Task: Student must analyze the case below and answer the following questions accordingly Case Study: Leather Product Company Acquisition Background: You are the owner of a thriving lea

Task: Student must analyze the case below and answer the following questions accordingly

Case Study: Leather Product Company Acquisition

Background:

You are the owner of a thriving leather product and sales company that has been operating successfully in the B2B market for a decade. Your company has established a strong reputation for producing high-quality leather goods, including bags, wallets, and accessories. Due to your continued growth and market presence, you have decided to expand further by purchasing one of your competitors in the leather product industry, which was staggering due to the previous pandemic crisis.

Situation:

After the successful acquisition of your competitor, several projects are necessary to integrate the newly acquired company into your business operations and ensure a smooth transition. You will streamline financial reporting, optimize operations, retain and grow the customer base, and track marketing efforts efficiently.

YOUR TASK: Choose two (2) of the acquisition projects below. Write a combined report to support your decision-making strategies with data analysis. (Both spreadsheets and visualizations are required.)

Acquisition Project 1: Financial Integration:

• Merge the financial systems and accounting practices of both companies.
• Consolidate financial statements and reporting.
• Assess and optimize cash flow and working capital management.

Acquisition Project 2: Operational Streamlining:

• Evaluate and harmonize manufacturing processes, including inventory management.
• Optimize supply chain and logistics for cost savings.
• Standardize production quality and reduce inefficiencies.

Acquisition Project 3: Customer Base Consolidation:

• Analyze the customer databases of both companies.
• Develop a strategy to combine, cross-sell, and retain customers.
• Implement a unified customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Acquisition Project 4: Marketing and Brand Strategy:

• Reevaluate branding strategies and messaging.
• Integrate marketing efforts to promote the expanded product portfolio.
• Plan and execute marketing campaigns to reach a broader audience.

Evaluation and grading:

First acquisition project

5

Create an excel spreadsheet that shows your company’s data (before acquisition). Use at least 10 rows.

5

Create an excel spreadsheet that shows the data for competitor (before acquisition). Use at least 10 rows.

10

IDENTIFY A SITUATION: Explain your how acquisition of the competitor has created a need for data analysis and reporting to assess financial / operational / customer / marketing aspects of the business integration.

10

IDENTIFY A TASK: Use Excel for data analysis to compare the performance of both companies. Calculate ratios and assess the overall health of the integrated business.

5

IDENTIFY AN ACTION: Supported by your findings in the combined data, find a feasible action to implement for the task you mentioned above.

10

EXPLAIN THE RESULTS: Explain how your action leads to improved business efficiency, cost savings, and revenue growth.

Second acquisition project

5

Create an excel spreadsheet that shows your company’s data (before acquisition). Use at least 10 rows.

5

Create an excel spreadsheet that shows the data for competitor (before acquisition). Use at least 10 rows.

10

IDENTIFY A SITUATION: Explain your how acquisition of the competitor has created a need for data analysis and reporting to assess financial / operational / customer / marketing aspects of the business integration.

10

IDENTIFY A TASK: Use Excel for data analysis to compare the performance of both companies. Calculate ratios and assess the overall health of the integrated business.

5

IDENTIFY AN ACTION: Supported by your findings in the combined data, find a feasible action to implement for the task you mentioned above.

10

EXPLAIN THE RESULTS: Explain how your action leads to improved business efficiency, cost savings, and revenue growth.

10

Coherence and complementarity between two project reports

100

TOTAL

Formalities:

• The report should be submitted in a pdf format which contains two basic chapters (one project in each chapter). These chapters should include tables and figures derived from your spreadsheet effort. Explain the dashboards and how decisions are made over the spreadsheets.
• All spreadsheets should be your original work. Also, they should be attached to the submission in the original format.
• Your calculations for identifying situations, tasks, actions and results must be observable on the spreadsheets you submit.
• Max word limit: 2000 (surpassing +10% of this limit will be penalized)
• This is an individual task. 
• Make a bundle of your spreadsheets and report by zipping them before submission.
• Cover, Table of Contents, References and Appendix are excluded from the total wordcount.
• Font: Arial 12,5 pts.
• Text alignment: Justified.
• The in-text References and the Bibliography must be in Harvard’s citation style.