Solve the following model using linear programming and determine the values of the decision variables and objective function. Then, round the decision variables values down to the nearest integer and determine the value of the decision variables and objective function, this is an approximate answer to solving the model using integer programming. Observe if the rounding provides a "feasible" solution, all constraints are satisfied. Finally, solve the model using integer programming and determine the values of the decision variables and the objective function using integer constraints. Observe the differences in the answers using the three methods. Maximize Z = 2x1 + 6x2 + 3x3 subject to 1x1 + 1x2 + 1x3 ≤ 7 -1x1 + 1x2 + -1x3 ≤ -6 -1x1 + 1x2 + -2x3 ≤ -3 x1, x2, x3 ≥ 0

LP Method

x1 =

x2 =

x3 =

Z* =

Round Down Method

x1 =

x2 =

x3 =

Z* =

IP Method

x1 =

x2 =

x3 =

Z* =

(Show excel formulas)

List an explain two strategies that a bank could use to decrease its non interest expense. for each give at least one specific example of something thr bank could do that was consistent with that strategy

Prepare porter's 5 forces model for Costco and the industry ,

where its competitors are Walmart, amazon, Target, Kroger.

1. Discuss the two forms of financing in International Trade: Secured and Unsecured.

2. Discuss the types of risks for doing business in the global markets and how to avoid them.

Contrast a use case with a functional requirement. Provide one (1) example of each from the online bookstore project discussed in the online course content. Also, discuss the relationship between use-cases and functional requirements as part of your answer.

The Cardiff Carbon Fiber factory consists of four sequential steps that process many types of carbon fiber tubing for customers. All products must go through each of the four stations in order. Setups are required when a station is changed over from one batch of tubes to another. Production planners decide on the number of units in a batch. The setup for an item at a station cannot be carried out until a batch of that item is ready for processing at that station. After the setup, each unit in the batch is processed in the time indicated in the table below. So, for example, if the batch size is 9 units, the time to complete a batch at Station B would be 45 minutes for the setup, plus 36 minutes for processing (4 minutes per unit times 9 units) – for a total of 81 minutes. Units in a batch are carried together from one station to the next. You may assume that the transit time from one station to the next is essentially zero. Times in the table below are in minutes. There is one worker per station. The demand rate is 8 units per hour. You can ignore any startup or shutdown times. In other words, use long run averages.

Assume the factory uses batch sizes of 20 units.

1. What is the capacity of each station, measured in batches per hour? In other words, how many batches per hour could each station make?

2. What is the capacity of each station, measured in units per hour?

3. Which station is the bottleneck?

4. What is the capacity of the facility in units per hour?

5. What is the flow rate of the facility in units per hour, and what are the utilizations of each station?

6. If the factory decided to use batch sizes of 10 units, what would be the capacity of each station, measured in units per hour?

7. Which station would be the bottleneck?

8. What would be the flow rate of the facility in units per hour, and what would be the utilizations of each station?

As an aspiring entrepreneur, discuss how you’ll launch your business on the Web in a potential foreign market considering the social cultural factors.

Case

Pandora is the Internet’s most successful subscription radio service. In May 2014, Pandora had 77 million registered users. Pandora accounts for over 9 percent of total U.S. radio listening hours. The music is delivered to users from a cloud server, and is not stored on user devices.

It’s easy to see why Pandora is so popular. Users are able to hear only the music they like. Each user selects a genre of music based on a favorite musician or vocalist, and a computer algorithm puts together a “personal radio station” that plays the music of the selected artist plus closely related music by different artists. The algorithm uses more than 450 factors to classify songs, such as the tempo and number of vocalists. These classifications, in conjunction with other signals from users, help Pandora’s algorithms select the next song to play.

People love Pandora, but the question is whether this popularity can be translated into profits. How can Pandora compete with other online music subscription services and online stations that have been making music available for free, sometimes without advertising? “Free” illegally downloaded music has also been a significant factor, as has been iTunes, charging 99 cents per song with no ad support. At the time of Pandora’s founding (2005), iTunes was already a roaring success.

