Category: Business

Key Aspects of Simon School Brand

QUESTION 1

Briefly describe what you believe are the key aspects of Simon School brand. Given this brand description, discuss one action that the school takes that helps build/maintain the brand. Discuss one action that the school takes that hurts the brand. Discuss a potential marketing activity that would help build the brand. Actions related to increasing awareness only cannot be discussed.

QUESTION 2

For a brand of your choice, briefly describe what you believe the brand is and answer two (2) of the following questions:

• Does the brand’s spokesperson build the brand?
• Does the brand’s packaging build the brand?
• Does the brand’s logo build the brand?
• Does the brand’s slogan build the brand? 

QUESTION 3

Ashton Kutcher has taken a job as a product engineer/spokesperson for Lenovo (the attached article provides a few scanty details).  Discuss the potential pros and cons to Lenovo of aligning its brand with Mr. Kutcher.

Article:

Meet Lenovo’s newest product engineer: Ashton Kutcher

October 30, 2013, 9:39 AM

Getty Images

Ashton Kutcher at the Yoga tablet launch in L.A.

First he played a tech guru. Now he’s ready to try it out in real life.

Ashton Kutcher, star of Hollywood biopic “Steve Jobs”, has signed up as a product engineer at Lenovo /quotes/zigman/21902/realtimeHK: 992 /quotes/zigman/346332/delayed/quotes/nls/lnvgyLNVGY to “develop and market” its new line of Yoga tablets.

Kutcher — a would-be biochemical engineer, let’s not forget — will help the Chinese PC maker “break new ground” with his “input and decision-making into design, specifications, software and usage”, Lenovo said on Tuesday.

First up for the “Two and a Half Men” star, though, was a role onstage demoing the Yoga at its Los Angeles launch, with his Lenovo company badge proudly on show. He’s also done a video promo for the tablet.

Note that hiring a celeb is a tried-and-tested move in the tech world: Think Will.i.am at Intel, Alicia Keys at BlackBerry (yeah, that really worked) and Lady Gaga at Polaroid. All enlisted for “creative” roles — and probably in hopes some of their glamour will rub off on product lines.

But it’s clear Kutcher is aware of the brickbats that might be coming his way.

“I’m an actual product engineer,” he told Wired. “I know that’s hard for people to understand because so many of these [celebrity endorsements] have been vanity products. I actually am less interested in the color of the phone or tablet than in how it works.”

Kutcher does have a track record in tech. He’s an investor in a bunch of online service providers — Airbnb, Foursquare and Spotify, among others — and is behind Thorn, a foundation that uses digital tools to combat the sexual exploitation of children.

With that kind of resume, he may well be able to give Lenovo some tips.

– Karen Friar

 

McAdam Case Study Questions and Answers

442 McAdam 9B16B010 from Ivey

 

The McAdam case is short. Four pages.  The questions below focus on the financial aspects of the case.  The objective of this exercise is to demonstrate just how much information can be obtained by using arithmetic for a quantitative analysis.

Instructions:

1. Please provide a written response to questions.
2. Due: Before class Week 6. Send as a Word document to
3. Label you answer document as follows: your first name and last name assignment name

 

Questions	Level 1 – Solid understanding of the facts	Level 2 – Summary observations of the situation	Level 3 – Options, conclusions, recommendations
1. What are Shell’s goals for McAdam?		1

 

 

 

2. Calculate McAdam’s unit sales projections for 2016 and 2017. Use the table below.

2

 

	Retail Store Sales	Online Sales	Total Unit Sales
Projected Fiscal 2016
Projected Fiscal 2017

 

 

 

 

 

3. Calculate the manufacturers’ minimum order sizes.

2

 

	# of different handbags (5 designs X 4 Colours X 2 seasons) X minimum manufacturer’s order size per # of different handbags	Manufacturers’ Minimum Order
Local
Overseas

 

 

 

4. Subtract unit sales projections from minimum manufacturer orders This table shows the number of handbags in excess of projected sales.

1

 

	Local Manufacturer – Extra Handbags	Overseas Manufacturer – Extra Handbags
Projected Fiscal 2016
Projected Fiscal 2017

 

 

 

 

 

5. Calculate how much money Shell will make for each unit sold (unit contribution) for local and international manufacturing. Then, calculate the unit contribution as a percentage of the wholesale and online sales prices (Contribution Margin Rate). Use the tables below.

