Week 1 Project Instructions Note: This course has major project assignments that will be due in Weeks 3 and 5

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Week 1 Project

Instructions

Note: This course has major project assignments that will be due in Weeks 3 and 5. It will take more than a week's effort to adequately complete them. Plan time to start the research and other work for those assignments earlier than the week in which they are due.

In the course project, you will analyze the corporate strategies of several organizations. In Weeks 1 and 2, you will be looking at GE. In Weeks 3 and 4, you will be looking at Alibaba. In Week 5, you will be looking at your own organization. Every week, you will analyze particular elements of an organization’s corporate strategy, eventually producing an integrated analysis of your own organization in the final week. Your textbook readings will help you identify the organizations’ corporate strategies. Use the South University Online Library to research the firms, the Hoover’s database is a good place to start.

Begin by downloading the Course Project Guidelines . From the Guidelines, you will gain an understanding of what will be required in the Week 5 paper. For the Week 5 work, you may select your own organization or a different one (with instructor approval) as the subject of the final paper. Be sure to contact your instructor early in the course if you have questions about whether the organization you intend to use in Week 5 is adequate for the project.

For this week, analyze GE’s corporate strategy. GE is moving away from some of its financial services emphasis and strongly into the healthcare field. Focus on GE’s healthcare strategy. Begin your paper with a one or two paragraph background about GE so that anyone picking up the paper would learn something about who the organization is and how they are involved in the healthcare field.

• Level of diversification: A firm like GE should have a moderate-to-high level of diversification. What are GE’s areas of diversification? Evaluate the potential strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the diversification approach.
• International operations: Look at GE's operations in many countries. Who are their competitors? Evaluate the similarities and differences of GE’s strategy compared to their competitors.
• Recent events: Look for GE’s engagement in two or more acquisitions or mergers, about which you can collect information. Discuss the corporate strategy and evaluate how it has benefited GE’s acquisition growth and product line.
• Alliance or joint venture: Select two or more alliances or joint ventures as a meaningful part of one or more of its business units’ business-level strategy. Evaluate the strategy and how well it has worked. Analyze some of the issues encountered. Assess whether the business-level strategy fits their diversification core.

Submission Details:

• Based on your research, write succinct discussions of each of these items.
• Present your work as a 4–5-page report in a Microsoft Word document formatted in APA style.
• Support your responses with examples.  Cite any sources in APA format.
• Name your document MBA6999_W1_LastName_FirstInitial.doc
• Submit your document to the Submissions Area by the due date assigned.