Research & Analysis of Business Problems

Homework Assignment #3

Format/Requirements

• Hand this in at the beginning of class, not by email.
• Use Times New Roman, 12-point font, 1-inch margins.
• Make sure you show your name, course number, and section number on the page.
.
Questions

1) Now that you have written a Situation Analysis, you should have a good overall perspective onyour chosen company.

Now begin looking for symptoms, signs, and indicators of problems. Try to find as many as you can, but make sure that you have found at least three or four, and write them down as part of this assignment. Be specific and use numbers where possible. All of the symptoms that you list should show a “gap” as discussed in class. A “gap” is the difference between the desired state and the actual state. For example, if you find that the company had a profit of $5 million dollars in the previous year and their goal was $10 million – this is a gap, and this is a symptom of an underlying problem.In other words, ask yourself “what is going wrong for my company?”

For each independent gap / problem / issue / symptom that you discover, use a separate page (NOTE that saying net income dropped, profit dropped, and earnings per share dropped does NOT reflect 3 independent issues since all 3 of these are directly related). I recommend starting with the issue that you have the most information about and working your way through all of the issues you’ve identified. Keep in mind that the issues you raise should be specific and detailed as much as possible and not just your opinion.

Start each page with one or two paragraphs which describe the gap / issue. Factual information should be cited using MLA standards. Use quantitative terms to describe the gap if possible but, in all cases, make sure that the gap is described clearly. Also, it may be helpful in this part of your answer if you give a little background as to why the issue is important to the company.

After you’ve provided a discussion of the gap, try to write a formal problem statement for the issue as we discussed in class.

Next, focus on describing the causes. Ask yourself, WHY does this gap exist or what is causing this gap to happen?.Provide as much detail about the causes as you’ve been able to develop. This can be done using text discussion, fishbone diagrams, bullets, or any combination that helps communicate the root causes of the gap. This analysis should go deeper than just identifying symptoms; try to get to the underlying causes of the issue.

Finally, a few general comments………. (1) Try to use headings and subheadings to organize your answers to this question. (2) Make sure to provide MLA citations for factual information in your answers. (3) Avoid editorial comments like “my research showed”, “I found”, “I think”, and similar phrases. (4) For the first 3 independent issues you cover, each part of the answer is worth 15 points (9 points reflects an “average” answer) and additional points are awarded for identifying and discussing more issues.

 

2) Find at least one “peer-reviewed (refereed)” research article for your term paper. Don’t search too narrowly – for example, “General Mills problems.” It’s unlikely that a researcher would write an academic paper on this subject. Try something more general like – “Cereal market segments.” Provide evidence that the article is peer-reviewed by printing out and including therelevant page from the Ulrich’s web site. Write up and include a properly formatted MLA Bibliographic entry for this article.Please do not include a copy of the article.

Remember that you will typically find peer reviewed articles in the other databases (for example, Business Source Premier) but you will confirm that the article has been peer reviewed by using Ulrichs.

 

Research & Analysis of Business Problems

Homework Assignment #4

Format/Requirements

• Hand this in at the beginning of class, not by email.
• Use Times New Roman, 12-point font.
• Make sure you show your name, course number, and section number on the page.
• Number the answers, and place them in the correct order

Questions

1.) Assume you have chosen Kellogg Company(you know, the cereal people) as the subject of your research paper. As part of your background research, you have reviewed annual corporate revenue (sales) numbers for Kellogg and their key competitor – General Mills. Create an Excel chart (one chart/graph, please, not a table) showing revenues for both companies over five years (for the fiscal years2010 – 2014*), that you might include in your final paper.Along with your chart, write a single text sentence describing the main message or conclusion your chart reflects (this is in addition to the title of our chart). Use Kellogg’s and General Mills data, not data from your actual term paper company.

* I realize that the companies have different reporting periods so, to make the comparison valid, use 2010 thru 2014 data for both.

 

2.) Think about a recent personal decision you’ve made where you were choosing from a few (at least three)different possible solutions. Apply a decision matrix with weighted criteria (as done in the class session with the heat pump example) to your decision. Describe your choice, why you made it (in other words – why you chose the criteria you did and why you weighted the criteria as you did), and include the matrix with your answer. In short, your explanation should explain the logic of your choice.

3.) By this time, you’ve done much of the research for your paper. Prepare a draft outline for your term paper – down to a least three levels of detail. Refer to the term paper template on the web site for structure. I expect that you will have more detail for the first four sections at this point in the class since we haven’t covered the final sections in class yet. Create the outline using the following basic format (the number of entries in each level is completely based on your content – don’t use this as a model for that):

1.) Executive Summary (don’t put anything here YET!)
2.) Situation Analysis
a. your info should go here!
i. your info should go here!
ii. your info should go here!
iii. your info should go here!
b. Your info here
c. Etc. (as many sections as needed)
3.) Problem Analysis & Description
a. your info should go here!
i. your info should go here!
ii. your info should go here!
b. Etc.
c. Etc. (as many sections as needed)
4.) Solutions, Evaluation and Recommendation
a. your info should go here!
i. your info should go here!
ii. your info should go here!
b. Etc.
c. Etc.(as many sections as needed)
5.) Implementation Plan& Success Metrics