Hello, I am in need of assistance with the attached assignment. I need the assignment to be checked for plagiarism prior to sharing it back with me. Also, I will be submitting 2 other assignments tha

Learning Objective

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Select and research a company that is having financial difficulties or is on the brink of bankruptcy.

Conduct a strategic analysis of the company’s current financial operations. Determine strategies for achieving a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace and increasing financial performance.

Write a 750 to 1,000-word analysis. When writing your analysis, complete the following:

[Evaluate Current Financial Plan]

Evaluate the company’s current financial plan, including charts and/or graphs showing financial data from the struggling company and make recommendations for improvement.

This firm is certainly a struggling firm, however as this mentions, our assessment will be complicated by the firm having entered bankruptcy in Oct. 2023, and then exited in Sept. 2024 as a private company. As a result, we will have to assess the firm’s financial results beginning with their last published annual 10-K report for their fiscal 2023 (period ending Mar. 4, 2023), and looking backwards from there.

This section benefits from identifying and discussing a number of the business conditions surrounding and helping to drive the firm’s struggles. The financial data presented needs to be updated in order to correspond with the financial data presented by the firm in their annual 10-K reports. This then needs to build upon these to craft a fuller and deeper financial analysis.

In section 2 below we’ll make you the firm’s new CEO, charged with determining the strategies necessary to create a sustainable competitive advantage, but first you’ll need to determine what kind of firm you’ll be inheriting on Mar. 5, 2023 (the beginning of the firm’s new fiscal year, and prior to it declaring bankruptcy). So here you’ll need to play “financial detective” to assess and determine the firm’s financial performance (think income statement) and financial health/financial position (think balance sheet). Here is what this deeper and fuller financial analysis might look like:

(Note – you clearly already have sound financial analysis skills, so this is just intended to help guide your thinking about how best to take this financial assessment to the next deeper level).

In order to assess the firm’s financial performance work to assess the key lines on the firm’s income statement over time (using five years of annual data tends to work best, augmented by the most recent quarterly data if you think important). In addition to assessing revenues (both in terms of their absolute level and then why they have changed year over year), work to identify and assess specific key expense lines in order to better understand the firm’s net profits. This is where you play “financial detective” to try to uncover the reasons why this firm’s financial performance is struggling.

In order to assess the firm’s financial health/financial condition, work to identify and assess the key lines on the firm’s balance sheet. Here make sure to go beyond looking at just current assets compared to current liabilities (a key measure of the firm’s liquidity/ability to “pay its bills”). Look at the firm’s long-term and total debt, but also look for other key lines that impact the firm’s financial health.

Then work to assess the firm’s cash flow statements, which will provide important insights into both the firm’s financial performance and financial health/position. Here look to identify key lines under cash from operations, cash used in investing, and cash from financing (for a struggling firm in particular, “cash is king”). This is where the “financial detective” gets to “follow the money” (this is also where you can uncover how the firm has been financing their losses). As with all of these financial statements, note that “the devil is in the details”, in particular for struggling firm.

Finally, work to end this section by building upon your key findings to identify and assess ways to improve the firm’s financial performance & financial health in the short-run (think “stop the bleeding”). This section already presents several sound proposed improvements, although these will be significantly strengthened by being more closely linked to specific findings from the more detailed financial analysis to come (be open to these proposals being changed and/or augmented). Do work to keep these focused on the rather short-term, reserving the longer-term proposals for the sections below (likely the implementation section 3).

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Note – the best source of this financial data are the firm’s SEC 10-K filings, accompanied by the firm’s own, more glossy, annual reports. The 10-K filing will provide more detailed data, along with many explanations from firm. Just know that while the firm cannot lie to the SEC, neither is it obligated to tell “the whole truth”, so read these with a critical eye (the annual reports will tend to be even more positive and gloss over unpleasant results, however they can also provide important points from the firm and are worth reviewing). As a part of this, do work to take full advantage of the detailed data found in the 10-K, as well as the firm’s own explanation of their results, found in the “Management Discussion”. The rest of the report is also well worth reviewing (you can read through some sections faster than others – the firm’s description of their business and discussion “risk factors” are additional parts that bear a closer reading). You can most often find these on the firm’s own web site in their investor relations section.

The Business Resources page in the UOPX Library also presents a number of excellent sources of this financial data. Here go to the “How to Find an Annual Report” page, and then click on “EDGAR” (the SEC’s own database”), and search on the firm’s name, and choosing the “filing category” of “All Annual, Quarterly and Current Reports” (the search box is conveniently already set to pull five years’ worth of data). Once you get those results, look to the left hand vertical menu bar, click on “Form” and then click on 10-K – you’ll then see their 10-K reports for the past five years. Since I’ve already done this I can save you a few steps (I’m a former CFO, and that’s just the way we roll:) – SEC EDGAR 10-K search results. Just for ease, here is link to the firm’s fiscal 2023 10-K report.

The UOPX Library also provides excellent resources on how best to read these financial statements (including defining and discussing each individual line), as well as resources on how best to analyze these financial statements. These can be found on the UOPX Library page for “Find Company Financial Information”, and then click on “Need More” off to the right. These are great resources even for experienced financial analysts – I aways pick up some new points every time I visit.

[Strategies for Sus Comp Adv]

Determine strategies for achieving a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace and increasing financial performance.

This section presents a number of potentially sound proposals that would help the firm’s turnaround, but needs to precede this with a fuller and deeper assessment on how best to achieve a “sustainable competitive advantage”.

Begin this by first determining the best long-term, overarching business-level strategy for the firm (the firm’s fundamental, long-term, overarching strategic approach to the market). Here work to apply your learnings from chapter 1 on “what makes strategy a winner” (pp. 12-14), and then choose the one best business-level strategy that is best suited to create a “sustainable competitive advantage”, building upon your learnings from chapter 5.

As a part of this, work to identify the key drivers of your chosen business-level strategy, building upon your learnings from chapter 5. If you are choosing one of the differentiation strategies, you will want to consider possible “value drivers” (see fig 5.3) If you are choosing one of the low cost business-level strategies, you will want to consider possible “cost drivers” (see fig. 5.2). As a part of this, understand that while all drivers presented may well be important, almost certainly only a select few will be truly key to driving your proposed strategy.

Then end this section by presenting a succinct description of the specific sustainable competitive advantage that your business-level strategic choice, accompanied by your chosen drivers, are intended to achieve.

Note – as you refocus this section you may find that these proposals change and/or would be better presented as part of the implementation plan below. Be open to new implementation proposals that will stem from this refocused strategic assessment.

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[Plan to Implem Proposed Strat]

Create a plan to implement the strategies you selected.

This section presents sound points regarding the implementation process itself, and is best seen taken in combination with the detailed proposals above, which include a number of implementation details. This section will then be further bolstered by a deeper and fuller strategic assessment in the section above. This will help lead to additional recommendations needed to better and more fully implement the proposed business-level and your chosen key drivers. Work to strengthen this further by more fully integrating these implementation proposals with near-term “stop the bleeding“ financial fixes discussed at the end of section 1.

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