Category: Business

An environmental scan

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Conduct an environmental scan and write an assessment in which you focus on both the internal and external factors that could affect your success within your chosen industry.
Introduction
An environmental scan allows you to identify the trends (technical, social, political, economic, and so on), issues, and other factors that are most likely to affect a given industry, thereby helping you determine a strategy for dealing with potential changes.
After an organization has completed a SWOT analysis, it will carefully monitor both the internal and external environments to detect signs of opportunities and threats that could affect current and future plans. This environmental scanning can help an organization identify trends that are most likely to affect the industry, thereby allowing the development of a strategy for change. The right information, at the right time, can determine the future of an organization.
Note: Developing a strategic plan requires specific steps that need to be executed in a sequence. The assessments in this course are presented in order and should be completed in sequence.
Conduct an environmental scan in which you focus on both the internal and external factors that could affect your success within your chosen industry. Include in your scan responses to the following. Be sure to use the information from your SWOT analysis to explain how you will address both the internal and external issues.
Internal Factors: What specific things do you need to do in order to achieve the position you would like to have? In other words, what do you need to do to climb the corporate ladder in your industry?
External Factors: Examine the state of the current market or industry. What issues currently exist? How might these issues influence the future state of the industry? How will these issues affect your long-term and short-term goals?
To successfully complete this assessment, you may need to do some research on conducting an environmental scan. Format this assessment as a research paper following current APA guidelines for both style and citing sources, making sure that you also use correct grammar and mechanics. There is no required minimum or maximum page length; however, you should strive to be as detailed as possible in addressing each bullet point, while also being as clear and concise as possible.
Competencies Measured
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies:
Competency 3: Communicate effectively.
Write coherently to support a central idea in appropriate format with correct grammar, usage, and mechanics.
Competency 4: Plan strategically.
Describe strategies to use SWOT analysis to improve competitive advantage.
Competency 5: Employ high-performance business management techniques.
Analyze strengths to determine competitive advantages.
Analyze opportunities that may be leveraged for competitive advantage.
Analyze threats to competitive advantage.
Competency 6: Solve problems within professional standards.
Analyze weaknesses to determine areas for improvement.

Basic income tax returns that adhere to tax laws, regulations, and codes

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Scenario
You have been hired as a junior accountant at a medium-sized tax and accounting firm. Your manager would like to understand your level of knowledge of preparing a basic tax return. She has provided several client profiles for you to review and would like you to complete a tax return. The firm has found it helpful for new tax professionals to choose which client’s tax return they’d like to work on in their initial weeks with the company.

Once you select the client you would like to work with from the Client Tax Profile A list found in the Supporting Materials section below, review the client’s current year tax package. Refer back to the Tax Organizer you prepared for your selected client in Project One Milestone Two. Determine what information must be used to prepare the client’s tax return. Keep in mind some items provided by the client may not be required or applicable for the completion of the tax return you are working on. You may wish to utilize checklists or other guidelines found in the Supporting Materials section to assist you in preparing the client’s tax return.

Once the tax return is prepared, you will summarize the outcome of the tax return, including the decisions involved in completing the tax return. For example, you will want to identify how required income sources were determined, what relevant deductions were taken, what applicable credits were applied (if any), whether supplement forms were used, and the tax liability for the current tax year. You’ll also want to document the outcome of the return, such as whether the taxpayer(s) will obtain a refund or will incur an amount due for the tax year.

Apply relevant sources of income to complete a tax return. Include the following:
What income sources should be reported?
Determine relevant deductions (standard versus itemized) based on taxpayer circumstances. Consider the following:
Does the taxpayer have enough deductions to itemize or is the standard deduction more beneficial?
Apply relevant tax credits to a tax return based on the taxpayer’s position to claim tax credits. Consider the following:
Which credits might be applicable to the taxpayer?
Are there income limitations for claiming any available tax credits?
Calculate the correct tax liability utilizing the appropriate tax table.

Gantt chart

Posted on | by Brian Leakey

pretend that you are responsible for the scheduling and coordination of tasks for your team’s Business Plan project. Please complete a Gantt chart (or
something similar in nature) using Excel that illustrates/includes:
-overall timeline and required checkpoints of the project
-specific steps/tasks list and who* is responsible for what (*just pretend to delegate based on your team roster)
-the beginning and end date; time budgets for each specific task
-recognize which steps/tasks are required to finish before others can begin
-consider delays, holidays, and slack time
Please Include These Names:
Natasha Kirkland
Ciara Parks
Natasha Taylor
Quaver Hill
Owen Payne
Michaela Vezo
Maliala Brown

Gantt chart

Posted on | by Brian Leakey

pretend that you are responsible for the scheduling and coordination of tasks for your team’s Business Plan project. Please complete a Gantt chart (or
something similar in nature) using Excel that illustrates/includes:
-overall timeline and required checkpoints of the project
-specific steps/tasks list and who* is responsible for what (*just pretend to delegate based on your team roster)
-the beginning and end date; time budgets for each specific task
-recognize which steps/tasks are required to finish before others can begin
-consider delays, holidays, and slack time
Please Include These Names:
Natasha Kirkland
Ciara Parks
Natasha Taylor
Quaver Hill
Owen Payne
Michaela Vezo
Maliala Brown

The Singapore Air case

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In the Singapore Air case you discover that Singapore Airlines (SIA) has been ranked as the best airline in both independent and customer surveys for nearly 3 decades. It serves as a model of a continuously changing organization – continually modernizing, stretching, and serving customers in ways that stimulate strong loyalty and brand equity. It has been a leader of change in its industry, while maintaining a lot of consistency as well. As you reflect on the continuous nature of change in every area of the company, respond to the following prompts as you prepare your discussion thread for this assignment:

What have been SIA’s main ingredients of success?
How has their success become vulnerable?
Why is it difficult to maintain a leadership position of a company like SIA and continuously improve?
What do world-class organizations need to do to improve and change continuously?

The six pitfalls

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One of the six pitfalls when selecting new ventures is lack of venture uniqueness. The potential investor that George is seeking has referred to his operation as a “me too pizzeria” and is predicting his demise. Pizza is sold through chain stores (Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Little Cesar’s etc.) small independent shops and some grocery stores. It is a proven product and does not come with a very high sticker price. Is there any truth to the potential investor’s comment? Is the lack of uniqueness going to hurt George’s chances of success?