Research paper for Southwest Airlines
Please use a separate paragraph for each item listed. Include all items; if it's not applicable, for example, there are no legal issues, discuss it. Fully and properly cite all quotes and ideas per MLA format.
Part 1-Company Discussion
____ Intro: "Company is..." very brief overview of the history, size, number of employees, locations, products, etc.
____ Mission. Quote AND discuss.
____ Vision. Quote AND discuss.
____ Values. Quote AND discuss.
____ Current Business Strategy.
____ Stakeholders. List them. Do not list individual shareholders.
____ Financial overview: 3 years revenues, profits.
____ Financial history: historical stock performance.
____ Debt. Discuss if it's an issue or not.
____ Patents-only if applicable.
____ Legal issues-are they applicable or not? Do not list lawsuits.
SWOT: (In narrative form)
____ Strengths.
____ Weaknesses.
____ Opportunities.
____ Threats.
Part 2-Industry Discussion
____ Intro: "Blank Company is in the ______ Industry." Trends, up, down, predictions.
____ Competitor 1: Intro & overview. Market share compared to your company. 3 years revenues and profits.
____ Competitor 2, Market share compared to your company. 3 years revenues and profits.
____ Competitor 3, Market share compared to your company. 3 years revenues and profits.
Part 3-Environmental Discussion (you are not directly mentioning your company)
____ PEST: Overview of outside factors affecting the industry.
____ Political factors affecting Industry.
____ Economic factors affecting Industry.
____ Social factors affecting Industry.
____ Technological factors affecting Industry.
Format/Requirements
· Hand this in at the beginning of class, not by email.
· Use Times New Roman, 12-point font, 1-inch margins as indicated in the homework template.
· Make sure you show your name, course number, and section number on the page.
Questions
1) Now that you have written a Situation Analysis, you should have a good overall perspective on your chosen company. Now, using that information, begin identifying symptoms, signs and indicators of deeper problems that might be facing the company. Try to find as many as you can, but ensure that you have found at least three, and write them down as part of this assignment.
Be specific and use numbers where possible. All of the symptoms that you list should show a "gap" as discussed in class. A "gap" is the difference between the desired and the actual. For example, if you find that the company had a profit of $5 million dollars in the previous year, and their goal was $10 million - this is a gap, and this is a symptom of an underlying problem!
Once you have identified these symptoms, do some additional research and perform a preliminary root cause analysis. In other words - ask why the symptom occurred. Referring to the "profit" example in the first paragraph, think about why they did not meet their profit goals. Perhaps a new product was not as successful as planned. Note that it's possible that many symptoms may lead back to the same root cause. Or one symptom may have many possible causes. Summarize this analysis and begin to narrow the focus of your paper. This analysis is the central core of your problem description and is a crucial component in your research paper, so I would recommend that you spend some time on it. You won't be able to develop solutions if you have not answered the question "why did this happen?"
2) The answer to this question (the last why) is the focus for your paper. Conclude with a draft problem statement.
Works Cited Page (Per MLA format), at least five sources, three of which must be from the Course Guide listed below:
Business Source Premiere, Business Insights Global, LexisNexis, Edgar (10K), Investext, Passport, IbisWorld, Mintel, as well as any industry specific database found through the course guide.