Question-----Which carmakers are most likely to benefit from the elimination of the North American Free Trade Agreement? Which will be most negatively impacted? Please help me answer question-+- Read article "It’s Not Just Ford: Trump’s Trade Barbs Threaten VW, Toyota Too" Ford Motor Co. was a favorite target of Donald Trump, who lambasted the company for producing cars south of the border throughout his campaign. Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen AG and other U.S. carmakers are just as exposed. Toyota and Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s largest automakers, were spared from Trump’s critique by name on the campaign trail. Yet, along with General Motors Co. and VW, they all rely on Mexican plants for millions of vehicles and a high volume of parts. That puts them at risk if the president-elect makes good on his threat to levy hefty taxes on cars assembled across the Rio Grande. “Trump could, or will, try to set up trade barriers,” said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. “Automakers with U.S. factories will therefore be on the winning side. Mexico, the new El Dorado of the auto industry, could suffer.” Since 2010, nine global automakers, including GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, have announced more than $24 billion in Mexican investments. VW’s Audi, BMW AG and Daimler AG each build or plan to assemble luxury vehicles, engines or heavy trucks in the low-cost country, which Trump says has benefited at the expense of the American voters who propelled him to victory. Output in Mexico may more than double this decade, from 2 million to 5 million vehicles, according to the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Republican candidate and real-estate developer grabbed headlines during his campaign by threatening to slap a 35 percent tariff on any cars Ford builds in Mexico and ships back to the U.S. He called Ford’s plans for a new plant in Mexico “an absolute disgrace.” A levy would lead to higher prices and hurt demand, said Joe Spak, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. Trump would “start a worldwide trade war” if he decides to end trade pacts and uses anti-dumping provisions to impose widespread tariffs on other countries, said Donald Grimes, an economist at the Institute for Research on Labor, Employment and the Economy at the University of Michigan. The North American Free Trade Agreement, for example, requires only six months’ notice of termination to Canada and Mexico and doesn’t specify that the president would need congressional approval, he said. Read more: Gadfly looks at which carmakers build the most vehicles in Mexico “These other countries would retaliate. Prices consumers would pay would increase sharply. The Federal Reserve would then increase interest rates. It would be ugly,” Grimes said. Despite that threat, U.S. automakers and the United Auto Workers union extended an olive branch to the president-elect. “We agree with Mr. Trump that it is really important to unite the country -- and we look forward to working together to support economic growth and jobs,” Ford said in a statement. The company’s plan to shift small-car production from a factory in Michigan to Mexico was attacked by Trump during his first answer of the initial debate with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in September. GM and Fiat Chrysler said in separate statements they would work with Trump and the new Congress on policies that support U.S. manufacturing. UAW President Dennis Williams, whose union endorsed Clinton, told reporters at a roundtable Thursday that “I’m prepared to sit down and talk to him on trade. NAFTA is a huge problem to the American people.” German executives attending an industry conference in Munich on Wednesday also expressed concerns about Trump’s views. BMW is building a new car plant in Mexico’s San Luis Potosi that’s due to start production in 2019, while Audi started assembling autos in San Jose Chiapa in September. “We need open trade,” said BMW CEO Harald Krueger. The luxury automaker ships many of the SUVs assembled at its South Carolina factory to markets around the world and in turn exports sedans and Mini cars to the U.S. from Europe. “We live off exports and imports. The U.S. market is fundamental for us.” NAFTA has created a “highly integrated” auto market in North America that is critical to the fortunes of all global carmakers operating in it, said Sean McAlinden, an automotive economist based in Ann Arbor. “To interrupt the flow of trade across either border, Canadian or Mexican, would really throw more than a monkey wrench into the machine,” McAlinden said. “It would create a very, very noncompetitive North American auto industry.” Conciliation Hopes Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche and James Verrier, who heads supplier BorgWarner Inc., are among executives who held out hope that much of Trump’s trade talk was campaign rhetoric and would soften with the practicalities needed to govern. “Many things get said during the heat of an election campaign,” Zetsche said. “I hope and believe this is also the case here.” For Bob Lutz, the retired vice chairman of GM, Trump’s victory could ultimately help the auto industry if his advisers and Congress keep him from pushing his protectionist agenda too far. “He’s not a dictator,” Lutz said in an interview. “No one can go in and abrogate trade deals. There are some aspects of NAFTA that will probably be re-negotiated, but he will probably be talked out of his crazier ideas.” Rather than threaten Japan auto imports with tariffs, Trump has pointed to wealth generated from the cars being sold in the U.S. to bolster his argument for America to pay a smaller share of the costs related to stationing troops in its biggest Asian ally’s territory. “Japan is ripping us off with the cars,” Trump said at an Oct. 12 campaign event in Florida. In remarks to Ohio volunteers in July, he spoke of “massive ships” delivering vehicles to the U.S. from Japan, which he told Americans was “rich because of us.” Representatives for Toyota, Nissan and Honda Motor Co. declined to comment. Japan’s automakers have combined capacity to build about 1.36 million vehicles annually in Mexico and have announced plans for new plants capable of assembling another 430,000 vehicles a year. Models built or planned for Mexican production and sale in the U.S. include the Toyota Corolla, the Nissan Versa and Sentra, and the Honda Fit and HR-V. “If NAFTA is going to be up for discussion somewhere down the line, that would affect Japanese companies very much, especially auto-related investments in Mexico,” said Bob Takai, president and CEO of Sumitomo Global Research Co. “If the trading and investing is going to be very difficult because of the new presidency, we may go somewhere else.”

