Mitigation strategies are commonly adopted by supply chain managers in global supply chain management. Discuss how managers should consider to make better supply chain network design decisions when supply is unstable.

David and Micah both have different ideas on what they want to do for dinner, but Micah said since he is paying, they are doing what he wants. David quickly agrees to Micah’s demands; after all, he is paying. David ’s conflict management style seems to

a) Competing b) Accommodating c) Compromising d) Avoding

a) What is equity home bias and why are proponents of international portfolio diversification puzzled by the home bias phenomenon?

Write 350 words (fix). No plagiarism plz.

Using both local and foreign staffing policy for top-level managers for a small Caribbean country that is engaged in a joint venture with a Switzerland company that select and give your rationale for a staffing policy using the Switzerland Labour Act include the following elements: Working hours, Compensation package, Termination, Holiday and Sick Leave

ICTx, a family-owned manufacturer of budget computers, has grown exponentially over the last few years. However, the company is having difficulty preparing for future growth. The only information system used at ICTx is an antiquated accounting system. The company has one manufacturing plant located in Gaza; and three warehouses, in Rafah, Wastta, and AlNasser. The ICTx sales force is national, and ICTx purchases about a third of its computer parts and materials from a single overseas supplier. You have been hired to recommend the information systems ICTx should implement in order to maintain their competitive edge. However, there is not enough money for a full-blown, cross-functional enterprise application, and you will need to limit the first step to a single functional area or constituency. What will you choose, and why? Hints: your answer should discuss the TPS

MIS ”chapter 2 Global E-business and Collaboration”

Positive outcomes are not always an end result for collaborations. Collaborations might be set on two-legged outcomes from the start. Accordingly, setting aims is not enough by itself. Managing aims is regarded as essential for better collaborative results. In the context of a local organizational collaboration of your choice, discuss the importance of managing aims and how the presence of some elements might generate negative episodes that a collaboration can face. Support your discussion with examples. 600 words.

Hint: you need to provide your discussion in an essay format. Make sure NOT TO PROVIDE A DESCRIPTIVE ANSWER; take an analytical approach to the discussion and support your answer with examples from your professional and/or personal experience

MARKETING what are 2 different customer segments in a gym and their characteristics?

Prime cost worksheet (figure %, cost & sales to two decimal places)

Open and use the following chart below for the “prime cost” quiz. 10 questions for boxes A - J

Cost of sales + cost of Labor = Prime cost

Prime cost – cost of labor = cost of sales

Prime cost – cost of sales = cost of labor

Prime cost ÷ sales = prime cost %

Prime cost x PC% = Sales

Sales X PC% = prime cost

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

Section C: Establishing Strategic Pay Plans
Case Study: Carter Cleaning Company – The New Pay Plan
Jennifer Carter graduated from State University in June 2011 and, after considering
several job offers, decided to do what she always planned to do—go into business
with her father, Jack Carter. Jack Carter opened his first laundromat in 1999 and his
second in 2001. The main attraction of these coin laundry businesses for him was
that they were capital—rather than labor—intensive. Thus, once the investment in
machinery was made, the stores could be run with just one unskilled attendant and
none of the labor problems people normally expects from being in the retail service
business.
The attractiveness of operating with virtually no skilled labor not-withstanding, Jack
had decided by 2007 to expand the services in each of his stores to include the dry
cleaning and pressing of clothes. He embarked, in other words, on a strategy of
“related diversification” by adding new services that were related to and consistent
with his existing coin laundry activities. He added these for several reasons. He
wanted to better utilize the unused space in the rather large stores he currently had
under lease. Furthermore, he was, as he put it, “tired of sending out the dry cleaning
and pressing work that came in from our coin laundry clients to a dry cleaner 5 miles
away, who then took most of what should have been our profits.” To reflect the new,
expanded line of services, he renamed each of his two stores Carter Cleaning Centers
and was sufficiently satisfied with their performance to open four more of the same
type of stores over the next 5 years. Each store had its own on-site manager and, on
average, about seven employees and annual revenues of about $550,000. It was this
six-store chain that Jennifer joined after graduating.
Her understanding with her father was that she would serve as a troubleshooter or
consultant to the elder Carter with the aim of both learning the business and bringing
to it modern management concepts and techniques for solving the business’s
problems and facilitating its growth.
Carter Cleaning Centers does not have a formal wage structure nor does it have rate
ranges or use compensable factors. Wage rates are based mostly on those prevailing
in the surrounding community and are tempered with an attempt on the part of Jack
Carter to maintain some semblance of equity between what workers with different
responsibilities in the stores are paid. Carter does not make any formal surveys when
determining what his company should pay. He peruses the want ads almost every day
Page 4
and conducts informal surveys among his friends in the local chapter of the laundry
and cleaners trade association. While Jack has taken an informal approach to paying
employees, his salary schedule has been guided by several basic pay policies based on
his intuition and experience. Although many of his colleagues adhere to a policy of
paying minimum rates, Jack has always followed a policy of paying his employees
about 10% above what he feels are the prevailing rates, a policy that he believes
reduces turnover while fostering employee loyalty. Of somewhat more concern to
Jennifer is her father’s informal policy of paying men about 20% more than women
for the same job. Her father’s explanation is, “They’re stronger and can work harder
for longer hours, and besides they all have families to support.”
C-1. Is the company at the point where it should be setting up a formal salary
structure based on a complete job evaluation? Why? Describe a job evaluation
method that the company can use.
C-2. Is Jack Carter’s policy of paying 10% more than the prevailing rates a sound one,
and how could that be determined? What type of equity issues is Carter addressing?

