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A.	AMD SWOT analysis The AMD's main competitors include the NVidia and Intel semiconductor companies. Both the Intel and AMD are known for producing servers, motherboards, and computer-related hardware. These two companies have been competing for decades, but AMD enjoys a competitive advantage (Ch.6) because it has produced semiconductors with higher architecture than Intel (Bhasin, 2019). Therefore, AMD has been constructing microprocessors that have higher market demand than Intel. These two companies have resource similarity (Ch.7), and consequently, they have identical production and strategies. The ADM Company is among the leading businesses that maintain its central market position through the SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis is highly interactive, requiring healthy management within the various departments in the company, including -finance, marketing, and strategic planning (Bhasin, 2019). The SWOT analysis helps the business in the identification of both the external and internal factors. The SWOT analyses of the AMD and Intel Companies are as discussed below: Strengths in AMD The AMD company has various strengths helping in the market place thrive. The advantages help protect market shares for the existing markets and in the new market's penetration. Some of the strengths of AMD Company include reliable suppliers who enable the company out of bottleneck in the supply chain. The ADM Company has also built professions at new market entry and making a success of them, thus becoming one of their strengths. The expansion has therefore helped the company to build new revenue brook in the market of operation. Weakness of ADM These are the areas of improvement by the ADM Company. The plan is about choice-making, and weaknesses are the improvement areas the AMD Company should consider using the SWOT analysis. Some of the failings of ADM Company are the high attrition workforce rate. With the comparison from other companies, AMD Company is said to have considered having the highest attrition rate and therefore have to spend more on training its employees. The company's other weaknesses include the profitability ratio being below the company's average and the inefficiency of the financial plan. Opportunities in AMD By the SWOT analysis, AMD Company has many opportunities compared with the other competing companies. The ADM Company has the opportunity to open up new markets due to the government agreement. ADM Company has acquired the chance of entering the new upcoming market through the adoption of new technological standards and the free trade agreement by the government. Besides, AMD has the opportunity for diversification (ch.6) of its product line to gain more business opportunities Threats of AMD Company Although the AMD Company has the strengths and opportunities in the new market, several threats affect the company's growth. One of the threats AMD is the NVidia and Intel companies who are the two competitors in the semiconductor industry. There are also several environmental regulations having threats in the existence of product types that might affect the production.

B.	Intel SWOT Analysis Strengths Intel's biggest strength is that they have a long-lasting partnership with Microsoft. (Ferguson, 2017) Consider for a moment what that means in the way of moving product. Microsoft is the primary vendor for the government. Every computer the government uses has windows installed, and an Intel chipset onboard. However, Intel doesn't stop there. Intel has become the computer world as Coke has become the soft drink world. Weaknesses Even though Intel is crushing the PC desktop and laptop world, there are virtually absent from the mobile world. Apple has had this sector of the market nearly cornered since the inception of the iPhone over a decade ago. Opportunity Intel has the largest share of the market when it comes to their microprocessors for PCs. There is only one option for a consumer when it comes to buying the brain of their custom build; AMD. AMD has not been around as long as Intel, and their processors are more geared for gaming, and not some much for workbench applications that would require single thread rendering. Threats AMD has been making moves to gain a larger share of the market. Ryzen and Threadripper have been major leaps for AMD, and they are offered at a better price for performance as well. Intel has produced consistently better processors with each release, but they are pricing themselves out of the market. As custom builds are becoming more popular among computer enthusiasts, AMD has been gobbling up market share.

