Barnes and Nobles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Barnes and Nobles - Essay Example The mission of the company is to operate the best specialty business in America, regardless of the product they sell; a value statement of the company is that as a bookseller they are determined to be the very best in the business regardless of the size, pedigree, or inclination of their competitors (Barnesandnoblesinc, 2011). The company wants to serve its customer and become a valuable resource to them. The vision, mission, and value statements of the company will be validated in the research paper utilizing various techniques. The first step in the investigation will be thoroughly analyzing the information the company offers in its corporate website. The corporate website of a corporation is a valuable resource that provides important and relevant information for users of financial information and the other stakeholders of the company. I will research secondary sources to validate the company’s claim that the firm is the top bookseller in the world. Obtaining information re garding the market share of the company is a good way to determine how much reach and business activity a company has. To test whether the company’s customer are happy with the level of service they receive from Barnes and Nobles the use of primary research would be very useful. Two techniques that can be used to test the customer service the firm provides are questionnaires and mystery shoppers. Even though I do not work for the company which inhibits my ability to actually perform the primary research the strategic paper will include a template of the questionnaire and an action plan of how to implement the mystery shopper research. The week six strategic plan will include both internal and external environmental analysis. One of the primary sources that will be used to perform the internal analysis of the company will be the annual report of the firm. The annual report is a business report that must be filed by all public companies once year as mandated by SEC regulations. The annual report discusses the financial, operating results, and strategic path of the company. The corporate website of the firm is also a good resource to evaluate the internal environment of the company. Other secondary research will be performed on the company using the internet and other professional databases. I will search within the firm’s website to see if the firm published a corporate social responsibility report. The external environmental analysis will use various sources. One of the sources that will be used is the expertise of Team C. During week two for our team’s innovation project I suggested a company called Papyrus Australia that everybody liked. I suggested the company hoping it would be chosen because I foresaw how the product this company developed would be an excellent opportunity for Barnes and Nobles. Papyrus Australia invented a new type of paper called banana ply paper made up of the truck of banana trees. The week 2 team paper will be used as a source document to develop an alternative solution for Barnes and Nobles. I will investigate using secondary research the status of the industry in 2011. A database that might very useful for this task is the Plunkett Research database. Another technique that might be useful during week six to facilitate the external environmental analysis is benchmarking. Benchmarking allows an investigator to compare the best practices in other industries to find solutions for the company.