Thursday, 15 October 2015

STR 581

STR 581 WEEK 3 EXTERNAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS



STR 581 Week 3 External and Environmental Analysis,
Introduction
The organization considered in the present situation is Verizon Wireless. An environmental scan of this organization is to be carried out. Regarding the environmental scan, there are certain points which are to be taken into consideration. The most important environmental factor, in the industry shall be considered. Most important internal strength and weakness of the organization shall also be considered. Competitive position and possibility of organization and its organizational structure shall be included in the present paper.
Most Important External Environment Factor
Here, most important external environment factor of Verizon Wireless is to be taken. For Verizon Wireless, most important external environment factor in industry is the factor of competition. The organization does face a lot of competition from other organizations. Verizon Wireless is the second US telecom service provider after AT & T. The top competitors of this organization are AT & T, T-Mobile US and Sprint Corporation. These organizations have an important place in the market (Jones, 2012). Regarding these organizations, Verizon Wireless has to ensure that it provides high quality services to customers at a reasonable price so that customers are attracted towards the organizational products.
In the remote environment, the most important external environmental factor is the customers of organization. In the course of this environmental factor, the organization needs to work towards meeting the requirements of customers. The organization should provide such products to the customers which meet their requirements. In case of mobile services, the customers should be provided services in such a manner that, they do not have any kind of communication problems. Their mobile phones should receive appropriate signals without much issue. The satisfaction of customers is the most important area of concern for the organization. Without satisfaction of customers, the organization is not likely to generate appropriate revenues and profits.






In case of external operating environment, most important factor is government regulations. In case of supply of 4G or 5G services, Verizon Wireless has to obtain approval from government. Without approval from government, Verizon Wireless is going to get into some kinds of issues. The organization will not be able to provide such services to the customers without approval of government.
Internal Strength of Verizon Wireless
Most important internal strength of this organization is its name brand recognition. This organization has a strong name in front of the customers. Regarding the name of the organization, the customers know that this organization will always provide quality services to them (Resource Center, n.d.). Regarding its services, the customers are always satisfied therefore; there is an increase in number of customers of organization with the passage of time. In the second quarter of 2014, the organization had a total of 90 million subscribers. The organization has been providing 4G services to customers and radio frequency of 4G service provided by it is at the level of 1700 / 2100 MHz.
Internal Weakness of Verizon Wireless
The most important internal weakness of Verizon Wireless is that this organization is not an international organization. The organization has its operations in 2330 locations in the United States of America but it does not have its locations outside the United States of America. This internal weakness of organization is regarding the inability of its management to expand organizational business to other parts of the world. With expansion of organizational business to other parts of the world, the organization is likely to ensure that it generates larger revenue and has a better competitive position in the market. The management has to take decisions and adopt a method of partnership or merger with any other major organizations in the world to expand its business at a point of time.


STR 581 WEEK 3 EXTERNAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS

STR 581

STR 581 WEEK 2 RESEARCH PROPOSAL




STR 581 Week 2 Research proposal,

Research Approval
Approval of the organization's vision, statement of purpose, and qualities explanations is a continuous methodology. At least, yearly surveys ought to be fulfilled to guarantee the precisely reflect the heading laid out in our organization's present strategic plan. Our mission statement ought to give a general depiction of our basic explanation behind being and the utilitarian part that our organization plays in our focused surroundings (Mintzberg, Lampel, Quinn, &Goshal, 2003). All will be investigated to ensure that they precisely reflect our current status, skills, and future heading too. A center gathering speaking to a cross segment of representatives will be gathered to survey these announcements, with last approbation for changes originating from the official board.






External Environmental Analysis
By leading an external analysis, my objective is to recognize the basic dangers and opportunities in my organization's specific aggressive environment. To a firm looking for favorable element, a natural risk is any individual, gathering, or association outside the organization that tries to diminish the level of that company's execution. Dangers can expand an association's expenses, diminish the eagerness of a company's clients to pay, or in different ways lessen a company's execution (Pearce & Robinson, 2011). A lot of gathered takes a shot at systems for and methodologies to leading an external analysis has advanced throughout the last a few years. Hence, I will inspect how rivalry in this environment is liable to develop and what suggestions that advancement may have for present and future dangers and opportunities I am prone to face. To perform this, I will assemble the majority of the focused insights about the most critical outside variables, to incorporate monetary, social, social, demographic, ecological, political, legislative, legitimate, administrative, and innovative. Onesexternal analysis will incorporate an audit of industry and contenders' information, sites, and printed writing, to include:
  1. Financial explanations and documentation
  2. Visions, mission, and qualities explanations
  3. Technological headways
  4. Emerging and blurring patterns