a.	List of competitors Intel and ABM have several rivals in the industry that compete with the firm for the available customers. Some of these companies consist of IBM, Microchip Technology, and NVidia. International Business Machines (IBM) is a worldwide technology corporation that is based in New York City in the US. It was founded in 1911 by Charles Ranlett Flint. The company's current CEO is Fletcher Previn, and the company provides several products and services such as hardware, software, and cloud-based services. Many individuals initially knew it as Computing-Tabulating-Recording Corporation. The other competitor of Intel Corporation is Microchip Technology Inc. The corporation's headquarters are based in Arizona in America. The company is listed in the American stock exchange, and it produces analog, mixed-signal, and Flash-IP integrated circuits. The firm's CEO is Steve Sanghi, and it earned 3.981 billion USD in 2018. The firm has more than 14,000 employees and several subsidiaries such as Micrel, Atmel, and Microsemi (Chauhan, 2020). Also, Intel and ADM are currently facing stiff competition from NVidia. It is a US technology company whose headquarters are based in California. Jensen Huang and his friends founded the company in 1993. The entity designs graphics processing units for professional and gaming markets. Besides, the firm also targets the automotive and computing market. But the industry is an oligopoly, where there are entry barriers (Ch.7) that prevent other firms from joining the industry. The firm's revenues for the year 2017 surpassed 9.71 billion US dollars. Finally, the entity has over eleven thousand employees that handle different roles. The other competitor of the two corporations is Samsung (Chauhan, 2020). The firm is a leader in the electronics business. The entity commenced its operations as a grocery store before diversifying to manufacture electronic devices such as phones. b.	Intel and AMD comparison Focus strategy (ch.6) Intel is constantly seeking to drastically improve processor speeds to entice users to upgrade their PCs. (Hall, 2013) Intel has consistently outsold AMD in CPU sales throughout its history. The most commonly used Intel Processor in 2016 was the Core I7-6700k. This processor contains 4 cores, 8 MB of L3 cache, and 8 threads. (Lovinus, 2017) The Core I7-6700k currently sells for around $340. (Intel) Market segmentation (ch.6): AMD was incorporated in 1969 in Sunnyvale, California. In 1982, the company signed a contract with Intel to be a second source after Intel for IBM processors. AMD strived to provide its' customers with the very best product at a reasonable price, and in 1997, "AMD produces AMD-K6 microprocessor. This allowed for PC's to become affordable and under $1000." (The History) Despite this, "Intel holds the undeniable market power at 90% of all sales." (Berkeley) AMD filed a lawsuit in 2004, identifying Intel as the source of this lack of sales. AMD claimed that Intel had been "paying and pressuring computer manufacturers to boycott AMD" (Berkeley) and, as a result, going against the United States anti-trust and competitions. In 2009, AMD and Intel reached a settlement in which Intel was forced to pay 1.25 billion dollars and adhere to strict guidelines to ensure the competition was not restricted. (Berkeley) The current AMD processor, most like the Intel Core i7-6700k, is the AMD FX 9590. This processor contains eight cores, 8 MB of L2 Cache, and 8 threads. The FX 9590 is currently selling for around $140. (AMD) Core competencies (Ch.6): There are three significant areas in which major companies should examine the two brands of processors, including price, performance, and usage. The most obvious difference between the two companies is the price. The Intel Core i7-6700k is 200 dollars more than the very comparable (if not even better as far as cores go) AMD FX 9590. With this price difference, one would expect much better performance from the Intel processor to examine performance next with a focus on business usage. Because the FX contains twice the number of cores as the I7, it is better suited for running multiple programs at once, and while its' single-core benchmarks fall short of the i7, its' multicore benchmarks easily surpass Intel. Besides, the operating frequency of the AMD processor is a gigahertz higher than the Intel i7-6700k, which equates to a faster overall processor. (World) On the other hand, i7-6700k also has its benefits in the performance department. According to the CPU world, "The processor has higher memory bandwidth, which is quite beneficial to tasks, working with large data sets. Non-memory bound programs will see lower performance gains." (World) In addition to this, the i7 comes with an integrated graphics processing unit, which can prove important if your business used 3D applications. For the price difference in the two processors, an equivalent GPU could be installed while still saving a substantial amount of money. The i7 is also 59% more energy efficient than its' AMD counterpart (World), which could prove very important if your business is running many computers, which will outweigh the 58% financial savings you would get from buying from AMD. Finally, as stated earlier, most computer manufacturers use Intel processors, and while, after the lawsuit, this is slowly changing, a sizable percentage of prebuilt computers still possess an Intel CPU (Lombardo, 2017). If your company plans to purchase prebuilt computers, you will have many more options to choose from if you go with an Intel processor. Market power (Ch.7) entails the ability of a company in terms of product sales and competition level (ch.6). Intel and AMD have strived to make the best CPUs they can for their consumers, and while Intel is still the most commonly known CPU manufacturer, AMD is quickly rising to the forefront and cannot be ignored. When it comes to choosing the right CPU for your business, both companies may be a great option for you, but the most important thing to do is examine the different processors based on your company's individual needs. The AMD FX 9590 is a great processor for small businesses trying to have low startup costs as they are much cheaper to buy. This processor might also be great for any company that needs to run several programs at once regularly or where speed is very important. On the other hand, the Intel i7-6700k might be a great fit for a large business that wants to purchase prebuilt computers bulk from a manufacturer and have a large variety of computers and manufacturers to choose from. Also, the i7 may be a better fit for a company that needs to use 3D applications or if graphics are important due to its integrated GPU (Hello Tech, 2020). If a company is seeking to be as ecologically friendly as possible or trying to conserve money on their power bills, the i7 would also be a good fit. The proper CPU to use can vary greatly from company to company based on their needs and should be thoroughly analyzed before deciding. There is no one