PepsiCo Term Paper

Intro

 APA Formatted Paper: Double-spaced 12 point Times New Roman font. 1″ left and right side margins.  1″ top and bottom margins.  APA first page header.  APA last name/page number header for all pages.

Proper APA Citations: Your Research Project MUST have all direct quotes, paraphrased material, facts, and figures properly cited with an APA in-text citation at the end of the sentences where material from your sources was used.  A corresponding listing in APA format MUST be included under a References section at the end of your Research Project.  Failure to properly cite sources is plagiarism, which will result in a zero. Note that using “According to…” is NOT a substitute for an APA in-text citation.

 High-Quality Sources: 12 or more high-quality sources; all properly cited.  Please refer to the Week 7 Discussion Board where you evaluated the use of sources.

 Sufficient Length (without cover page): 15 to 25 double-spaced pages for a full strategic assessment of the company.

 Components: Your Research Project MUST include all of the following components:

A. Introduction

B. Situational Analysis:

B1. A brief overview of the firm, including a mission/vision analysis.

B2. Internal analysis of strengths and weaknesses, including a relevant financial analysis.

B3. External analysis of firm’s opportunities and threats.
C. Industry analysis using Porter’s Five Forces or other relevant model.

D. Net assessment and critique of the viability and strategic potential of the firm’s current strategy, or an elucidation and evaluation of the strategic alternatives available for recommendation by the student.

E. References

Carefully Proofread: Please review your Research Project for spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Part 1

Writing Style: In addition to the required APA format below, your writing should be objective and factual, as if you were going to submit this paper to the CEO of your company, who asked you to perform the research of the target company.

APA Format

·         12pt. Font

·         Double spaced

·         1″ side, top,and bottom margins

·         3-5 pages

·         All sources fully cited using APA format, with a References section at the end of your paper.

Write a profile of your firm and what they do, highlighting any hot button issues that you find.  By hot button, I refer to both, any particular aspects of the company that give them some sort of competitive advantage or ‘uniqueness,’ and /or any hot current issue(s) the firm may be facing.  You should also take this time to present and analyze the vision and mission of your firm per class discussion. Finally,try to find information relating to their general competitive profile. Some categories to consider include, but are not limited to: 

•    Company Profile (a basic straightforward outline of what your company does, not the entire history)
•    Assessment of Vision/Mission
•    Industry/Primary Competitors
•    Key Products
•    Identifiable Customer Segments (if your firm sells directly to consumers)
•    Success to Date (a brief statement of their performance over a significant period of time
•    Hot Current Issues (maybe a hot product, excelling competitor, very bad corporate news or some such per your discretion),  etc. or anything else that you believe is important

Please use section headings in your paper to give your finished work more structure.

Your company’s profile MUST include the following basic factual information at the top of the first page.

1.      Student Name:

2.      Company Name: PepsiCo.

3.      Industry: (The standard industrial classification and/or NAICS code and title for your firm’s primary industry)

4.      Market: (The primary stock market, either NASDAQ or NYSE, where shares are traded)

5.      Symbol: (Company stock ticker symbol)

6.      Revenue: (Latest Year)

Part #2

Research your company and its industry and perform a Porter Five Forces analysis.  For this assignment you should acquire a minimum of five separate pieces of APA cited research material, which can include periodical articles, investor analysis, and trend analysis for your company’s industry.  Please be sure to use Berkeley College’s Online Databases for information.

A Five Forces chart should begin your analysis to serve as a quick reference point. An example chart is attached.   Beneath each of the forces, you should provide a brief one or two word description (i.e., low, moderate or high) of what you will present on the pages following.

The Five Industry Forces are:

•         Barriers to Entry: Outline what, if any, barriers exist preventing new firms from being created and competing with existing rivals.

•         Intensity of Rivalry: Discuss the key four or five elements that effect intensity and how hard firms must do battle with each other. What must ANY existing rival do in order to succeed?

•         Supplier Power: Is there any power existing on the input side that forces firms to bend to the will of suppliers?

•         Buyer Power: Are customers of rivals able to unduly influence rivals such that they can be forces to do things they otherwise would not choose to do?

