1. What are your recommendations for this company in order to be more ethical (for both internal and external stakeholders)? Be creative in this.

Even organizations as large and successful as State Farm Insurance have to plan for the future. Without planning, strategies can become obsolete as the environment changes, and organizations can miss opportunities for growth. In short, an organization without adequate planning has no sense of direction or purpose and risks becoming mired in the present or the past. For State Farm, planning involved helping customers plan for their future.

State Farm has been a leader in the highly competitive insurance industry for more than   80 years. The company, proclaimed in its ads as being “like a good neighbor,” has been at the forefront of insuring customer liabilities. With 16,000 exclusive insurance agents across the United States, State Farm management believed it had a perfect opportunity to add more financial services. The deregulation of the banking industry in 1999 and the explosion of the Internet paved the way to achieving this goal. Today, State Farm Bank offers traditional services like loans and deposit accounts, but without actual bank buildings and at lower fees. Clients can do every typical banking transaction either on-line, over the telephone via State Farm’s 24/7 call center, through ATM machines, or through the same agents that sell the company’s insurance products.

State Farm’s move into banking was no simple matter. To protect consumers, it has had to meet requirements keeping the line between insurance and banking very clear. The State Farm insurance company provides insurance products and services and is required by law to be separate from the State Farm banking company that offers loans and deposit instruments. The State Farm mutual fund organization is yet another separate entity providing mutual funds through agents. Since State Farm mixes multiple businesses, it doesn’t have the same flexibility as traditional banks. For example, State Farm Bank doesn’t provide loans directly through automobile dealerships. It is subject to federal banking laws rather than state laws because it is technically a thrift institution, a category that includes savings banks and savings and loan organizations.  

Diversifying into different businesses is creating new opportunities for State Farm, and banking services is natural fit. Agents find that their insurance review is the perfect opportunity to bring up the topic of financial services and to make customers aware of their company’s available services. Now when clients buy a new car or change insurance coverage, an agent can offer to help them with the loan; it’s a natural to talk about auto insurance and auto financing. Perhaps the best example of the flexibility State Farm can offer customers is found in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Customers with mortgages through State Farm Bank received two 90-day extensions on loan payments. State Farm also forgave the interest on credit cards and allowed customers to miss payments for a period of time.

For now, State Farm Bank is focused on growing the business among current customers and adding new ones as clients refer friends and relatives. A unique bank with tremendous resources, State Farm Bank sees excellent opportunities to expand business beyond retail customers.

In summary: State Farm Bank resulted from the insurance company’s plan to diversify into the financial services sector. With more than 16,000 agents selling insurance products nationwide, moving into banking services was a natural fit, though not a simple transition. Now when State Farm agents talk to customers about homeowner or auto insurance they can also discuss financing options. State Farm Bank presents tremendous growth opportunities for State Farm.

1. What is the impact of State Farm Bank on the society?

2. What is a market segment (s)? Describe whether the State Farm Bank is working B2C or B2B? or both?

3. What are the prominent values State Farm Bank’s founders should have held?

The world post Covid 19 has created the concept of social distancing which will impact on the way we do business. Online purchasing is expected to increase because it will reduce human interaction and contribute to the reduction of Covid 19 related illnesses. However, online purchases have created contemporary legal issues which may be a novel for most legal systems in several Caribbean Countries.

You are required to critically discuss the concept of online purchases and the various methods used in online transactions with supporting case laws.

Secondly, critically discuss FIVE (5) CONTEMPORY CASE LAWS related to online purchasing at the International Level, focusing on the judgements handed down in those cases and most importantly how do you think that will impact on the Caribbean online purchaser.

Finally, bearing in mind your answers above; what do you think (your opinion) that Caribbean Governments can initiate via its legal systems to enhance and protect online purchasers legal rights?

1. What artifacts, espoused values, enacted values and norms, and assumptions demonstrate the culture of Southwest Airlines?

.Centralized and decentralized service offer some challenges to the food service .what are these challenges and how they are best addressed please explain ?

7)If a venture does not have the potential to be scaled up and capture a significant share of a market then venture capital may not be an appropriate funding source. True or False?

8) Base your answers on data at Crunchbase.com. The pre-money value of Zoom before the series A funding round was $6 million.  True or False?

9)Successful venture capital investing depends on finding and financing companies that offer “big market” opportunities.  True or False?

10)The risk of overvaluing a venture in an early venture capital round is that future investors may be unwilling to buy additional shares at this high valuation and this could starve the company of essential capital.  True or False?

What are some of the intended and unintended consequences of using recommendation engines? Explain in 3 sentences

HOW NEW YORK GOVERNOR AND THE US GOVERNOR GOT IT WRONG ELDER DURING THE CORONA VIRUS OUTBREAK

Please I need more explanation and details for this question.

