For your research paper, you will prepare a written business plan for International Business Machine (IBM) Corporation.
IBM announced many changes in 2015. The company had three initiatives slated in an uncertain industry with falling stock prices during 2012-2014. From the information, you are to prepare a 3-year strategic business plan.
Read the case for highlights of the company and its initiatives.
Conduct research on the company through its website, annual statements, Yahoo Finance, Hoovers, and so forth.
Conduct research on scholarly peer-reviewed articles to support the analysis of your internal and external assessments along with your proposed strategy formulation.
Utilize the Strategic Management Case Analysis Template to assist with your analysis.
Prepare your research paper according to the requirements and guidelines below.
Important! Carefully review the information in the Requirements, Guidelines, and Turnitin sections below.
A 12-15-page research paper (excluding appendices, table of contents, abstract, reference, and bibliography) is required in this course. You will conduct research on the International Business Machine (IBM) Corporation. This will be prepared consistent with the current APA Publication Manual and will have a minimum of ten separate references (No wiki’s, pedia’s, or dictionaries).
Some of the bibliography and references will most likely come from the firm, e.g., source documents, annual reports, and financial statements. As such, this reduces the need for peer-reviewed sources. However, peer-reviewed sources are still important and should be listed in the bibliography/reference section(s) and cited in the paper as appropriate.
The research paper is worth 30% of the final course grade. See instructor policies regarding late submissions. Also, the research paper will be prepared consistent with the following guidelines:
Introduce the various topics that will be addressed in the research paper. Identify the method(s) that will be used to collect the data for the topics and how that data will be evaluated.
Brief discussion of the firm to include its principle goods and services, market share, and geographic locations where it operates. This should include the firm’s vision and mission statements, and major competitors.
Complete an internal assessment of the firm. This should include an evaluation of the financial ratios, current and proposed organizational chart, market position of firm and competitors, current marketing strategy, value chain analysis, social media platform, and 10 most important strengths and weaknesses (SW).
Complete an external assessment of the firm. This should include an evaluation of the major competitors, competitive profile, key industry trends, and 10 most important opportunities and threats (OT).
Complete a strategy formulation of the firm. This should include your complete SWOT analysis with strategies that you recommend. Provide specific strategies and cost.
Complete a strategy implementation for the firm. This should include your earnings per share before taxes, analysis on how to finance the change, i.e. stock or debt. Include your projected income statement and balance sheet with retained earnings calculations, along with your projected financial ratios.
Complete strategy evaluation for your firm. This should include a Balanced Scorecard to reflect financial and nonfinancial objectives of your recommendations.
The discussion should provide a brief summary of the previous sections and the conclusions you have reached.
Organize your research paper to logically flow and address all requirements. This research paper will be graded on both content and format.