•         Threat of Substitutes: Define the basic need(s) met by the goods and services sold by rivals. Can this need be easily met by purchasing the goods and services of non-rivals and who/what might those substitutes be?

Each force should be discussed beneath their own headings in your paper using as much space as you deem necessary to complete your analysis.  Also, please conclude your paper with a brief (1-4 paragraphs are probably good) summary of the key competitive forces that characterize your industry.

IMPORTANT: Finally, please make sure that you focus on the industry and NOT your firm. Students who focus on their firm too much have a tendency to go on incorrect tangents that later have to be corrected and will thus mean more work on your part. You certainly can use your firm as an example of what a firm in general must do, but the locus of analysis must remain on the industry.

APA Format Paper

APA First Page Header (NO COVER PAGE)

12-point Times New Roman font

Double-spaced

3-6 pages (excluding chart)

Part #2 (Example)

Part # 3

Perform an External Factor Evaluation (EFE) on the external environment of your chosen and approved corporation.  The critical thing to remember about this analysis is that you should develop a thorough understanding of the external opportunities and threats you have identified.  Because of the importance of factor knowledge, you MUST acquire a minimum of one APA citation for each and every external factor discussed. Remember to include an APA in-text citation to correspond with your APA listing in the References section at the end of your paper.

Your analysis MUST include a chart similar to the one attached to these instructions. 

IMPORTANT: I have provided a pre-formatted MS-Word EFE Matrix template for you to use with this assignment (Written Assign 3 EFE Matrix Template.docx). Save the file, add your External Factors and Numbers, and then only paste the table, not the entire document.

Parameters:

EFE

·         Choose 6-10 external factors for analysis, 5 maximum opportunities and 5 maximum threats (total factors will depend on the nature of the industry).

·         Each factor should be presented and discussed completely under its own heading. An APA-format citation MUST be included for each factor listing where you found your information.

·         Five pages or less (excluding chart).

·         Chart must begin the assignment and be on one page only.

·         APA format paper, no cover page.

·         APA first page header.

·         APA 1″ side, top, and bottom margins.

·         Double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman font.

Note: All external factors should be derived from your external research; i.e., you should not present speculation, made-up/fictitious personal beliefs and assertions, or “common knowledge” as researched factors. You must therefore, only present factors that you can prove through your research and citations.  Plagiarism will result in a zero for this assignment.

For each factor create a topic heading. Write a paragraph or two, as necessary, discussing the nature of the factor, how it will impact the firm, and its importance to the future strategy of the firm (i.e., explain why you assigned the rating score that you did) and cite the source of your information.

THE EXTERNAL FACTOR EVALUATION (EFE) MATRIX

An External Factor Evaluation (EFE) Matrix allows strategists to summarize and evaluate economic, social, cultural, demographic, environmental, political, governmental, legal, technological, and competitive information. Illustrated in Table 1, the EFE Matrix can be developed in five steps:

1) List key external factors as identified in the external-audit process. Include a total of from eight to ten factors, including both opportunities and threats affecting the firm and its industry. List the opportunities first and then the threats. Be as specific as possible, using percentages, ratios, and comparative numbers whenever possible.

2) Assign to each factor a weight that ranges from 0.0 (not important) to 1.0 (very important). The weight indicates the relative importance of that factor to being successful in the firm’s industry. Opportunities often receive higher weights than threats, but threats too can receive high weights if they are especially severe or threatening. Appropriate weights can be determined by comparing successful with unsuccessful competitors or by discussing the factor and reaching a group consensus.  In the end, the weight assigned is wholly up to you and your considered judgment… the more important a factor is to future success, the greater the weight assigned. The sum of all weights assigned to the factors must equal 1.0.

3) Assign a 1-to-4 rating to each key external factor to indicate how effectively the firm’s current strategies respond to the factor, where 4 = the response is superior, 3 = the response is above average, 2 = the response is average, and 1 = the response is poor. Ratings are based on effectiveness of the firm’s strategies to date in your judgment. It is important to note that both threats and opportunities can receive a 1, 2, 3, or 4.

4) Multiply each factor’s weight by its rating to determine a weighted score.

5) Sum the weighted scores for each variable to determine the total weighted score for the organization.