STR 581 WEEK 2 RESEARCH PROPOSAL

STR 581

STR 581 WEEK 2 ORGANIZATIONS INNOVATION STRATEGY






STR 581 Week 2 Organization’s Innovation Strategy,
“Verizon Wireless is an innovative wireless communications company that connects people and businesses with the most advanced wireless technology and service available” (verizonwireless.com). Verizon wireless is owned by Verizon communications and is headquartered in Basking Ridge, NJ. Verizon wireless is the nation’s largest wireless company. Verizon currently serves about 123.4 million customers and have more than 1,700 retail locations nationwide. They were the first wireless company to bring 3G wireless broadband network to the States. The nation’s largest and most reliable 4G LTE network is operated by Verizon wireless.
With the 4G LTE, customers can access fast internet and stream media faster than before. Now, Verizon has expanded to a new technology called XLTE. This new technology offers doubling speed and capacity over 4G LTE and still using the same Advance Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum.  Now customers who live in the most congested areas for wireless and data traffic can access internet, download videos and send multimedia messages without experiencing delay or reduced speed, even during times of peak usage. In this paper, we will discuss how this innovative service from Verizon will keep them in the competitive advantage in the wireless industry.











Strategy of innovation
Verizon’s creation of XLTE is part of its corporate innovation strategy. “Corporate innovation strategies include product innovation, process innovation, marketing innovation and management innovation; such as creating new products, new services, new production methods (production/technology innovation), new markets, new supply sources and new organization approaches, and so on” (Johannessen, Olsen & Lumpkin, 2001). Verizon’s XLTE is a
technology innovation that provides a new service that surpasses the current 4G LTE technology, which was the fastest data service available.
As stated, Verizon has the largest, fastest




STR 581 WEEK 2 ORGANIZATIONS INNOVATION STRATEGY

STR 581

STR 581 WEEK 2 CAPSTONE EXAM



STR 581 WEEK 2 CAPSTONE EXAM
1. Which of the following financial statements is concerned with the company at a point in time?
2. A cost which remains constant per unit at various levels of activity is a:
3. M&M Proposition 1: Dynamo Corp. produces annual cash flows of $150 and is expected to exist forever. The company is currently financed with 75 percent equity and 25 percent debt. Your analysis tells you that the appropriate discount rates are 10 percent for the cash flows, and 7 percent for the debt. You currently own 10 percent of the stock.
If Dynamo wishes to change its capital structure from 75 percent equity to 60 percent equity and use the debt proceeds to pay a special dividend to shareholders, how much debt should they use?
4. Serox stock was selling for $20 two years ago. The stock sold for $25 one year ago, and it is currently selling for $28. Serox pays a $1.10 dividend per year. What was the rate of return for owning Serox in the most recent year? (Round to the nearest percent.)





5. The process of evaluating financial data that change under alternative courses of action is called:
6. What decision criteria should managers use in selecting projects when there is not enough capital to invest in all available positive NPV projects?
7. The convention of consistency refers to consistent use of accounting principles:
8. External financing needed: Jockey Company has total assets worth $4,417,665. At year-end it will have net income of $2,771,342 and pay out 60 percent as dividends. If the firm wants no external financing, what is the growth rate it can support?
9. Which of the following is considered a hybrid organizational form?
10. An activity that has a direct cause-effect relationship with the resources consumed is a(n):
11. Next year Jenkins Traders will pay a dividend of $3.00. It expects to increase its dividend by $0.25 in each of the following three years. If their required rate of return if 14 percent, what is the present value of their dividends over the next four years?
12. TuleTime Comics is considering a new show that will generate annual cash flows of $100,000 into the infinite future. If the initial outlay for such a production is $1,500,000 and the appropriate discount rate is 6 percent for the cash flows, then what is the profitability index for the project?
13. Your firm has an equity multiplier of 2.47. What is the debt-to-equity ratio?

STR 581 WEEK 2 CAPSTONE EXAM

STR 581

STR 581 WEEK 1 ETHICS REFLECTION PAPER



STR 581 Week 1 Ethics Reflection Paper,
Ethics Reflection Paper
For an organization maintain stability and growth, it must consider the role of ethics and social responsibility as inherent components of strategic plan. Ethical and social responsibility criteria are important to the strategic planning process when making profit decisions before and after he enables the organization to attain the greatest possible benefits.Ethical responsibility is an obligation of every professional and is salient in every aspect of how an organization operates.  Ethics ensures an organization can effectively achieve its mission, goals, and objectives which gives direction and framework.  Ethics ensure guidelines are created which bind the organization into one common thread, therefore avoiding deviation from the desired strategic path.  Ethics ensure that strategic plan is prepared in the best interest of all the organizations stakeholders.Social responsibility is the other major component to the strategic planning process and it correlates with organizations profitability.An organization that makes it a point include social responsibility as one of their criteria, ensure that they are contributing to the improvement and well-being of all society involved.





