A Universe of Galaxies Writing Assignment Help

• OVERVIEW

  Research the last two years of financial statements for a publicly traded organization based in the United States. Then write a 10- to 12-page financial analysis that applies financial theories, methods, and analytical tools, including capital structure and financial statement ratio analysis.Note: The assessments in this course build upon each other, so you are strongly encouraged to complete them in sequence.SHOW LESSBy successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment objectives:

  • Competency 1: Apply the theories, models, and practices of finance to the financial management of the firm.
    • Analyze the financial statements of a publicly traded company.
  • Competency 2: Assess the impact of ethical, regulatory, and tax considerations on financial policy decisions.
    • Analyze the impact of ethical, regulatory, and tax considerations on financial policy decisions.
  • Competency 3: Evaluate alternative methods of financing a firm in diverse economic environments.
    • Analyze the impacts and risks of international trade on an organization’s financial statements.
  • Competency 4: Integrate financial analyses into general business management planning and decision making.
    • Evaluate financial analyses used for general business management planning and decision making.
  • Competency 5: Communicate in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for members of the business professions.
    • Communicate in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for members of the business professions.

  Competency Map

  CHECK YOUR PROGRESSUse this online tool to track your performance and progress through your course.

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  RESOURCES

  SUGGESTED RESOURCES

  The resources provided here are optional. You may use other resources of your choice to prepare for this assessment; however, you will need to ensure that they are appropriate, credible, and valid. They provide helpful information about the topics in this unit. The MBA-FP6016 – Finance and Value Creation Library Guide can help direct your research. The Supplemental Resources and Research Resources, both linked from the left navigation menu in your courseroom, provide additional resources to help support you.Internet Resources

  ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION

  The following texts are designed to assist learners to master core concepts, solve financial problems, and analyze results.

  • Ross, S. A., Westerfield, R. W., Jaffe, J. F., & Jordan, B. D. (2014). Corporate finance: Core principles and applications (4th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. – Available from the bookstore
    • Chapter 18, “Short-Term Finance and Planning,” pages 551–582.
    • Chapter 19, “Raising Capital,” pages 583–618.
    • Chapter 20, “International Corporate Finance,” pages 619–644.

  The text offers an introductory look at corporate finance.

  • Welch, I. (2017). Corporate finance (4th ed.). Retrieved from http://book.ivo-welch.info/read/.
    • Chapter 14, “From Financial Statements to Economic Cash Flows,” pages 355-385.

• ASSESSMENT INSTRUCTIONS

  Write a financial analysis for a U.S.-based, publicly traded organization.To begin, research the latest two years of financial statements for a publicly traded organization based in the United States. Obtain the organization’s three most recent annual reports. You may choose any organization, as long as the data needed to complete this assessment is available to you.Then, write an analysis (10–12 pages) of your findings. Apply theories, methods, and analytical tools, including capital structure and financial statement ratio analysis. Address the following in your analysis:

  • Analyze the financial statements of a publicly traded company.
    • Identify the industry of the organization and present industry statistics.
    • Perform a complete financial analysis of the organization’s financial statements for the last two years, including horizontal, vertical, and changes in ratios.
  • Analyze the impacts and specific risks of international trade on the organization’s financial statements.
    • What are the financial research sources to support your analysis?
    • What specifics from the financial statements would be at greatest risk?
  • Evaluate financial analyses used for general business management planning and decision making.
    • Identify and analyze important segments (percentage of sales or subsidiaries).
    • Analyze cash flows.
    • Compare and evaluate the organization’s ratios against the industry averages.
  • Analyze the impact of ethical, regulatory, and tax considerations on the organization’s financial policy decisions.

  ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

  • Written communication: Written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message.
  • APA formatting: Format the title page, citations, references, and any tables, graphs, or charts according to current APA style and formatting.
  • Number of resources: Minimum of 10 references, of which three should be academic journals and no more than two should be textbooks.
  • Length of paper: 10–12 typed, double-spaced pages—not including the title page, references, tables, graphs, or charts.
  • Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.

