The document outlines a case study involving Dan Smith, a management consultant, helping his friend Tom Wilson, owner of Sun City Boards, identify business issues rooted in a lack of planning and a clear mission. Dan emphasizes the importance of establishing a vision and mission to guide the company's strategy, ultimately recommending regular reviews and updates to their business plan to regain focus. The document also details specific strategic planning tools and methodologies that can aid Tom in rejuvenating his business.

1. APA: 3 paragraph 300 words Due: 3/28/19
Module 4 Assignment: Strategizing for Sun City Boards
Follow the link above to the assignment.
This assignment aligns with Learning Outcomes 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Prologue
Why does a business need to define its mission and engage in
planning?
Dan Smith is a management consultant with the firm Business
Advisors. He’s sitting in his office one day when the telephone
rings. He picks it up and hears the voice of Tom Wilson, an old
high school friend. “Hi Dan. This is Tom Wilson from
Southside High. Remember me?” They discuss old times for a
few minutes, and then Tom gets down to business.
“Dan, I need your help. I started a business several years ago,
and we’re in trouble.”
Dan quickly searches his memory and recalls that Tom started a
business called Sun City Boards several years ago selling high-
end surfboards on the West Coast. Last Dan had heard, the
business was doing well. “Yeah Tom. I remember when you
started your shop, but I thought the business was growing
successfully.”
Tom replies, “We did well the first couple of years, but things
haven’t been good for a while now. We’re losing money, and
I’m not sure how much longer I can keep the doors open.”
Dan assures Tom that he is happy to help and asks him to send a
few items over to prepare for a trip to visit his operations. “Just
send me a copy of your current business plan, financial
forecasts, and annual operating budget.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line, and then Tom says,
“Well, I can send you our bank statements and invoices. We
don’t have any of the other documents you’re asking about.”
Based on that response, Dan already has a good idea of the
organization’s problem: an obvious lack of planning that never
bodes well for a business.

2. In this module, you learned the importance of an organization
establishing a clear vision and mission and how they guide the
business planning cycle.The business plan is the roadmap that
guides the organization to success.
Epilogue
Dan traveled to Tom’s operations on the West Coast and
confirmed his suspicions that the problems the organization is
facing are due to a lack of planning. Dan is meeting with Tom
to report on his findings and to submit his recommendations.
“OK Tom, I’ve spent the last several days going through your
operations and records, and I’m confident that there are actions
you can take that will help turn around the business.”
Tom lets out a long sigh and says, “Dan, you have no idea how
glad I am to hear that. So at a high level, what’s the problem?”
“In a nutshell, the problem with Sun City Boards is that you
have lost your focus and there is no clear plan for moving
forward.” Tom looks confused, so Dan explains. “When you
started the business, what was your vision?”
Tom answers, “ To set people free from the earth … free to ride
the waves .” [Vision statement]
“Perfect!” Dan responds. “And how were you going to do that?”
Tom thinks for a moment and then emphatically declares, “ We
will strive to provide the absolute best in high-end surfboard
design and production! ” [Mission statement]
Dan tells Tom that he has just created the vision and mission
statements for Sun City Boards. He further explains:
“You have to start creating a focused plan that will help the
organization deliver on its vision and mission. The reason your
company is struggling is that there is no clear roadmap to
success.”
Tom asks, “What do you mean?”
Dan continues, “When you started the company you were very
successful because you focused on one key thing—making the
best surfboards anyone had seen. As a result, everything your
business did revolved around that core idea.”
Tom interrupts, “OK Dan, I think I see where you’re headed.

