows for factors that are
important to the success of a firm in that particular industry including:

  • Type
    of Corporation
  • Federal
    Regulations and Liability
  • Price,
    Cost, Supply and Demand
  • Code
    of Conduct
  • Globalization,
    Global Trade and Global Strategy
  • Labor,
    Employment Law, and Discrimination
  • Economic
    Conditions (including Monetary Policy, Inflation, and Recession)
  • Contracts
    and Intellectual Property

Cells should have one to two sentences of explanation as to
why each has been identified as a strength, weakness, opportunity, threat, or
trend. Not every identified factor will have its entire row of cells annotated.