As the focus of your Strategic Audit (term project), choose an established, transnational, publicly held firm that is currently in the news and facing interesting and strategic challenges. For your first project-related assignment (and first element of your portfolio), obtain enough information about your firm to carry out the following instructions and answer the questions in a 4-5 page memo (see syllabus for style guidelines).

As the focus of your Strategic Audit (term project), choose an established, transnational, publicly held firm that is currently in the news and facing interesting and strategic challenges. For your first project-related assignment (and first element of your portfolio), obtain enough information about your firm to carry out the following instructions and answer the questions in a 4-5 page memo (see syllabus for style guidelines).

1. provide a short account of the history of the company and trace the evolution of its strategy.

2. identify the mission, vision and major goals of the firm. Define the business, the firm’s relative competitive position and size in that business and how well it is doing.

3. do a preliminary scan of the firm’s internal strengths and weaknesses and the major opportunities and threats it faces in its external environment. On the basis of that analysis, identify the key challenges the firm faces right now. (You will do more detailed analyses of all these aspects later on in the semester). This is a SWOT analysis.

4. Describe the corporate governance of the firm (top management and Board of Directors). Comment on the leadership qualities of the CEO and any issues that might exist with the BoD.

5. Explain why you have chosen this firm.

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