2

 

Local Manufacturer

	Unit Contribution	Contribution Margin Rate
Wholesale (sales to retail stores)
Online (direct sales to customer)

 

International Manufacturer

	Unit Contribution	Contribution Margin Rate
Wholesale (sales to retail stores)
Online (direct sales to customer)

 

 

 

6. Based on, and referencing, your mathematical analysis, above, what two or three conclusions do you draw?		2
Total 10				10

 

Xen Inc is a Raleigh based manufacturing and marketing company that markets three product groups in Asia Europe and North America

Xen Inc. is a Raleigh based manufacturing and marketing company that markets three product groups in Asia, Europe and North America. The product groups are: washers, dryers, and ovens. Xen management is happy regarding the financial and quality performance for dryers and ovens, but is not satisfied with washers. Washer has been the bread and butter product line for the company and contributes over 50% of the company’s total revenue until 2017. 70% of washer sales have been in the US market which management thinks is not very profitable. The rest
of around 30% of washer sales which are overseas seems to be doing well.
Total number of washers sold has been down by 15% for 2018 and 12% for 2019, taking 2017 sales as the base line. Profit from washers has gone down by 16% in 2018 and 15% in 2019 compared to 2017 numbers. The reasons for these seem to be:
Prices had to be lowered three times during the last two years due to entry of cheap Korean and Chinese brands in the US market, Costs for production, distribution, and overall inventory maintenance have gone up compared to cost level of 2017, Several customer complaints have been received for Xen washers, Rejection rates at inspection stations in the company have been increasing, and On analysis, it has been found that the cost to manufacture the Korean washer is around 80% of Xen washer’s cost.
Assume that Xen management hired you on February 10, 2020 as the Director of Operations for their washer division to solve problems and improve the business based on your impressive background and expertise in Lean manufacturing, Lean Enterprise, quality assurance, technology project management, inventory planning, CIM, strategy formulation, investment and cost analysis.
The Xen board of directors and CEO are very impressed by your first progress report of April5, 2020 ( assume it is a normal business situation, COVID 19 epidemic is not there). Your report includes quality, productivity and cost improvement recommendations for the washer product division. You have clearly stated that the recommendations will solve most of the problems and substantially improve business. You have also mentioned that the recommendations will be fully implemented in 12 months, along with the conducting of a follow up study on performance indices. Further you have indicated that you would like to have the kickoff date for your recommendations as January 25, 2021. You have included various appendices on the various work elements of the project supported by relevant data that you have compiled based on one month study and analysis on various manufacturing, quality, procurement, distributions, customer complaint related documents. Based on the
above, prepare your report to answer the following questions:
1. List your recommendations for making improvements. Prepare a project activity relationship and flow chart, and create a critical path to complete the work within your planned time horizon.

2. Show costs (assume based on your experience or collect from outside by conducting some research) for each project work element. Include costs for training of personnel in Lean principles, emerging, and new technologies ( as relevant) .
3. Estimate total cost of implementing your recommendations with appropriate overhead and overruns.
4. Assume market price for a washer (you may collect from on line sources or estimate based on your experience) and assume a 15% profit in the price. Consider Xen manufactures and sells 750 washers /week. Show cost benefit analysis for implementing your recommendations with appropriate assumptions.
5. Conduct a value stream mapping analysis for the production steps based on the process flow diagram that you envisioned and given below. Estimate overall throughput, % rejection/scrap, reliability, %VAT, % employee efficiency, and other applicable metric as appropriate. In the diagram shown below: SM1, SM2, SM3 represent machines in the sheet metal line, OTH1, OTH2, etc., represent other items lines, and AS1,
AS2, etc., represent the assembly line. Consider production target quantity mentioned in question 4).
6. Prepare an envisioned future state value stream map. Assume working days, shift hours, and breaks to show and compute the value stream related measures.
7. Assume Xen wants to make and sell 900 units per week in 2021. Estimate steps and strategy that you will recommend to comply with the increased demand. Consider option of adding automated machinery (including FMS, automated conveyors, etc.) or sub-contracting manufacturing to Korea, China, or some local company.
8. To reduce cost of inputs you may decide your strategy from options of getting components from Korea, China or India, or you may decide to develop a Lean approach based on partnering relationships with your current suppliers to reduce costs. Show plans, steps, and justification for each strategy.
9. Describe your planned steps/action plans to improve production process quality to obtain 0% rejection from manufacturing (compared to current as may be obtainable from flow diagram below) and zero customer complaints. At present Xen Inc. have at least 5 complaints per month that you reported in an appendix of your April 5, 2020 report.
10. Assume that you plan to implement Statistical Process capability (SPC) and monitor process capability. Explain the steps that you will take to implement SPC using an example. Show your obtained SPC based on your assumed data and analysis for the example.

