Complete a qualitative risk assessment and response planning of each of the risks identified below. Use at least 1 of each of the threat risk response strategies for your response planning.

RISKS:

1. Project and purpose not well defined

2. Scope Creep

3. Project schedule is not clearly defined or understood

4. Lack of communication causing lack of clarity and confusion

5. No control over staff priorities

6. Delay in earlier project phases jeopardizes ability to meet fixed date

7. Unresolved project conflicts not escalated in a timely manner

8. Contractor delays

9. Added workload or time requirements because of new direction or policy

10. Stakeholder action delays project.

Rubric

1. Identify an organization that has achieved ISO 9000 certification and write a short paper (roughly one page) that summarizes the benefits and results that the organization has achieved using ISO 9000.
2. Find a customer satisfaction survey from a restaurant or a hotel and submit it along with your group report as an attachment. How do the questions relate to the five dimensions of service quality introduced in Chapter 2? Discuss how the survey results could be used to control quality. What types of quality control charts might be used?
3. Research and briefly describe one or two lean initiatives in service organizations and then make an argument for or against adopting lean principles in service businesses. What is different about applying lean in a factory versus a service situation? Describe your findings in a one-page (roughly) paper.
4. Pick one of the projects , i.e., in one of your group member’s home, fraternity/sorority or business organization. List at least 7 activities that comprise the project and draw the precedence network. What problems did you encounter in doing this?

Case assignments must be completed with a written 1-page study on the assigned case questions in the textbook. The format requested for these assignments is based on elaborating and including two basic parts in the essay: 1) in a bullet presentation style (one phrase each bullet), list a summary of the key issues, situations, problems, opportunities and threats you may identify as relevant; 2) answer all the questions listed in each case in two or three sound paragraphs. Use the APA style for these assignments.

Case: The Borderfree Option: Going Global—simplified

E-commerce, by changing the way companies around the

world do business, makes international trade easier and

cheaper. Before the Internet, tracking down a product to

import, or finding foreign customers to export to, overwhelmed

the typical SME. Some relied on occasional trade

shows and expensive, time-consuming foreign travel to

identify possible products or assess potential suppliers.

Certainly, traders could tap local embassies or consulates

to support the export promotion or provide import assistance.

Although sounding straightforward, in practice these sorts

of options typically proved expensive and cumbersome.

Consequently, international trade was largely limited to big

companies that could afford to attend trade shows, translate

marketing materials, travel internationally, hire intermediaries,

and supervise the many activities that make up international trade.

Today, the Internet gives SMEs a cost-effective means

to manage these demands. It makes information on any

conceivable product from virtually any market readily and

inexpensively accessible. Falling trade barriers (due to

expanding cross-national trade agreements) along with

improving logistics options (courtesy of enterprising freight

forwarders and 3PLs) offer an array of trade possibilities.

The Internet, simply put, transforms whatever it

touches. It’s already the most powerful force for globalization,

democratization, economic growth, and education in

history. The same, we see, applies to the game of international

trade. As such, e-commerce is now inherently

global—just as the Internet knows no physical boundaries,

so too with Internet sales. Consumers’ growing disposable

income and interest in global brands, especially in a

screen-saturated world, highlights the potential of global

e-commerce.

Still, national markets differ in different sorts of ways—

ranging from market structure and growth dynamics to

consumer preferences and media consumption practices.

Staying ahead of trends, both national and global is no small

task. It calls for companies to study the demographics, psychographics,

preferences, and behaviors of the global consumer

landscape, identify how to manage payments and

collections, and organize supply chains that reflect when,

where what, and how consumers buy. Tough in just one

market, the task can grow stunningly complex when looking

at the 200-plus national markets or territories that compose

the global business environment.

Launch a Website, Go Global

Capturing those sales, along with riding expanding technologies,

has led many retailers to open websites with an

eye to opening export markets far and wide. Now, opening

a website, whether you like it or not, means you are global.

