26 Sep Selected Strategy, Pro Forma Income, and Section VI or your SA Explain how did you decide for the selected strategy in your SA and what are the assumptions in the Pro-Forma income

Discussion 1: Selected Strategy, Pro Forma Income, and Section VI or your SA 

Explain how did you decide for the selected strategy in your SA and what are the assumptions in the Pro-Forma income that support this strategy?

Discussion 2: Thinking on Section VII of your SA 

Given that you have already a selected strategy from Section VI, do you have ideas about its implementation: what programs do you think are necessary to implement your selected strategy?

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Introduction

In last week's unit we started looking into the impact that managerial functions have on strategy implementation by examining organizational concerns. This week we will be looking into evaluation and control methods for performance and active-based costs.

We finish the textbook with the Strategic Analysis. With this tool we combine not only the information gained in this course; we tie together all the core business courses to create a real-life solution to a strategic situation.

The skill of reading and understanding a financial statement is critical to strategic success. Once we finish with that, we will have a brief summary of the course and you will complete the BBA comprehensive exam.

Week Four Assignment – SA

Submit the complete Strategic Audit – SA (See Appendix 13.C for a strong "B" level paper). Do not forget to include your corrected EFAS, IFAS, SFAS, and TOWS Matrix in your SA.

The SA paper has no number of pages mandated. However, if you include all the required materials, you should have just about 13 to 14 pages excluding your appendixes at the end of the paper which includes all your tables. If you include the appendixes, it should come out between 22 to 24 pages total.

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Environmental Scanning

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Discussion: Societal Environmental Scanning

Societal environmental scanning for Amazon is a crucial assessment given the organization operates in the online setting where changes and intense competition are inevitable. The most important variables for this analysis will therefore include the following: Sociological, technological, and economic factors. Sociological factors are forces within the social aspect of life that affect a business. Amazon has continuously invented new ways of selling its products and reaching its target customers. However, concerns from critics of online marketing reveal that such advancements are recipes for obesity increase in the society. Amazon became aware of such critics and responded positively by being part of the anti-obesity campaign through a program known as Amazon simile. Sociological factors also influence the type of customers that buy organization’s products or services (Chen, 2022). The online business model adopted by Amazon implies that the organization is always targeting young people who are technologically savvy. This category of buyers is continuously expanding around the world.

Amazon without the influence of technological factors cannot exist. However, it is important to note that there are technological factors that are advantageous to the organization while others are known source of threats. Amazon’s continuous investment in technology is a key factor that contributes to its success. The organization that started as a book seller has diversified into technological ventures. Amazon offers cloud services, data management, and storage. These are perfect examples of technology being put into good use. On the flip side, the ever-changing technological advancements come with increasing rates of obsolesce (Alshmrani, 2021). The other disadvantage is that technological advancement come with increased rates of cybercrime.

Economic factors affect businesses regardless of their business model. Online businesses like Amazon and physical stores like Walmart all depend on the economic conditions. Amazon is headquartered and mainly operates in the United State of America. The country has enjoyed relative economic stability over the previous years. However, there has been an increase in the rate of inflation in many states. High inflation implies that Amazon must increase the prices of its products. Other economic factor such as recession in China can lower the demand of the company’s products in that country. Amazon should consider expanding into developing markets which have been projected to have increasing levels of disposable income (Chen, 2022).

Discussion Two

Amazon is a law-abiding corporate citizen and this is shown by its ability to file it returns and provide information on its financial report as required by the security exchange. In part 1 of the report the organization explains that it operates under a business model that is highly evolving and very much unpredictable. Nonetheless, it seeks to remain a customer centered organization guided by the elements of customer obsession and not competition. It provides unique product and wide product range to is customers. The report highlights the responsibility of Amazon for the various categories of its business partners that include sellers, content creators, and developers. The business organization operates under a model that attracts a myriad range of organizations that offer similar and alternative products. Other than the information on the business model, the report provides the information on the structure of governance of the company. It gives the information about the executive officers in the organization, and information about the board of the directors (United States Securities and Exchange Commission, nd).

The report gives the information about the company’s risk factors. Some the of the highlighted risk factors emanate from the fact that the organization operates in an industry with stiff competition. The other risk stems from the organization’s initiative to venture into new products. Risks associated with inventory management is another critical factor that the company has addressed in its report. Issues such as product returns, product damages, and late deliveries are some of the problems that affect customer satisfaction. The report gives information about the company’s properties, and their respective valuations. It gives consolidated financial data from the year 2016 to 2020. The important factor to note in the report is how the organization explains the effects of C0VID-19 on its business (United States Securities and Exchange Commission, nd).