Pandora’s first model was to give away 10 hours of free music and then ask subscribers to pay $36 per month for a year once they used up their 10 free hours. Result: 100,000 people listened to their 10 hours for free and then refused to pay for the annual service. Facing financial collapse, in November 2005 Pandora introduced an ad-supported option. In 2006, Pandora added a “Buy” button to each song being played and struck deals with Amazon, iTunes, and other online retail sites. Pandora now gets an affiliate fee for directing listeners to sites where users can buy the music. In 2008, Pandora added an iPhone app to allow users to sign up from their smartphones and listen all day if they wanted. Today, 70 percent of Pandora’s advertising revenue comes from mobile.

In late 2009 the company launched Pandora One, a premium service that offered no advertising, higher quality streaming music, a desktop app, and fewer usage limits. The service costs $4.99 per month. A very small percentage of Pandora listeners have opted to pay for music subscriptions, with the vast majority opting for the free service with ads. In fiscal 2013 Pandora’s total revenue was $427.1 million, of which $375.2 million (88 percent) came from advertising.

Pandora has been touted as a leading example of the “freemium” revenue model, in which a business gives away some services for free and relies on a small percentage of customers to pay for premium versions of the same service. If a market is very large, getting just 1 percent of that market to pay could be very lucrative— under certain circumstances. Although freemium is an efficient way of amassing a large group of potential customers, companies, including Pandora, have found that it is challenging to convert people enjoying the free service into customers willing to pay. A freemium model works best when a business incurs very low marginal cost, approaching zero, for each free user of its services, when a business can be supported by the percentage of customers willing to pay, and when there are other revenues like advertising fees that can make up for shortfalls in subscriber revenues.

In Pandora’s case, it appears that revenues will continue to come overwhelmingly from advertising, and management is not worried. For the past few years, management has considered ads as having much more revenue-generating potential than paid subscriptions and is not pushing the ad-free service. By continually refining its algorithms, Pandora is able to increase user listening hours substantially. The more time people spend with Pandora, the more opportunities there are for Pandora to deliver ads and generate ad revenue. The average Pandora user listens to 19 hours of music per month.

Pandora is now intensively mining the data collected about its users for clues about the kinds of ads most likely to engage them. Pandora collects data about listener preferences from direct feedback such as likes and dislikes (indicated by thumbs up or down on the Pandora site) and “skip this song” requests, as well as data about which device people are using to listen to Pandora music, such as mobile phones or desktop computers. Pandora uses these inputs to select songs people will want to stick around for, and listen to. Pandora has honed its algorithms so they can analyze billions more signals from users generated over billions of listening minutes per month.

As impressive as these numbers are, Pandora (along with other streaming subscription services) is still struggling to show a profit. There are infrastructure costs and royalties to pay for content from the music labels. Pandora’s royalty rates are less flexible than those of its competitor Spotify, which signed individual song royalty agreements with each record label. Pandora could be paying even higher rates when its current royalty contracts expire in 2015. About 61 percent of Pandora’s revenue is currently allocated to paying royalties. Advertising can only be leveraged so far, because users who opt for free ad-supported services generally do not tolerate heavy ad loads.

CASE QUESTION:

What type of e-commerce is Pandora? What is Pandora’s ecommerce business model? Explain your answer?

A building material business is operating in the north country. It has a 60,000 square feet warehouse. If more storage space is required then the business uses public warehouse for rent. The monthly inventory turnover ratio for the business is 3. The warehouse has 50% of the floor area as aisles space and operates at 70% of capacity utilization factor due to seasonality in demand. Typical product density of building materials is: 0.5 cubic feet per pound, the materials are stored in 16 ft high stacks. The warehouse incurs fixed expenses of $0.375 per square feet per month and a variable expense of $0.05 per lb of throughput. The rental option costs $0.10 per lb of storage per month and an in-and-out handling cost of $0.07 per lb. Find the expenses of the warehouse for a monthly throughput of 2,395,000 lbs.

While trying to expand a Housing Company into the Canadian market, respond the following questions:

1.What type of other problems (e.g., communication-and/or negotiation-related) can be encountered in this attempt? Explain.

2.Did the top management team find the formulation or the implementation process more difficult? Why?

If you were a manager, would you prefer to apply Theory X or Theory Y? Which managerial style is appropriate for the survival of the organizations?

Development of websites WHY DO COMPANIES OUTSOURCE IT TECH TECHS TO DEVELOP THEIR WEBSITES?

Is it better for organizations to be open and transparent to their workers? If so, why?

discuss the positive and negative potential health effects of global warming.