C-3. Similarly, is Carter’s male–female differential wise? If not, why not?
C-4. Specifically, what would you suggest Jennifer do now with respect to her
company’s pay plan?

Kristin has decided to start a new business of baking and selling cookies to order and cater to the university students on campus when they study in the evenings and stay up till after midnight. She has named her business Cookie Cult. The following is the list of tasks she came up with for completing one cycle of cookie production. After a car arrives; inspector checks paper work and sets up machine Inspector collects payment for the service Inspector checks emission data and prepares report Machines collects exhaust emission data Task Preceding Tasks Time (seconds) A - Receive order - 30 B - Clean equipment from previous run A 40 C - Program mixer A 15 D - Mixer produces the cookie mix B, C 60 E - Prepare baking tray for oven D 20 F - Program oven D 15 G - Oven bakes cookie E, F 50 H - Cool and box cookies G 30 I - Accept payment and deliver cookies H 20 On a typical evening (5 PM to 2AM), Cookie Cult expects to receive and fulfil 400 such orders. Kristin wants to set up an assembly-like system to meet this demand. Your job is to help her set up and balance the assembly line in order to facilitate a fast-paced production. Kristen’s employees may still perform manual work at various stages of the process but assume there are enough skilled employees on hand. a) Draw a precedence diagram of the tasks. (7 points) b) What is the workstation cycle time? (7 points) c) What is theoretical minimum number of workstations? (7 point) d) Balance the assembly line using the “shortest task time” as the primary rule.

Profit and Loss Worksheet - (Figure %’s to 2 decimal places)

Cost of sales

Open and use the chart below for the Cost of Sales Quiz. 7 questions A – G

Cost of sales ÷ sales = cost of sale %

Sales × cost of sale % = cost of sales

Cost of sales ÷ Cost % = Sales

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

F.

G.

Please read case and answer the questions thank you.

Voice-controlled devices and utilities are growing more popular as smartphone and cloud technology become more robust. Apple’s Siri, Android’s Google Now, and Windows’ Cortana digital assistants are all powered by voice recognition, and Amazon entered the fray with voice controls for its Amazon Fire TV technology. Amazon’s latest voice-controlled technology offering, the Amazon Echo Bluetooth speaker and virtual home assistant, raises the stakes even further. Echo was released in 2015 to mixed but mostly positive reviews, which emphasized the future potential of the device. Amazon Prime members could buy Echo for just $99, while normal Amazon customers had to pay $199.Currently, Echo’s functionality is simplistic, but useful. The device is always on, but requires its ‘wake word’ to prime it for interaction – the only two choices are “Alexa” or “Amazon” at the moment. You can ask Echo questions, have it play music, create a to-do list, or get the weather. Echo can also play a digest of the biggest news stories or play reports of specific issues that users ask to hear. The Echo companion app allows you to customize settings, keep a record of your queries and the answers to those queries, and view the shopping and to-do list items that you’ve previously dictated to Echo. Amazon is also developing a developers’ kit to allow developers to create Echo apps, which are likely to make it even more multi-functional in the future.Echo is a move by Amazon to enter the voice-controlled technology space, but it also has potential as a “smart home” appliance, which is a growing market. Echo might someday be able to integrate with your home appliances, adjusting the temperature, locking and unlocking doors, and turning lights on and off. Amazon might envision a future where Echo is a kind of “hub” where you can manage and connect with all of the smart appliances in your home in one centralized location.Echo lacks a battery option and has to be plugged in to function, limiting its portability. It’s also able to glean information from Wikipedia, but not from Google or other search engines. That will likely change in the future as both Amazon and Echo’s developers gain more familiarity with the device. The speaker quality is also limited, with testers reporting distortion at higher volumes. Users report that Echo experiences some confusion with queries that don’t fall within its narrowly defined specifications, although Echo also learns from its mistakes and adapts to the types of queries you most frequently make.It’s not currently clear how Amazon uses the information it gleans from users’ questions and commands, or whether there’s any capacity for storing things you say that aren’t directed at Echo itself. From Amazon’s perspective, the Echo could be an invaluable new tool for learning more about its customers, with an ability to generate heaps of granular data about the routines and preferences of each individual user.On the other hand, privacy advocates have ample reason to be concerned about a device that can quickly transmit your every word to the cloud, where it can be stored along with the rest of Amazon’s trove of your personal information and used to make product recommendations and generate marketing materials. However, Amazon notes that any users uncomfortable with the collection of their data can simply go into their “History” using their Echo app, and delete queries either individually or in bulk, which will also delete the information from Amazon’s servers.At this point, there’s no telling what the Amazon Echo of 2020 will look like compared to the launch version of 2015. It could be a staple in homes across the country, or it could flame out like the Amazon Fire phone long before then. Amazon seems poised to commit the necessary resources to ensure the former.

