Ford Motor Company
Assignment 3 Objectives:
1.Analyze the external forces that affect organizations
2.Analyze the internal forces that affect organizations
3.Describe the importance of an industry analysis
4.Describe the importance of benchmarking
5.Describe the importance of financials and the effects on the organization
Purpose:
FORD MOTOR COMPANY 2
This essay is designed to test your knowledge of the materials in Week 3.
Assignment Description:
Select a company of your choice and list the five major external forces that should be examined for this
company that should be examined as part of an external audit.
Select 2 of the most influential forces on the business and describe why these forces are most influential.
Be sure to reference the five major types of external forces described in our text book readings (David,
2013) Strategic Management.
Parameters:
Write using APA 6th edition formatting, must have 3 external sources including the textbook and a
minimum length of 350 words. See the essay grading rubric.
Ford Motor Company is a worldwide automaker whose headquarters is in Dearborn,
Michigan. It is a business company that engages in selling automobiles and commercial vehicles
whose brand is the Ford. Moreover, the company sells the most luxurious cars under the Lincoln
brand. It is the owner of the Brazilian SUV manufacturer. The Ford Motor Company is the
second largest automaker company in the U.S. and the fifth largest in the whole of Europe. The
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company is greatly impacted by both the external and the internal factors. External factors are
factors that the company has no control over them while internal factors refer to those factors
that the company can control. Some of the external factors that affect the company and should be
examined as part of an external audit include; customers, competitors, labor environment,
suppliers and partners and political factors. Among these five external factor, competitors and
customers are the most influential in the Ford Company (David, 2013).
The Ford Motor Company faces competition from the General Motors Company which is
also based in the United States and engages in sales of similar products as the Ford Motor
Company. This factor greatly impacts on the company and forces it to enhance its customer
services by providing delivery services, good warranties as well as generous prices. Failure to do
so, the company may lose its customers to its competitor and reduce the company’s revenue.
Customers also influence the Ford Motor Company because it always has to fulfill its customers’
needs and interests. A thorough analysis about the customers should continuously be carried out
at the Ford Motor Company so as to be able to develop strategic plans. Ideally, a company needs
to attract more customers and also retain the already existing customers through production of
customer oriented products and services. Research shows that the more the number of customers
the lesser the competition (Bartlett et al. 2013).
Internal factors that affect the Ford Motor Company include; personnel, accounting,
technology and capital. The employees of Ford Motor Company influence the manner in which
the company is managed. They also affect the performance rates of the company. Ford Motor
Company regularly caries out trainings to its employees to ensure that they acquire the necessary
skills. Capital is also an important internal factor because without capital the company cannot be
able to access credits to pay its bills. In addition, technology is also an internal factor that greatly
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influences the performance and production of a company. Ford Motor Company uses complex
and sophisticated technology (Longenecker et al., 2013).
Industry analysis is an important activity because it allows evaluation or assessment of
the company’s performance. Analysis can be done on the accounts, the personnel, performance,
production or even management. This enables c a company to note the effectiveness of each
sector and make the necessary adjustments or improvements. Ford Motor Company has a
monitoring and evaluation sector that monitors the progress of the company. Another important
factor in a business company is benchmarking. This is where the performance of a company is
compared to that of different organizations so as to learn whether improvements can be done
(Longenecker et al., 2013). Benchmarking helps to improve the performance of a company.
Financials in a business are important because they provide crucial information about the
financial status of a company and therefore its success. Poor financials deteriorates the
performance of a company while good financials improves the performance of a business (Wild
et al., 2014). In conclusion, a company like Ford Motor Company is greatly affected by both the
external and the internal factors. Moreover, industry analysis, benchmarking and financials play
an important role in improvement of business.
Bartlett, C. A., Doz, Y., & Hedlund, G. (Eds.). (2013). Managing the Global Firm (RLE
International Business) (Vol. 3). Routledge.
Longenecker, J., Petty, J., Palich, L., & Hoy, F. (2013). Small business management. Cengage
Learning.
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Wild, J., Wild, K. L., & Han, J. C. (2014). International business. Pearson Education Limited.
David. (2013). Strategic Management.
