Read the case study below and provide answers to the following questions.

ONCE A GIANT $$BORDERS$$ BECAME A WEAKLING

Borders changed the way they sold books and became the largest book retailer in the world. At one time, it had more than $1,300$ large stores and approximately $35,000$ employees. However, in February $2011,$ Borders declared bankruptcy. When it did so$,$ it slunk to $674$ stores and about $19,500$ employees. Borders experienced hard times and paid for ineffective strategies employed by its executive leadership teams. At its peak in $1990$s$,$ borders stock sold for more than $$35$ per share. On the day it declared bankruptcy, Borders stock sold for $23$ per share.

What went wrong? Large chain store retailers now sell many goods. However, the way people buy and what they buy is beginning to change $-$ especially in retail sales of books. Since $1995$ and the founding Amazon.com, books have been sold over the internet. Nevertheless, with the rise of digital technology, electronic books, and devices to read them have become highly popular. Quite obviously, they do not require large $$brick$-$and$-$mortar$$ stores to sell them. Borders simply did not adjust quickly or effectively to these changes in the marketplace. Of course, it had to compete against Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Costco, and other large retailers selling books. It did not adjust quickly to Amazon$$s appearance in the market; it was much slower than Barnes & Noble were, and that company required almost two years launching Barnesand.com. One of Borders$$ early mistakes was to develop an agreement with Amazon to handle its internet sales instead of establishing its own web presence.

Web based retailing is growing in popularity, especially for electronic books. With eReaders such as Amazon$$s Kindle, Barnes & Noble$$s NOOK, and Apple$$s highly versatile ipad, the old way of selling books is rapidly becoming a dinosaur. While these changes were occurring in the retail book market, Borders invested heavily to enhance the marketing for traditional book selling. Borders tried to lure customers to its stores with promises of an enriching experience. Chaos also harmed Borders in its executive ranks, having three regular CEOs and an interim CEO within a period of about two years. Because of poor strategic decisions and ineffective strategic leadership, Borders suffered net losses of $$344$ million for $2008$ and $2009.$ It also had compiled a massive debt in a campaign to buy back its stock in trying to keep the price high. All its actions had opposite effects.

Required:

$1.$ Identify any five strategic mistakes that Borders made. $(5$ Marks$)$

$2.$ Formulate $2$ goals and five strategic objectives that should set Borders on a new direction.

$(7$ Marks$)$

$3.$ Institutionalize and operationalize the new strategic direction. $(20$ Marks$)$

$4.$ Analyse Borders using Porter$$s Five Forces model, justifying selection of generic strategies for competitive advantage. $(15$ Marks$)$

$5.$ Describe how Value Chain Analysis could have been adopted to turn around Borders.

$(15$ Marks$)$