The company that I have selected is Target Corporation Projections. Based on what you know about the organization’s financial health and performance, forecast its future performance. In particular, you should: A. Project the organization’s likely consolidated financial performance for each of the next three years. Support your analysis with an appendix spreadsheet showing actual results for the most recent year, along with your projections and assumptions. Remember, your supervisor is interested in fresh perspectives, so you should not just replicate existing financial statements, but should add other relevant calculations or disaggregations to help inform decisions. B. Modify your projections for the coming year to show a best- and worst-case scenario, based on the potential success factors and risks you identified. As with your initial projections, support your analysis with an appendix spreadsheet, specifying your assumptions and including relevant calculations and disaggregations beyond those in existing financial reports. C. Discuss how your assumptions, forecasting methodology, and information gaps affect your projections. Why are your projections appropriate? For example, are they consistent with the organization’s mission and priorities? Aggressive but achievable? How would changing your assumptions change your projections? Value Chain Analysis Organizational Management Name Date Introduction A value chain is defined, according to the online business dictionary, as the “ability to ascertain how much and at which state value is added to its goods and/or services, and how it can be increased to enhance the product differentiation (competitive advantage).” [1]. All companies, in order to succeed, must determine their business objectives, and what separates them from their competitors. In addition, there are many examples of value chains depending upon the organizational objective. Performance Food Group (PFG), the company where I’m currently contracting states that they are “committed to innovation and quality, to extraordinary customer service and helping associates realize the best in themselves” [2]. PFG is a private-owned business, and does not have a strategic governance model. There are no organizational objectives or strategic initiatives. However, the company does want to move into a public state, but it must bring its’ infrastructure to standard where it can compete. Many people have not heard of Performance Food Group including myself, however, they are one of the Nation’s largest foodservice distributors, and are responsible for ensuring that vending machines, concession stands, restaurants, big box stores, and theaters are stocked with products from the various vendors that do business with those entities’. Performance Food Group is broken out into three (3) divisions, and they are Performance Foodservice, Roma Food and Vistar. PFG prides themselves ...

1. The company that I have selected is Target Corporation
Projections. Based on what you know about the organization’s
financial health and performance, forecast its future
performance. In particular, you should:
A. Project the organization’s likely consolidated financial
performance for each of the next three years. Support your
analysis with an appendix spreadsheet showing actual results
for the most recent year, along with your projections and
assumptions. Remember, your supervisor is interested in fresh
perspectives, so you should not just replicate existing financial
statements, but should add other relevant calculations or
disaggregations to help inform decisions.
B. Modify your projections for the coming year to show a best-
and worst-case scenario, based on the potential success factors
and risks you identified. As with your initial projections,
support your analysis with an appendix spreadsheet, specifying
your assumptions and including relevant calculations and
disaggregations beyond those in existing financial reports.
C. Discuss how your assumptions, forecasting methodology, and
information gaps affect your projections. Why are your
projections appropriate? For example, are they consistent with
the organization’s mission and priorities? Aggressive but
achievable? How would changing your assumptions change your
projections?

2. Value Chain Analysis
Organizational Management
Name
Date
Introduction
A value chain is defined, according to the online business
dictionary, as the “ability to
ascertain how much and at which state value is added to its
goods and/or services, and how it can
be increased to enhance the product differentiation (competitive
advantage).” [1]. All companies,

3. in order to succeed, must determine their business objectives,
and what separates them from their
competitors. In addition, there are many examples of value
chains depending upon the
organizational objective. Performance Food Group (PFG), the
company where I’m currently
contracting states that they are “committed to innovation and
quality, to extraordinary customer
service and helping associates realize the best in themselves”
[2]. PFG is a private-owned
business, and does not have a strategic governance model.
There are no organizational
objectives or strategic initiatives. However, the company does
want to move into a public state,
but it must bring its’ infrastructure to standard where it can
compete. Many people have not
heard of Performance Food Group including myself, however,
they are one of the Nation’s
largest foodservice distributors, and are responsible for
ensuring that vending machines,
concession stands, restaurants, big box stores, and theaters are
stocked with products from the
various vendors that do business with those entities’.
Performance Food Group is broken out

4. into three (3) divisions, and they are Performance Foodservice,
Roma Food and Vistar. PFG
prides themselves with customization in the area of distribution
to ensure that the distribution
centers are stocked with food products that their suppliers use.
Some of the restaurants that PFG
supplies to are Cracker Barrel, Outback Steakhouse, Ruby
Tuesday and TGI Friday’s. PFG’s
value chain has many facets, because they must ensure that the
part of the business that keeps
them competitive exceeds their customer expectations. Last
fall, PFG started an initiative to
determine what it would take to implement Disaster Recovery
throughout its organization.
During the analysis, the team went through the documented PFG
value chain. The value chain
was helpful when determining business critical applications that
supported those processes and
the infrastructure that made it all work. Once the analysis was
completed, the documentation
was handed over to an outside vendor to price. After looking at
the various types of value chain
processes that are utilized by distribution companies, it looks as

