united states ’ largest fast food chains B u s i n e s s F i n a n c e

Week 5 – Discussion Forum 1

Corporate Social Responsibility

In your own words, explain what CSR is. Name two examples of socially responsible companies you know and explain why you consider them so.

It is important for companies to incorporate social responsibility into their strategic plans. Give a brief summary of the company you chose in Week 1. What aspects of corporate social responsibility would you recommend they incorporate into its strategic plan? Support your rationale from your research.

(NOTE: Incorporate the feedback you receive from your instructor and save your work. It will be part of your Strategic Plan Final Project for this course).

Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend their thinking. Are there other aspects of corporate social responsibility that you feel should be incorporated into the company’s strategic plan? Support position by using information from the week’s readings, or examples from current events and/or other scholarly or credible resources, using the Scholarly, Peer Reviewed, and other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table for guidance. Properly cite any references according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.) resource. You are encouraged to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful and interactive discourse in this discussion forum. Continue to monitor the discussion forum until 5:00 p.m. (Mountain Time) on Day 7, and respond with robust dialogue to anyone who replies to your initial post.

Week 5 – Discussion Forum 2

International Strategies

Play media comment.

Prior to beginning this discussion, review Chapter 11 in the Abraham’s textbook on Diversified, Global, and Other Types of Organizations and listen to this audio snippet covering International Strategies. When companies expand into the international arena, they do so either because their home market has matured or because they see real opportunities in the foreign market.

Increasing the number of strategic business units requires a more complex business strategy. Sometimes the road to success in a foreign market can be a bumpy one. For insights into some of the more extreme cultural challenges posed when entering foreign markets as experienced by one of the United States’ largest fast food chains, read How McDonald’s conquered India (Links to an external site.) (Kannan, 2014) and McDonald’s Settles Beef Over Fries (Links to an external site.) (Grace, 2002).

For this discussion, determine whether or not the company operates in the international marketplace. If so, research the company’s international strategy and evaluate it in terms of effectiveness in regard to one of the issues below. If your company is not involved internationally, then choose one that is and evaluate that company’s international strategy in terms of effectiveness in regard to one of the following issues:

• Cultural Barriers
• Monetary Exchange Rates
• Political Instability

Then,

• Assess how your chosen issue potentially affects the strategic considerations of your organization involved in a global economic environment.
• Propose language to add to the organization’s strategic plan that addresses the potential impacts to the organization’s global strategy.

Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend their thinking. Support your position by using information from the week’s readings, or examples from current events, and/or other scholarly or credible resources, as outlined in the using the Scholarly, Peer Reviewed, and other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table for guidance. Properly cite any references according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.) resource. You are encouraged to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful and interactive discourse in this discussion forum. Continue to monitor the discussion forum until 5:00 p.m. (Mountain Time) on Day 7, and respond with robust dialogue to anyone who replies to your initial post

Week 5 – Final Project

Strategic Plan

Prior to completing this assignment, review your prior research and course submissions related to the company you selected for research in Week 2’s Environmental Scanning interactive assignment. Ensure that you have incorporated the feedback you received from your previous submissions. In your Final Project this week, you will pull the various elements you’ve created together to aid your creation of a Strategic Plan. From the perspective of an executive with the firm, your supervisor has tasked you with creating a strategic plan to grow the business over the next three years using this Strategic Plan Template and here is an Example Strategic Plan using the template. Continue to access the Mergent Ashford University Library online database which offers company financials, descriptions, history, property, subsidiaries, officers, and directors and the Business Insights database. (View the Getting Started With Mergent and Business Insights: Global documents for suggested methods of searching Ashford University Library databases generally as well as specific advice for searching these two databases).

Your strategic plan must be future-oriented and must

• Describe the company, the company’s history and its 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion).
• Examine the company’s mission statement and assess its impact on the organization’s activities.
• Explain the current situation of the organization in the market (industry, market, and general environment analysis).
• Add your SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) of your chosen company here. Evaluate areas that offer opportunities for
  • Choose three or four areas from your SWOT analysis and assess why the areas you have chosen are essential to your strategic plan
• Summarize the results of your Environmental Scan and Porter’s 5 Forces.
  • Evaluate the degree to which they aid in conceptualizing the company’s competitive position in its marketplace.
• Assess the company’s international performance in light of Cultural Barriers, Monetary Exchange Rates, and Political Instability.
• Assess the financial performance and condition of the
• Operational budget: Research and assess the company’s operational budget.
• Assess the performance in terms of key performance indicators.
• In your analysis, be sure to include profitability ratios relevant to your analysis.
  • Debt to Equity ratio
  • Debt to Assets ratio
• Based on the data, evaluate the overall current financial condition of the company.
  • Support your analysis by referring to the company data
  • Create a three year end trend analysis
• Assess how your Operational Budget analysis affects your three-year strategic plan.
• Recommend an organizational structure in terms of the organizational design as defined in Abraham (2012) section 2.6.
• Assess the impact of the strategic plan on the organizational culture.
• Strategic Goals: Create measurable core strategic goals for each of the three to four areas addressed from the SWOT analysis, addressing any contingencies associated with the strategies you are recommending and prioritizing them according to ease of achievement and time to completion.
• Recommend marketing positions and opportunities for growth in your strategic plan
• Add specific language to the strategic plan that addresses the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility
• Explain your plan to measure the success of your strategic plan
• Submit the Strategic Plan to the instructor.

The Final Paper

• Must be 10 to 12 double-spaced pages in length (excluding title and reference pages), and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.) resource.
• Must include a title page with the following:
  • Title of paper
  • Student’s name
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Date submitted
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
  • For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources.
• Must use at least five scholarly and/or credible resources (including a minimum of three from the Ashford University Library) other than the textbook.
  • The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
• Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) guide.
• (Links to an external site.)Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.