3. When we started making money in the early days, I began to
start expanding into other areas without a lot of thought. I
listened to salespeople who came in and told me that I should
branch out into low-end surf gear, then swimwear, then camping
gear. Customers don’t know what we’re all about any more. And
neither do my managers and employees.”
Dan can see Tom is getting his arms around the concept of
vision and mission, so he moves on.
Next, he presents his recommendation that Tom and his key
leaders should come together regularly to create, review and
update Sun City’s business plan. This is new to the team, so he
gives them a quick example:
1. Define Objectives: Sun City Boards should look to reduce
noncore product lines and associated inventory. Minimum
margin target is 35 percent across all remaining product lines.
2. Develop Premises: Monitor competitor’s plans to implement
a new polymer board and determine potential impact to Sun
City’s sales.
3. Evaluate Alternatives: Evaluate opportunity of opening new
retail outlets along the West Coast. Also, explore international
sales options for high-end surf boards.
4. Identify Resources: Analyze the level of capital necessary to
achieve expansion goals and incorporate plan to close financial
gaps in the annual budget.
5. Plan and Implement Tasks: Create a Gantt chart or other
project planning tool that outlines the actions necessary to reach
the goals outlined earlier.
6. Determine Tracking and Evaluation Methods: Create SMART
goals for both managers and employees that align with direction
the overall business plan provides.
Finally, Dan reminds Tom that the planning process is only a
tool and that the plan should be regularly reviewed and updated.
Dan warns him that planning is no substitute for taking action,
but it is a guide for him and his team as to what actions should
be taken.
This consulting project has reminded Dan how important it is

4. for an organization to have a clear vision and mission to know
where it’s headed. Likewise, the planning process is critical to
know how it’s going to get there. The alternative is like trying
to take a cross-country trip without a map—you don’t know
where you might end up!
Preparation
Carefully read the background story of Sun City Boards
presented above and review Module 4 Learning Unit:
Introduction to Planning before beginning this assignment.
In this assignment, you’ll apply what you learned about
planning to Sun City Boards and the management challenges its
owner, Tom Wilson, faces. You’ll advise Tom on strategic
management steps he and Sun City Boards should take to
develop and implement their new strategy.
Module 4 Learning Unit: Introduction to Planning introduced
several strategic planning tools to use at different stages of the
strategic management process. As an advisor for Sun City
Boards, your assignment is to select one of the following
strategic management tools (SWOT analysis; PESTEL analysis,
or Porter's Five Forces) described in the module, explain how it
works, and explain why it will be of value to Sun City Boards.
Your Task
Write a 300-word report describing the strategic management
tool you chose and why you selected it. Explain how the tool
works and why it will be of value. Your essay must include
three properly referenced and defined terms from the module
reading. Additionally, address the following questions:
· What is the purpose of the tool? What conclusions will it help
Sun City Boards draw?
· How does the tool work? How does it measure the relevant
factors, or how does it derive importance from them?(1)
Final Project Phase - due Sunday Week 11 - What should you
submit?

5. 1. A complete and detailed word document
2. Your .R file
Here are some ideas of what the ideal project should look like:
1. Introduction – abstract
a. Describe the purpose of the project
b. Include the conclusion of the research as a summary
2. Preview
a. Include previous research used or cited
b. Explain data used
c. Share basic theory used and terminology
d. Possible inclusion of similar research and pre-existed results
3. Analysis
a. Include graphs and tables explaining the preliminary results
from the model
b. Assess data quality produced by implementation of analytic
plan
c. Analyze data structure Evaluate how well the model worked
d. Identify any areas of concern
e. Describe statistics generated from the various stages of model
building that describe the model’s fit and able to accurately
depict the data
f. Describe statistics generated from the various stages of model
building that describe the model results Submission has no
major errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or
organization
g. Complete explanation of the processes
h. Graphs and Charts
i. Possibly Analysis of final choice of data structure, variables
used etc.
j. Possibly include Flowcharts - complete and revised based on
feedback.
4. CODE
a. Code only has essential components of the analytic process
b. Comments in code explain each step of analytic process
c. Code includes titles and footnotes wherever appropriate
d. Code is able to accept new sources of data

