Business Consultant

You have been hired as a business consultant to analyze XYZ Company. While your client is very successful, he/she does not really understand financial numbers and desires your help. Your client wants to pay you to do the homework and due diligence on his behalf before he invests his money. Your job is to answer the question “Is XYZ Company the right company to invest in?”

Be prepared to defend your recommendation, either way (whether you are recommending for or against investment in your client’s chosen firm.)

The Process:
Since this is your first consulting job for this client, you want to do it right. After all, this could lead to additional analysis opportunities for you down the road. After benchmarking with other financial consultants, and viewing some of their work, you feel you need to provide the following information to your client:

Brief history and description of the company – background, primary product/service offerings, customers, business sector(s), etc.
Financial analysis of XYZ Company – based on data provided from the last four financial reports (Annual Reports and 10Ks). (note: you must choose a publicly-traded corporation in order to be able to access this data)
Report on the strengths and weaknesses of any financial trends of XYZ Corporation
XYZ Company’s competitors – who are they, size, background, etc.
XYZ Company’s industry – what are the trends in this industry?
Based on your research, where do you think XYZ Company is going to be in three to five years? Provide the valuation for 3 to 5 years going forward. To help answer this question you need to know the company as well as the industry. Make sure you provide and support the assumptions used to project the company’s future.
Recommendations – what are you advising your client to do?
Bibliography – You know your client is going to want to verify the information provided in your report, therefore you will provide references in a bibliography.