Assignment 1: Wall Street Journal article report

Please select a marketing topic you learned this week that you really liked or enjoyed, and then search in the Wall Street Journal (either online or hardcopy, both are available through the NU library) and select an article about that topic within the last 12 months. To do this, you can visit the online library at National University (www.library.nu.edu) and search the ProQuest Central database (on NU’s library website, go to “A to Z databases, go to “Q” and pres “ProQuest Central”. Once there you will click the “publications tab” and enter “Wall Street Journal” into the search bar. Select the edition and search articles of interest. If you have difficulty finding Wall Street Journal articles, please watch the short tutorial below or you can contact our SOBM librarian, Summer Krstevska,

• Read and analyze the article and write a report 1-2 pages long specifying the things you learned in the article and why do you think it is relevant in today’s business world.
• Make sure you cite the article properly (APA style) and submit your report by Saturday before midnight. For more information on APA go to http://nu.libguides.com/citations/APA

DiDiscussion post:

SWOT/TOWS Analysis

This is a two step assignment. To prepare for this assignment, you need to read the last section on page 8 through page 18 in the file entitled “The TOWS Matrix.pdf” below. Plan on at least 30-45 minutes to read and study this attachment before beginning the assignment.

• The TOWS Matrix – PDF Document (104.7 KB). The TOWS Matrix

Step 1: Complete a SWOT Analysis between Monday and Wednesday.National University has prepared a video about SWOT Analysis which can be found within the Week One Readings. This is sometimes called an “environmental analysis” where two basic things happen: a) the company’s internal situation is analyzed in terms of its Strengths and Weaknesses and b) the industry situation is analyzed in terms of external Opportunities and Threats. For this assignment, choose company you know well! It may be your current employer, a former employer, or any company that you are very familiar with. It can even be a small mom-and-pop business in your area. If you do not wish to reveal the name of the company, that’s OK.

• SWOT & TOWS Template – Word Document (28 KB). SWOT & TOWS Template

Regardless of which company you choose, your posting should include an introductory paragraph that gives a description of the product or service the company sells, a quick explanation of the target market they focus on, and some indication of the size of the company. Next, use the “SWOT & TOWS Template” attached here to list the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. In Step 1, you will ONLY fill out the white boxes, not the yellow! Add or delete numbers as needed. Remember that strengths and weaknesses are INTERNAL factors that are true of that particular company. Opportunities and threats are EXTERNAL factors that apply to all competitors in the industry. Be careful here — if the opportunities listed are specific only to your chosen company rather than to all competitors in the industry, then you may be listing strategies rather than opportunities. Again, please do NOT complete a full TOWS analysis at this point, just focus on the white boxes at the top and on the left in the SWOT & TOWS Template.

After completing the SWOT elements of the template, save it to your computer. In the Discussion Board, type your introductory paragraph into the main message body of your discussion post, then “attach” the SWOT analysis to your posting before you press “Submit.” Now you’re done with Part 1!

Step 2: Complete a TOWS Analysis on a classmate’s SWOT analysis between Thursday and Sunday.This your chance to use what you’ve learned in the assigned article. Be sure to study the example TOWS analysis for Volkswagen and Winnebago (on page 14 and page 16) before you begin. Select one SWOT analysis posted by a classmate earlier in the week. Open their SWOT file and save it to your computer. Then fill in the yellow boxes with appropriate strategies, taking time to include the numbering that indicates which specific elements of the SWOT are addressed by each strategy. Your posting should include ideas for each of the following four strategies: SO (Strengths/Opportunities), WO (Weaknesses/Opportunities), ST (Strengths/Threats), WT (Weaknesses/Threats). The explanations on page 11 in the assigned article should be very helpful as you complete this part of the assignment. When you are done, your completed TOWS should look very similar to the examples on page 14 and 16 of the assigned article. NOTE: If there are no other students in your class, you will complete the TOWS on your own SWOT.