11. Prepare a comprehensive list for quality, productivity, and cost improvement steps that you included in steps 3-8. For each step include appropriate metric.

You are the supply chain manager for your company, and last month your work required you to travel to Germany

You are the supply chain manager for your company, and last month your work required you to travel to Germany. When you arrived at the Frankfurt Airport, you rented from Auto-Rent, Inc. a Volkswagen Passat for six days. You had no problems or accidents with the car and returned it October 23 full of gas. When you checked it back in at the end of the six days, the agent checked the car and did not find any damage.

Now, three weeks later, you receive an email from Auto-Rent, Inc. stating that your credit card has been charged 220 euros for damage to the left-rear side panel of the car. The email includes a picture of the damage, which looks like another vehicle scraped the panel. Auto-Rent justifies the charge by saying that the receiving agent overlooked the damage during the check-in process, but discovered the problem later when the vehicle was going to be rented by someone else.

Fortunately, you took 8 pictures of the car’s exterior with your smartphone when you returned the car. The date of the photos on your smartphone is October 23—the date you returned the vehicle. Your photo of the left-rear side panel shows no damage. Write an email to Auto-Rent, persuading them to remove the charges. Attach a copy of the photo as evidence (you may just assume that the photo copy is attached or take a photo with your smart phone and attach that.) You are not sure how well the receiver of your email speaks English. Apply the principles you learned in chapters 2-4 of Writing and Speaking for Business
When you do the assignment, I expect the letter to look like a letter – not just one long paragraph. Also, when writing letter, you should apply OABC, which we previously discussed.

O – Opening
A – Agenda
B – Body
C – Closing
http://www.writingandspeakingforbusiness.com/blog/oabc-a-pattern-for-clear-business-communication

link to explaining OABC

Business Communications Persuasion Letter

Rental Car

You are the supply chain manager for your company, and last month your work required you to travel to Germany. When you arrived at the Frankfurt Airport, you rented from Auto-Rent, Inc. a Volkswagen Passat for six days. You had no problems or accidents with the car and returned it October 23 full of gas. When you checked it back in at the end of the six days, the agent checked the car and did not find any damage.

Now, three weeks later, you receive an email from Auto-Rent, Inc. stating that your credit card has been charged 220 euros for damage to the left-rear side panel of the car. The email includes a picture of the damage, which looks like another vehicle scraped the panel. Auto-Rent justifies the charge by saying that the receiving agent overlooked the damage during the check-in process, but discovered the problem later when the vehicle was going to be rented by someone else.

Fortunately, you took 8 pictures of the car’s exterior with your smartphone when you returned the car. The date of the photos on your smartphone is October 23—the date you returned the vehicle. Your photo of the left-rear side panel shows no damage. Write an email to Auto-Rent, persuading them to remove the charges. Attach a copy of the photo as evidence (you may just assume that the photo copy is attached or take a photo with your smart phone and attach that.) You are not sure how well the receiver of your email speaks English. Apply the principles you learned in chapters 2-4 of Writing and Speaking for Business
When you do the assignment, I expect the letter to look like a letter – not just one long paragraph. Also, when writing letter, you should apply OABC, which we previously discussed.

O – Opening
A – Agenda
B – Body
C – Closing
http://www.writingandspeakingforbusiness.com/blog/oabc-a-pattern-for-clear-business-communication

link to explaining OABC

Explain and provide examples of importing and exporting

Discussion Instructions (Initial Post is Require before “Viewing” Peer Posts): You are required to submit a substantial response. A substantial response is one that stays on topic and fully addresses the assignment in a clear, concise, and meaningful manner. Substantial Content refers to providing relevant content toward the actual topic of the discussions. This includes quality input, questions and information in your discussion
posts and responses to peers.
The deliverable length of initial posting must be at least 150 words. After the initial posting, students are required to respond to at least two (2) peers responses. Peer responses must be at least 50 words for each response, in order to receive full credit. Discussions must be the students original thoughts based on the topics from the “Open Educational Resource” (OER) Course Textbook and/or other referenced sources. Direct quotes from references must be less than 10 words. Please review postings for sentence structure, grammar and punctuation errors

Describe how companies reduce costs through contract manufacturing and outsourcing

Exercise Instructions: You are required to submit a 2-Page (Title Page and Content Page), APA formatted paper with substantial content.
Substantial content requires staying on topic and fully addresses the assignment in a clear, concise, and meaningful manner. The deliverable length of your posting responses must be at least 2-pages, (Title Page and Content Page) APA format.
Exercises must be the students original thoughts based on the topics from the “Open Educational Resource” (OER) Course Textbook and/or other referenced sources. Direct quotes from references must be less than 20 words. Please review for sentence structure, grammar and punctuation errors.
All assignment(s) derive from the OER Textbook. For academic purposes, at least 1 APA formatted reference is required pertaining to the
topic(s).
*text book link below*
https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/15

