Final Term Paper for STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
Term Paper (15 points): Students should submit a final term paper by 11:59 PM on Dec 3 (Friday) via iCollege (Assessment>Assignments; please do not EMAIL ME). If you are late, you will get zero and there is no exception to this rule. The goal of the term paper is to enable you to apply the concepts you will learn through the course to the real world.
You should select one public company in the U.S. that you think has competitive advantages and explain why you think this company is better than its competitors. Imagine that you are a Robinhooder; you will select only one stock that you will keep investing in, at least until Year 2025. Try your best to explain why you believe this stock (or company) will rise more highly than its competitors. Please apply ALL the constructs you will learn from this course. Do NOT choose big companies, such as Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Tesla, Walmart, Nike, and Disney, because we all know that these companies have competitive advantages compared with others. Please choose a company whose 1) market cap is under 30 billion dollars (you can use this website for screening: https://finviz.com/screener.ashx?v=111&f=cap_midunder) and 2) annual 10-K report (for year 2020) is publicly available on Edgar (https://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml). You can get more information as below for each companys information.
Edgar (10-K; the most important source)
www.finviz.com
finance.yahoo.com
wsj.com (not free)
seekingalpha.com
The more content/figures/graphs you include in this paper, the more likely you are to receive a high grade on this task.
Questions
(Chapter 1; 0.5 point) What is this companys mission or vision? If its hard to find your companys mission and vison, please copy and paste the overall description of the company from its 10-K annual report.
(Chapter 1; 0.5 point) What are the companys risk factors (please pick the top 3 most risky factors of this company except the Covid-19 risk)? To answer this question, please visit the firms annual report (10-K), read the Risk Factor section, and summarize what the company reported (Please dont pick the Covid factor because it affects almost all companies).
(Chapter 1; 0.5 point) Please compare the companys risk factors published in its annual reports for the years 2020 and 2019. Is there any change between the years? Did they report more (or less) risk factors in year 2020 than in year 2019?
(Chapter 5; 1 point) Who are this companys competitors? Please find one or two by using two criteria: market commonality and resource similarity. You have to identify at least one competitor listed on the stock market: Two would be better.
(Chapter 5; 0.5 point) did the company mention its competitors in their 10-k? How often did the company use the word competition and competitor in its most recent 10-k? If not, how can you identify the companys competitor?
(Chapter 5; 2 point) Please display your companys revenues and profits over the last 4 or 5 years (2017-2020 or 2021 TTM) (you find the number from the companys 10-k or finance.yahoo.com) and compare the companys revenues and profits with the competitors ones. Is your company getting better over time (you may ignore the numbers for Year 2020 because of the Covid effect)? Is your company growing faster than your competitor? If not, why do you think the company has a potential despite its slower growth rates compared to its competitor(s)?
(Chapter 5; 0.5 point) please visualize the companys revenues/profit changes over the last 4 or 5 years (via Excel or other software: X-axis: Year Y-axis: revenues/profits) and the competitors ones.
(Chapter 5; 0.5 point) Please use Google Trends (trends.google.com) to compare the popularity of your company versus its competitors (over the last 5 and 10 years). Is your company more popular than its competitor? Is the gap between your company and its competitors widened or shortened? Do you think Google Trends is a good indicator of your companys potential value?
(Chapter 2; 3 points) Analyze the industry to which the company belongs. Do you think this is a rising or a declining industry? (Please give me numbers) Do you think the incumbent can reap many benefits from this industry? Why do you think so? Please use Porters Five Forces Competition model, and apply all the constructs of this model in answering the questions.
(Chapter 3; 1 points) Do you think this company has valuable, rare, and non-imitable (VRIO) resources compared with its competitors? Why? Please use Barneys VRIO model for your assessment.
(Chapter 3; 1 point) Please explain why the companys competitor is hard to imitate your companys strategy. If the competitor can imitate the companys core value or strategy, that means your company does not have a competitive advantage. This is extremely important to ask whether your companys core competency, capabilities, and resources are imitable or not. Please show me any evidence that your company has VRIO resources or capabilities.
(Chapter 4; 0.5 point) What business strategy do you think this company uses? Cost leadership, differentiation, or a mix of both? Do you think this company selects the best business strategy?
(Chapter 4; 1 point) Does the companys gross profit (or gross revenues) increase over time? Please check the number from Yahoo Finance. If they dont increase, its not a good signal. If the company does not grow, why do you think this company is promising?
(Chapter 6; 0.5 point) What about diversification? Did this company have a single business or diversified ones? Assess the companys diversification strategy based on the identity perspective.
(Chapter 7; 0.5 point) Has the company acquired or had an alliance with any company or over the last ten years (you can use 10-k or google news)? If so, do you think it is a good strategy or not? Please assess the companys M&A or alliance strategy.
(Chapter 10; 0.5 point) What about corporate governance? Do CEOs and other executives have a large proportion of the shares or not? Do you think it is a good signal? Please check yahoo holders sections to get more information (finance.yahoo.com).
(Chapter 13; 1 points) At which stage is the company located in the product life cycle (introduction? Growth? Shakeout? Maturity? Or Decline?). We know that it is vital for the company to be located at the growth stage for higher prices as we learned in the course. Do you think this company is at the growth stage? Do you think this company can create a new technology S-curve? If so, please give me some evidence. If not, why do you still think this companys stock prices will go up although this company is not at the growth stage? Do you think this company is innovative? Please give me some specific evidence if you think so.
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