Consumers from anywhere and everywhere can go to your

website and, when there, do business. Done well, enterprising

companies can leverage cross-border e-commerce into

powerful international expansion. Done poorly, a retailer

wastes energy, effort, and equity. Despite best intentions, the challenges of international inexperience, currency ills,

payment problems, logistics challenges, and cultural contingencies

can prove daunting.

E-commerce’s growing potential spurs vendors to make

going global as simple as linking your current website

with their behind-the-scenes, back-office expertise. They

develop end-to-end solutions that break down barriers and

borders, thereby enabling a company to sell its products

worldwide with reduced effort.

These companies are not your typical e-commerce,

business-to-consumer model retailer, like Amazon, eBay, or

Alibaba. Moreover, they are unlike traditional logistics companies,

such as FedEx, DHL, UPS, and their core business

of delivering packages. Rather, these companies, such as

BorderJump, Venda, International Checkout, and Borderfree,

provide proprietary technology that enables retailers to

transact with customers in virtually every country and territory

worldwide.

Borderfree: Fine-Tuning the Global Game

Founded in 1999, Borderfree is headquartered in New York

City. It has offices in Dublin, London, Tel Aviv, Toronto, and

Shanghai. From these, Borderfree helps more than 200 retailers—

such as Neiman Marcus, Lands’ End, and Harrods—

conduct cross-border online sales in more than 220 countries

that are transacted in 74 currencies.

Borderfree manages retailers’ international shopping

experience, suggesting real-time merchandising insights and

marketing strategies to help it target international consumers,

whether through the web, mobile, or in-store channels. Then,

Borderfree’s systems seal the deal, administering multicurrency

pricing and payment processing, tending to fraud and

tax management, calculating landed costs, arranging customs

clearance and brokerage, and supervising logistics.

Borderfree’s mission declared its CEO, “is to make it

as simple as possible for online retailers to reach new consumers

and sell their products around the world globally.”

Added to its chief technology officer, the rise in global consumerism

means that “There’s a lot of growth still out there

for companies in the industry. Growth from a revenue perspective,

growth from a coverage perspective.”

Capturing that growth requires companies, both large

and small, overcome the barriers to buying and selling

internationally. Borderfree, by linking customers and companies

through tap-web and mobile platforms, helps consumers

worldwide shop across geographies and devices

while enabling companies to leverage their brand, inventory,

and expertise.

Arranging the Pieces

Borderfree’s turnkey installation system integrates with the

retailer’s e-commerce infrastructure. Moreover, it's plug-in

modules connect a retailer’s existing e-commerce infrastructure

and international operations. The end result is that

customers enter international markets quickly after a system

rollout. Moreover, Borderfree’s software helps its clients localize

the website experience, supporting country-specific

marketing messages, pricing strategies, international

checkouts with translation, local payment options, and fully

landed delivery quotes.

Operationally, a retailer can add plug-ins that track what

people are buying, where and when they are buying it, and

adjust promotions in real-time. On the service side, Borderfree

also manages international fraud, customs clearance,

and all global logistics. Collectively, Borderfree enables the

internationally ambitious retailer to quickly move from domestic

today to global tomorrow.

Borderfree works with retailers to optimize international

site experience based on local preferences, best practices,

and marketing customization. It provides targeted marketing

campaigns, data analysis and insight into prospective markets,

website localization, duty and tax compliance, pricing in different currencies, customs clearance, and customer

care. Harrods’ e-commerce director, for instance, explained,

“We were drawn to Borderfree’s ability to further enhance

our capacity to serve our customers seamlessly across geographies.

We also were particularly interested in partnering

with Borderfree to extend our reach into China and Russia,

two markets that hold great consumer promise for us.”

The director of e-commerce at The Dune Group, a fashion

footwear and accessories company that has over 300

stores and concessions in 24 countries, said that Borderfree

provides “potential growth opportunities in markets such as

South America, Africa, and Asia.” Likewise, the head of digital

at Trunci planned to use Borderfree’s platform to further its

growth in India, Japan, Ireland, Mexico, Pakistan, South

America, and South Korea.