  Financial Analysis Scoring Guide

  CRITERIA	NON-PERFORMANCE	BASIC	PROFICIENT	DISTINGUISHED
  Analyze the financial statements of a publicly traded company.	Does not identify the financial statements of a publicly traded company.	Identifies the financial statements of a publicly traded company.	Analyzes the financial statements of a publicly traded company.	Evaluates the financial statements of a publicly traded company; provides details and examples to support the evaluation.
  Analyze the impacts and risks of international trade on an organization’s financial statements.	Does not identify the impacts and risks of international trade on an organization’s financial statements.	Identifies the impacts and risks of international trade on an organization’s financial statements.	Analyzes the impacts and risks of international trade on an organization’s financial statements.	Evaluates the impacts and risks of international trade on an organization’s financial statements; provides details and examples to support the evaluation.
  Evaluate financial analyses used for general business management planning and decision making.	Does not analyze financial analyses used for general business management planning and decision making.	Analyzes financial analyses used for general business management planning and decision making.	Evaluates financial analyses used for general business management planning and decision making.	Interprets financial analyses for general business management planning and decision making; provides details and examples to support the interpretation.
  Analyze the impact of ethical, regulatory, and tax considerations on financial policy decisions.	Does not identify the impact of ethical, regulatory, and tax considerations on financial policy decisions.	Identifies the impact of ethical, regulatory, and tax considerations on financial policy decisions.	Analyzes the impact of ethical, regulatory, and tax considerations on financial policy decisions.	Evaluates the impact of ethical, regulatory, and tax considerations on financial policy decisions; provides details and examples to support the evaluation.
  Communicate in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for members of the business professions.	Communicates in a manner that is not professional or consistent with expectations for members of the business professions.	Communicates in a manner that is inconsistent with expectations for members of the business professions.	Communicates in a manner that is professional and consistent with expectations for members of the business professions.	Communicates in a manner that is professional, scholarly, and consistent with expectations for members of the business professions. Adheres to APA formatting guidelines and produces work that is appropriate for publication.

Pick one question to answer

5. KENNA’S DILEMMA

1. In the cases of Kenna’s music and the Aeron chair we see that
first impressions can often lead us astray. What we initially judge as
disapproval may just be a case of confusion or mistrust for
something new and different. How can we distinguish a decision
motivated by fear of the unknown from the ones that stem from
genuine dislike towards something? Are we better off leaving it to
the experts to tell us what we should like?

2. What if we have personal investment in the new product or
person? Can we or how do we separate our emotional involvement
from our intuitive judgment?

3. Do you believe our unconscious reactions come out of a locked
room that we can’t ever truly see inside? Can we ever know
ourselves wholly and understand the motivation and reason behind
our every move? If an individual claims to completely know how
their mind works, are they incredibly self-aware or just delusional?
And if we can’t totally get behind that locked door and fully ‘know’
why we react the way we do, is psychiatry an over-priced and
limited exercise?

For this week’s hybrid assignment, please research and analyze four (4) sources for your Advocacy Proposal. List these entries in a reply post to this thread. Each entry should include the following three elements:

1) Complete (and accurate) bibliographic citation in MLA format.

2) A quick summary of the article/chapter/book’s main ideas (2-3 sentences). The goal is to identify the central point (or multiple points, if appropriate) of the source and put it into your own words.

3) An evaluation of the source’s quality, credibility, and usefulness to your project (2-3 sentences). What did you find most useful about this source? Any weaknesses? If it’s from a scholarly journal, the credibility may be apparent—but if it’s from a website, how does the source establish its credibility? How does the information you encountered here relate to your project? Do you know yet how you will use it?

Part 1 – Integrated Marketing Communications, and the Changing Media Landscape

Learning Outcomes

1. Integrated Marketing Communications. Student understands how integrated marketing communications can add value for customers.
2. Marketing communications objectives. Student can develop marketing communications objectives using the AIDA framework.
3. Promotion mix. Student can select the appropriate promotion tool to be used for different marketing communications objectives.
4. Media strategy. Student can design a simple message and media plan for a product or service offering.

Directions

• This assignment assesses your ability to relate integrated marketing communications concepts to your product or service offering and the target market you selected. Here you will let your creative side shine as you think through how you would design the marketing communications for your product or service to effectively and efficiently communicate a clear, consistent and compelling message to your target market over the next year.

• The course content does not cover IMC in great detail and you may want to refer to some open source references for more information on message design. A good one is: http://www.caad.au.edu/attachments/article/43/Class7-CreativeIMCMessageStrategies.pdf

• Prepare your assignment beginning with a title page with your name and the name of your product or service. Then answer each of the following eight questions (four in part 1 and four in part 2) in order and number the beginning of your response to each question. Although you do not need to repeat the question, headings should be used to separate the sections. The paper should contain a minimum of 5+ pages of analysis for the responses to the eight questions.

