The goal of this assignment is to demonstrate your ability to understand the basics of simple queueing models as solved using a simulation approach:

1. National Bank (see previous problem) is considering adding a second teller to the lunch-time situation to alleviate congestion. If the second teller is added, find the following:
   1. The average teller utilization
   2. The average number of customers in line
   3. The average time a customer waits before it seeing the teller
   4. The average time a customer spends in the service system

Please remember to answer using a simulation approach:

** For each problem, you should run at least 10 iterations of 50 simulations to ensure your results are correct. You can report the answers as the aggregation of your trials.

The goal of this assignment is to demonstrate your ability to understand the basics of simple queueing models as solved using a simulation approach:

1. National Bank currently employs a single teller to assist customers over their lunch breaks. The typical arrival rate of customers is 11 people per hour where the teller can service people at a rate of 12 customers per hour. Assuming the standard assumptions of queuing models are met, find the following:
   1. The utilization of the teller
   2. The average number of customers in line
   3. The average time a customer waits before it seeing the teller
   4. The average time a customer spends in the service system

Please remember to answer using a simulation approach

** For each problem, you should run at least 10 iterations of 50 simulations to ensure your results are correct. You can report the answers as the aggregation of your trials.

Case Study

Will Saleh and Sons Nursery Company, Al Kharj overcome prevailing business turbulence?

Mr Saleh is the owner and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a family owned and operated business established in 1990. His business operated under the name of Saleh and Sons Nursery Company and based in Al Kharj, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The company’s net worth is SAR 5 million. Their nursery is situated 40 Km away from Al Kharj which is managed by two of his sons. The nursery specializes in cultivating a variety of seasonal and perennial plants both indoor and outdoor and engaged in transplanting, budding, and grafting. Elder son Rakan manages outdoor plant business while younger one Salim manages the indoor plant business. In addition to nursery operations, the company also deals in other floriculture commodities related to seeds, soil, fertilizers, gardening tools, garden decorative etc.

The company is renowned and reputed in Al Kharj and adjoining cities since it has been in business for the last 30 years. It has 20% market share in the region. The Fresh Plant Company and Friends plant company are its two main rivals who operate out of Riyadh. Both hold a market share of 30% and 25% respectively. Remaining market is shared between big retail stores and unorganized businesses. However, Saleh has a competitive advantage of being local in Al Kharj region by catering to the needs of his customers by providing bespoke and consultative customer service. In spite of this advantage, their business is witnessing sluggish growth patterns over the past 5 years owing to the presence of new big retail stores who also stock indoor plants. Often these stores sell these plants at heavily discounted prices even below the cost prices that directly impacted Saleh’s business with decreasing sales and depleting profits. Nursery business annually growth rate is 15% due to awareness of the advantage of being green by community at large.

The company opened its first retail store (1990) in the Al Kharj city center near the main vegetable market which is a very popular and strategic located. The second store was opened up a decade ago along Riyadh road, Al Kharj due to recent economic developments in the region. Considering business scalability and expansion, Saleh shown interest in his sons to open up a Flower and Boutique store noticing a shift in consumer buying behavior in gifting from chocolates to flowers. Rakan is computer engineer proposed to open an online store and invest in building an e-commerce platform. On other hand Salim is a business management graduate, he proposed to reposition their products categories and diversify their business into gardening and landscaping since there is no other company offering such types of services in Al Kharj. Whereas Saleh intends to scale up and expand its business operations by opening new retail stores in nearby cities of Dilam, Hota Bin Tamimi ,Riyadh etc.

Saleh stands on a cross road, he wanted to convene a meeting with his sons and the company top management in order to discuss business scalability and expansion strategies from 2020 and beyond especially with Pandemic crisis.

Questions

Q1. Analysis of at least five micro(actors) and five macro(factors) environment factors affecting Saleh and Sons Nursery Company business in current situation. (

Q2. You are the company marketing head, propose viable five new business development plans with strategies to the top management.

Q3. Saleh intends to make policies in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) coupled with social marketing. Frame five plans with strategies can be devised to community engagement for this initiative?   

what responsibility do manufacturers have in the design and use of harmful products?

Do robo-advisors offer a good “value proposition”? In other words…

What do you pay them for their services? What are those services? How customized/specialized are they? Is there a better alternative, and if so, what is it, and why is it better?

Which of the following characteristics makes it easier to measure the quality of a service, relative to that of a product or facilitating good?

Select one:

A. Service portions are abstract, rather than concrete

B. Service portions are transient, rather than permanent

C. Service portions are psychological, rather than physical

D. None of the above characteristics make it easier to measure service quality

Among the best-known companies that use customer satisfaction surveys to evaluate service quality in various industries is:

Select one:

A. J.D. Power and Associates

B. McDonald’s

C. American Express

D. Alaska Airlines

Service defections are important in process control for services because:

Select one:

A. No advertising is necessary to get the business of long-term customers

B. They are equally important to organizations that produce tangible outputs

C. A customer who takes their business elsewhere is analogous to a product defect

D. Long-time customers are more likely to purchase additional products

One of the most common errors when monitoring data is to gather information that has little or no probability of changing significantly from one collection period to the next.

