Swot analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) is an essential step in strategy development. provide what you believe to be the 5 most significant elements of each dimension of swot for your firm. note that these should only reflect issues that apply to the stratsim environment and not ones outside the scope of the simulation. if you need additional space, feel free to provide the 20 points in a different format; just be sure to mark your stratsim industry and firm on your submission.

Match the different financial task to their corresponding financial life cycle phases

Blue computers, a major pc manufacturer in the united states, currently has plants in kentucky and pennsylvania. the kentucky plant has a capacity of 1 million units a year and the pennsylvania plant has a capacity of 1.5 million units a year. the firm divides the united states into five markets: northeast, southeast, midwest, south, and west. each pc sells for $1,000. the firm anticipates a 50 perc~nt growth in demand (in each region) this year (after which demand will stabilize) and wants to build a plant with a capacity of 1.5 million units per year to accommodate the growth. potential sites being considered are in north carolina and california. currently the firm pays federal, state, and local taxes on the income from each plant. federal taxes are 20 percent of income, and all state and local taxes are 7 percent of income in each state. north carolina has offered to reduce taxes for the next 10 years from 7 percent to 2 percent. blue computers would like to take the tax break into consideration when planning its network. consider income over the next 10 years in your analysis. assume that all costs remain unchanged over the 10 years. use a discount factor of 0.1 for your analysis. annual fixed costs, production and shipping costs per unit, and current regional demand (before the 50 percent growth) are shown in table 5-13. (a) if blue computers sets an objective of minimizing total fixed and variable costs, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? (b) if blue computers sets an objective of maximizing after-tax profits, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? variable production and shipping cost ($/unit) annual fixed cost northeast southeast midwest south west (million$) kentucky 185 180 175 175 200 150 pennsylvania 170 190 180 200 220 200 n. carolina 180 180 185 185 215 150 california 220 220 195 195 175 150 demand ('000 units/month) 700 400 400 300 600

For the year, uptowne furniture had sales of $818,790, costs of $748,330, and interest paid of $24,450. the depreciation expense was $56,100 and the tax rate was 34 percent. at the beginning of the year, the firm had retained earnings of $172,270 and common stock of $260,000. at the end of the year, retained earnings was $158,713 and common stock was $280,000. any tax losses can be used. what is the amount of the dividends paid for the year? a. $6,466 b. $7,566 c. $5,266 d. $6,898 e. $7,066