Questions
Please I need more explanation and details for this question. A nurse manager in an urgent...

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.

In: Operations Management

What role does culture play on managers in global situations. For example, a US firm in...

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.

In: Operations Management

What are some of the key skills required to be an effective manager at a Camp...

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

In: Operations Management

You have joined a northern mail order company selling winter coats. You have the coat sales...

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? _____

In: Operations Management

Abby: Firstly, I’d like to welcome everyone to this very important strategy meeting. As you should...

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)

In: Operations Management

Nowadays, many firms have become or more striving to become learning organizations.Discuss why firms recognize this...

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.

In: Operations Management

Choose two business or political leaders, one who has used the Mirror and Window correctly in...

Choose two business or political leaders, one who has used the Mirror and Window correctly in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis and one who has used them incorrectly and justify your answers.

In: Operations Management

You are the Human Resources (HR) Manager of Australian Travel InsuranceCo, founded in May 2018, which...

You are the Human Resources (HR) Manager of Australian Travel InsuranceCo, founded in May 2018, which specialises in providing travel insurance and advice to travellers. Australian Travel InsuranceCo has rapidly grown to be a market leader in providing travel insurance, with consistently strong ratings and reviews. The company has also expanded considerably in only a short amount of time, from 10 staff initially, to now employing 35 ‘Travel Specialists’ in its Sydney office. All staff provide tailored advice to customers via phone and email as well as process insurance claims received. The CEO, Mark Strong, believes the company can improve on its already exceptional performance and be the market leader in this sector.
The group of 35 staff, managed by 5 team leaders, have developed a strong sense of collegiality working together at the Sydney office. In addition to having regular company lunches and a competitive table tennis tournament, there was a high level of morale amongst workers.
Inspired from his reading in practitioner magazines about the benefits of flexible working practices for individual and company performance, Strong saw value in considering how the company could work more flexibly. With Sydney rental prices increasing, Strong also believed the company could save money on some of its overheads by having fewer staff needing to come into the office each day. Strong was also inspired by his reading of the new ‘in vogue’ way to appraise performance – holding regular performance ‘conversations’ instead of an annual performance review. Strong is a strong believer of evidence-based Human Resource Management practice and thought the company’s new approach would follow a new trend in performance management he had been reading about. Following discussions with other members of senior management in late 2019, the company introduced a modified performance management system and a new flexible working policy in January 2020.
Before the announcement, each team of Travel Specialists would set their annual performance goals with their Team Leader in January. In July, Team Leaders would conduct a mid-year check-in to see how each team was performing against the set targets. Each team of Travel Specialists were measured on how many insurance claims they closed each month and their quality of customer service, judged by star ratings received from customers at the close of each claim and customer comments. Each team would then receive a final appraisal and single performance score in December. This was linked to salary increases for the following year and an annual bonus for the best performing team.
Under the new performance management system, Travel Specialists would now have their performance measured on an individual basis. Instead of an annual performance appraisal, Travel Specialists would have individual performance feedback sessions every 6 weeks with their Team Leader. Each session would have a particular ‘theme’, such as ‘strengths’, ‘growth’ or ‘my values’. There would still be consideration of the Travel Specialist’s KPI’s (claims closed each month) and ratings from customer feedback. Strong believed this was a way to build more ‘individual accountability’ for performance outcomes. Under the new flexible working policy, staff were also encouraged to start working ‘remotely’ from their home for 3 days each week.
Mark Strong held a meeting with senior management and Team Leaders 2 months into the operation of the new policies to receive feedback. The feedback was disappointing to say the least. Travel Specialists and Team Leaders felt under pressure to constantly discuss performance issues and were given no extra time to complete these discussions (the same KPI’s still had to be met). The ‘themes’ did not seem so relevant either to help in improve their performance. Despite Strong’s desire to achieve some cost savings, morale was dropping from Travel Specialists frequently working remotely. Team Leaders have also reported less staff engagement. Some Travel Specialists are consistently late to virtual team meetings and others aren’t communicating with their Team Leaders in a timely manner.
Strong is pleased with the cost savings being made, but less pleased with business having declined 10% in the last month. Customers are also receiving poorer service. While Travel Specialists previously received consistent 4/5 and 5/5 ratings for customer service, since January 2020 ratings have fallen to 3/5 on average.
Strong isn’t keen on reverting to the ‘old’ ways of working, but still sees some value in the new performance and working practices that have been introduced, seeing these practices as the way of the future based on his reading from practitioner magazines. Help is needed to refine the company’s performance management practices and recommend solutions.