Regardless of the number of key opportunities and threats included in an EFE Matrix, the highest possible total weighted score for an organization is 4.0 and the lowest possible total weighted score is 1.0. The average total weighted score is 2.5. A total weighted score of 4.0 indicates that an organization is responding in an outstanding way to existing opportunities and threats in its industry. In other words, the firm’s strategies effectively take advantage of existing opportunities and minimize the potential adverse effect of external threats. A total score of 1.0 indicates that the firm’s strategies are not capitalizing on opportunities or avoiding external threats.

An example of an EFE Matrix is provided in Table 1 for UST, Inc., the manufacturer of Skoal and Copenhagen smokeless tobacco. Note that the Clinton administration was considered to be the most important factor affecting this industry, as indicated by the weight of 0.20. The Clinton administration was threatening to go after smokeless tobacco as it had against the traditional big tobacco firms. The total weighted score of 2.10 indicates that UST is below average in its effort to pursue strategies that capitalize on external opportunities and avoid threats. It is important to note here that a thorough understanding of the factors being used in the EFE Matrix is more important than the actual weights and ratings assigned.

Part # 3 Examples:

BUS4451-OL Business Strategy and Policy External Factor Evaluation Template

Use this template for your External Factor Evaluation Matrix. 6-10 External Factors; Opportunities (5 max), Threats (5 max).  Copy and paste only the matrix below, not the entire document.

Part # 4

Perform an Internal Factor Evaluation on your chosen firm.  The critical thing to remember about this analysis is that you should develop a thorough understanding of the factors chosen.  Your analysis should include a chart similar to the one shown in Assignment #4 with the notable exception that categories should be “Strengths” and “Weaknesses” instead of opportunities and threats. Weights and ratings are to be assigned in a similar fashion.

IMPORTANT: I have provided a pre-formatted MS-Word IFE Matrix template for you to use with this assignment (Written Assign 4 IFE Matrix Template.docx). Save the file, add your Internal Factors and Numbers, and then only paste the table, not the entire document.

It is important to understand here that you are looking for those elements that truly separate your firm from its rivals… What does your firm do better than other firms in its industry? THESE are your firm’s strengths. For example, if you include “Advertising and promotion” as a marketing strength, your firm needs to be truly exceptional in this regard. Perhaps they have won awards, or are acknowledged by industry observers as being superior in this way.  That they simply happen to do advertising is not interesting as ALL firms likely do the same thing to some extent.  Review the material on core competencies in eText Ch. 3 and apply that analysis to your firm’s internal factors; are the strengths in question rare, costly to imitate, non-substitutable, and/or valuable? Use Table 3.5 as a useful guide for this assignment.

Internal Factor Evaluation (IFE):

Complete the IFE Matrix, which is identical to the EFE Matrix of Written Assignment #3, except the factors will be Strengths and Weaknesses. The weighting and calculation will be the same.  Please use attached pre-formatted IFE Template.

·         Choose 8-10 internal factors for analysis (or as many as you can discover).

·         At least 4 pages (excluding the matrix chart).

·         APA formatted MS-Word doc/docx file only.

·         Use the 12-point Times New Roman Font.

·         For each factor, write a paragraph or two as necessary discussing the nature of the factor, how it will impact the firm, and its importance to the future strategy of the firm (i.e., explain why you assigned the weight and rating score that you did).

·         All sources must be properly cited using APA guidelines for the References listings and in-text citations.

IMPORTANT: You should by now have a reasonable idea what the primary strengths and core competencies of your firm are. Weakness, however, can be a little more difficult to find. Aside from the more obvious research sites about which you are already familiar, a useful website for you to take a look at is: http://www.glassdoor.com   This is a website where employees discuss their job experience at their current or former employers… spilling both the good and bad. 

Go to the site, sign up (it’s easy and non-invasive), and peruse the employee reviews.  If you find that common themes are discussed and presented by many reviewers, then you have a hit and should use that in your piece as cited evidence. If, however, only one or two employees mention an item, there is less likelihood that you have a usable factor.

Example Part # 4

BUS4451-OL Business Strategy and Policy

Internal Factor Evaluation Template

Use this template for your Internal Factor Evaluation Matrix. 6-10 Internal Factors; Strengths (5 max), Weaknesses (5 max).  Copy and paste only the matrix below, not the entire document.