You continue to provide promising global strategy advice for MediCorp, Inc. The company has been so pleased with your contributions to their strategic planning and development that they would like you to assist with a new endeavor. Leveraging their strength in manufacturing genetic testing devices, MediCorp now wants to diversify their offerings and expand within the field of medical devices. This is a large field that extends to a myriad of products. MediCorp has asked you to identify a medical device that the company can use as a vehicle for expanding into another country. Choose from the list of medical devices and countries provided and note your choice in the ‘Project 5: Choice of Medical Device and Country’ discussion area.

Choose a country as a location for MediCorp’s expansion and create an international business plan that guides the company’s operations in that country and grows MediCorp’s business within the selected device’s NAICS industry subsector. You will need to employ one of the strategy selections from your simulations in Projects 3 and 4 to develop a strategy that examines MediCorp’s potential customers, business operations, financial projections, and implementation metrics. As this client’s business grows, Maryland Creative Solutions CEO, Jillian Best, emphasizes that it is critical for you to provide clear and concise analysis in your reports to MediCorp. She remarks, “Success with these reports could mean big things for MCS as well as for each of you. Let’s finish strong.”

Introduction

Building on the lessons from your Capsim simulation and your analyses of MediCorp, Inc. in the global and local markets, you will now craft an international business plan that calls on you to devise a marketing strategy, develop financial projections, and create a strategy implementation plan for the company to market a new product in another country by relocating one or more activities from MediCorp’s value chain in the United States to your selected country.

You will have two weeks to develop your international business plan.

Hide Assignment InformationTurnitin®This assignment will be submitted to Turnitin®.Instructions

BMGT 495 – Project 1:  Starting an External Environmental Analysis (Week 2)

NOTE:  All  submitted work is to be your original work (only your work). You may  not use any work from another student, the Internet or an online  clearinghouse.  You are expected to understand the Academic Integrity  Policy, and know that it is your responsibility to learn about  instructor and general academic expectations with regard to proper  citation of sources as specified in the APA Publication Manual, 7th Ed.  (You are held accountable for in-text citations and an associated  reference list only).

Project 1 is due Tuesday by 11:59 p.m. eastern time of week 2 unless otherwise changed by the instructor.

Purpose: 

This  project is the first of four projects.  This project provides the first  steps in completing an external environmental analysis of your focal  company’s strategic management plan.   You will use tools and apply  concepts learned in this and previous business courses to demonstrate an  understanding of how organizations develop and manage strategies to  establish, safeguard and sustain their competitive positions in the 21st century’s (rapidly evolving/shifting/changing), uncertain hyper-competitive business environment.

Completing  a company overview and assessing the general environment is a key  aspect of performing an external environment analysis.  This project  provides you with the opportunity to evaluate the competitive position  of one of the organizations listed below and integrate that information  in the beginnings of an external environmental analysis.

The  company you will be analyzing operates within the global market.  You  will assess the company in terms of the global industry.  Industries  differ widely in their economic characteristics, competitive situation  and future profit potential.

In  this project, you are presenting a report document.  The expectation is  that the report provides the level of details to help the audience  grasp the main topics and to understand the General Environment.

Analysis  is the operative word.  In analyzing the external environment, you are  expected to thoroughly research and take that research and break it into  small parts to gain a better understanding of what is happening in the  external environment of the business.  In researching an industry, it is  important to understand that every company within an industry is  different so gathering information on one company does not mean that the  collected information is relevant to other companies within that  industry.  When researching, parsing the material is critical to an  accurate analysis.  Avoid presenting just any information as that may  lead to using irrelevant information.

You  will then write the report in your own words to share the external  analysis.  You are expected to present information and support the ideas  and reasoning using the course material and your research.  You will  not lift any information from source documents without properly citing  and referencing.  For the technical analysis aspect of the project, you  are required to create the technique on your own and may not use from  any source material that you happen to find.  No work from a  clearinghouse or similar website may be used or cited as a credible  source.

Outcomes Met With This Project:

• utilize a set of useful analytical skills, tools, and techniques for analyzing a company strategically;
• integrate  ideas, concepts, and theories from previously taken functional courses  including accounting, finance, market, business and human resource  management;

Instructions:

In  completing the report, you will use the chapters in the eBook and other  course material. Moreover, you will perform research on the company and  its industry before responding, in narrative form, to the information  provided in the steps (see below).

Step 1:  Specific Company for All Four Projects

Southwest Airlines is a well-known company featured in our textbook. Throughout the course, you will take on the fictional role of an intern at Southwest Airlines Human Resources. You will utilize the textbook and other professional resources to complete your assessments.