A nurse manager in an urgent care clinic must develop a weekly schedule for nursing staff. Nurses in the clinic work four days a week with three consecutive days off. The staff requirement is twenty nurses each day. Solve this problem using Excel Solver.

What role does culture play on managers in global situations. For example, a US firm in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Singapore or Germany would all face different problems from a cultural perspective. What about a foreign venture into North America.

What are some of the key skills required to be an effective manager at a Camp Bow Wow franchise? 200 word min

You have joined a northern mail order company selling winter coats. You have the coat sales by quarter for the last three years.

Year 1 Qtr 1, 24 Winter Coats Qtr 2, 12 Qtr 3, 20 Qtr 4, 36 Year 2 Qtr 1, 28 Winter Coats Qtr 2, 10 Qtr 3, 22 Qtr 4, 40 Year 3 Qtr 1, 32 Winter coats Qtr 2, 14 Qtr 3, 27 Qtr 4, 44

Use linear regression to forecast the total coats to be sold in year 4 in thousands. For the equation Y = aX + b give "a".   ____ (two decimals) Give "b" ____ (two decimals)

Give the forecast for the fourth year? ____ (two decimals)Next use the quarters to generate seasonal factors. Give the season factor for quarter one? ____ (two decimals)

Give the season factor for quarter two? _____ (two decimals)Give the season factor for quarter three? _____ (two decimals) Give the season factor for quarter four? ______ (two decimals) Give the forecasted sales for quarter one? ______ (All answers remaining to two decimals) Quarter two? ______Quarter three? ______Quarter four? _____

Abby:

Firstly, I’d like to welcome everyone to this very important strategy meeting. As you should know, the purpose of today’s meeting is to agree a clear direction for our continued growth. We are faced with a number of growth choices. Bianca, could you please outline the first option?

Bianca:

Certainly – the first option is to expand the product range of our pretzels – to introduce different flavor pretzels and in various size packaging. This appears to be a suitable direction when you consider the chip/crisp market. There has been a significant increase in chip/crisp flavors in recent years. This means that consumers clearly like variety.

Corey:         

I can understand your point, but my concern is the limited size of the pretzel market, whereas the chip market is huge. I mean, if you bring out, say ham and cheese flavored chips, then even with a small market share, you will probably still do all right. But you can’t do the same thing in the pretzel market – because you’ll simply end up with a small share of a small market, which would simply not be viable.

David:            

I’ll have to agree. That’s why I think that we should be looking to leverage our brand into other product categories. What about ‘Presto Nuts’ or “Presto Crackers’ or even “Presto Chips”? This strategy makes a lot of sense as our own market research shows that ‘Presto’ is becoming a strong brand.

Ellie:               

Yes sure, the brand has value, but it’s clearly associated with pretzels in the mind of the consumer. Our research also says that the brand owns the pretzel market. When consumers think pretzels, they think Presto. I would be very concerned that leveraging the brand into other product categories would dilute the value of the brand.

Fiona:

I share the same concerns as Ellie. And also remember that we initially chose the name ‘Presto’ because it sounded good with pretzels – you know ‘Presto Pretzels’. For me, ‘Presto Nuts’ or “Presto Crackers’ doesn’t have the same impact. But David did highlight some attractive markets – maybe we should consider entering those product categories, but under a different brand?

Graham:

Actually, I have been thinking about that. We already have the capabilities in the production of snack food and we also have established relationships with the key retailers. It would make sense to look at nuts or snack biscuits. And if we don’t want to use the Presto brand, we could simply name it something else.

Heath:

That might work. But it’s taken us a long time to build the Presto brand. I’m not sure whether there are enough marketing funds available to support the building of another brand.

Isabella:

Plus there is no guarantee that our existing retailers are looking for another nut, cracker, or chip brand to sell in their stores. Part of the reason we were successful in getting into retailers was that there wasn’t a lot of other pretzel manufacturers that could supply nationally in the quantities required.

Jade:

That was true in the beginning. But we’ve done a lot to grow the pretzel market in Australia. Therefore, it’s only a matter of time before we have a lot more competition in this market. That’s why I’m proposing that we introduce another pretzel brand to compete against Presto. I think that would dissuade some competitors from entering the market (if they think it’s too competitive).

Kevin:

That’s a good idea, but we also run the risk of cannibalization, where the new brand simply steals the sales from Presto. We could end up doing twice the work for the same sales result.

Luke:

And another concern is that a second brand might signal to potential competitors that this is becoming an attractive market (because new players are entering it). So there’s a chance that instead of reducing competition, this approach might actually increase it.

QUESTIONS

1. Classify the major viewpoints above, into the categories of:

• Line extensions ( i want names from above)
• Brand extensions ( i want names from above)
• Multi-brands ( i want names from above)
• New brands ( i want names from above)

Nowadays, many firms have become or more striving to become learning organizations.Discuss why firms recognize this practice is important for continuous performance-related training and development programs.

Provide detailed explanation.