What are the three major activities that must occur to ensure that goals of the end business, consumers and analytics professionals align? Which activity do you think is the most difficult and why?

What is the difference in the early view and modern view of manager-as-leader? Include an explanation of pros and cons (providing examples) as part of your response.

Strategic Management Edition 4. - Frank T. Rothaermel

Amazon - Chapter 8

While Amazon as a firm continues to diversify its products, services, and markets under one corporate umbrella, why do firms such as Barnes & Noble choose to split into separate firms for greater focus on each piece of the business? Do these different strategies align with the core competencies of each? It may be helpful to review Exhibit 8.9.

The claims department of Corrupt Insurance operates Monday through Friday, except on holidays. The effective workday averages 6.5 hours, considering employee breaks. The department processes 10 different types of claims before they are accepted or denied. The estimated processing time per claim type, as well as their observed percentage, are shown in the table below. Based on reliable forecasts, the manager of this facility is expecting the throughput shown here for the second half of 2018. Estimate the number of FTEs (full-time equivalent) required every month and propose options to adjust the labor force accordingly.

A Singapore Airlines case study

Introduction

When you run a large organization, you are likely to have a large number of employees. The Singapore Airlines Group has more than 29,000 employees. This large workforce comprises a diverse mix of people who bring a range of skills, attributes and personalities to the workplace. They are employed in the Group’s home base in Singapore and in as many as 80 diverse locations, all around the world.

Organizational systems

In the most efficient organizations, all employees should know and understand their role and how it fits into the work of the organization as a whole. They will also want to do the best that they can, not only in the interests of the organization that employs them, but also in their own interest. With such a large and diverse group of employees operating in widely differing working environments, giving each of them a sense of belonging to a community with a common goal is a huge organizational undertaking.

Modern organizations like the Singapore Airlines Group need a structure that enables people to work and deal with one another in a coordinated and co-operative way as they work towards the goals of the business. An organization’s hierarchy helps to distinguish between the levels of post as well as the layers of authority and responsibility attached to each post.

Dividing up an organization

A very small business does not really need a formal structure and is unlikely to have one. As it grows, however, some sort of formal structure will be required. As it grows even larger, its ability to construct a proper organizational structure may well determine its fate. Differentiation is the process by which certain activities or parts of an organization are grouped and then assigned to managers and other staff. How this is done depends upon a range of issues related to each organization. Ideally, the chosen structure will:

• include every part of the organization
• relate each part to every other part
• show where the authority and responsibility of different individuals and their departments lie
• enable everyone within the organization to assess their roles and status.

There are five main methods of grouping different parts of an organization.
These are by: Function - Dividing the organization into broad sectors that reflect the specialism or function of each sector. Product - Basing the structure around products, with a different division for each type of product. Process - Creating a structure that mirrors the particular steps or phases of the production process. Geographical area - Relating parts of an organization to the activities they provide for each geographical region. Matrix - Setting up a mix of the above methods.

Running a service business

Airlines operate in a competitive environment. A key area of competition for them is the quality of customer service. Customer service helps to distinguish one airline from another, and to give one an advantage over the other. In order to provide the type of service that customers want; airlines need to be flexible. They must allow employees scope to make decisions that consider changing circumstances in a variety of environments. It is mainly for this reason that Singapore Airlines gives considerable autonomy to each part of the organization.

Questions

Use the course materials to support your discussion about:

• The type of culture
• The business strategy

In Singapore Airlines (450 words ).

You are at a job interview for a senior management position. The interviewer asks you to explain how you would go about changing the culture of the organization, if hired. What would you suggest?  

