Delta Corporation has been very impressed with the progress it has made with its new product line and the new marketing approach that you recommended and instigated. As a result, it is now considering expanding this approach for its other product lines, providing them with the ability to market and sell all of its products online. However, it has not considered the implications for its IT department in developing this type of plan. As the Social Media Marketing Consultant, you are familiar with integrating business and IT strategic planning. They have called upon you to provide advice. You need to:

• Explain what the company needs to consider if it is going to move to a more on-line approach for its sales and marketing activities. In particular, describe the consequences for its IT department and why they need to be involved in the planning phase.
• Given the likely increase in costs associated with this move, you need to outline the potential benefits and possible pitfalls of outsourcing the IT maintenance and development.
• Outline some strategic technology trends that the company may wish to monitor and consider for the future.

Finally, research a company in Saudi Arabia and discuss whether they were able to align their overall strategy and their IT strategy. If they were successful discuss how they managed this alignment and what benefits they gained from doing so. If they were not so successful, explain how and why you felt that occurred.

Scenario

You are an Operations Executive for JSH Limited, and you are planning to recommend some changes to your organization’s value chain process. Currently, JSH faces multiple delays in shipping orders to their customer base due to distribution errors and natural disasters, resulting in backlog orders of 90 days. With the delay in orders, customers are taking to social media outlets to complain publicly and provide poor ratings or reviews of the company and products. The CEO has requested that you pull together an assessment of the current state JSH’s value chain for an upcoming meeting with the Board of Directors.

In preparation for a meeting with the Board of Directors, you have been assigned to create a Needs Analysis Summary of JSH’s value chain for the meeting. The CEO has shared with you JSH’s last value chain analysis model as a starting off point.

Instructions

The needs analysis summary should contain a synopsis of your evaluation of JSH’s use of Porter’s Value Chain and Five-Forces Model in your value chain. The meeting will be your first interaction with the Board of Directors, so you want to ensure that the Board understands the organizational value chain management methodologies and the organization’s current state.

Your needs analysis summary should:

• Introduce Porter’s Value Chain and Five Forces Model
• Assess JSH’s value chain performance
• Assess how the global and business environment have influenced JSH’s value chain performance
• Recommend the optimal strategies to maximize JSH’s value chain performance
• Provide attribution for credible sources

Recommending a City for a Business Getaway: When the employees at Strategic Advantage, a
communications firm, exceed their performance goals for the year by a wide margin, they’re invited to
“President’s Club,” which means that they and their families get to go on an all-expenses-paid trip to a
cool U.S. city. As the president’s administrative assistant, you research the places the president has in
mind each year to help him choose the destination.
For this year, the president wants you to research two cities in the Southwest: Sedona and Santa Fe.
Both are popular, highly rated vacation cities, and both are somewhat out of the way; it’s unlikely that
many of the company’s employees have ever been to either. He’s asked you to research and compare
the relative advantages of the two cities. Is there golf? Other recreational opportunities? Shopping?
Great food? Natural beauty? How hard is it to get there? Are interesting side trips possible? And how
much money would we be talking for a nice hotel or resort there? (Forty-plus people will be going.) Is
there sufficient opportunity for socializing? (This is supposed to be a team-building experience, too).
Do sufficient Internet research to answer all of your boss’s likely questions. Then write up your
findings in an attractive document that he can share with the other executives.

Problem 1) Build an advanced filter that brings back only certain people from Saginaw (zip code of 48603), certain people from Bay City (zip code of 48706) and anyone from the city of Frankenmuth. This query for the filter (including the heading row), should be from row 1 through row 4.

Problem 2) Copy over the filter from Problem 1. We now want to only find people that are from the desired cities but that also hold job codes 104 or 203. The query portion will now be on rows 1 through 7.

Problem 3) Copy over the filter from Problem 2. We now only want to bring back the employees matching the city and job code criteria that were hired anytime between the start of 1995 and the end of 1998. This criteria is more complicated that the one in the notes and simply sequencing the dates in a specific order isn’t going to work. What we need to do is have two Original_Hire_Date columns, so copy the cell contents from cell J1 to cell I1. You will then put the beginning date criteria (>=1/1/1995) in column I and the ending date criteria (<=12/31/1998).

Once you have the filtering for this problem working, add a comment to cell I1 that tells why the column name was changed from Home_Phone_Number to Original_Hire_Date. When I say comment this time, I mean New Comment from under the Review tab.

I’m working on a business discussion question and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.

Discussion Question

Political endorsements by nonprofit organizations are illegal. Lobbying by nonprofits is also very limited within IRS guidelines. However, many feel that such political activism is protected speech under the US Constitution. Many nonprofits, such as charitable organizations and religious institutions, represent points of view not seen elsewhere. Argue for or against this position, and answer whether you believe such activism creates a conflict of interest and a risk that involves tarnishing the image of the nonprofit sector. Discuss whether or not you believe activism could impact charitable giving to a nonprofit organization (NPO).

To support your work, use your course and text readings and also use the South University Online Library. As in all assignments, cite your sources in your work and provide references for the citations in APA format.

Start reviewing and responding to the postings of your classmates as early in the week as possible. Respond to at least two of your classmates’ initial postings. Participate in the discussion by asking a question, providing a statement of clarification, providing a point of view with a rationale, challenging an aspect of the discussion, or indicating a relationship between two or more lines of reasoning in the discussion. Cite sources in your responses to other classmates. Complete your participation for this assignment by the end of the week.