Statistics say that purchases in physical retail stores are in deadline, while purchases on E-commerce websites such as amazon are more popular than ever. Do you agree why or why not. Give examples or personal experience

Case Study I

HAIER’s foray into International Markets :

In the late 1990s, the Haier group (Haier) was the leader in the Chinese consumer appliances market (with a 39.7%, 50% and 37.1% market share in refrigerators, air-conditioners and washing machines respectively in December 1998). But deflation in the Chinese economy slowed sales.

ut deflation in the Chinese economy slowed sales growth from 50% in 1998 to around 30% in 1999. Haier decided to look for new markets. Since the US had a large demand for consumer appliances, Haier entered the US market in 1999. Analysts were doubtful about Haier's acceptability to American consumers, as there was a general perception in the US that Chinese goods were of low quality. Haier, however, was confident that with its product differentiation strategy it would be able to create a positive image for its products among the American public. In the early 2000s, the consumer appliances market in the US started hotting up as Haier entered the market. By 2009, Haier products were sold in 9 of the 10 top retail chains in the US.

With Wal-Mart agreeing to stock Haier products, many analysts believed that Haier would be able to shake up the US consumer appliances market. In 2009, Haier had a 6% market share in the US refrigerator market; it stated that it was aiming for a 15% market share by 2015.

The history of Haier dates back to 1984 when Ruimin Zhang (Zhang), a bureaucrat with the local government was asked to take charge of Qingdao General Refrigerator Factory, a state-owned enterprise that is manufacturing refrigerators for sale in China. When Zhang took over the management, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy, with no funds to pay the salaries of its employees or to invest in new product development. When Zhang took charge of the company, he realized that the company did not look after the quality of its products; nor did it bother about customer satisfaction. In 1985, Zhang started importing technology from a German firm and began manufacturing technically sophisticated refrigerators.

Zhang emphasized the elements of customer satisfaction and quality control in the company. In 1985, when a customer complained about the poor performance of his refrigerator, Zhang conducted a quality check and found that out of 400 refrigerators inspected, 76 were defective.

He had all the defective refrigerators destroyed with a sledge-hammer. According to Zhang, this made the workers realize that quality is of only two types - acceptable and unacceptable. In 1989, the company changed its name to Qindao Refrigerator Co. Ltd., and it was restructured with funds raised from banks and government agencies. In 1991, the company once again changed its name to Qindao Haier Group Co. and in the same year it merged with Qingdao Air-conditioner Plant and Qingdao Freezer General Plant. In 1992, the company set up Qingdao Freezing Equipment Co. In the same year, it merged with another previously state-owned enterprise Qingdao Condenser Factory, which manufactured refrigerator condensers.

In the same year it became the first company in China to get ISO 9001 certification, and the company's name was changed to the Haier Group. In 1993, Haier went in for an IPO of RMB 50 million and got listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE).

During the mid-1990s, Haier began to grow through mergers and acquisitions. In 1995, it merged with Red Star Electric Appliance Company (and five of its subsidiaries). This company manufactured washing machines. It also acquired Wuhan Elec-appliance Co., which manufactured freezers and air conditioners. Between 1995 and 1997, Haier acquired seven companies and started exporting its goods to foreign markets.

By 1997, Haier was the number one consumer appliances brand in China and the market leader in all its product segments, which included refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens and freezers and its revenues were reported at $1.15 billion (10 billion Yuan)...

Haier's Competitors in the US Market

USA was the world's largest and most competitive market for consumer appliances. The consumer appliances market can be segmented on the basis of products into kitchen appliances and home comfort products. Included in kitchen appliances are products such as dishwashers, disposers, compactors, food preservation appliances, refrigerators, freezers etc.

In the home comfort segment are included products such as room air-conditioners and dehumidifiers. The home appliances market in the US was dominated by American companies, namely GE Appliances (a subsidiary of General Electricals), Whirlpool and Maytag. The only strong foreign player in this market was Sweden's Electrolux. GE Appliances, Whirlpool, Maytag and Electrolux together accounted for around 98% of the 9 million standard refrigerators sales in the US every year. In the 1990s, many Asian players such as LG Electronics and Samsung entered the US market in a big way. The big four companies in the US market concentrated on the high- end market comprising full-size refrigerators and washing machines, since the margins in this segment were high...

Strategies in the US Market

Haier decided to compete with the US brands on the quality plank rather than on price. However, analysts felt that it would be very difficult for the company to win over American consumers who associated Chinese goods with low quality. To strengthen its presence in the US market, Haier adopted a localization strategy.

It opened a design center in the Los Angeles and employed US designers for designing its products for the US market. Haier also opened a marketing center in New York. The company focused on enhancing consumer awareness about the company and its products. Commenting on Haier's strategy, Zhang said, "We want consumers to feel that Haier is the one company that comes closest to satisfying their needs." For instance, none of the consumer appliances companies in the US offered a compact refrigerator to satisfy demand from college students who could not afford normal size refrigerators...

Going High-End

Most analysts felt that Haier would feel the real competition only when it entered the high-end market. In the compact refrigerator segment, Haier did not face much competition from established players in the US, who did not focus on the low margin segment.

However, the major US players were keeping track of Haier's activities. Commenting on the competition from Haier, GE Appliances Chief Executive, Jim Campbell said, "I take it very seriously. They may be producing only 200,000 refrigerators per year now, but that's going to get bigger."

