Each student will thoroughly analyze and evaluate the performance of two companies in the industry using the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, The Balanced Scorecard, and a SWOT analysis. The paper should include a thoughtful analysis of the historic, current, and projected performance of the companies using any frameworks, tools, and concepts from well-known scholars and practitioners.

 At a minimum, the following topics must be covered in the paper:

· Company Analysis – Identify and address major themes and issues by using the criteria from The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, as well as any related tenets from Quality, and The Balanced Scorecard. Complement this work by performing a SWOT analysis on each company. Please be sure to include basic corporate information, such as market capitalization, earnings, ROI, etc.

·  Recommendations – Based on your earlier work and with careful analysis on the progression of the industry, company, and product within its respective lifecycle; provide a summary that addresses the major performance issues, constraints, and critical success factors for both companies including a perspective on where the two companies fit in the industry’s competitive landscape. 

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program :

What is our competitive position, our market, and who are our competitors?

What are the factors that determine our success, and what changes and opportunities do you see in the future?

What are our sources of comparative and competitive data within our industry, and any analogous processes outside our industry?

What are our strategic challenges, including business, operational, human resource, as well as organizational sustainability?

Do we have a performance improvement system that supports an ongoing focus on organizational learning and improvement of processes?

What are our partnering relationships and communication mechanisms with key constituencies?

The Balanced Scorecard

· Financial – Balance Sheet, Earnings, and Ratios, Economic Value

· Customer – Satisfaction, Connection, Retention, Market Awareness

· Internal – Quality, Product Introduction Cycle, Efficiency

· Learning & Growing – Employee Engagement, Knowledge, Retention

SWOT: How can the company…

· leverage its Strengths?

· make its Weaknesses irrelevant?

· exploit its Opportunities in the market?

· minimize its Threats?

Questions that should be answered in your paper

Why does the company exist, and how long has it existed?

Where is it in its life-cycle?

How much emphasis is placed on marketing, operations, and finance?

Which company represents the most direct competitor?

Is there an untapped market?

Is there an obsolete function in the company?

Can technology disrupt the trajectory of the company?

Is the company in need of rejuvenation?

What problems need solutions?  

What would you do if you were the CEO of the company?

This assignment requires a comprehensive and concise 15-slide PowerPoint presentation that will serve as the detailed analysis and as the instrument for your presentation. This assignment requires at least 10 sources.

Presentations should include a final slide with references and be printed in gray scale that contains six slides per page. Each slide should have a heading. Try to stay consistent (a.k.a. parallelism) within each slide. In other words, if your first statement is a proper sentence, then keep using sentences for the remainder of the slide and use proper punctuation. If you use bullets and start with verbs, then continue to use verbs for the remainder of the slide. Please use proper punctuation regardless of style.