Suppose you are working as a team of the management accounting department in one of the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 100 companies. A new CEO recently joined your company, who requires in-depth knowledge of the business for planning and control of the company. Your team is required by the CEO to find facts, explain the implications of the findings, arrive at conclusions and give your recommendations by oral presentation and written report submission to the CEO. (Note, this is a business report, not an academic research paper.)

REQUIREMENTS

1. SCHEDULE FOR DEVELOPING YOUR ASSIGNMENT

 Teams and group leaders formation

 Random assignment of company for study

 Company and background

 Check the company’s website and library ibis world database, particularly the investor section. Look for current newspaper articles about the company. Read through the annual report and reports to investors to identify e.g.

 Mission and vision

 Company ownership structure and organizational structure (diagrams are preferred)

 Headquarter and branches or subsidiaries

 Company’s products/services. What are the company’s products/services; where does it sell its products/services, what products/services generate the most profit/revenue?

 Major capital investment projects and/or expansion plan if any

 What strategy does the company currently have in place to achieve its objectives?

Identify if the company is using cost leadership strategy and/or differentiation strategy.

 Identify and recommend any changes to the company’s current objectives and strategy following your position analysis and understanding of the current strategy.

 Cost management policies and/or practices, e.g., policies guiding cost management, practices or initiatives to manage or reduce cost, effect of cost management

 Major costs and their trend over the past 3 years if data is available.

 Classification of its major costs in terms of its behavior, traceability.

 Comment on the type of budget the company should choose or identify the company existing budget.

 Social performance. e.g., donations, employee gender equality initiatives, employee wellbeing, etc.

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choose from any one hundred top companies