Business Finance Homework Help

1. Introduction and Playing Field Description: Provide an opening paragraph that explains the purpose of your brief, then detail the specific target segment of the market where you are choosing to compete. You should ensure the target segment is sufficiently large to achieve your company’s sales and profit growth objectives, but sufficiently focused so that your company can intimately understand market characteristics and compete effectively. The template provided for this assignment guides you on how to organize relevant information, including:

a. Your company (IKEA)

b. The industry for your organization of choice

c. The market size of this industry

d. Specific description of the segment of this industry in which you will compete (the Playing Field: Millennials in the US moving into their first apartment) e. Brief explanation of why you selected this segment.

2. Competitive Analysis: In this section, you will identify the two most formidable competitors in your playing field and address the following for each:

a. How big is each competitor in this target segment?

b. What is their most significant strength and their most significant weakness?

c. Briefly explain how this strength and this weakness impact their ability to compete effectively.

d. Does their recent performance indicate they are generally winning or losing in this playing field? Support your conclusions with data.

e. Has anyone (including new market entrants) introduced any game-changing new products/technology/capabilities? Have they developed (or lost) a key competitive advantage?

3. Organizational Assessment; In this section you will “turn the mirror around” and look inward to assess the capabilities and competencies of your chosen organization. Briefly address the following:

a. How big are we in this target segment?

b. What is our most significant strength and our most significant weakness?

c. Briefly explain how this strength and this weakness impact our ability to compete effectively.

d. Do our recent results indicate we are generally winning or losing in this playing field? Support your conclusions with data.

e. Have we introduced game-changing new products/technology/capabilities? Have we developed (or lost) a key competitive advantage?

4. Key Conclusions: Provide a succinct conclusion that captures your critical insights about the target segment and the relative competitive balance of the three companies you analyzed.

5. References: Include in-text citations for all data, assertions, and facts, and a corresponding reference list. Appendices are allowable if additional supplemental information is needed for the brief.