Promising Solutions

In 2014, Borderfree generated more than $125 million in revenue.

It is paid by its clients based on a percentage of sales,

generally up to 12 percent, that takes place on Borderfree’s

platform. It generates additional revenue from fulfillment

services, foreign exchange, and other transaction-related

fees. Looking to the future, as more countries champion

international trade, as more executives target international

sales, as more consumers develop global brand awareness,

and as more technologies improve connectivity, shoppers

worldwide will make more purchases on the Internet.

Capturing these opportunities pushes some companies

to go alone in the world of import and export. Others, managing

a differing mix of ownership, location, and internalization

advantages, see that the growing competencies of

companies such as Borderfree make going global with the help of an intermediary the superior choice.

Questions

14-4. What mix of ownership, location, and internalization advantages would encourage a company to hire Borderfree?

14-5. Borderfree’s clients expect it to be knowledgeable about the key markets in which they operate and to be able to advise on how to prioritize, budget, and compete. How does Borderfree make that happen?

14-7. Do you think most international trade might eventually take place through intermediaries like Borderfree.com? Does that influence your interest in importing and exporting?

Think about and identify three (3) measurable/observable work behaviors and/or measurable/observable work outcomes that would either need to be decreased or increased to help an organization succeed. Note that the three behaviors/work outcomes must be observable so they can be directly measured. In other words, they cannot be internal characteristics/personality traits (such as motivation or job satisfaction) that cannot be directly measured.

Next, along with each behavior/outcome you have listed you must list the name of each of the organizations you are thinking about and very briefly describe the type of activities/work that organization performs. (No more than two (2) sentences for this portion of the assignment). The business organization you are thinking of must have more than 30 employees of similar work status from whom information/data about the behaviors/outcome might be collected if your research proposal was actually conducted.

Note that if one of the organizations you indicated is related to the DV you are assigned to focus on in your proposal that you will need to later (not now) provide secondary/background information about that organization. Don’t worry… we will go over how to do this a little later in the semester.

Focus your list on management of employees: i.e., work behaviors and/or work outcomes that could potentially be measured through observation and/or through records of employee behaviors/outcomes kept by the company

Stay away from issues that may be under the control of the company but would not be affected by employees, such as -- budget issues, pay, marketing, competition, etc.

Stay away from dispositional issues that likely cannot be changed by a company, such as personality issues, including, but not limited to, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness to new experience, etc.

Assignment Instructions:

Include the three parts of this assignment in the table below. Make sure there is a horizontal line between each of the DVs you list

• In Column A you are to list three (3) observable behaviors/work outcomes that you believe an organization must either increase and/or decrease to help the organization succeed.

• In Column B you are to indicate whether the organization/business would benefit from an increase or decrease of each of the three behaviors/outcomes you have listed in Column A.

Finally, in Column C you should list each of the organizations you believe would benefit from the increase or decrease of each of the observable behaviors or outcomes and a very brief description of what that organization does.

1. What is the significance of demand forecasting for operations managers, i.e. how do operations managers use demand forecast data?
   
2. Explain the difference between qualitative forecasting and quantitative forecasting methods? Under what conditions would you recommend using qualitative forecasting method.

The essay question is based on the following: The current situation in the United States (and much of the world) is quite extraordinary due to COVID-19 (aka coronavirus). Several recent occurrences are described here (all after most local public schools closed on March 13, 2020). Wildish relocated to his vacation home in northern Idaho so he would avoid being exposed to COVID-19. Ulwelling heard about Wildish’s relocation and, without doing any research of his own, immediately got the feeling that he should do the same thing. However, Siddiqui, who was Ulwelling’s supervisor, ordered him to report to work in Irvine on the regular schedule since “I am the boss and you are the employee.” Siddiqui believed that keeping a consistent schedule was better for the employees and the company alike. Saint saw several packages of toilet paper left unattended so she stole them because she could not find it elsewhere and she had five young children. Francis saw an elderly couple take a container of hand sanitizer from the shelf at the market so he moved quickly to grab all of the rest of the containers before they could get more. Voorhees saw this and he handed two containers of the hand sanitizer to the elderly couple since he wished someone would do that for him if he were elderly. The large supermarket chain called Ralph’s limited all customers to two packages of meat per purchase so that more people could buy meat. Jade limited her shopping since she knew her mother would disapprove if mother found out Jade was a hoarder. Finally, Shaadie thought that “this whole coronavirus thing is a product of socialist fake news put out by the Democrat-friendly media.”

