MBA Human Resources

I analyzed my Clifton Strengths Self-Assessment results and discovered 5 major themes emerged around my strengths.  The Clifton Signature Themes report identified my five most dominant themes of talent out of 34 themes measured, in the following rank order: Achiever, Relator, Communication, Developer, and Activator.  In this paper, I discuss them in more detail and compare Steve Jobs' leadership style and strengths against my results.

This paper explores entrepreneurial opportunities for Cornerstone Ondemand’s (CSOD) Learning Management System (LMS).  Major opportunities exist for the software’s integration of the TinCanAPI (Rustici Software, n.d.) – a new model of aggregating learning data, integrating the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Online learning platform – which allows for delivering free training to wide audiences, and social media learning – a method which leverages social media in delivering and consuming learning (Pappas, 2016). I will further describe and discuss the social learning opportunity, and analyze the role that big data (Foy, 2015) will play, in CSOD’s exploitation of this future opportunity. 
The paper will also explore the major trends for social learning – based on social media.  I will review the impact on the opportunity and its sustainability by discussing how CSOD can focus on the 3 major trends of social learning today:  the growth of video-based social media apps, the changing landscape of user demographics (Baker, 2017), and the advent of mobile as the preferred platform for the development of new social media applications (Kulkarni, 2017).
Keywords: LMS, social media, CSOD, learning, mobile, MOOC, Facebook, TinCapAPI

This report presents the current financial performance and health analysis of Wells Fargo with an emphasis on the company’s profitability, liquidity, solvency and managerial efficiency for the period 2015 – 2017. The report also includes analysis of business opportunities, success factors, risks, and financial statement projections for 2018 – 2020 along with sensitivity analysis of 2018 financial performance. Methods of analysis include common-size and trend analyses, as ratios such as ROA, ROE, turnover, and net margin among many others. Other calculations for gauging the company’s financial health include WACC, EV and market capitalization. All the calculations and financial projections can be found in the appendices. The data analyzed was collected from the company’s actual financial statements for the past several years, and the results indicate that the company is in a strong position compared to its closest competitors. Its performance in terms of profitability, liquidity, solvency and efficiency is above the industry average.

The report finds that Wells Fargo’s future prospects are excellent and it can comfortably undertake emerging investment opportunities as the company has the resources to fuel future growth. It is recommended that the company invests $5.2 billion to acquire the MSRs of Navy Federal Credit Union to expand its assets base and consolidate its market leadership when it comes to mortgage servicing. Key limitations of the report include incorporation of assumptions in projecting future financial performance, inability to accurately forecast future economic conditions and use of past performance to create pro forma statements.

In the Harvard Business Review Article, “A Global Leader’s Guide to Managing Business Conduct”, researchers Deshpande, Margolis, & Paine (2011) share survey data which reveals how business ethical conduct is managed from a global perspective and the disconnect companies face when handling business abroad compared to within their home country.  This paper discusses how the compliance and ethics programs of many companies fall short of addressing global business ethical responsibilities, and what performance tools and decision-making processes companies must now implement to manage business conduct and ethics in order to optimize business sustainability, while leveraging subjective standards and accurate data.

The General Data Protection Regulation – or GDPR for short, passed by the European Union in April 2016, aims to provide EU citizens with more control over how their personal information is used.  The regulation applies to any company collecting or storing the data of European Union citizens.  GDPR is not a mandatory US regulation but as a company with European customers, CSOD must address this regulation in its software, which will help it strengthen and grow its market position. Most of CSOD’s competitors are also driving to align with this regulation.  This project plan details how CSOD could deliver this solution.

This paper presents a high-level plan for implementing a new business opportunity for Cornerstone OnDemand, namely integrating the compliance constraints and requirements of the European Union’s GDPR (Global Data Protection Regulation) into CSOD's SaaS product.  The business opportunity will be justified with a review of the rationale behind the opportunity, resource allocation and utilization plans, organizational and cultural factors, and financial projections.  The paper will also include assumptions, along with an analysis of environmental factors, legal and ethical concerns, diversity impacts and the overall position on Corporate Social Responsibility.