6. e. Code can accommodate changes in parameters
f. Code is written to be reproducible
g. Components of the code are modular and can run
independently
5. Conclusions
. explain what are your findings, did you have any findings? Be
specific.
. Is there any way you could advance your study?
. Was your work inconclusive? If yes what are the underlying
factors and what other information is needed, aslo who could
provide this information
· Raw Data
· References
Labor Relation Data Set
Labor Relation Data Set covers two primary elements in
industrial relations which include collective bargaining and
trade unions. Therefore Labor relation data gives data on
collective bargaining coverage and trade union density. It is the
data compiled monthly by the National Labor Organization and
availed in the Industrial Relation Data (Visser, 2015). At the
local or National level, Labor relation data set include all the
collective agreements made between the business and the
workers as well as the sector of personal labor services like
nurses, teachers, police, university staff with least 500
members.
Some of the data or attributed information in the labor relation
data include the duration of the agreement or contract, wage
increase experience every year since the beginning of the
contract, for instance, the wage or salary increase after the first
year, the second year, the third year and so on of the contract.
The data also include the allowances provided to the workers
like cost of living allowance, health allowance, education
allowance and housing allowance (Abowd & Kramarz, 1999).
Moreover, the data should also provide the number of working

7. hours per week, pension plan contributed by the employer,
standby pay as well as shift differentials like supplement on the
first and second shifts. The data also includes the number of
vacations and holidays specifying the number of both unpaid
and paid vacation days. The kind of employer’s help when the
employee undergoes long term disability must also be included
(Visser, Hayter & Gammarano, 2015). It also consists of the
employer’s contribution to the dental plan of the employee.
Sometimes, the contract needs the employee to contribute
towards bereavement. It must also be specified in the data. The
data should also give the entire contribution of the employer
towards the worker’s health plan (Visser, 2015). Therefore,
Labor relation data helps in storing contract agreement between
the employee and his worker(s).
Reference
Abowd, J. M., & Kramarz, F. (1999). The analysis of labor
markets using matched employer-employee data. Handbook of
labor economics, 3, 2629-2710.
Visser, J., Hayter, S., & Gammarano, R. (2015). Trends in
Collective Bargaining Coverage: Stability, Erosion Or Decline?:
Labour Relations and Collective Bargaining. ILO.
Visser, J. (2015). Data Base on Institutional Characteristics of
Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social
Pacts, 1960-2014 (ICTWSS). Institute for Advanced Labour
Studies AIAS.
1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Labor Relation Data Set
4. Two primary elements
· Collective Bargaining
· Trade Union
5. History
6. Collective Bargaining
· Data Description

8. · Data Analysis
· Table
7. Trade Union
· Data Description
· Data Analysis
· Table
8. Pro’s and Con’s
9. Conclusion
10. References
The research project will materialize everything we will study
during the course. You will feel the application of the concepts
we are studying.
I. Data Analysis Project.
1. Identify the problem(s) to be solved or opportunities to be
realized by mining the selected data set.
2. Consider the following data preparation questions and
explain your answers. When appropriate cite resources that
support your answer. Explain how the answers, and data
preparation, differed when you chose a different data mining
method.
a. Should instances with missing values be deleted?
b. Should missing values be specially coded and then retained in
the data set?
c. Should numeric values be assigned predetermined ranges or
left for the algorithm to split?
d. Should categorical variables be grouped or coded to reflect a
hierarchy?
3. To explore the problem or opportunity, use two or more of
the following data mining methods covered by this course:
3. regression: linear regression, discriminant analysis or logistic
regression,
3. decision trees,
3. neural networks,
3. hierarchical or k-means clustering,

