The Company is Forever 21 The 2 international countries are Belgium and Germany

The Company is Forever 21
The 2 international countries are Belgium and Germany. Steps 1,2 and 3 from the previous assignment if needed, I can send them to you. Please let me know.
This assignment has 3 steps 4, 5, and 6. Please read carefully before proceeding. At completion, you will have a report with an executive summary of 1 page ONLY. Two to three-minute narrative presentation with a closed caption if possible. PowerPoint is ok. Then lastly a Presentation Transcriipt.
STEP 4: Assess Financial Fit
misty bridge flanked with statues
Neal Wilson / Moment Collection / Getty
Now that you\’ve assessed the communications needs in your markets, you\’ll conduct a high-level estimate of the financial feasibility of each move. This shouldn\’t take much time once you have the financial information you need, but it\’s a separate step because, if you haven\’t done this before, you\’ll need to know how to locate and understand financial documents.
Every organization wants to bring in money, whether as profit (private), grants or donations (nonprofit), or appropriations (government), as outlined in Budgeting by Sector. You likely won\’t have much of a sense of how much money the expansion would bring in, but you can at least look at how much your client has to spend and weigh it against (1) what you know it would take to launch a successful communications campaign, and (2) the possible ROI of that campaign, or the effect of the communications on reputation and sentiment. Your assessment of the financial viability of the move from a communications perspective will be hugely interesting to the C-suite and should be a nontrivial part of your presentation. You don\’t want to recommend a Cadillac-sized budget if your client can afford only a Chevrolet—or, if you do recommend the Cadillac budget, you want to provide evidence that there will be a high ROI.
First, assess the financial health of your client. Understanding the financial situation of a company is not as daunting a challenge as it might sound. If you\’ve never looked at financial documents before, this step will be a great way to get to know the basics of how to estimate an organization\’s health.
Find the Information
You may find what you need in the library; for guidance, review the Company Information resources.
If you can\’t find what you need using the library databases, there are a number of other options available to you. First, if the company is publicly traded—that is, anyone can buy or sell shares on a stock exchange (SEC, 2020)—the company\’s financial documents and other information are available online. First, try a Google search with your client\’s name and the keywords investor page. You may also be able to find information on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) website or other sites that aggregate data found on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ), and other stock exchanges.
Even if your company isn\’t public, it might provide annual reports or other documents that contain financial information. Nonprofits that make more than $100,000 in annual contributions or have over $250,000 in assets are required to file an IRS Form 990, which you should be able to find via a search (Bridgespan, 2020). For federal agencies, the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) website provides links to financial documents (n.d.).
If you\’re unable to find the information you need on your particular company, find a similar company and use its numbers. Be sure to provide this information in the discussion below as well as in your deliverable at the end of this step.
Use the Information
As you review the financial information of your company, remember that the balance sheet shows total assets and liabilities calculated on a specified date, the cash flow statement shows the operating performance, or net cash income and outflows for a given time period, and the income statement or profit and loss (P&L) statement reports the profitability of a business for a stated time, showing revenues minus expenses. Looking at these three documents together should give you a sense of the financial situation of your client at this point in time. One of the most important documents is the income, or P&L, statement. The expenditures tell you how much your company spends in a given time period. This information can help you estimate how much your client might be prepared to spend on an expansion communications campaign.
Create a financial profile of your client—no more than a few sentences or bullet points. Estimate how much you think your company might be willing to invest in this expansion.
Now that you\’ve assessed your client\’s financial situation, look at the tactics and timelines you\’ve developed for your two markets, as well as all your research notes, and consider how costly it might be for the company to move into either market. You of course know only what the communications department needs in the way of resources, but a market that is more expensive for you is likely more expensive for the other departments.
You\’re operating at a high level here, but consider factors such as,
exchange rate;
translation needs;
staffing, contracting, or consulting needs;
travel and transportation needs (even if your campaign is entirely online, you\’ll want to make at least one visit to the market a year to meet with cultural liaisons and get to know stakeholders);
owned, earned, and social media needs;
research and evaluation needs;
sociocultural variables;
and so forth.
Take into account what your company might stand to gain in either market.
Once you have a high-level sense of the relative financial costs and benefits of moving into the two markets, write a summary of your findings and state which alternative makes the most sense to you from a financial perspective.
STEP 5: Determine ROI
church spires with colorful flags waving out front
Rob Tilley / Corbis Documentary / Getty
Now that you\’ve assessed the financial costs and benefits of expanding into each market, evaluate all the information you\’ve gathered. Taking your client\’s mission, vision, values, business goals, and business objectives into account, and thinking about the opportunities and risks you identified in each market, estimate the overall ROI offered by each expansion option. There is no one right way to do this; it\’s a matter of assessing what is important to your client and determining what choice would confer the most overall value.
Your strategic communications perspective is an essential part of the equation, though. Factor in the communications costs against the perceived benefits: to what extent can you expect to establish relationships with stakeholders and publics, and over how much time? In which market will you yield the greatest return for the investment you\’re putting forth? What challenges might you face, and is the risk worth it? And, is your client equipped to provide the resources your team will need to conduct its work?
Also consider the benefits and hurdles other departments might face.
Take a look at Considering ROI in Decision Making for a strategic-communications-oriented approach to assessing ROI. ROI can mean different things to different functions, and the readings could help you make a case for some of the intangible benefits you might be able to see through the lens of your particular discipline and experiences.
Your calculus here will be the basis of the executive summary, in which you succinctly make your recommendation and provide a compelling, high-level rationale.
STEP 6: Compose Your Products for the C-Suite (Submission)
misty bridge flanked with statues
Chan Srithaweeporn / Moment Collection / Getty
Now that you\’ve performed your evaluation of the two expansion options and chosen the one you think will confer the best ROI, you\’ll write or refine your report, then produce your executive summary. Once you\’re finished with those, you\’ll put together a clean, colorful, and convincing presentation.
Populate your report and presentation with at least three visuals. Cite all information and visuals from other sources in APA style.
Your report and the other two products should demonstrate your ability to make a convincing argument and write persuasively. Backing your contributions with qualitative and quantitative data is one way to provide a convincing rationale; your graphics should assist with this.
Also remember the power of storytelling to reach your publics. If you can create a narrative about your findings, or a story within your findings, this can be a powerful persuasive tool.
Organize your report however you wish, but make sure that it
provides a recommendation from a communications perspective;
defends that recommendation throughout the report;
compares and contrasts the two markets based on at least the following factors:
political climate,
economic climate,
business climate,
laws,
ethics,
culture,
communication norms, and
risk;
outlines communications planning needs for each market (goals and objectives; information about publics and their demographic, psychographic, and information consumption and engagement characteristics; messages; strategies; tactics, 12-month timeline; and evaluation); and
provides a financial analysis.
Your executive summary should be no longer than one page and should reinforce the main takeaway of your report.
For your presentation, create a dynamic, high-level two-to-three-minute narrated overview of your findings and recommendation. If you\’re not feeling inspired by PowerPoint, try another tool such as Adobe Spark; you can get a free account with Adobe and create a slideshow with high-quality photographs, icons, text, and voiceover. Some people love Powtoon, which has a free version as well. You can also record videos using Zoom and other web conferencing software. There are lots of great tools out there that are worth getting to know as remote presentations become more common.
Provide a transcriipt to accompany your presentation. If you uploaded it to YouTube, import your transcriipt there as well so that the video will have accurate closed captions. Anyone at the company who needs or wants to will be able to be listen to the transcriipt via screen reader or read the captions along with the video. Many employers have disability rules or abide by Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations, so you always want to provide alternative means of accessing media content (DOJ, n.d.).