size fits all CPU, but the market provides a customized fit for your business. C. Summary of annual reports Corporate governance (Ch. 10) can be understood as the approach through which an organization manages interactions, relationships, and interactions among key stakeholders (Ch.6). It can be focused on the performance of the organization employees, departments, the processes implemented to manage specific organizational tasks, or corporate social responsibility (Ch.10) policies (Intel Corp., n.d). Performance management standards are arranged and disseminated by the task owners and senior leadership at an organization. The functionalities of specifying job tasks and output provide coaching, and timely feedback compares the actual behaviors and performance of the organizational employees with desired behaviors and performance and instituting rewards, among others. Generally, corporate leaders utilize performance management to align the company's objectified goals with the employees' and teams' intentions to increase productivity, efficiency, and profitability. On this account, this part will focus on analyzing the performance metrics and merger (ch.7) synergies (ch.7) of Intel Corporation and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Company. Intel Corporation is considered the largest chipmaker globally, making it enjoy economies of scale (ch.8). It focuses on designing and manufacturing microprocessors firstly for personal computers global markets and currently for data centers. After implementing the new marketing strategy of transforming the company to a data-centric company from PC, Intel Corporation has experienced an increase in its revenue from $55.9 billion to $70.8 billion from 2014 to 2018, respectively a 6% CAGR (compound annual growth). Similarly, AMD company, which deals with designing and producing solutions of low-power processors and microprocessors for consumer and computer electronics industries, has experienced a growth from $5.5billion to $6.5billion in 2014 to 2019 respectively (Corp, 2020). The growth of AMD is mainly contributed to its segment of computing and graphics. Below is an in-depth discussion of the performance metrics comparison between the two companies The main competitive advantage of expanding AMD's growth is its Ryzen processors' success, which is less costly than Intel processors' price. Also, the shortage of factors of production (ch.8) such as CPU's chips has made Intel enjoy the dominance in the market as the company focused its attention on meeting data centers segment demands, thus benefiting AMD as most OEMs began offering AMD Ryzen processors based on notebooks and desktops (Advanced Micro Devices, 2020). By comparing the Adjusted Net Income Margin and Gross Profit Margin of Intel and AMD, it is clear that Intel Corporation is more profitable than AMD. Intel's gross profit margin has increased from 61%-to-64%, while that of AMD has fluctuated from 22%-to-38%. Intel's adjusted net income margin experienced a margin growth from 23% to 30% from 2014 to 2018, respectively. Between 2015 and 2016, AMD experienced an adjusted loss though it experienced an increase in its gross profit margin from 2% to 8% in 2014 to 2018, respectively (Advanced Micro Devices, 2020). The valuations ratios of Intel Corporation in 2018 are slightly stronger as compared to that of AMD. The year 2018 was a strong one for its earnings but volatile as per its stock. The valuation ratio of Intel improved slightly to 2.3x, a rate higher than of AMD- 3.13. Overall, both Intel and AMD produce computer processors within a distance that strikes each other in terms of performance, power, and price (Inc, 2020). Intel's chips offer better single-core performance though AMD strikes back by offering more cores with better internal graphics and less cost. Even though AMD is growing faster than Intel, Intel Corporation is the better run as it continues to implement new global strategies (ch.8) to compete more effectively and efficiently in the market against its primary competitor AMD. For instance, of late, Intel's stock is positioned well to benefit from technology innovations such as AI, cloud computing, 5G, and data usage.

D.	Due Diligence Mergers and acquisitions (ch.10) between the selected companies of Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) do not require much analysis. The merger between the two microprocessor companies is set to convert the raging duopoly into a monopoly. In the recent past, Intel has paid quite a substantial amount in the acquisition of two microchip companies of Altera and Mobileye. The acquisition of these two companies cost Intel a whopping $25 billion with which they are still in debt (Sun, 2020). Further, AMD has recently been valued at $30 billion; hence Intel is at no position in financing another merger. The merger cannot also be approved since AMD is still struggling to deliver quality computer graphics compared to Nvidia. In further instances, the merger between the two companies is not advised. The recent acquisitions by Intel will need to bear fruit. Once the new acquisitions bear fruit, the Intel Company will be at a more significant standpoint to acquire AMD (Bhasin, 2020). The companies could only involve in partnerships towards the introduction and production of computers and devices with both their components. The company mergers' key performance metrics include operational relatedness (ch.7) and sales improvements (Knowledge Leader, 2020). On its own, AMD boasts high income and revenue over the past years with the exponential increase in revenue income hence sustaining its growth. However, the company also has high operating costs, which is a downside in the acquisition. The mergers of both companies will cost Intel their operating costs, set to rise once AMD is on board. Other than the sales and costs, Intel possesses a higher income reinvestment ratio because of its increased mergers and acquisitions to ensure strategic flexibility (ch.6) and growth. Further, the company's recent acquisition involved companies with high involvement in the chip-making industry (Mukherjee et al. 2004). This not only takes out the competition but also builds the company operations. Intel companies' increased participation in ensuring the reduction of competition shows their gestures to save their future in the sector. AMD has not shown any considerable reinvestment strategies. In the introduction of the instantaneous graphics cards by AMD's rival Nvidia, AMD conceded the graphics industry and developed processors such as the Ryzen (Diffen, n.d). The question of the support of the merger is not viable. Although both companies operate in the same scope of the business, their financial data does not allow their incorporation unless AMD boosts their income stability and reduces operating costs (Amjad, 2019). Supported partnerships between the two companies oversee profits from either side to support their operations and increase their income values partnerships may lead to its ultimate merger.

