ToolsCorp Corporation is a fictitious company that does not exist anywhere. For the purpose of this course, it is located in Tennessee. As members of the senior management team of ToolsCorp Corporation, your group has been asked to prepare a neat and organized report for the Strategic Officers Steering Committee (SOS-C) of ToolsCorp Corporation. The purpose of this paper is to obtain permission from them to go forward with the next step (developing a full-blown business plan) for ToolsCorp's strategic initiative to break into the global marketplace.

Your group's paper should discuss the following (at a minimum):

• A complete strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis (including at least 5 factors from each category and full explanations of why each factor is important and why it was placed in the category) of the environment that exists within ToolsCorp and the environment that ToolsCorp is proposing
• An outline of the business plan to be developed for ToolsCorp's strategic initiative
• A full mission statement containing the nine components and presented in a well written paragraph
• Key operating principles as you will apply them
• A preliminary market analysis of the market(s) into which ToolsCorp expands
• The one-year, five-year, and ten-year strategic objectives of the strategic initiatives presented as one strategic proposal for each time frame (3 strategic proposals in all), complete with implementation plans, potential ramifications, and feedback mechanisms
• The additional material that your group considers necessary to support the case for going forward with ToolsCorp's global strategic initiative (This is not optional, you must input additional material.)

Background Information

ToolsCorp Corporation is a fictitious company that does not exist anywhere. For the purpose of this course, it is located it in Tennessee. It builds power tools, lawn mowers, lawn furniture, microwaves, and ranges. All products are manufactured locally and sold through large retailers that place sales papers inserted in every Wednesday and Sunday paper. Although they have a thriving business in the United States and Canada, ToolsCorp is trying to break into the global marketplace.

Deliverable Length

The deliverable length is at least 15 pages (cover page and reference page not included). As graduate business students, you are required to provide a well-researched and analyzed comprehensive response to every assignment question. Brief, vague, generic, or nondefinitive responses will not earn good grades.

This group project requires a minimum of 15 scholarly sources, a minimum of 1 per page. You are welcome and encouraged to use the David textbook and the course materials for this course, but other viable research sources are required.

For references, use the APA guide that is available as shown in the Virtual Campus under "Interactive Learning."

Remember that any paper longer than 10 pages requires the submission of an Executive Summary.

Submit your group's Word document to your instructor via the Small Group Submitted Assignment area in APA format.

Objective

The Objective of the Unit 5 Group Project Assignment will involve the following the course outcomes and grading criteria with their respective percentages for the grading rubric:

• Identify examples of good and bad business practices in the use of strategy design components (30%).
• Research and discuss some of the changes occurring in the way that organizations structure themselves and their work (30%).
• Develop plans to improve business operations (20%).
• Use effective communication techniques (20%).

 

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is usually meant for analyzing the future and the present of the company’s environment. In this case, the SWOT analysis will comprise both the external and internal market environment. The analysis of the environment will contain the crucial aspects of SWOT analysis, that is; Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threats.

Strengths.

The internal business environment helps the success of the company in the market. The attribution of this success is due to the variety of products offered like lawn furniture, Lawnmowers, microwaves, and power tools. The company experiences a balance of revenue due to the diversification of the company’s products portfolio, therefore meaning that if one of the products reduces, the other products can compensate in the market, thus creating a balance in the revenue earned by the company. The diversification of the company’s product portfolio makes it almost impossible for the company to experience a significant decrease in the total revenue.

The manufacturing plant for ToolsCorp is located in Memphis, Tennessee. The location of the manufacturing plant of the company is important because the city is the biggest along the area. Memphis is also a large manufacturing town that has a better infrastructure and a state-of-the-art transport system. There is also one of the busiest international airports that mostly specifies as a cargo airport in Memphis. There are also better railway networks, transport companies, and wide roads. The presence of a better infrastructure ensures that ToolsCorp can access the market easily, and the helps the company in case they need to expand their market worldwide.

Weakness.