1. What functionality does Amazon Echo display during the video?

2. What kind of technology does Amazon Echo use?

3. Why does Amazon Echo make sense as a hub for home appliance automation?

4.What might be some privacy concerns involving Echo? Are these well founded? Why or why not?

5. Why is releasing a developers’ kit for Echo important for Amazon to keep pace with services offered by Apple, Google, and Microsoft?

Shonga PLC produces tables. According to the forecasts, there will be demand for 200 tables during the next four weeks and 250 from week 5 to week 8, but costumers have previously ordered 210, 80 40, and 70 pieces for the first four weeks. We also know that we have an on-hand inventory of 400 tables, order policy contains 200 units and lead time is 1 week. Develop the Master Plan Schedule.

MARKETING RESEARCH

The principal activity of General Mills is to produce and market packaged consumer food products. The products include cereals, desserts, flour and baking mixes, dinner and side dish products, organic products, snacks, beverages and yogurt products. The products are sold under the brand names namely: Cheerios, Wheaties, Lucky Charms, Total, Chex, Pillsbury, Haagen-Dazs, Betty Crocker and Bugles. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is one of the major customers of the Group. As of 2005, the company operated in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe and Asia/Pacific.

In order to determine the impact of an important strategic move, such as lowering prices or introducing new products, General Mills uses marketing research. General Mills ran into problems when a pesticide panic hurt sales and private label makers started to cut into their market share. Store brands have become increasingly popular with consumers. Store owners took advantage of cereal prices of up to $5 per box, resulting in increased market share for the store brands. At least one cereal maker, Quaker Oats, started making a house brand version of its cereal. Quaker’s lower priced-bagged-copies of leading brands have grown rapidly and advanced Quaker’s market share to over 10%. Ralcorp Holdings Inc., the leading maker of private label cereals, expects the trend of house or private brands gaining increased market share to continue, since only about half of the leading cereals have private label competition. Ralcorp expects to gain a larger portion of the market as it continues to introduce more imitations. Some industry experts believe that unless the big brand name cereal prices are cut, or the promotions increased, this trend will continue.

In order to address this problem, General Mills conducted problem solving research to determine what, if any changes they should make to their price and promotions strategy. In order to determine the effects of changes, consumer surveys were undertaken followed by test marketing. The results of General Mills test markets suggested several pricing and promotional changes that would help increase their success. General Mills cut prices on several of its cereal lines. Along with this price reduction, General Mills cut its coupon and promotion budget in an effort to halt spiraling costs and to reduce the price gap between General Mills’ products and the competition, which had been as high as 25% in the past.   

In addition to lowering prices, General Mills launched sweetened cereals to capture the aging baby boomer market. In January 2005, the company introduced Fiber One Honey Clusters, which has slightly sweetened flakes instead of the original Fiber One’s fiber twigs. This introduction was based on the belief that if a product does not taste good, it does not matter what the nutritional benefits are. It is not going to be a success. The sweetened cereals have also helped to insulate General Mills from price competition. Private labels are less likely to knock off the sweetened brands, either because they are too narrowly targeted at market niches or because store labels cannot compete with the hefty marketing budget of General Mills. These moves have increased General Mills’ sales and profits. The strategy of consistently low prices and introducing niche products, supported by marketing research, is paying high dividends for General Mills.

Questions

1. In its attempt to perform descriptive research design, what type(s) of survey and observation methods do you recommend to be used by General Mills in order to determine their pricing and promotional strategies needed to face private labels. ( 20 points - 250 words approx.)

ASAP PLEASE!!