Components of the Strategic Action Section
The Strategic Action section contains the following:
- Examine a significant strategic action recently undertaken at the company under the aegis of the current CEO. These may include reorganizations, expansions, mergers & acquisitions, new/revamped product lines or retail formats, productivity or HR related initiatives, etc. (please be aware that this is NOT an exhaustive list)
- How is this action meant to improve the company's competitiveness?
- What are the major obstacles the company faces regarding this action?
- Will the company succeed?
Where do I look
- Business Source CompleteBusiness Source Complete provides full text for scholarly business journals and other sources, including full text for more than 1,800 peer-reviewed business publications. Coverage includes virtually all subject areas related to business. This database provides full text (PDF) for top scholarly journals, including the Harvard Business Review. It also includes industry and country reports from Euromonitor and company and industry reports from Datamonitor.
- FactivaFull-text online service for international news and business information. Covers over 28,000 sources in 23 languages in more than 150 countries. Some company and market research is included. Factiva includes full-text coverage of the Wall Street Journal.
- ABI/InformABI/Inform, an extensive international business and management database, contains bibliographic citations, abstracts, and full text of articles appearing in professional publications, academic journals, and trade magazines published worldwide. ABI/Inform covers the areas of accounting, banking, computers, economics, engineering management, communications, finance, health care, human resources, insurance, international trends, law, management, marketing, public administration, real estate, taxation, transportation.
- Capital IQCapital IQ is a major financial platform used to find data on public and private companies, investment firms, capital transactions, and people. It includes financials for over 88,000 public companies and 825,000 private companies.
Videos
Getting help with the assignment
Getting Help
- First and foremost, please watch the videos available in this guide. They will show you how to use the resources, and therefore find the information you need.
- If you need clarifications on the assignment, such as ratios or what each section means, please ask your TAs
- For questions about resources and research, Please visit the NEED HELP? page on this guide.
Hints/Tips
Some of the possible topics to research in this section may be difficult to find information about. Productivity inititatives and HR initiatives are two examples of information that companies like to keep internal. What they do release will be what they want the public to see, and thus has the potential to be either vague or biased.
Information on reorganizations, expansions and mergers and acquisitions typically will be announced, either in a corporate filing, or in certain databases. CapitalIQ is a speciality database that tends to work well for identifying Mergers and Aquisitions, and other similar announced deals. Once you've identified the M&A, you will want to get more details about the deal from the resources listed on this page.
Other FAQs
My company's CEO is brand new. What should I do?
- It is VERY rare for a CEO to be so recent that there are NO strategic actions available. If none have been actually implemented, then look for one that is being planned by the company/CEO (for example, a merger/acquisition that is in the very early stages). If there is absolutely nothing, talk with a TA.
How do I know if my CEO led this action?
- It will not always be spelled out for you, but it’s safe to assume that major strategic actions that have happened during the CEO’s tenure have been made through their direction.