Al Dunlap Case Summary

In March of 2012 Steve Parkland was hired as the new president at Charles Chocolates. He was immediately faced with numerous decisions about the future of the company. The board of directors had tasked Parkland with doubling or tripling the size of the company over the next decade, but the board and the senior management team had different opinions about the strategy that would accomplish this goal. The main issues that Parkland faced were how to increase the company’s operations while maintaining the traditional culture and support of the board.

When Knudstorp became the CEO, the company was with negative cash flow and the real risk o which would have even led to a breakup of the company.

When it comes to strategic decision making The Home Depot management was criticized for its lack of progress under Bob Nardelli (previous CEO) (“Home Depot tries”, 2007). The company was criticized for paying Nardelli way too much as CEO and still too much even after he left (“Home Depot tries”, 2007).

SWOT Analysis SWOT Analysis is a very effective way of identifying your Strengths and Weaknesses, and of examining the Opportunities and Threats you face. Carrying out an analysis using the SWOT framework helps to focus activities into areas where the business are strong and where the greatest opportunities lie. Strengths: * What advantages do you have?

Earlier in his career, Jim was a controversial figure among investors and financial analysts on Wall Street. They blamed Jim for being too generous towards Costco’s employees and not bringing immediate profit to the shareholders1. But after weathering the recession and retaining a return rate of over 10 percent, Jim Sinegal is now revered on Wall Street. His ideology of building a long-lasting company has been successful. Additionally, during the recession, unlike other CEO’s, Jim implemented policies that prevented lay-offs and, in the process, managed to keep Costco’s balance statement in the black. He used strategies such as establishing a strong identity for their private-label offerings. For example, after the economic meltdown, Kirkland Signatures (Costco’s private label) was able to provide customers with a low cost alternative while maintaining the quality they were accustomed to.

Through out his tenure at Sunbeam,Al Dunlap’s advocated profit by firing many employees and shutting down many factories.If we look at it in the short term ,this approach seems very attractive as it brings in quick short term

1. Get the right management team. As Dunlap assumes office, he retained only one senior executive from Sunbeam’s old management team. Dunlap first hire was Russ Kersh, a former employee of Dunlap, as executive vice president of Finance & Admin. The new management team also

Internal analysis are conducted so it can identify an organizations strengths and weakness. Threats and opportunities are identified by assessing the external environment. Either in its broad or competitive environment. The most essential result of a SWOT analysis is the ability to draw conclusions about the organizations situation and need for strategic action.

From my perspective, Sunbeam’s board made a wise decision in firing Al Dunlap, and it was an example of effective corporate governance as the decision stopped Dunlap to further impair tone at the top in Sunbeam and further generate agency cost within Sunbeam. According to SEC litigation release No. 17001, during Dunlap’s tenure in Sunbeam, Dunlap was involved in applying improper earning management such as channel stuffing and “cookie jar”

Following are the changes that Al Dunlap initiated after being hired by Sunbeam Inc and the probable opportunities that Dunlap used to manage earnings:

In 1997, Dunlap fired thousands of employees, shut down factories and warehouses, and streamlined the company by eliminating products and selling businesses unrelated to its core products. He attained his objective and made profit for shareholders. However, the wealth did not last. In April 1998, Sunbeam announced a first-quarter loss,

The focus of the SWOT analysis is to identify the key internal and external factors that are important to achieving the objective. SWOT analysis groups key pieces of information into two main categories; internal factors and external factors. The internal factors are the strengths and weaknesses that are internal to the company while the external factors are the opportunities and threats that presented by the external environment. The internal factors are determined by their impact on the company’s objectives. What may represent strengths with respect to one objective may be weaknesses for another objective. The external factors may include technological change, legislation, cultural changes, and changes in the marketplace or competitive position (Wood, 2008).

SWOT analysis covers the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats which a company is facing in its internal & external environment. Strengths & weaknesses fall under the internal environment of the company and opportunities & threats fall under the

SWOT analysis is a useful tool for understanding and decision-making for all sorts of situations in business and organization. SWOT analysis can be classified into internal and external factors affecting a company. The Strengths and Weaknesses of the SWOT analysis represent the internal factors that influence the viability of the company. While the Opportunities and Threats, on the other hand, are the external factors that may affect the company's performances. A SWOT analysis provides more understanding of the organization in relation to its internal and external environment so that manager can formulate better strategy in pursuit of its mission.

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (Ferrell and Hartline, 2014, p. 39). A SWOT analysis evaluates both the internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and threats) that create advantages and disadvantages to a company when serving its customers (p. 39). A SWOT analysis is extremely beneficial in helping a company determine areas of improvement (p. 39). Internal factors examine the actual company being analyzed while external factors examine the external market (customers and competition) (p. 85).