This researcher will identify and describe key environmental forces that have immediate strategic implications for Capital One. Identify and describe Capital One's capabilities and weaknesses that have immediate strategic implications. Define Capital One's business and corporate strategies and evaluate each based on their potential for continued success. Evaluate the strategic fit of Capital One's recent acquisitions. Describe the key strategic issues raised by the company's acquisition strategy. Assess Capital One's international position.Identify and describe key environmental forces that have immediate strategic implications for Capital One.Capital One Corporation is a bank holding company. Capital One offers a wide range of financial services to consumers. Capital One offers consumer and commercial loans, consumer deposit products, and Capital One auto financing (Hitt, 2009). Since its IPO in 1994, Capital One has aggressively expanded its presence in the global market. Capital One has diversified its portfolio by adding mortgages, home equity loans, auto financing and many other specialized consumer lending products. Capital One is well known for its personalized credit cards. This was done with the support of its information-based strategy (Hitt, 2009). The system uses sophisticated data mining techniques to match credit cards with targeted customers based on their credit scores. The IBS system would then divide the consumer into three categories based on their FICO scores. The groups are: super-prime (excellent credit history), prime (average credit history) and finally sub-prime (poor credit history). Capital One uses this system aggressively in the middle of paper... ...ortfolio offers various products and services to domestic and international clients. “The international sub-segment includes credit card lending in the United Kingdom and Canada, extending Capital One's nationwide lending franchise and providing geographic diversification (Hitt, 2009). Capital One is dominant in the United Kingdom, where it is the seventh largest credit card issuer and among the top ten credit card issuers in Canada (Hitt, 2009). Capital One's international portfolio has grown and appreciated in value over the past few years. In 2005, Capital One acquired a British stock brokerage company called Hfs Group to strengthen its position in the United Kingdom (Hitt, 2009). The international company competes with national and state banks for deposits and commercial loans. The company is not currently expanding, but will do so when it finds a market with growth opportunities.