5. if PFG might not have
approached the analysis properly.
Value Chain Defined
The PFG value chain is defined as enabling core backbone
systems, and ERP platforms,
communicate internally and externally, procure product from
vendors, receive product at
operating company, take the customer orders, pick the product,
and ship the product to the
customers. PFG does distribution business very well; however,
that is only a piece of the
business. According to an internet article on Chron.com, there
are six requirements that make up
successful value chain management; research and development,
product design, production
process, marketing and sales, distribution management, and
customer service. [3].
R&D
Research and Development fits into any line of business
because it entails market analysis, and
customer trend measurement. Product design in a service
environment would usually test the

6. product –and/or the process in which the product is being used.
The production process has a lot
to do with quality and value, which will have an impact on cost,
and competitive advantage.
Marketing and Sales focuses on measuring the customer
experience as well as looking for ways
to try and improve it. Distribution Management is a critical
link to the value chain, which
R&D Prod Design Prod Process Marketing/ Sales Distribution
Management
Customer
Service
focuses on transportation, material handling, packaging,
distribution and logistics management.
Customer Service is the driving factor that determines how the
other value chain processes will
be handled. Performance Food Group unfortunately, only
focuses on the Distribution
Management process of the value chain as stated earlier. Don’t
get me wrong, the PFG business
model is quite impressive, and the organization does have

7. business areas that handle all of these
facets of the value chain. However, when we had to determine
the core piece of the business in
order to determine mission critical activities, the value chain
used was fluid, and proved costly to
the organization. It is clear that in a disaster recovery scenario
that market analysis, production
design, and process can be put on hold and marketing/sales can
continue, but maybe on a lower
scale. The distribution management process of the value chain
is extremely important, and the
good news is that it does not encompass that many applications
to support its processes; which
means that this piece of the value chain process would not be
that expensive to continue in case
of a disaster.
Value Chain Focus & Improvements
When looking at an industry value chain, there are two sets of
activities; primary and support.
The activities that encompass R&D, Design, etc., make up the
primary activities, and the support
activities are procurement, technology development, human
resource management, and firm

8. infrastructure. Support Activities do not directly add value but
are still necessary in providing
the services or products. The Retail business value chain focus
for PFG is targeted to bring
together a range of products and present them in a way that’s
convenient to customers, which are
food items on a menu. One of the support activities within the
process is the infrastructure. PFG
is lacking a solid infrastructure and does not have a disaster
recovery plan in place. During the
last major disaster, the data center located in the Northern part
of the state went down, and left
the suppliers vulnerable. When distribution support goes down,
at PFG, it is a million dollar a
day issue. According to Porter’s value chain, an organization
must go through a series of steps
in order to understand their value chain; identify sub activities
for each primary activity, Identify
sub activities for each support activity, identify links, and
always look for opportunities to
increase value.” [4]. It is also interesting to note that a value
chain must also support generic
business strategies, and prioritization. Unfortunately, as stated

9. earlier, PFG does not have
strategic goals or objectives, and since they are only focused on
getting the supplier product to
the destination and ensuring that the customers are satisfied,
they are missing so much
opportunity to grow so much more. Without a competitive
strategy, PFG has landed itself as one
of the top three (3) distributers in the U.S. PFG is also going
through an IT infrastructure
revamp. Utilizing a solid value chain with a strategic plan and
goals would allow the company
to prioritize those projects based on their need. Currently, the
projects are prioritized, but
without a solid criteria. If PFG wanted to go in that direction,
they should draw out process
diagrams to map out their value chain activities, and their
operational processes using diagrams –
and/or narratives with thorough documentation utilizing a team
of subject matter experts to
validate their direction. Once the value has been identified, it
will be much easier to come up
with a strategic plan, and prioritization of the projects, because
it will be known what operations
must be supported first, second, third, etc. PFG is also

10. acquiring companies in lieu of disaster
recovery, infrastructure enhancements and revamps as well as
other projects that have
interdependencies of resources and equipment.
Conclusion
Learning about the importance of a value chain has helped me
to realize that there is an
industry approach to strategic direction and management, and
that knowing what an
organization’s value chain keeps an organization focused in turn
making them competitive.
Value chain analysis saves money and easily identifies
processes and direction that organizations
can use when determining their short and long term goals. The
current organization that I’m
currently contracting with does have a value chain, but until
now, it is found that the value chain
is fluid, and needs to be solidified so that the projects that the
company is implementing can be
done efficiently and effectively. The Disaster Recovery project
that PFG will be taking on in the
Summer of this year has the potential of saving money if the

11. value chain analysis is redone, and
utilizes an industry standard process. The fact that PFG has
hired a team of project managers to
help with these efforts shows their seriousness of handling the
issue; however, if not approached
efficiently and effectively, the company could run out of money
allocated for these efforts sooner
rather than later.
References
1) Value Chain Analysis. Retrieved March 4, 2013, from
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/value-chain-
analysis.html.
2) Performance Food Group website. Retrieved March 5, 2013
from http://www.pfgc.com,
3) What are the Six Requirements for Successful Value Chain
Management” Retrieved March 5,
2013 from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/six-requirements-
successful-value-chain-

12. management-3359.html,
4) Porters Value Chain Understanding How Value is created
within Organizations. Retrieved
March 7, 2013 from
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_66.htm,
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/value-chain-
analysis.html
http://www.pfgc.com/
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/six-requirements-successful-
value-chain-management-3359.html
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/six-requirements-successful-
value-chain-management-3359.html
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_66.htm