Barnes & Noble Business Analysis

Further, keeping in view the strong competitive environment and fear of “Clones” by others, Intel is constantly required to look for innovative products, which would need more funds for upfront expenditures. In these situations, large cash positions would help Intel to avoid taking loans from outside, and in turn interest costs, by using its own cash balances. A disadvantage of having large cash position would be that cash has an opportunity cost. In other words, Intel could be forgoing profitable investment opportunities. However looking at the data provided in the case, we can see that the cost of holding cash was small as they yield high returns, above 170 bases points above U.S treasury bills, through investing in securities rated above AA. Further, a cash rich company runs the risk of being careless as there may be reduced pressure on the management team to perform better. Observing Intel’s growing performance over a period of time, it seems that currently it has no such problem. However in future, it may become a cause of concern for the company.

In contrast to Borders Group, Barnes & Noble which is a leading bookstore in the US recorded an 11% increase in their share value in the past year with the introduction of their e-book reader “Nook”. It is clear that Barnes & Noble were not “Myopic” in their approach and were able to retain and even grow their customers as well as profits by embracing a new product.

The bookstore chain has been decreasing in profit in the US over the past 20 years. Most of the books retailers are shutting down their operations and only a few are still operating in the country. Barnes and Noble has become the largest bookseller in the book retailers industry. The firm has integrated its business philosophy into web presence though eBook marketplace. This business strategy assisted the firm to be able to reach a large scale customers and remain as a strongest competitor in the book retailing market.

In "The Store" by Edward P. Jones, the narrator seems to be an irresponsible, immature, and lazy at first. At the beginning, not even once he bothered thinking about the future. All he cared for was the cigarettes and the beers. He called them "valuables". Since he was living with his mom, he did not have to worry about the shelter and the food. Therefore, he did not bother to look for the new job. His mom did not seem to care about him fooling around jobless as well. Because of that, he did not care when his brother told him to look for a new job. Altogether, he was a waste at the beginning. However, Mr. Jones gave the strong clue about his future success by showing his strong work ethic when he said "Never late, never talked back and always volunteering" (142). With that in mind, there were some incidents as the story progressed, positive and negative that helped him to realize about his future.

Strategic planning is a critical element of an organization’s annual business plan. A strategic plan consists of a number of components. In addition to analyzing a company’s strengths and weaknesses, a strategic plan also includes implementation and control techniques. While this may seem easy enough, implementing a strategic plan into an organization can be challenging. Barnes and Noble, like a number of corporations are seeking ways to improve productivity and profitability. This essay will identify business alternatives for the bookseller which will enable them to diversify their product offerings.

As a result, holding cash would be essential component of the firm strategy. To develop new products, buy new equipment or expand geographically, firm has to spend money on marketing research, product design, prototype development and so on. Moreover, if a recession hits and the economy start to slow down,

Since we are focusing our efforts on the low end segment of the market, our product can be determined as a cash cow. A cash cow is generally a leading product in mature markets, generating more cash than is used. This allows companies to use that cash to pay for administrative costs, as well as paying for dividends to shareholders and even fuling R&D. We were able to come to this conclusion based on where our product stood in the segment. Our low-end product has a lower market growth rate at 11.7% than most other companies. however, our product has a high market share comparative to other companies. When these two factors are taken into consideration using the BCG Growth-Share Matrix, we can conclude that our product is a Cash Cow.

* What organizational structure, management processes, and philosophy will foster superior performance from the company’s business units?

Barnes and Nobles is one of the biggest bookstores that has a brick-and-mortal store concept. In the past they were know as a “big bully” that drove small book stores to close down because of their aggressive tactics to have competetetive advantage over them. Nonetheless, with the evolving circle of technology they have had a hard time in keeping up with the E-book era. In 2014 E-books increased its reader subscription by 28% compared to 23% in 2013. This number will continue increasing because 50% off American’s have access to devices that are either an e-reader or a tablet. B&N changed its business model to adjust to this new setting before it suffered a

The BCG matrix portrays the perspective of the product portfolio, which is the growth-share matrix. This framework of tool categorizes products within a company's portfolio or within the business units as stars, cash cows, dogs, or question marks according to growth rate, market share, and positively or negative cash flow. By using positive cash flows a company can capitalize on growth opportunities. From this analysis, it can be seen that the products that is growing

The next segment of this look at the financial condition of Amazon.com involves a horizontal and vertical analysis of Amazon’s income statement and balance sheet. Since both of these statements involve many segments, we will address key and noteworthy figures to gain a broad understanding of Amazon’s progress in the last three years.

The Nine –Cell industry attractiveness/business strength matrix graph will have the industry attractiveness on the vertical axis while the competitive strength is depicted on the horizontal axis; to the far left corner will be a large bubble representing U.S. grocery and the U.S. snacks, indicating that the U.S. Grocery and the U.S. snacks have both favorable industry attractiveness and competitive strength and thus warrants priority attention. In addition, the U.S. beverage, U.S. cheese and the U.S. convenient meals seem to huddle in the 3 diagonal cells stretching from the lower left to upper, indicating they merit intermediate attention by the Kraft incorporated. However, these segments of the company can be profitable if the company

These objectives are reasonable. However, objectives should be specific and measurable. Some alternative objectives would be to focus the Company's resources toward achieving profitability by the fourth quarter of 2000 (an annual objective), and to increase profitability by 5 percent per year for the next 3 years (long-term objective). These objectives would give meaningful, measurable goals that management would need to obtain, or it would require management to re-evaluate the Company's objectives or the Company's strategy to achieve the objectives. With the aforementioned objectives in mind, the Companyneeds to implement a strategy to achieve the desired results. It is necessary to evaluate alternative strategies before selecting the actual strategy to implement. The SWOT or TOWS, SPACE, Grand Strategy, IE, and QSPM Matrices are tools to help in the evaluation and selection of alternative strategies. The matrices indicate that Amazon is in a strong competitive position, and that the Companyshould build and grow. The matrices indicate that, despite Amazon's financial position, the Companyhas some distinct competitive advantages in a high-growth or unstable industry. Some strategies for companies that fit this profile are backward, forward and horizontal integration, market penetration, market development, product development and joint venture. One strategy that would fit into

Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos opened the virtual doors of Amazon.com's online store in July 1995. The company was incorporated in 1994 in the state of Washington and reincorporated in 1996 in Delaware. The Company's principal corporate offices are located in Seattle, Washington. Amazon.com completed its initial public offering in May 1997, and its common stock is listed on the NASDAQ National Market under the ticker symbol AMZN. Amazon.com's fiscal year is based on the calendar year, and the last day of the fiscal year is December 31. The closing stock selling price for February 1, 2006 was $43.98. Amazon has never declared or paid cash dividends on its common

BCG matrix is a resource allocation matrix. It helps us to decide which strategy we should follow for an industry as per its growth rate and the output with respect to competitor.