Pick one of the following companies:

Apple

Corning

Emerson

Estee Lauder

Fortune Brands

Hershey's

Honeywell

International Flavors and Fragrances

Microsoft

Review the annual reports of the company for the last three years, as well as news stories of any developments at the corporate level - e.g., entry into new industries, acquisition of a company, long-term partnership or alliance agreements the corporation may have entered into, divestments or sale of one or more businesses, etc.

The specific sections for this assignment are as follows.

Introduction. Here provide an overview of the corporation - similar to what you are doing for the Corporate Analysis assignment.Cover what is the size of the corp. (in revenues and employees), where it operates (i.e., number of countries), what are its main businesses. Also, what are some of its most well-known brand names or products?Devote another paragraph to trends in revenues and income, distribution of revenues and income across its main businesses, and stock price (absolute and relative to an index such as the S&P 500). Devote the final paragraph to its history, covering important changes (additions/deletions) in its portfolio of businesses, tracing the evolution of its portfolio to the current time.Devote some appendices for tables and visuals related to this section.

The corporate strategy.Describe the current corporate strategy - it could be a mixture of multiple types - e.g., related diversification and multi-domestic. Mention specific corporate strategy type(s) used, and provide evidence. Use an appendix to show a visual representation of the strategy (e.g., the constituent businesses and countries/continents).

Also describe the corporate strategy implementation modes used (e.g., internal development, acquisitions, and/or long-term partnerships/alliances). For this, Check their recent history of major corporate strategy moves - going into new businesses or beefing up existing businesses via acquisitions, internal development, or long-term partnerships. Many corporations use more than one implementation mode. Describe all the ones that your corporation uses, and provide examples. Also, go into the dominant mode used. Use an appendix to show the distribution of modes over different constituent businesses.For global strategies, the implementation modes are exporting, licensing/franchising, joint ventures, strategic alliances, foreign direct investments, and wholly-owned subsidiaries. Can use an appendix that is linked to this section with a neat table that organizes all the information on their strategy and implementation modes used for specific businesses/targets.

Evaluation. Provide your evaluation/review of the current strategy.This would involve thinking about questions such as these - Does the portfolio make sense? What is the value of keeping the businesses together? What general strengths (capabilities, resources (e.g., knowledge, technologies) do these businesses share? Are there any other advantages, such as smoothing out earnings across businesses (not all businesses may perform poorly at the same time)? Which businesses could be good candidates to get rid of and sell to other corporations, or have them spun out as independent businesses? These are guiding questions for illustration, to give you a direction of inquiry.