9. 3. association rules,
3. time series,
3. genetic algorithms.
1. Describe the algorithms chosen, and indicate why you chose
them. Exploring a method of interest is a satisfactory reason for
this course paper.
1. Explain how and why you used specific pruning parameters
or other adjustments to create a sparser model.
1. Compare the alternative solutions using methods found in
comparative studies in the literature. For example, see “Data
mining for network intrusion detection: A comparison of
alternative methods”Dan Zhu, G Premkumar, Xiaoning
Zhang, Chao-Hsien Chu. Decision Sciences.Atlanta: Fall
2001.Vol.32. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3713/
is_200110/ai_n8954240 Report the results of the accuracy
measures available with the software. If the software used does
not have built-in accuracy reporting then manually test the
model's accuracy on a small hold-out test sample of the data.
The hold-out method creates separate training and test sets. This
is particularly useful when testing the model on data from a
later time period.
1. Create a table showing the number of cases correctly
identified, Type I, and Type II errors. In addition, a ROC curve
is appropriate with discriminant analysis and logistic
regression. For these methods, changing the parameters for the
line separating the classes, changes the percentages of Type I
and Type II errors. Medical practitioners like ROC curves
because they show the tradeoff between false positives and false
negatives.
1. Which data mining method(s) seem superior for the chosen
data set? Did the method that performed best in your study also
dominate in similar comparative studies?
1. Compare the results or recommendations that would result
from the use of the different methods.
1. Based on your analysis, justify a conclusion or
recommendation.

10. 1. Cite the relevant literature using APA formatting described
at http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/citeright_tutorial_apa_ar
ticles.cfm Any publication listed in the references should be
cited in the paper.
1. Organize the paper into the sections of a formal research
paper: Introduction, Methods, Results, etc., Use the resources
provided in the Effective Writting
Center: http://www.umuc.edu/writingcenter/
II. Writing Skills Research Paper
1. Writing skills are critically important to succeed in the
Graduate School (TGS) and in your future careers. If conducting
research is new to you, consider using the library's helpful
resources. To learn about effective Internet research, consult the
Information and Library Services
(ILS) http://www.umuc.edu/writingcenter/onlineguide/index.cf
m
2. Before you search the Web, read
http://www.umuc.edu/writingcenter/writingresources/sources.cf
m for Web sites provided by ILS.
3. Effective Writing Center(EWC) provides number of helpful
tool to improve your writings, including Plagiarism Tutorial.
It’s paramount you check this tutorial before start writing.
4. Before locating a full-text journal article in a database, read
the http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/ . Then go to the
Computer/Information Science topic area in the Resources by
Topic section of the Library Databases and E-Journals page to
select a database in which to search. The database ACM Digital
Library is a good one to start with.
5. Use the APA style guide for your citations. After each title
add a short note evaluating its quality as a research tool (back
to evaluation criteria), and its quality relative to the other
sources cited in your bibliography.
III. Original Work and Plagiarism.

11. Policy on Academic Integrity:Please review the UMUC policy
on academic dishonesty and plagiarism. Your paper has to be in
complete compliance with UMUC’s zero-tolerance policy
regarding plagiarism. “Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to
the following: copying verbatim all or part of another's written
work; using phrases, charts, figures, illustrations, or
mathematical or scientific solutions without citing the source;
paraphrasing ideas, conclusions, or research without citing the
source; and using all or part of a literary plot, poem, film,
musical score, or other artistic product without attributing the
work to its creator. Students can avoid unintentional plagiarism
by carefully accepted scholarly practices. Notes taken for
papers and research projects should accurately record sources of
material to be cited, quoted, paraphrased, or summarized, and
papers should acknowledge these sources in footnotes." Have in
mind that all papers will be submitted to Turnitin prior to being
read and graded.
Also note that any graded assignments must be the student's
own work and original for this course. Work prepared for other
courses or use of material obtained for this course from other
students, past or present, is expressly prohibited and can result
in a grade of zero for an assignment.
Please review the syllabus and pay attention on the
requirements for original work and plagiarism.
IV. Next step.
Please select your topic for research project and post 1-2
paragraphs summary (abstract) on your intended topic as a New
topic in this Conference. Please change the title of your post
with the title of your project.