When looking at the ethical and social responsibility there are certain issues that must be addressed. First there are the stakeholders, it is imperative for management to ensure strategic decisions are reached once taking into account possible impact to stakeholders. Social responsibility is identified as corporate social responsibility (CSR) within most organizations and refers to “a business practice that involves participating in initiatives that benefit society. As consumers' awareness about global social issues continues to grow, so does the importance these customers place on CSR when choosing where to shop” (Fallon, 2014, para. 2).The stakeholderscan be identified as customers, suppliers, government, competitors, and l..................




STR 581 WEEK 1 ETHICS REFLECTION PAPER

STR 581

STR 581 FINAL EXAM PART 3



1. A firm must know where to position its product based on price and
2. What type of strategy consists of geographical pricing, price discounts and allowances, promotional pricing, and differentiated pricing?
3. The marketing manager needs to know the cost of the research project before approving it. During which stage of the marketing research process would such a consideration most likely take place?
4. A valuable result of task environment analysis with respect to geographic, demographic, psychographic and buyer-behavior factors is called
5. New-to-the-world products are ________.
6. These social responsibilities are those that are voluntarily assumed by a business or organization. They include public relations activities, good citizenship, and full corporate social responsibility.
7. When diversification involves additions of a business related to the firm in terms of technology, markets or products, it involves
8. Which component of a marketing audit includes major developments in income, prices, savings, and credit that affect the company?
9. The ability to meet humanity’s needs without harming future generations is now a top priority in most corporate agenda





10. BMW’s “The ultimate driving machine,” American Express’ “Don’t leave home without it,” New York Times’ “All the news that’s fit to print,” and AT&T’s “Reach out and touch someone” are all examples of ________.
11. A company can learn a great deal by analyzing the degrees of brand loyalty. For example, ________ can show the firm which brands are most competitive with its own.
12. The strategic factor that involves the beliefs, values, attitudes, opinions, and lifestyles of persons in the firm’s external environment, as developed from cultural, ecological, demographic, religious, educational, and ethnic conditioning.
13. A set of ideas on organizational control based on the belief that the separation of the ownership from management creates the potential for the wishes of owners to be ignored refers to
14. This is designed to check systematically and continuously whether the premises on which the strategy is based are still valid
15. When performing this analysis, it is good for strategic planners to consider similarities between the benefits the customers derive from the products and services that other firms offer.
16. This is a historically popular technique through which managers create a quick overview of a company’s strategic situation—it is based on achieving a sound fit between internal resources and the external situation.
17. A company that attempts to lead its industry in price and convenience by pursuing a focus on lean and efficient operations is pursuing what strategy?
18. Leaders galvanize commitment to embrace change through clarifying strategic intent, building an organization, and
19. Prestige LLC, a small company that manufactures specialty cereals and energy bars, wants to launch a “green marketing” program in response to heightened consumer awareness about environmental issues. What should the company do to maximize the program’s chances of being successful?
20. This is an important structural decision and resultant separate activities need to be coordinated and integrated back together as a whole so the business functions effectively.

STR 581 FINAL EXAM PART 3

STR 581

STR 581 FINAL EXAM PART 1




1. The concept that some leadership attributes will work in some situations but not in others can be described by the
2. Sam Meyers manages a telemarketing call center. He has 20 employees working for him who are displeased with the way he yells and threatens to terminate them for what they see as small issues. Which kind of power is Sam using to get the job done?
3. Which of the following is considered an organizational blueprint, which prescribes the quantity and time frame for when each end product will be assembled?
4. In performing a SWOT analysis, which of the following would be considered as a threat?
5. During the implementation of a project, which of the following should be the primary focus of a consulting firm?




6.Which of the following is considered a major process flow structure?
7. Some studies indicate the best approach for transformational change may have the chief executive officer create an atmosphere for change
8. Deming’s PDCA (plan, do, check, and act) cycle underlies what inherent Six Sigma principle?
9. What can affirmative action assist organizations in achieving that diversity initiatives cannot?
10. According to the job characteristics model, autonomy is defined as the degree to which a job generates direct and clear information about performance
11. Active listening requires:
12. An example of control criteria that can be used in any situation is ________.


STR 581 FINAL EXAM PART 1