1. Integrated Marketing Communications. Considering your new target market and any modifications, new product line extensions or new products you may have developed to serve the new target market needs, create your ‘Big Idea” to be the basis of the message strategy for all your marketing communications.
2. Marketing communications objectives. Write at least three marketing communications objectives using the AIDA framework discussed in the course content.
3. Promotion mix. For each of the three marketing communications objectives written in number 2, discuss which of the promotion tools would be the best choice to reach each of the three marketing communications objective. One tool must be advertising (traditional or online) You may have more than one promotion mix tool for any given marketing communications objective.
4. Media strategy. Discuss at least two of your media choices that you believe will best reach your target market with your advertising. Be specific with your choices, e.g. HGTV, Rehab Addict, because the product or service is targeting a do-it-yourself target market, or Home Depot website banner ads for the same target market. Or Morning TV National News, Good Morning America and The Today Show, 1st hour because your target market is educated urban workers. If using social media, discuss which social media and how they will be used to accomplish which objective.

Part 2 – Special Topics in Marketing

B2B Marketing, Marketing Information Systems and Measuring Marketing Activities

Learning Outcomes

1. B2B marketing. Student can differentiate the differences in marketing strategy between consumer markets and business markets.
2. Segmenting B2B markets. Student can identify the B2B market segments involved in a product or service offering
3. Marketing Information Systems. Student can identify at least three sources of input to a marketing information system for a product or service offering.
4. Marketing Metrics. Student understands the purpose of Return on Marketing Investment for the company, and can identify at least three metrics that should be used in a product or service offering to measure the effectiveness of marketing strategies.

Directions

• This part of the writing assignment closes the loop on strategic marketing planning in that it identifies the types of marketing strategies the company might employ to market its offering through the value chain prior to its final customer. Also, strategic planning is useless unless there are reliable and useful sources of inputs and a way to organize the data to be used in the planning process decision making. Metrics need to be in place to measure how successful (or not so successful) the strategies to reach marketing objectives have been. Strategic marketing planning then becomes an ongoing process of measuring and adjusting to new information and current conditions.

• Many of your responses to these questions will be your best educated and informed (as much as possible) information on your product or service offering’s company. Where concrete information is not obtainable, you should use your judgment and describe why you made your judgment call.

• Respond to each of the following four questions in order and identify the number of each response. There is no need to repeat the number of the question.

1. 1. B2B marketing. Consider your product or service offering. Based on the categories of B2B markets discussed in the readings, name at least two of the B2B markets that could be a target market for your company. Why?
   2. Segmenting B2B markets. Using the Harrison, Hague, and Hague behavioral-based segment model in the readings, which of those segmentation schemes might be most appropriate category for your company? Why?
   3. Marketing Information Systems. Identify at least three types of information your company should use in a comprehensive marketing information system for decision making purposes. Why did you chose each of them?
   4. Marketing Metrics. Identify and discuss at least one financial metric and three performance metrics that would be important to monitor your company’s strategic marketing planning for the marketing efforts you identified for your new marketing mix strategies.

General Submission Requirements

• Prepare as a word processed document (such as Microsoft Word). Use a simple 12-point font such as Times New Roman. Use black ink for majority of your work and only use colors if it enhances your ability to communicate your thoughts.

• Your assignment should be a minimum of five+ pages of double-spaced text, approximately 1/2 page for each of the eight questions (four in Part 1 and four in Part 2). You may attach exhibits that will not be counted towards the page count of double-spaced text. The cover page and References page are not part of the five+ pages of written analysis.

• Be sure your name, writing assignment number, and the name of your product or service are on the cover page of your writing assignment.

• Include a References page.

• You should use APA style guide. More information about using a style guide can be found in the UMUC’s virtual library accessible from your LEO classroom under Content, “Learn to use APA” or at umuc.edu/library.

• Upload your word processed document in your LEO assignments folder by the due date in the LEO calendar.

Refer to the grading rubric for these assignments. Be sure to note that 20% of your grade on this assignment will be based on your grammar, composition, adherence to the submission requirements, and use of an appropriate college-level style guide for writing and referencing.