employ standard academic research standards W r i t i n g

The assignment is straightforward, if challenging to execute well – complete three analyses about the company and the country you chose for your Global Business Plan (GBP) or X-Culture project: a SWOT analysis, a PEST analysis (or a variant like PESTLE or STEEP), and a Country Screening Analysis. Basically, you are assessing the feasibility of this company entering and doing business in your country/region of choice. In strategic terms, how good is the fit between the company and the country you have chosen?

Be careful NOT to do your entire project analysis in this assignment; just interpret the strategic fit based on the SWOT analysis, then again based on the PEST analysis you performed here.

Finally, discuss how attractive or unattractive the country is versus a benchmark country (as an alternative option or country to enter for doing business; for Target entering Canada, for instance, the benchmark might be the U.S. since that’s the only country Target is operating in initially).

You will be graded on how well you do each analysis, including your written explanation (in the main body of your report) of the main facts (or secondary data) you turn up in your research.

As part of your “capstone project”, you should employ standard academic research standards, including use of proper citations; use of reputable, scholarly sources of data, where feasible; spell checking, grammar checking, etc.

To complete this assignment:

1) Reference the slides presented in class on how to do a SWOT analysis, and how to do a PEST (or PESTLE or STEEP) analysis. If needed, also reference the appropriate chapters in the Analysis without Paralysis, 2/E book recommended for use in our course Syllabus.

2) For the country screening analysis, benchmark your chosen country against another country of your choosing. (In principle, your company might be weighing entry to both of these countries, so discuss them in relative terms – explaining which one is more attractive to enter, and why).

Remember, country attractiveness here is done in terms of the company you chose to do your project about; you want their strengths to fit with the opportunities (sometimes known as country-specific advantages; see Ch. 8) you identify in each of two countries – (1) your chosen country, and (2) the suitable benchmark country. However, you should also explain why this second country makes a suitable benchmark for the first (or your chosen) country that is the focus of your GBP or X-Culture project.

When in doubt, reference Ch. 3 in our text for factors or items that underscore which benefits, costs and risks of a given country you will be examining for your chosen company.

Finally, do reference the template demonstrated in class by some of your classmates. The template is titled “Country Screening Tool – Template” and is available under the “Course Documents” section of our Canvas Home webpage. Feel free to change (1) the items listed and (2) the weight assignments made to each factor, reflecting the company you chose for your Global Business Plan (GBP) project. Do make sure, however, that the weights add up to 1.00 (or 100% in decimal format).