2

Business Plan I (PDF) (Courtesy of Jack Derby. Used with permission.)

3

Brainstorming (PDF)

4-6

Financial Lectures I, II, III (PDF)

10-11

Ratio Analysis I and II (PDF)

14

R&D Management (PDF)

1

Find examples of three of the following concepts in newspapers, magazines, or books and bring them to class for discussion:

Language of report

Inferences and judgments

Affective language

Two-valued logic

Multi-valued logic

Ladder of abstraction

Write a few sentences summarizing each example that you provide; be prepared to present your examples in class.

2

Discuss with your group ways each of you has had to sell yourself. As a group, pick one example: describe it and evaluate how it followed or didn't follow the principal steps in the selling process as outlined in "The Selling Process." Each group only needs to turn in one copy of the assignment.

3

This assignment requires you to perform ratio analysis on a pair of companies in the same industry. The assignment is due in lecture 10 and lecture 11 in class. Each group will be required to make a short 10 minute presentation on their analysis. Some general guidelines to follow:

- Read the previous four 10-Q and the last few 10-K reports for each company.

- With the group, calculate the ratios (of your choice) for the past three years (10-K reports) and examine the differences between your two companies. Speculate on the causes of the major differences between the companies. Pose a few questions or hypothetical situations and answer them using the ratios that you have calculated.

- The goal of this exercise is to begin understanding the relationship between financial numbers, business strategy, and enterprise value. It is acceptable if your analysis is not right, and therefore, it is not necessary to consult analyst reports on your two companies. If you do consult reports, please indicate which parts of your work were inspired by analyst reports.

- If your companies in your pair are not profitable, you might consider making assumptions to make the analysis more interesting.

Companies

JetBlue (JBLU) v Southwest (LUV)

Amazon (AMZN) v Ebay Inc. (EBAY)

Proctor And Gamble (PG) v Colgate Palmolive (CL)

Ratios (Here are the suggested ratios that you can compute.)

Return on Assets

Return on Equity

Profit Margin %

Gross Margin %

EPS

Price/Earnings

Price/Sales

Sales/Asset

Current Ratio

R&D%

SGA%

Marketing%

Days Inventory

Inventory Turnover

Inventory/Sales

Debt/Equity

4

Be prepared to discuss the case and have a discussion on the three questions at the end of the case (Case #3, Strategy for a New Company). Write up an answer to turn in for what you thought of Nick's strategy.

5

Each group must be prepared to give a short 7-8 minute presentation about their business plan. This is in order to update the class on the progress of your group. By now you should have a solid business idea.

6

Answer these questions after doing the reading on the Gruman Corporation: Should they go into reusable energy? Explain your choice. If yes- include which one and why.

The suicide square- discussed in lecture- should probably be used in the explanation of your choices.

*This is a group assignment. Each group will give a short 5-6 min presentation on their answer. Also, please hand-in one write up of this assignment per group.

7

Analyze how Pilkington became successful in the new technology. Use the suicide square in your explanation. This assignment should be written up and turned in to be graded.

8

How woud you have formed alliances differently than GM did? This assignment should be written up and turned in to be graded.

9

Meet with your group and discuss the ethics slides from the reading. After discussion, as a group, decide what you would do in each case. Each group should be prepared to be called on in class to answer any of the questions.

Final Project

The final project presentation will take place in class and on the evening of lecture 23.

Each group presentation should be 10 minutes, plus 5 minutes for Q&A and group changeover time.

Each person will rank all the group presentations (excluding his/her own) on the basis of:

- Business Idea

- Business Plan Development

- Presentation

A hard copy of your business plan is due on the day of presentations.