Assignment Task
Structure and presentation (Summative Assessment) Identify an international organization (of your choice – company A) and its closest competitor (company B). Access the companies’ annual reports and publicly available information over the two most recent years. It is recommended to select listed companies to ensure the availability of publicly available information; as a guidance, this could be companies included in the S&P, EURO STOXX, FTSE indices, to name a few (this list is not exhaustive and the choice can expand beyond these indices). The assignment should address the following requirements:
Part 1 Introduce the two selected organisations and explain the reasons why they are considered as competitors. Access the companies’ annual financial statements of the two most recent years and use ratio analysis technique to evaluate the financial performance of the two organizations. You should select two categories of ratios (liquidity, profitability, leverage, working capital, valuation ratios) and provide details of the ratio calculations. Draw a comparative evaluation and critically discuss the findings. It is recommended to use graphs and tables to present your analysis, and to cite academic reliable sources to support the discussion.
Part 2 Develop a proposed Balanced Scorecard for your selected organisation (company A). Identify the company’s strategy, mission, and vision. For each perspective of the Balanced Scorecard – financial, customer, internal process, learning and growth, identify a set of objectives, goals, indicators, and initiatives. Provide adequate details and justification of the information reported. Part 3 (30%). Provide a critical analysis of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the financial and non-financial performance of your selected organisation (company A). To support your discussion, review the existing literature on the impact of the pandemic on companies’ performance.
Presentation Mark awarded for presentation refers to overall structure and presentation, academic style of writing, use of Harvard style for references and in text citations. You need to use a comprehensive range of relevant (academic and professional) sources; use of online sources should be limited and the reliability of the source should be verified. All sources need to be acknowledged and referenced properly to ensure the originality of the work. The report needs to follow the below structure.
