Sources of Competitive Advantage

• Toyota focuses on quality as its competitive advantage.
• IBM focuses on service as its competitive advantage.
• Wal-Mart focuses on low cost as its competitive advantage.
• Coca-Cola focuses on its proprietary products as its competitive advantage.
• Apple focuses on innovation as its competitive advantage.
• Nike focuses on brand recognition as its competitive advantage.
• Nintendo focuses on value as its competitive advantage.

You will develop a five-slide team PowerPoint (not including title and references slides) that analyzes the sources of competitive advantage for your chosen organization. Your analysis content will be as specified in the chart below. Include citations to support your points throughout the presentation.

Step 1: Meet your teammates in the designated Team Project Workspace (below Week Five in the left navigation bar).

Step 2: Check in with your teammates in the designated Team Project Workspace no later than Day 2 (Wednesday) of Week Two.

Step 3: You can determine whether to work within the Team Project Workspace discussion area or via email, phone, or Google Hangouts (https://hangouts.google.com/). Your instructor may require you to connect in the discussion area for participation points. Check with your instructor before deciding this. No matter how you connect, it is critical that you all participate equally in this team project.

Step 4: Determine who will be responsible for each portion of your project. The instructor will not assign the parts. This is what you are required to complete as a team:

• Research the Ashford University Library and the Internet as needed
• Put the PowerPoint presentation slides together
• Write the speaker notes
• Create the required citations
• Upload the assignment to Waypoint (only one person needs to submit the work for the whole team.

Step 5: Create your team PowerPoint. Your analysis content will be as specified in the chart below. Include citations to support your points throughout the presentation.

• Slide 1: Include title of the team PowerPoint, course name and number, instructor’s name, date submitted, and names of team members.
• Slide 2: As a team, select a company from the list of organizations listed above that integrates information systems to support its business strategies. Describe the business mission and goals of your chosen organization.
• Slide(s) 3-4: As a team, describe how information systems create competitive advantages for your chosen organization. Analyze and identify the types and functions of systems used in the organization.
• Slide 5: What different types of data make up “big data” for your chosen company? Describe the big data (what it is and how it is used). Big is a term that describes extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations. Examples of big data may include data in a company’s customer service department used to solve customer problems or a company’s use of stock market or competitive intelligence data to predict the future (Hint: You can find examples of big data used by the organization by reviewing data reports on the “Investors” or “Our Investors” tab of the organization’s website). Justify your answers.
• Slide 6: Conclusion
• Slide 7: Reference list

Step 6: Upload the team PowerPoint to Waypoint.

Note: During Week Four, you will have the opportunity to rate your team-members’ contributions to the team assignment.

The Source of Competitive Advantage Assignment

• Must have a minimum of five slides inclusive of speaker notes on each slide (not including title and references slides) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center (Links to an external site.).
• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  • Title of team PowerPoint
  • Student’s name
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Date submitted
• Must use at least two scholarly sources in addition to the course text.
  • The Scholarly, Peer Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
• Must document all sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.