An essential ability of all executive managers is to properly understand the industry in which they operate. To assist in developing this skill, students will be required to analysis an industry from the context of a specific business. Students will be required to select a publicly-traded company from which to work on this assignment (Publicly traded companies will have more publicly available information and industry analysts may also produce information which may be useful).

INSTRUCTIONS

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Using the information provided in the textbook and the evaluation rubrics provided in the article by Dobb, Guidelines for Applying Porter's Five Forces Framework: A Set of Industry Analysis Templates (linked above),students will analyze an industry but will use a specific company as a simple frame of reference. Students will explore the industry analysis resources found in the Mergent Online database located in the Dugan Library at Newman University. It is important that students understand that research analysis such as this assignment requires multiple sources to substantiate the conclusions of the student's analysis. Given this expectation, students should expect to include at least two sources for each of the five forces and additional resources for the other components of the paper. This would generate a work cited page which would include a minimum of 10 sources for nominal work.

Example: If you are analyzing the Food & Beverage Industry in North America, you might choose a company such as PepsiCo, Tyson Foods, or Kellogg Co as your frame and reference. Please remember this is not an analysis of the company, but of the INDUSTRY in which the company operates.