Please answer with detail : define diversity along with some of the key components of diversification and the risk of becoming over diversified.  

PLEASE CITE ALL OUTSIDE SOURCES.

1. A small mattress company recently started its operations and currently does not have enough resources to utilize high-tech forecasting software. The manager wants to utilize traditional methods of forecasting to estimate demand. The following recent data on monthly sales are available from the past year. Use this information to answer the following set of questions.

1. If the manager uses a naïve forecasting method. What is the forecast for Jan 2020? (2 pts.)

1. Use the three-period moving average method and estimate forecast beginning from Aug-19 to Jan-20. Use 0.4, 0.3, and 0.2 as weights with highest weights given to the most recent periods (8 pts.)
   
2. Calculate the Mean Absolute Deviation of forecasts from the three-period moving average. (5 pts.)
   

              2. Use the same date from Q1. to answer the following questions. (10 pts.)

1. Use the exponential smoothing method to calculate forecast from Aug-19 to Jan-20. Use an α value of 0.3.

You need a beginning forecast of Jul-19 to start this. Use the naïve forecast for estimating Jul-19, and then use the answer to start the exponential smoothing method.

(Please show all the work for credit on this. You can use excel too, but show the logic/formula if using excel)

• Why do governments try to create clusters around groundbreaking research?

• Do you think that governments should undertake such efforts or leave it all to markets to determine successes and failures?

Can you please describe 3 to 5 characteristics a data store design must have to be considered a proper physical design.

Firms pursuing a differentiation strategy primarily seek to:

What U. S. organizations use organizational open, natural and rational?

True/False: The advantage to being the late mover or follower strategy is that you learn from the mistakes that the first mover makes.

True/False: Firms have to choose between two different strategies of entry one is a non-equity strategy and the other is an equity strategy.

True/False:Joint ventures are considered a desirable strategy for firms that want tight control over the foreign operations.

Please also give a reasoning if you can, thanks!

Please Use your keyboard (Don't use handwriting)

MGT211

I need new and unique answers, please. (Use your own words, don't copy and paste)

THE RELUCTANT WORKERS

Tim Aston had changed employers three months ago. His new position was project manager.

At first he had stars in his eyes about becoming the best project manager that his company had ever seen. Now, he wasn’t sure if project management was worth the effort. He made an appointment to see Phil Davies, director of project management.

Tim Aston: “Phil, I’m a little unhappy about the way things are going. I just can’t seem to motivate my people. Every day, at 4:30 P.M., all of my people clean off their desks and go home. I’ve had people walk out of late afternoon team meetings because they were afraid that they’d miss their car pool. I have to schedule morning team meetings.”

Phil Davies: “Look, Tim. You’re going to have to realize that in a project environment, people think that they come first and that the project is second. This is a way of life in our organizational form.”

Tim Aston: “I’ve continually asked my people to come to me if they have problems. I find that the people do not think that they need help and, therefore, do not want it. I just can’t get my people to communicate more.”

Phil Davies: “The average age of our employees is about forty-six. Most of our people have been here for twenty years. They’re set in their ways. You’re the first person that we’ve hired in the past three years. Some of our people may just resent seeing a thirty-year-old project manager.”

Tim Aston: “I found one guy in the accounting department who has an excellent head on his shoulders. He’s very interested in project management. I asked his boss if he’d release him for a position in project management, and his boss just laughed at me, saying something to the effect that as long as that guy is doing a good job for him, he’ll never be released for an assignment elsewhere in the company. His boss seems more worried about his personal empire than he does in what’s best for the company.

“We had a test scheduled for last week. The customer’s top management was planning on flying in for firsthand observations. Two of my people said that they had programmed vacation days coming, and that they would not change, under any conditions. One guy was going fishing and the other guy was planning to spend a few days working with fatherless children in our community. Surely, these guys could change their plans for the test.”

Phil Davies: “Many of our people have social responsibilities and outside interests. We encourage social responsibilities and only hope that the outside interests do not interfere with their jobs.

“There’s one thing you should understand about our people. With an average age of fortysix, many of our people are at the top of their pay grades and have no place to go. They must look elsewhere for interests. These are the people you have to work with and motivate. Perhaps you should do some reading on human behavior.

1. “Employees are not showing interest in meetings and discussion”. Why do you think such culture exists in the company? Share your views.
2. What are the challenges Tim is facing to execute his project. Explain.
3. “Motivation is a key to change”- what according to you should be Tim’s approach towards employees.
4. What is Work, Life balance? What role does it play in day-to-day life of an employee?