Strategic leaders help organizations achieve competitive advantage through effec

Strategic leaders help organizations achieve competitive advantage through effective management of the strategy-making process. With a vision, mission, and goals in place, organizations should conduct a SWOT analysis to develop strategy that exploits external opportunities, builds on and protects company strengths, eradicates threats, and counters weaknesses.

In this paper, you will conduct a SWOT Analysis on an organization of your choosing (see pp. C2-C5 of your textbook and select a company that has an “X” in all 3 of these boxes: Ch. 4, Ch. 5, and Ch. 6). Avoid selecting the company you plan to write your final paper about. It’s okay if it is the same company you are following in the podcast for the discussion board.
To discover SWOT items, search for recent news stories and articles from quality sources (CNBC, the WSJ, Yahoo finance, Regional Business News, Thompson Reuters Westlaw, scholarly articles, your textbook, etc) to determine the most pressing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats the organization is facing. Be sure to cite the source of each SWOT item. You should have a total of at least 20 total SWOT items, from at least 5 different quality sources. It is recommended that you complete the SWOT appendix (see “Appendix A SWOT” attached) before writing your paper, which will shape your thinking for the paper.
SWOT tip: Porter’s Competitive Forces model (Ch. 3) is a good tool for identifying the external aspect: Opportunities and Threats. For the internal aspect (Ch. 4) – Strengths and Weaknesses – it is important to understand the role of rare, valuable, and hard to imitate resources, then consider how these resources lead to superior efficiency, innovation, quality, and customer responsiveness, and finally analyze the organization’s competitive advantage and what opportunities for improvement there might be.
Include:
Cover page with a descriptive paper title, your name, your program, course title, instructor name, and date
Paper introduction
Brief review of the case
The company’s vision, mission, values, and goals
SWOT discussion (this will be the longest part of your paper – 2 to 3 pages)
Conclusion
Reference page
Appendix A – SWOT Analysis (see file attached)
Your paper should be APA Style, 3–4 double spaced pages (plus your cover, reference page, and appendix) and have at least 5 quality sources, at least one of which is a scholarly source