References

Alshmrani, H. M. (2021). An analytical view of amazon success in the worldwide. Life Science Journal, 18(6).

Chen, B. (2022). Investment Value Analysis of Amazon. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Economic Management and Green Development (pp. 301-308). Springer, Singapore.

United States Securities and Exchange Commission. (nd). Form10-k. Retrieved from https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872421000004/amzn-20201231.htm

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Amazon IFAS Analysis Table

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Amazon IFAS Analysis Table

Internal Factors	Weight	Rating	Weighted Score	Comments
Strengths
Strong Corporate Culture	0.2	3	0.6	Amazon’s work culture is intense in nature, but very effective in terms of results achievement. It is one of the reasons that has enabled the organization to confront competition in the online business (Solanki, 2019). This factor has a relatively high rating because the company’s culture has been vital in its success.
Skilled workforce	0.2	2	0.4	Employee training is one key factor that Amazon upholds highly. The organization invests heavily in employee training. Regular training is necessary for adaption in the industry (Baboolal-Frank, 2021).
Strong brand portfolio	0.2	3	0.6	Amazon has invested in in creating a brand that is not easy to compete. It enjoys brand loyalty and good customer ratings.
Success in developing new products	0.04	2	0.08	Amazon takes pride in continuous innovation and development of new products. The business has diversified from selling books to music, household items, office items, and cloud services. Amazon cloud is new game changer in the market in terms of data protection and storage (Baboolal-Frank, 2021).
Weaknesses
High rates of attrition in the work	0.2	3	0.6	In as much as Amazon has the best working culture, there is too much pressure on the workers that results in high attrition rates and high expenses in employee training
slow-paced investment in research and design	0.1	2	0.2	Amazon’s investment in research and design does not match the pace of changes and competition in the industry. The organization operates in a fast changing and very competitive industry. There is ease of entrance, new businesses with new approaches are entering the industry rapidly (Baboolal-Frank, 2021)..
Insignificant Success outside main business	0.04	1	0.04	While Amazon has always been the leader in terms of diversity, the revenue figures indicate that the new businesses and products are yet to yield a significant increase in earnings (Luo, 2020).
Lack of international language customization in its websites	0.02	1	0.02	While Amazon serves the global market, the assumption that all its customers can read and understand English will affect its expansion in non-English-speaking markets (Luo, 2020).
T otals	1	17	2.54

References

Baboolal-Frank, R. (2021). Analysis of amazon: Customer centric approach. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 20, 1-16.

Luo, N. (2020). Amazon. com, Inc Strategic Audit. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/honorstheses/308/

Solanki, K. (2019). ‘To what extent does Amazon. com, Inc success be accredited to its organizational culture and ND Jeff Bezos's leadership style?. Archives of Business Research, 7(11), 21-40.

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TOW Matrix

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TOW Matrix

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Strategic Factors	Weight	Rating	Weighted Score	Short	Intermediate	Long	Comments
External	Internal
Expansion in developing markets (O)	0.05	1	0.05		x		There is an increasing number of online buyers in the developing countries. There are increasing marketing opportunities as developing countries accept online shopping (Tarabasz, 2022).
Dominates online shopping(O)	0.1	1	0.1		x		Amazon dominates the online shopping platform. It is the most recognized brand in online shopping (Tarabasz, 2022).
Strong corporate culture (S)	0.2	1	0.2			x	Amazon’s success can be attributed to its culture that is result-oriented. The strong corporate cultivates employee discipline and focuses on achievement of different project goals initiated by the company (Solanki,2019).
Strong brand (S)	0.1	1	0.1		x		The organization has a strong brand due to online dominance and customer loyalty. Amazon has become a household name all over the world (Baboolal-Frank, 2021).
Cost leadership (S)	0.2	1	0.2	x			Cost leadership is the advantage that an organization gets by controlling its overheads. Amazon is the leader in this area as it tends to reduce its operation expenses (Baboolal-Frank, 2021).
Declining profits (T)	0.1	1	0.1	x			In as much as Amazon has a strong online brand and records high sales revenues, its profits are declining due to increased promotions such as free shipping offers to the customers (Dudely, 2020.
Overreliance on one business model (W)	0.05	1	0.05		x		Overreliance in online shopping is one undoing that can make the company lose its position in the market. Amazon does not have physical stores in any location around the world. This implies that if anything happens to the internet, then the business may sink (Dudely, 2020).