Questions:

1. As the HR Manager of Australian Travel InsuranceCo, identify and analyse the problems at the company in relation to performance management.

2. Recommend two practical solutions for Australian Travel InsuranceCo to help in refining and improving their performance management practices.



In answering both sections of this task, you are required to draw upon relevant performance management theories and concepts in identifying and analysing problems and recommending solutions.

In: Operations Management

passage require analysis and breakdown A budget is a detailed plan, expressed in quantitative terms, that...

passage require analysis and breakdown







A budget is a detailed plan, expressed in quantitative terms, that specifies how resources will be acquired and used during a specified period (Hilton, 2016).
My current company is in the service industry. The following few budgets are prepared and maintained in the company on a quarterly basis: cash budget, operating budget, and human resources budget. For each line of service, a separate budget is prepared to decide the number of members for each team. Since each team member is to be paid salary for the work, therefore a limited number of personnel can be employed keeping in consideration the cost.
Cash budget details the company’s inflows and outflows during the quarter. It helps in prioritizing payments in the budget period. Its primary purpose is to provide the status of the company’s cash position at any given time. The cash budget plays a critical role in planning the firm’s cash needs. Not only does it summarize the various cash inflows and outflows from operations, as represented in the cash receipts and cash disbursements budgets discussed above, but it also incorporates nonoperational cash flows and addresses financing issues (Hilton, 2016).
Revenues and associated expenses are monitored with the operating budgets to keep the daily expenses within the limits and achieve the targeted revenues.
Human resources budget includes recruiting and hiring, training and development, employee safety and wellness, etc. Timing of the budgeting process begins 4 to 6 months before the start of the financial year and is monitored on a financial basis against the actuals.
Our company is small and even though budgets and forecast are implemented, based on Hilton’s steps on developing and implementing a budget, our company can benefit by implementing or improving in some areas. The informality of the ways its run leaves us with some flexibility in the budgeting process, but we can incorporate new ways to improve the outcomes.

In: Operations Management

South Africa is a unique country with differing cultures: following on this; 1. critically analyze the...

South Africa is a unique country with differing cultures: following on this;

1. critically analyze the four-level levels of conceptualization of Leadership; and then

2. Decide which level of conceptualization of Leadership suits this community best and prepare a systematic exposition that supports your decision.

In: Operations Management

Operations Management 1- What is the Operations sector and what administrative jobs can be found there?...

Operations Management
1- What is the Operations sector and what administrative jobs can be found there?
2- What are the other sectors of a company and what support do they give to Operations?
3- What does the modern consumer ask for?
4- What is a company's strategy and why is it important to take it into consideration in the
Operations management?
5- What is a company's competitiveness and how does it affect the economy of a nation?
6- What do they mean and what are the core competencies?
7- What does productivity measure and how is it interpreted?

In: Operations Management

1- Physical restrictions on the order in which operations are performed on an assembly line are...

1-

Physical restrictions on the order in which operations are performed on an assembly line are referred to as precedence requirements.

Select one:

True

False

2-

Assembly line balancing operates under one constraint.

Select one:

True

False

3-

Muther’s grid is a format for displaying manager preferences for department locations.

Select one:

True

False

4-

Shipbuilding is an example of a fixed-position layout.

Select one:

True

False

5-

Cycle time is no different than flow time.

Select one:

True

False

6-

Cellular layouts reduce transit time and set-up time but they increase in-process inventory.

Select one:

True

False

7-

A product layout requires multidirectional material and product flows.

Select one:

True

False

8-

Cellular layouts attempt to combine the flexibility of process layouts with the efficiency of product layouts.

Select one:

True

False

9-

Inefficiency is a disadvantage of a process layout.

Select one:

True

False

10-

Most service organizations use process layouts.

Select one:

True

False

In: Operations Management

Reflect upon the course and provide a brief summary of the topics/concepts that you found most...

Reflect upon the course and provide a brief summary of the topics/concepts that you found most interesting and relevant to your career. Does any of the material need to be addressed more thoroughly or clarified?

Please list references.

In: Operations Management

What are the options that might be considered in relation to introducing flexible work practices? What...

What are the options that might be considered in relation to introducing flexible work practices? What are any barriers to change and the pros and cons of possible changes?

In: Operations Management

What forms of advertising and promotion does Walmart use? What role does personal selling fulfill for...

What forms of advertising and promotion does Walmart use? What role does personal selling fulfill for Walmart?

*Please include resources*

In: Operations Management