Some external factors can affect the growth of the company negatively. For instance, the company has Canada only as its international market. Therefore, the company will experience some difficulties to produce their products to other nations. The foreign market concerning the logistics, legalities, culture, and regulation will have to be studied by the company to pass all the barriers of entry in a new foreign market.

Most of the products offered by the company are commonly used in certain seasons. Items such as lawnmowers and lawn furniture are usually used during the spring and summer seasons. Therefore, there is a fluctuation in the trends of purchasing those items during the fall and winter seasons, hence creating a negative effect on the revenue of the company.

The company experiences a high cost of production in the United States, unlike their competitors who prefer to manufacture their products in China as the cost of production in China tends to be below. The high expenditure incurred by the company is usually on manufacturing cost, labor, and research and development. Due to the high cost of production by the company, the prices of their products tend to be much higher than the competitors, thus

Opportunities.

ToolsCorp can increase its market share in other continents such as Europe, Australia, Africa, and South America. The market in the continents such as Europe, Australia, Africa, South America, and Asia are having a demand on the products that are manufactured by the company, due to their lifestyle and income rise of their continent.

Some markets that ToolsCorp wants to exploit are the ones that have a moderate climate condition, thus the company can sell to their market its tools throughout the year, thus avoiding fluctuations in revenue for selling their products according to certain seasons. The suitability of outdoors of the other countries will enhance the buying of the company’s product.

There is also a consideration of acquiring other companies that experience high competition in the market they try to expand. ToolsCorp can try to acquire small companies that have great products and brands. This strategy will assist to reduce the expenditure and increase the economies of scale to serve the expanded market better.

Threats.

The company faces the threat of competing with other foreign companies which have a strong foundation and recognition in the market. Most of the foreign companies have great distribution channels which in turn creates market entry problems on the international market that ToolsCorp intends to expand. ("China Economics", 2016)

ToolsCorp faces the threat of regulatory and political risks. This is because most of the countries that ToolsCorp intent to expand have laws and regulations meant to protect the local industries.

The company faces the threat of expanding in certain countries having unstable currencies, thus there will be difficulty in pricing the products in the market. In a situation where fluctuation occurs in the exchange rate of the country’s currency, the effects will be catastrophic for ToolsCorp as they might experience loss.

Business plan outline.

The business plan outline is crucial as it enables the execution of ingenuity and strategy to embrace the worldwide market. The outline list comprises crucial topics that will be covered in the business plan.

1. The company description.
2. The analysis of trends and industry.
3. The market.
   1. 1. 1. 1. Targeted market.
            2. Size of the market
4. Competition
5. Strategic market position and risk assessment.
6. Tasks. (operations)
7. Management and Organization
8. Corporate sustainability and social responsibility
9. Technology
10. Strategy for sale and marketing plans.
11. Finances of the company.
    1. 1. 1. 1. Break-even analysis
             2. Assumptions.

Mission statement.

The company’s objective is to provide products to individuals that prefer to spend most of their time in the outdoors through the supplying of high-quality and energy kitchen appliances, power tools, and lawn furniture. The commitment and consistency of the company to green energy has led to the provision of a better environment for marketing innovation, development, and selling the products to earn better revenues. ToolsCorp will be participating in environmental conservation by creating incentives in the international market.

                                                Key operating principals’ application.

ToolsCorp is a company that promotes teamwork and cooperation among branches, units, and people. The knowledge and information must be shared with the supervisors and employees to ease the decision-making process. The company also has an organizational paradigm that utilizes and promotes opportunities and strength, as it also decreases the weakness and threats.

The company will enable the quality and efficiency of its products by time to time creativity and invention. The department of research and development will be available to offer solutions necessary to improve the superiority and efficiency of the products.

The company has shown a great commitment to sustaining the limited resources and conservation of the environment. The social responsibility of the company will be to show the impact of conserving for the environment. The innovation done in the company will be aimed to promote the development of the product, energy conservation, and application of the products.