Essay question: (a) Define the ends-means ethic, the Golden Rule, the doctrine of the mean, utilitarianism, and the intuition ethic (one sentence each). (b) Explain how each of these five ethical principles could best be applied to the matters stated above (1-2 sentences each).

What are the issues of ethical statistical practices and reporting that need to be followed in today’s business environment? Why might this be a problem? When reporting statistical information, why is it essential to make the primary reporting direct and easy to understand, while including the more complex analysis in an appendix? What are some of the issues about reporting statistics that we need to consider when preparing information for decision makers?

The New Hotel Of Marseille has 2 different meeting rooms named Honorine and Zoe. In Honorine, there is a meeting for a pharmaceutical company while in Zoe there is a meeting for an insurance company. The reception team was well informed about the pharmaceutical meeting but not the insurance’s, every time a person asks the reception for the meeting location, they were immediately sent to Honorine. Two of the participants came back to the front desk and they were very upset about being sent to the wrong place, when asking about why they were not sent to the correct meeting, the receptionist politely replied and informed them that based on the information he had, there is only one meeting at the hotel today, but the guests insisted that their company organized a meeting at the hotel, so the reception showed his understanding and apologized about the misunderstanding and immediately called the sales department who confirmed that there are two different meetings.

Questions: Question 1: What is the reason behind this situation? Why? (35 pts.)

Question 2: Who is responsible for avoiding such misunderstandings in the future? How? (35 pts.)

Question 3: How would you evaluate the service delivered by the front office team? (30 pts.)

Provide three examples of team building activities and list advantages and disadvantages of each.

For each question please give:

a. a definition of the term; and

b. discuss how the concept assists us in understanding the changing nature of work and/or employment

a) Decent work - the concept used by UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO)

Name three to five requirements you, as a project manager would have, for a project management information system. Defend the value of your requirements.

Dell
In January 2006, Dell, the world’s largest computer maker, announced plans to setup its fourth call center in India. The company already employs over 10,000 people in its Indian call centers, which provided a telephone help desk service to its many thousands of customers around the world. Like many other Western companies, Dell was attracted to India by the abundance of low-cost English-speaking workers, many of whom are well qualified and highly IT literate. Locating call centers in India sounds like a good deal all round. Customers get access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week wherever they are in the world, companies are able to reduce costs, and workers in a developing country get jobs.
However, not everyone is happy. Niels Kjellerup, Publisher and Editor of The Call Centre Managers Forum, an online chat room for call center managers, argues that the rush to outsource customer contact operations to cheaper locations has resulted in the worst of management practices in US and UK call centers being exported as ‘World Class Call Centre Practice’ in countries like India. He says that too often what is seen in India is bad customer service delivered cheaply. He claims that many Indian call centers are run as sweatshops with intelligent people being treated like cattle. Call center managers with little or no previous experience adopt ‘idiotic vendor measures’ such as ‘how many calls’ and ‘how short’, which simply result in the delivery of poor levels of customer service.
Agents are required to work nine and a half hours a day, but typically work anywhere from 12 to 16 hours. Processing 28 calls an hour is mandatory. Another target is to ensure that no customer calls back within seven days. The informant claimed that there are few, if any allowances for time off, even for doctor visits, sick days or handling family emergencies.

Discuss exceptions for religious preferences as it applies to recruitment and selection.

Discuss the differences between structured and unstructured interviews, the two types of structured interviews, as well as their legal implications. Discuss recommendations for the use of interviews.