Darden Investor Creates 297-Page PPT Report

/

Starboard Value, a Darden investor, created an extensive PPT presentation to recommend ways to improve the struggling Olive Garden restaurants. Sales and stock prices have been falling.

Starboard, which owns eight percent of Darden's stock, criticizes Olive Garden harshly. The presentation uses clear, specific message titles, discussed in Chapter 10, and the word choices are direct.

  Darden PPT

The presentation is a good example of mixing text and graphics in a PowerPoint report.

Discussion Starters:

  • Read the message titles across the report. Do you find a cohesive argument?
  • Which pages work best, and which could be improved? Assess the balance of text and graphics and how clearly main points are conveyed.
  • Assess the strong language. Is this appropriate for the audience? What are the possible consequences?