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Business Communication Final Exam Spring 2013

The purpose of this assignment is to assess your business communication & research skills.

Due: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at the beginning of exam period.

Bring hard copy of memo to exam and upload the document to Lore.

Failure to e-mail and bring hard copy is 20% deduction.) Late papers not accepted.

Scenario

Sportswear company Under Armour Inc., (UA ) is reviewing how it does business in the current volatile market.

You are a company junior analyst who is tasked with contributing a portion of the competitive analysis. You have

been asked to draft a comparative financial analysis comparing the company with a top competitor as a way of

determining the companys position in the industry. This task is an opportunity for you to showcase your

competency in research, analysis, writing, and public speaking.

You need to determine UNDER ARMOURs position in the market by conducting a basic comparative analysis of

UNDER ARMOUR versus a competing company within the industry. You must submit a memo to the company CEO

and make an oral presentation at a company strategy meeting, explaining the companys financial strength and its

strength compared to a top competitor. You need to compare five key indices of financial strength:

Stock price 1 year, 6 month, Intra-day (Use on or about 5/1/2012 as the present date) Revenue P/E Ratio Net Income (over the last three full-years) Earnings per Share (EPS)

To begin, you will need to research UNDER ARMOURs financial statements. You can find this information on the

company website, company 10K Report, or on a number of Cook library databases, e.g. Standard & Poors

NetAdvantage, LexisNexis Academic (Business > Company Dossier) or Hoovers.

Next, you will need to research one of UNDER ARMOUR's competitors across the same five indices and compare its

performance with UNDER ARMOUR.

Part I - Written Evaluation

You will need to draft a report memorandum that succinctly compares the financial strength of both companies.

Your report should answer several key questions:

What was your rationale for selecting the competitor to serve as a measure for the analysis? What can you derive from the comparison of these companies? What is the significance of each index to your comparison?

This will require you to use some of the basic principles of business writing:

Proper memorandum format Proper addressee (research the name of the CEO of UNDER ARMOUR) Proper use of sources using APA format Include an introductory statement that foreshadows or sells the main idea Use deductive structure Condense information using tables, charts, graphs and bulleted points Use well developed headings Use chunked paragraphs

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