To prepare for this Discussion:
• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the Assignment.
• Review this week’s case study. You can, and should, scan it multiple times.
• Retrieve and review the Value chain of activities template.
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the MBA Capstone Program Bibliography.
• Utilize information in the case study, and other basic industry research data you can find in the Walden Library (Hoover's database would be a good place to start, as would Business Source Complete). Remember, you will have to search for information on the most relevant Trader Joe's competitors, as well as Trader Joe's to be able to make an appropriate relative ranking of resources.
Post a polished skills, competencies, and capabilities analysis that responds to each of the prompts below:
1. Use your best judgment, based on the information in the case and your research, and rate Trader Joe's current profile of skills, competencies, and capabilities, as identified in the detailed value chain in the case supplemental document. Fill your rating in the table and explain your rating. Use the following scale to rate and state any assumptions you make:
o If the skill, competency, or capability is “World Class” (clearly best in industry and could be benchmark for other industries), rate the item a 10.
o If the skill, competency, or capability is “Industry Best” (clearly number 1 or 2 in the industry), rate the item an 8.
o If the skill, competency, or capability is “Industry Average,” rate the item a 5.
o If the skill, competency, or capability “Needs Improvement,” rate the item a 3.
o If the skill, competency, or capability is a “Critical Deficiency,” rate the item a 1.
2. What is your average rating (which assumes that all the skills, competencies, and capabilities in the value chain were equally important)? Does this average tell you anything? What?
3. What three skills, competencies, or capabilities, across all categories, do you think are strategically the most important in the industry? Why?
4. Based on your responses above, does Trader Joe's have the capabilities in place to win? To continue to win? Why?
5. What should Trader Joe's do right now to leverage its competitive strengths and mitigate or improve upon competitive weaknesses?

To prepare for this Discussion: • Review all required readings, i...