Assessing Nice Spices Financial Performance and Competitive Advantage

MGMT 475.WB1 Fa 2022 CASE 2 – Nice Spice Company 40 Points; Due no later than 8 am Monday October 3 Read these instructions carefully. This assignment will assess your understanding of and ability to apply the concepts and methods relating to the three components covered in Module 2: Assessing the financial performance of a firm to assess the quality of their strategic management Identifying and describing a firm’s competitive strategy Identifying and prioritizing the source(s) of a firms competitive advantage Your submission is to be a Word document answering the following questions/tasks about the case on the following pages. Don’t write more than is needed to answer the specific task or question. You can, where relevant, use bullet points/lists rather than paragraphs. The quality of your words matters, not the quantity (length). Write each “Task” followed by your answers. TASK 1: Assess and describe the firm’s financial performance and direction. Create an EXCEL spreadsheet and use the data from the case to perform this analysis Insert this spreadsheet into your submission document. In the submission document, describe your conclusions about the firm’s performance. TASK 2: List and describe the five elements of Nice Spice Co’s competitive strategy. TASK 3: Identify the sources of Nice Spice’s competitive advantage. Using the same process from Part C of the Module, work to a list of what you believe are the four most valuable strategic assets. Create a rate-rank matrix in EXCEL and use the process from the lesson to score each asset on the VRI criteria to identify the highest rated (most valuable) resource or capability. Insert your EXCEL spreadsheet in the Word document. In the submission document, write your argument on what you conclude is the single most valuable source of the firm’s competitive advantage. Revisit as necessary the principles of making a strong argument. You VRI analysis provides you the data and points you need!. Your submission document will thus include: Your Name; Case 2 TASK 1: Describe your conclusions about their performance; Show the Excel Spreadsheet in the document TASK 2: Describe the firm’s competitive strategy TASK 3: Describe their top source of competitive advantage; show your evaluation matrix (Excel) Nice Spice Company (This fictionalized case was developed b