E.	Balanced scorecard Individuals wonder why Intel products are great compared to their rivals, and the reason for this is that few people have used AMD in computers. For years, some have researched both companies and what they are bringing to the table. Intel has always stayed a few steps ahead of AMD for the most part, but with the slight advancements that made it that much better, they were almost double the price or higher (Ridley, 2020). Having the right CPU is extremely important in this era, especially if one is planning to keep the computer bottleneck down as much as possible. Some are hoping to get more people into thinking about their options better, and maybe over-paying is not the greatest thing to do for a new PC (Personal Computer). Intel for years dominated the gaming world for PCs. They were the go-to chip for any (except for AMD fanboys) built Gaming PC (Rig another term for a Gaming PC) (Berkeley, n.d). They were so renowned and respected that they were able to sell there CPUs at extremely overpriced rates, and people still gobbled them up. Their top CPU is around eighteen hundred dollars before tax, which is the "i9 7980XE". Intel is trying to maintain dominance in this area even though AMD has brought high-end Gaming CPUs that rival even the Intel i9 series for almost half the price (Ridley, 2020). AMD is a company that started making gaming CPUs and stayed in the running for a while. It was a while before Intel started advancing there CPUs for better gaming performance while AMD remained in the shadow of this growing company. AMD's highest priced CPU is the "Ryzen Threadripper 1950X," priced at eight hundred dollars before tax. Even though tests show that the Intel 7980XE CPU barely beats out the Threadripper 1950X, AMD is still advancing at a fast pace to finally put Intel in their place (Martindale, 2020). Intel seems to think that people will continue to pay ridiculous prices for what they consider better performance and the "to go" company. Since AMD has released the RyZen CPUs, Intel has scampered and released the i9 series without a hitch to rival AMD's new Threadripper to try to stay ahead. Figure 1: Intel vs AMD cores

As one can see in the chart, Intel's latest top tier CPU is 2x the price of AMD's with little to no real advantage other than two extra cores and lower TDP (power draw). The competitive scope (Ch. 6) of the two companies in the same segmented market. Matt Smith wrote an article on Digital Trends talking about tech's oldest rivalry (Intel and AMD) looks in 2018. He notes that the two companies produce processors that have common similarities, especially in terms of price, performance, and power. Intel chips tend to offer better performance per core, but AMD is compensating with more hearts at a given price (Smith, 2018). Overall, both companies have flaws, as you can see. Intel would be the lower core count and the high price tag while AMD has higher power consumption and a lower score on single thread tests. According to Matt Hanson (2017), TechRadar is talking about what is the best gaming CPU. A Competition was done between the AMD Ryzen 7 1700 and the Intel I7-7700k, while both CPU's won an equal amount of rounds (Tests that are given in different ways such as intensely graphical games or even benchmarks and stress tests) Intel won on the Gaming aspect (Alexander et al., n.d). This does not mean AMD Ryzen is not good for gaming, and it just means they have a few more tweaks to go before being able to overpower Intel completely. The competitive rivalry (Ch.6) between these two companies has benefited their customers by satisfying their needs (ch.6) when using CPUs. AMD has worked hard for years to keep up, always staying in the giant's shadows. Many have used AMD FX CPU's, the top one being the FX9590 (which has a huge overheating problem), which only supports DDR3 memory while Intel supports DDR4 memory support already. As a company, AMD has just recently started the use of DDR4 Compatibility with the release of their Ryzen CPUs (Lovinus, 2017) Besides, AMD has limited their CPU sockets to what they call AM4, which is the step up from their previous AM3 and AM3+ Socket FX CPUs and their APUs (CPU with Graphics embedded) FM2 sockets. Comparison of these two companies using their latest lineup of CPUs will help determine not which is better but to show that one does not need to spend thousands of dollars on a CPU that will play any if not all games at top settings and be happy with the results. In conclusion, the rise in the use of technology requires robust workstations and computers. This can assure both companies the endless demand for their products. However, the increased changes and the dynamic nature of technology and the sector require their avid changes and updates in their methods and machines. Further, the companies may also pay close attention to their financial analysis and gains. The assurance of future business in the industry depends on the strategies set in the present. Company performance is also of the essence, with the focus ratios set as company goals and milestones. This way, the rival companies may come together on legal, financial terms to form a microprocessor monopoly.

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