Your first weeks on the job are filled with learning the ins and outs of Human Resources and the industry. Your manager informs you that one of your projects is to assist with a new HR strategy for the company. This strategy is broken down into 3 parts that you’ll work on throughout the course. They are:

• Examining current practices
• Talent recruitment and selection
• Strategy recommendation

Your first task for this competency assessment is to examine Southwest’s current HR practices, as reported in public sources.

Download and Review the Rubric!

Download and save the Competency 1 Assessment Rubric and use it as a guide when completing your assessment.

Assessment Directions

Examine Southwest’s current HR practices, as reported in public sources. Download the HR Design Decisions worksheet. Complete the worksheet with your review and rationale of the elements listed below to decide where Southwest Airlines’ HR practices fall.

• Employees as expenses vs. employees as assets
• Compensation below market, above market, or competitive
• Spontaneous training and development or planned training and development
• Specific job descriptions or general job descriptions
• External or internal recruitment, or both
• Limited socialization of new employees or extensive socialization
• Collective bargaining or individual bargaining

Support the analysis with evidence from sources on the web. Possible sources for information include but are not limited to:

• Organization website and associated websites
• Vault Campus includes detailed reviews and survey information about what it’s like to work at Southwest. To access Vault Campus, visit eCampus and click PhoenixLink.
• Websites that specialize in company reviews and job postings
• Magazine and journal articles from the Internet or University Library

Submit  your assignment.

Southwest Airlines is a well-known company featured in our textbook. Throughout the course, you will take on the fictional role of an intern at Southwest Airlines Human Resources. You will utilize the textbook and other professional resources to complete your assessments.

Your first weeks on the job are filled with learning the ins and outs of Human Resources and the industry. Your manager informs you that one of your projects is to assist with a new HR strategy for the company. This strategy is broken down into 3 parts that you’ll work on throughout the course. They are:

• Examining current practices
• Talent recruitment and selection
• Strategy recommendation

Your first task for this competency assessment is to examine Southwest’s current HR practices, as reported in public sources.

Download and Review the Rubric!

Download and save the Competency 1 Assessment Rubric and use it as a guide when completing your assessment.

Assessment Directions

Examine Southwest’s current HR practices, as reported in public sources. Download the HR Design Decisions worksheet. Complete the worksheet with your review and rationale of the elements listed below to decide where Southwest Airlines’ HR practices fall.

• Employees as expenses vs. employees as assets
• Compensation below market, above market, or competitive
• Spontaneous training and development or planned training and development
• Specific job descriptions or general job descriptions
• External or internal recruitment, or both
• Limited socialization of new employees or extensive socialization
• Collective bargaining or individual bargaining

Support the analysis with evidence from sources on the web. Possible sources for information include but are not limited to:

• Organization website and associated websites
• Vault Campus includes detailed reviews and survey information about what it’s like to work at Southwest. To access Vault Campus, visit eCampus and click PhoenixLink.
• Websites that specialize in company reviews and job postings
• Magazine and journal articles from the Internet or University Library

Submit  your assignment.

While Uber technologies (Uber) had tasted great success in the run-up to its planned IPO in 2019, its journey had been a bumpy one. On June 21, 2017, co-founder Travis Kalanick stepped down as CEO of Uber in the face of a shareholder revolt that made it untenable for him to stay on in that position. Kalanick’s resignation came after a review of practices at Uber that included allegations of sexual harassment, a corporate theft lawsuit, defiance of government regulations, reports of misbehavior, and a toxic corporate culture, leading to the departure of some key executives.

In early 2018 Dara Khosrowshahi, the newly appointed CEO of Uber, faced numerous obstacles in the path of reaching Uber’s 2019 IPO objective: fixing Uber’s culture and helping it evolve some of its own core cultural practices to foster growth and improve stakeholder relationships; contending with lawsuits over a massive data security breach; working with a splintered board and ushering in corporate governance reforms; and regaining the confidence of Uber’s investors, employees, and customers. There are 2 accompanying videos suggested by the case writers.

Assignment Question:

Dara Khosrowshahi, the newly appointed Uber CEO, has hired you as a strategic management consultant and asked you to prepare a report for him that focuses on the following items:

• An assessment and analysis of Uber’s corporate culture prior to his arrival inclusive of the key features of the culture;

• An analysis if what issues and/or problems need to be prioritized prioritize in order to rebuild and improve the culture at UBER;

• An analysis of what he has completed thus far; and,

• What additional actions he could take that would make an even greater contribution toward turning things around at UBER.

Prepare a report for CEO Khosrowshahi focusing on these findings