Examples of Outsourcing Determinants of Income Differences

Page 1 initial discussion
Page 2: Answer to follow up question from instructor (3-5 Sentences) and 2 responses to classmates (3-5 sentences each).
********************************************************
The first page will be for the intrusions down below.
Select one topic, then post and concisely defend your view. You may post to both topics, but are required to only select one for your initial post.
Be careful to identify the positive reasons for your normative position. Read and respond to your fellow student’s postings at will. The topics to choose from are:
1. Examples of Outsourcing. Identify one example of outsourcing that you have observed or desire to research. Be certain to apply the economic analysis of Chapter 28 in your post and tell us what you believe was the most significant economic factor in the outsourcing you described. Examine the labor and product markets involved. Lastly, should there be any changes you would favor to any laws or regulations that accommodated the outsourcing?
2. Determinants of Income Differences. Identify one of the determinants of income differences as enumerated in Chapter 30 which you have personally observed or desire to research. Be certain to tell us what you believe was the most significant economic factor in determining the wages for the labor market you selected. Lastly, should there be any changes you would favor to income policies and why?
Note: A post that merely recites an example, without offering economic analysis or responding to the questions assigned, garners few points.
******************Examples of Outsourcing Determinants of Income Differences**********************************
Once you submit the first page to me the second page will come from a follow up question from the professor regarding the submission (3-5 sentences) and a response to a fellow student’s postings (3 -5 sentences). Once you get the first page complete I can get you the follow up question as well as the fellow students posting to respond to.
Use this source: Miller, Roger LeRoy. Economics Today with access to MyEconLab. 19th ed, New Jersey: Pearson, 2017.

Costing Systems As it relates to Ezra and Nehemiah

The paper topic is costing systems – job costing & activity-based costing and how it relates to Ezra rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem and Nehemiah rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem.

My assignment is to complete only the abstract, introduction and conclusion of the paper based on the information that is attached which is from my other classmates in my group.

Everything must flow as if one person wrote it.

The Thesis Statement for this paper is: Costing systems are evidenced in the Bible with Ezra’s reconstruction of the temple, and Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem.

The introduction should include the thesis statement.

The conclusion should tie the costing systems to Ezra and Nehemiah and sum up the analysis with the introduction.

Sources aren’t necessary, but if used the source should come from sources already used from the other parts of the paper and/or the bible.

Steps for Error Correcting in Accounting

500 words, APA 7th edition

Some inventory errors are said to be self-correcting in that the error has the opposite financial statement in the period following the error, thereby correcting the original account balance error.

Required:
Despite this self-correcting features, discuss why these errors should not be ignored and describe the steps required to account for the error correction.

Business Research Strategic Agility

First, read: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2017/05/22/the-four-keys-you-need-to-achieve-strategic-agility/#57c869b27da8

Second, Research a reasonable example of “strategic agility” as it relates to business practices and place the url on discussions with your post of a one paragraph reflection.

PAIBOC stands for purpose, audience, information, benefits, objections and context.

Read:

You are the owner of the second largest cruise line in the world. You have 7 different cruise ships that sail all areas of the globe. As second, one of your main goals is to become #1. Your company prides itself on customer service and you believe that this avenue affords you the best opportunity to become #1.
Your largest ship, the “World Traveler” can accommodate 10,000 passengers. During a November cruise in the Southern Caribbean, while docked at Barbados Islands, 5,500 passengers became sick from food poisoning. People from America, Mexico, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy were all part of those who got sick. As it turns out, over 3000 people reported sick but only after returning from excursions on the island.
This situation could represent a possible setback to achieving your #1 position in the world unless it is handled properly. So after extensive discussions with your board of directors, it was decided to not only fully refund all passengers that were aboard this cruise (whether they got sick or not), but to provide for a free cruise on any of your ships at any time throughout the year in any part of the world for up to a 7 days and 8 night’s cruise. Passengers are responsible for the cost of getting to and from the point of debarkation to meet the ship.

Instructions:
Develop a PAIBOC that displays your intent as the owner to address the customer service issues encountered by this outbreak of food poisoning. Then, write a generic letter to all passengers explaining what happened, why it happened, what the cruise line intends to do to prevent the situation from happening again, and the remedy to appease each passenger. You will need to be sensitive to the diversity of the passenger pool from three perspectives: gender, race, and nationality. It is extremely important that you do not offend one or more of these groups of passengers in your attempt to keep them as part of your customer base. Note: pay particular attention to the in-class discussion about the subtleties of this problem before beginning this assignment. Turn in your PAIBOC with your written paper.

