Principles of Management

All companies must have a competitive advantages over their rivals and other competitive forces. Some of these strategic directions are described in your readings.
For example in Chapter Nine a variety of Corporate and Organizational Strategies are discussed. You may also wish to read about Sustaining Competitive Advantages and Michael Porter’s generic business strategies.
SWOT Analysis

The first of four functions of a Manager is planning. Strategic Planning involves a series of interconnected steps. During the next four weeks you will be completing each step. Your document should be formatted as follows:

This outline is provided to help you organize your SWOT Analysis papers. You need to write a minimum of one paragraph for each sub-section of the outline. You must use this document to organize your paper.

You do need to use all the numbering system, lettering, and headers/sub-headers from the outline to organize the entire paper. Copy and paste the framework, then write your content in paragraph form in each section, citing your sources.

Points will be deducted if you do not use these section headers to organize the different research content required in your paper. Your analysis should be easy to follow as a result of using these organizational tools from the outline.

Organization Background .

History

Strategic Direction (see chapter nine)

Mission Statement

Please comment on how the organization’s mission statement reflects their strategic direction.

External Environmental Assessment .

Economic

Demographic

Socio-Cultural

Technological

Political/Legal

Global

Each of these forces that are outside the organization and require management to react. Comment on trends in each force and whether they affect the company’s performance.

The SWOT Chart

Prepare a chart identifying the company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats

For two strengths, provide the reason why each is a distinctive competency.

For two weaknesses, explain how each effects the company’s competitive advantages

You should have a minimum of a full paragraph for each discussion of each strength and weakness.

Note that bullet points are not acceptable

Strategic Actions

For each strength from part three, comment on how the organization can use it

For each weaknesses from part three, discuss how management can minimize it

Discussion as to how the organization can capitalize on the two (2) opportunities that are occurring from the forces from within the external environment.

Discussion as to how the organization can neutralize two (2) threats that are occurring from the dimensions from within the external environment.

Other Requirements

References list and APA parenthetical citations

Spelling/grammar/organization