The Research Report is due at the end of module.

The Project Report is worth 30% of the final grade.

Assume you have been hired as a consultant to prepare a balanced scorecard that will be presented to top management. You will choose a company to research and will provide a professional report that will include the following:

Part A--Firm strategy and financial analysis:

1. Mission statement
2. Business model:
   1. Strategy description: what is the customer value proposition?
   2. Differentiation of products or services
   3. Operations
3. Financial statement analysis:
   1. Focus on key areas--profitability, efficiency, ROI, and financial leverage. Three to five key ratios may be sufficient for your presentation. You may use all available sources for ratios and are not required to calculate the ratios. It is recommended that the annual reports for at least two years or more be reviewed. This will provide a basis for you to gain an understanding of the firm's strategy in a prior year so that the outcome of the strategy can be evaluated.

Part B--Firm strategy implementation and balanced scorecard:

1. Competitive and business factors:
   1. Describe the industry and trends and major competitors (include global business issues)
   2. Critical success factors (CSF): What the firm must do to implement strategy, such as product quality, customer service, technology and increasing market share.
   3. What are the firm's strengths and weaknesses?
   4. What are the competitive threats?
   5. What are the opportunities for competitive advantage?
   6. What are the major ethical and social responsibility issues?
   7. What are the major business risks?
2. Customer analysis (include global business issues):
   1. What is the customer value proposition (related to CSF)?
   2. Who are the customers?
   3. What are the firm's important market strategies and segments?
   4. What is the size of the market and your firm's approximate market share?
   5. Describe recent new product/service introductions and the firm's new product/service plans.
3. Key Value drivers (related to CSF):
   1. What are they? You should answer the question what drives value for the firm? Your answer might be a list of several factors such as the firm's ability to introduce a stream of innovative new products, quality products, superior service, and so forth. These will be related to the CSF. The firm's balanced scorecard would have leading and lagging measures relating to the value drivers. There would be linkages between the value drivers and financial measures evident on the strategy map.
   2. Explain how they affect sales growth and profits.
4. Balanced scorecard and strategy map (firm strategy level).
   1. Create a balanced scorecard for the organization based on the information that you have researched and analyzed for the organization.

You have options for how you may present your Project, including the following:

• A written reflective essay (8-10 pages-not including the CUC cover, title, or reference pages)
• PowerPoint or Prezi presentation (www.prezi.com (Links to an external site.)) (20 slides-not including the reference slide)

All presentations must be submitted via Word document. For all presentations that are not in an essay format, insert your presentation slides into a Word document or paste the link to your online presentation into a Word document and submit that document as your assignment. Notes in the form of a professional-quality handout must accompany all presentations other than essay format. The handout should contain what you would say if you were presenting to a board of directors or senior leadership of an organization.

Your well-written and well-developed submission should meet the following requirements, regardless of the presentation format you choose:

• Include a cover page, introduction, a conclusion, and a references page.
• Use a minimum of 8 credible sources that are cited within the essay or presentation.
• Include proper citation of any graphs or figures that you do not create yourself.

Be formatted according to the 6^th edition APA form and style. If using the essay format, please use the provided writing template.