International Political Economy

In the debate over the effectiveness of foreign aid (effectiveness being “foreign aid sent for reason X actually makes condition X better in that country”), the Cold War has become an important variable. What was it about the Cold War (and its end) that had such a big impact on foreign aid effectiveness? Why did this change happen?

Drafting a Business Proposal for Your Workplace
Points  t0 Submitting an external tool Available after Aug 31 at 12am

Evaluate

Please read the following to prepare for completing the activity.

Bovée, C. L., & Thill, J. V. (2018). Business communication today (14th ed.). Pearson.
Chapter 15: Writing and Completing Reports and Proposals

Lagerwerf, L., & Bossers, E. (2002). Assessing business proposals: Genre conventions and audience response in document design. (Links to an external site.) Journal of Business Communication, 39(4), 437-460.

Films Media Group. (2007). Advanced sales techniques: Challenge no. 6: Writing a great proposal. (Links to an external site.) (1:51 minutes). This video is closed captioned.
For this assignment, you are writing an ungraded draft of a formal proposal for your workplace which will be reviewed by your instructor. You have or will very soon receive feedback on an earlier draft from your classmates. You should use that feedback as you write this draft or your final draft next week. In this ungraded assignment, you will refine your thinking in order to draft a full proposal on something realistic that you can support with credible information for a specific audience and context.

Your initial audience for this proposal is your immediate supervisor, but it’s entirely possible that your supervisor will forward the proposal up the chain of command and may also ask you to develop a presentation for the C-Suite if he or she thinks your plan is worthy of further consideration. (In fact, in Module 8 you will adapt your proposal for a persuasive presentation to the executives or to senior management).

For this rough draft, write at least the introduction; body; conclusions and recommendations; and references sections. (A full example of a report and proposal format can be found in Chapter 15 of Bovée and Thill).

Be sure to include the business situation and context – your organization and/or unit, the name and title of your audience, and the specifics of the workplace opportunity or issue. You will add the other elements in Module 7 when you revise the proposal for final submission and grading. Your rough draft should be at least 4 or 5 double-spaced pages and include a minimum of three sources to support your proposal.

While you will use secondary sources to support your proposal, also include any existing data at your workplace and explain any “next steps” for additional primary research that might be needed to support your proposal. In addition, consider how you will assess the results of your proposed action. Your proposal will identify the positive outcomes on your organization, so your manager will want to know how you plan to assess the outcomes you identify.

NOTE: Whenever appropriate, include a visual element in your proposal. You should do so if you believe your proposal would be more effective with a chart, graph, illustration, or other visual aid, given the subject matter and the needs of your audience.

Submission Instructions
Your paper should be submitted as a Word document (.doc, .docx or .rtf) file and adhere to the following guidelines:

Include a title page with your name, the paper title, and the course name.
It paper should be  4-5 pages in length (not including the title and the reference pages).
Your paper should be double-spaced, in an appropriate font, with a font size between 10 and 12 point.
The margins should not exceed 1″ on all sides.
Follow this naming convention for your file before submitting it: LastnameFirstinitialModulenumber-Assignmentnumber. For example: DoeJM6-3.

Document all sources according to APA Style. (Links to an external site.) Follow APA guidelines for formatting, (Links to an external site.) including the title and reference page.

Compose your work using a word processor (or other software as appropriate) and save it frequently to your computer. Be sure to check your work and correct any spelling or grammatical errors before you upload it. When you are ready to submit your work, click “Browse My Computer” and find your file. Once you have located your file, click “Open” and, if successful, the file name will appear under the Attached files heading. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Submit.”

Evaluation
This Evaluate activity is not graded, although the Proposal Assignment Grading Rubric Preview the documentwill be used to provide you with comments needed for revision.
This assignment uses TurnItIn.

References

Outcomes RubricPreview the document

Return to Learning Pathway

The following content is partner provided

Business Plan Prepare a mission and vision statement for the idea in which you prepared a feasibility study

Business Plan: Prepare a mission and vision statement for the idea in which you prepared a feasibility study. This mission and vision will become part of the business plan that you will develop throughout the remainder of this course.

Business Plan Prepare a mission and vision statement for the idea in which you prepared a feasibility study

Business Plan: Prepare a mission and vision statement for the idea in which you prepared a feasibility study. This mission and vision will become part of the business plan that you will develop throughout the remainder of this course.