Select one:

True

False

There are five stages of effectiveness in terms of the role their operations play in terms of strategic business objectives.

Select one:

True

False

Departments within a stage 2 organization may exhibit a stage 3 orientation, thereby upgrading the organization to a stage 3 categorization.

Select one:

True

False

The balanced scorecard approach relies not only on financial performance measures, but includes customers, internal business processes, and organizational learning and growth.

Select one:

True

False

Benchmarking is a process that helps compare a company against its competitors on a variety of relevant indicators.

Select one:

True

False

You are the Business Systems Analyst for a diversified business conglomerate. The top management wants you prepare a short note explaining to them the concept of cloud computing, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).

Type your short note approx. 250+ words.

Discuss the pros and cons of using various potential raters to appraise an employee's performance.

chapter 8

human resources

There are 3 ways to acquire a new system: custom development (the company develops the system in house using corporate resources), packaged systems (purchasing a system off the shelf), and outsourcing (hiring an external developer, vendor or application service provider to create or supply the system). Assume you are the Business Systems Analyst for a company that adopts a mix of these three acquisition strategies.

What would be your role in each of these acquisition activities as a Business Systems Analyst?

Type a 200+ words answer.

Is transactional leadership the same as management? Define both concepts, explain your perspective and provide an example to justify your answer.

Given the following project:

1. Identify the critical path of the project using activity expected time.
2. What is the probability that the critical path will be completed in 205 days.

Briefly share your experience with project closeout. Recommend a set of five (5) best practices for closeout. At least one best practice should relate to documentation.

HelloFresh is at the forefront of disrupting a multi-trillion-dollar industry at the very beginning of its online transition. HelloFresh is a truly local food product, uniquely suited to individual tastes and meal-time preferences offering delivery of a giant box of delicious food with recipes to enable easy and enjoyable meal preparation for a weekly fee. HelloFresh aims to provide each and every household in its 7 markets with the opportunity to enjoy wholesome home-cooked meals with no planning, no shopping, and no hassle required. Everything required for weeknight meals, carefully planned, locally sourced and delivered to your door at the most convenient time for each subscriber. Behind the scenes, a huge data driven technology platform puts us in the prime position for disrupting the food supply chain and for fundamentally changing the way consumers shop for food. HelloFresh has local founders across the globe who are able to leverage the global platform, and at the same time ensure that the HelloFresh product in each market truly reflects the local community. The soft subscription model business enables us to leverage our weekly subscriber touchpoint to consistently manage supply chains and demand, and to optimize the customer experience as well as our business economics. Customers sign-up for a box containing between 2 and 5 meals per week for a flat fee. If the customer is out of town or unavailable he can easily cancel any week without a penalty provided they notify HelloFresh in advance. Dominik Richter has been CEO since starting HelloFresh in 2011. He has responsibility for keeping a general oversight of the business and strategy. Prior to HelloFresh, Dominik worked with Goldman Sachs in London. Dominik graduated with a degree in International Business in 2009, and from the London School of Economics in 2010 with a Masters in Finance. Thomas Griesel has been responsible for the logistics and operations behind HelloFresh since founding with Dominik in 2011. Previously, Thomas had spent time at OC&C Strategy Consultants and worked on a range of his own businesses and ideas. He graduated with a degree in International Business Administration in 2009, and from the London Business School in 2010 with a Masters in Management. 2011 All the way back in 2011, Dominik and Thomas arrived in Berlin, intent on starting a new and disruptive business. With a love of healthy food, nutrition, cooking, and a desire to make access to healthy food as easy as possible for as many people as possible - starting a Food at Home business seemed the natural choice. 2012 After examining business models from Sweden to Japan to very local ideas, they and a group of like-minded individuals formulated the recipe for HelloFresh. The team started early in 2012 packing shopping bags in Berlin, Amsterdam and London with a view to target the highest density population areas in Europe. Quite quickly, they started getting requests from people outside those areas who all wanted to become a part of the HelloFresh family. Wanting to serve as many people as possible, the team developed a logistics model that enabled them to deliver to every single household across a given country. 2013 The HelloFresh product started to rapidly gain in popularity, as subscribers shared the excitement about their weekly boxes, with friends and colleagues. Subscriber referrals accelerated, as it became clear that HelloFresh had finally solved the "What's for dinner tonight" problem for its subscribers. 2014 Having launched on the East Coast of the U.S in December 2012, HelloFresh moved to cover the entire country in September 2014. Over the short time since then, HelloFresh has grown rapidly to become one of the largest players in this market. QUESTIONS Do you consider HelloFresh a form of disruptive or sustaining technology? Is HelloFresh an example of Web 1.0 (ebusiness) or Web 2.0 (Business 2.0)? Describe the ebusiness model associated with HelloFresh. Describe the revenue model associated with HelloFresh.