WEEK 2 Managers' decisions and actions are constrained. External constraints come from the organization's environment and internal constraints come from the organization's culture. The term external environment refers to factors and forces outside the organization affecting its performance. The economic component encompasses factors such as interest rates, inflation, changes in disposable income, stock market fluctuations, and business cycle stages. The demographic component is concerned with trends in population characteristics such as age, race, gender, education level, geographic location, income, and family composition. The political/legal component looks at federal, state, and local laws as well as global laws and laws of other countries. It also includes a country's political conditions and stability. The sociocultural component is concerned with societal and cultural factors such as values, attitudes, trends, traditions, lifestyles, beliefs, tastes, and patterns of behavior. The technological component is concerned with scientific or industrial innovations. And the global component encompasses those issues associated with globalization and a world economy WEEK 3 SWOT Analysis After conducting an assessment of the internal and external environment, managers document their results in a SWOT Chart. There a variety of formats for this document. Please do some research to select a format that clearly describes your organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and potential threats. WEEK 4 The final step in the Strategic Planning process involves formulating goals and objectives in response to the SWOT Chart. In this section management states the planned actions in order to: Use its strengths Minimize weaknesses Take advantage of opportunities, and Neutralize threats. This outline is provided to help you organize your SWOT Analysis papers. You need to write a minimum of one paragraph for each sub-section of the outline. You must use this document to organize your paper You do need to use all the numbering system, lettering, and headers/sub-headers from the outline to organize the entire paper. Copy and paste the framework, then write your content in paragraph form in each section, citing your sources. Points will be deducted if you do not use these section headers to organize the different research content required in your paper. Your analysis should be easy to follow as a result of using these organizational tools from the outline. PART ONE - Due Week One Organization Background (30 pts.) History Strategic Direction (see chapter nine) Mission Statement Please comment on how the organization's mission statement reflects their strategic direction. PART TWO - Due Week Two External Environmental Assessment (60 pts.) Economic Demographic Socio-Cultural Technological Political/Legal Global Each of these forces that are outside the organization and require management to react. Comment on trends in each force and whether they affect the company's performance. PART Three - Due Week Three The SWOT Chart (30 pts.) Prepare a chart identifying the company's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats For two strengths, provide the reason why each is a distinctive competency. For two weaknesses, explain how each effects the company's competitive advantages You should have a minimum of a full paragraph for each discussion of each strength and weakness. Note that bullet points are not acceptable PART Four - Due Week Four Strategic Actions (40 pts.) For each strength from part three, comment on how the organization can use it For each weaknesses from part three, discuss how management can minimize it Discussion as to how the organization can capitalize on the two (2) opportunities that are occurring from the forces from within the external environment. Discussion as to how the organization can neutralize two (2) threats that are occurring from the dimensions from within the external environment. Other Requirements References list and APA parenthetical citations (10 pts.) Spelling/grammar/organization (10 pts.)