WD40 Corporate Analysis

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A one page executive summary describing the key analyses and
recommendations should be appended at the beginning of the paper.
SECTION 1: CORPORATE-LEVEL
Part 1: Brief History of the Corporation (approximately 1 page)
Part 2: Corporate-Level Analysis
1. Does the corporation have a formal mission statement? Does it define the
corporation, provide a vision, and articulate the corporate philosophy? Give
examples. If it doesn’t have a mission statement, explain the impact on the
company of not having one (be specific).
2. Is their mission statement appropriate for them? Explain. If it doesn’t have one,
write a good one and explain why yours is appropriate.
3. How vertically integrated is the corporation? If it is vertically integrated, is it
pursuing a strategy of taper or full integration (or both)? Give examples.
4. How diversified is the corporation? If it is diversified, are there gains achieved
from relatedness? Alternately, if the company pursuing unrelated
diversification, what benefits or losses is it experiencing from this approach?
Explain.
5. Is the corporation engaged in strategic alliances? If so, discuss the key
relationships in terms of benefits gained by both partners.
6. Which subsidiary is most successful for the corporation? Justify.
7. Which subsidiary, if any, detracts from the corporation’s success? Justify.
Part 3: Financial Analysis
1. Provide a full financial analysis of the corporation over the past three years,
including comparisons to leading competitors. At a minimum, the analysis
should include at least 10 key ratios. All financial information and
comparisons must be presented graphically, not numerically (i.e., as a bar
graph, pie chart, line graph, or the like). For each ratio provide a graph
showing the results for company and its main competitors. Then write a
paragraph of two explaining what we learn about the company from this ratio.
2. Is the corporation in a strong financial position? Explain. Basically, you need to
analyze what all of the ratios, when taken as a whole, tell us about the overall
financial health of the company.
SECTION 2: BUSINESS-LEVEL
For the business-level analysis, focus only on the subsidiary you identified
in Section 1, Part 2, Question 6 as contributing the most to the
corporations competitive advantage
Part 1: Internal Analysis
1. Identify the business’ key strengths. Why are these strengths?
2. Identify the business’ key weaknesses. Why are these weaknesses?
3. What are the distinctive competencies of the business and how is the business
leveraging them?
4. What is the generic competitive strategy pursued by the business? Explain.
5. Does the business possess the appropriate distinctive competencies to pursue
the generic competitive strategy identified above? Justify
Part 2: External Analysis
1. Identify the business’ key opportunities. Why are these opportunities?
2. Identify the business’ key threats. Why are these threats?
3. Is the business as a whole dealing effectively with environmental opportunities
and threats? Explain.
4. Apply the five forces model to the industry in which the business is based.
What does this analysis tell you about the nature of competition in the
industry?
5. In what stage of its life cycle is the industry in which the business is based?
Explain.
6. What are the implications for the business of being in this stage of the life
cycle in terms of the intensity of competition both now and in the future?
Part 3: Overall Business-Level Analysis
1. Does the business have a sustainable competitive advantage? Justify.
SECTION 3: ETHICAL DILEMA
1. Describe in detail an ethical issue they are currently facing. This can be at
either the corporate or business level. Be sure to explain why this is an
ethical dilemma.
2. Using an evaluative framework, analyze all aspects of the issue and provide
your recommended solution.
SECTION 4: RECOMMENDATIONS
Make specific suggestions to improve the competitive position of the corporation.
What should strategic managers do to improve the company at the corporate-,
business-, and (if possible) functional-levels? Your recommendations should be
in line with your analysis; they should flow directly from the previous sections. Be
sure to discuss how changes at one level will impact changes at the other levels
(corporate, business and functional). The recommendation section needs to be
written in as persuasive a fashion as possible, as if the real decision-makers
were the audience.

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