On the negative side, some analysts felt that Haier lacked the brand image to make a dent in the high-end segment. They pointed out that in general US consumers were brand-conscious, and this was especially true in the case of high-end products. The lack of a positive brand image in this consumer segment would probably make it difficult for Haier to succeed in the high-end markets. Analysts felt that Haier had an additional weakness in its distribution and service centers...

Future Prospects

Despite a few reservations, analysts too were, by and large, upbeat about the company because of its strong performance in breaking into the American market in a short time.

Said Nicholas Heymann of Prudential Securities, "Over five years, it could become a force." With quality products and lower prices, it was felt that Haier would be able to garner a sizeable market share in the US. Haier's experience in the geographically vast and diversified Chinese market would serve it well in catering to the US market.

However, a major worry for Haier is how to fund its expansion plans. Increasing competition in the domestic markets is bringing Haier's finances under pressure.

Questions 3:

What are the countries that you would suggest Haier should concentrate upon? Why?

1. Dave Martin is the R&D Vice President of a company in the internet industry.

Dave wanted everybody in the company to understand his value. For this reason, he was looking to start a new product that would change the landscape. After much R&D, he came up with an idea for a new product.

Dave has known you for a long time and trusted your capabilities, skills, and integrity as a senior project manager. He appointed you as the manager of the product development project. He presented to you the idea of the new product and the required specifications. It was a complicated product and because it was planned to be a breakthrough in the industry, Dave wanted to make sure that none of your company’s competitors would know anything about the project and the new product. Therefore, Dave told you that you have to develop all the components of the product without using any partnership or subcontractors. Based on Dave’s directions you prepared a project plan as you learned in the project management course at LSU. Because of the complexity of the project you found out that the project would use a lot of resources and will last a long time. Dave approved all of your requests. He told you that you must complete the project on time, within the approved budget, and that all of the required specifications must be addressed.

Because of the complexity of the project and its uniqueness, you needed the best resources (labor, materials, and machinery). When you approached the different line managers and asked for the resources, you faced their resistance. They told you that because of other commitments, they could not provide you with as many resources as you asked for.

You approached Dave and presented to him the difficulties you faced and asked for his help. Dave was a very strong manager in the company. Since it was his product and he wanted to develop it by all means, he forced the different line managers to address your needs.

You were very happy. You knew that you had the full support of the sponsor of the project and that the sponsor could do whatever he wanted in the company.  You also knew that should the project be successful, you would be promoted and rewarded.

Dave promised you and your team members a big bonus should the project be completed within the budget and time limits, and all the required specifications were addressed.  You and your team worked very hard including days, nights and weekends in order to make sure the project would be completed without exceeding the approved budget and schedule, and all the required specifications were addressed.

Your efforts paid off. You completed the project on January 15, 2020, two months before the due date, you did not utilize all the approved budget, and you did address all the required specifications. You were very happy and you saw that everybody in the company respected you.

As they do every year, the board of directors of the company had a meeting in early February 2020 to evaluate the different projects that were completed in the previous year (2019).  It was a tradition in the company that every year, the best project was announced in mid-February, and its sponsor and project manager were rewarded with a big bonus.

Then the important day of announcing the best project arrived.  In spite of all of the expectations, your project was not the “winning” one. You were disappointed, but you thought that it was not “the end of the world.” You knew that you finished the project on time, within the budget limits, and addressed all the specifications. Your status as a good and reliable project manager was not damaged.

But then came the really bad news.  The board of directors announced that your project was a failure.

Please explain how the project could be a failure in light of, and in spite of all the information presented above.

Important Guidelines:

1. All the information that was presented in the question is accurate. Do not try to say that maybe the project did not address all the 3 objectives of schedule, budget, and specifications.
2. Do not try to claim that the board of directors was wrong and in light of the information presented in the question, the project was not a failure.  The board of directors was right. The project was a failure.
3. Focus your answer on the request to explain how the project could be a failure in light and in spite of all the information presented in the question. You will not get any credit for anything that is not directly related to this request even if it is right in and of itself.

(b) Eir-Tel, Inc. is a telecommunication services provider looking to expand to a new territory Z. It is analyzing whether it should install its own telecom towers or lease them out from a prominent tower-sharing company X-share, Inc. Leasing out 100 towers would involve payment of €5,000,000 per year for 5 years. Erecting 100 new towers would cost €18,000,000 including the cost of equipment and installation, etc. The company has to obtain a long-term secured loan of €418,000,000 at 5% per annum. Owning a tower has some associated maintenance costs such as security, power and fueling, which amounts to €10,000 per annum per tower. The company’s tax rate is 40% while its long-term weighted average cost of debt is 6%. The tax laws allow straight-line depreciation for 5 years. Determine whether the company should erect its own towers or lease them out. [14 marks]

Question 3 (a) Financial evaluation is an import step in the project management.

(i) Explain what is meant by Cost Benefit Analysis and, using two project examples, discuss benefits of such analysis. [2 marks]

(ii) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of three techniques used for project investment appraisal. [4 marks]

(iii) Projects A and B are competing for funds. With an original investment of €1,000 and returns given in Table Q3, determine using appropriate project financing evaluation techniques whether the company PTO 5 should choose projects A or B? Provide calculations to justify your recommendation. Use 10% discount rate in your calculations.

Table Q3 – Table of project returns Project A Project B Year 1 €200 €0 Year 2 €500 €0 Year 3 €400 €700 Year 4 €0 €700 Year 5 €500 €500 [7 marks]

(b) There is a variety of organization structures. (i) Discuss each type of structure and draw their schematic diagram. [4 marks]

(ii) For each type of structure summarize in a tabular form: • What is the Project Manager’s authority (range: little, limited, moderate high, total) • Who controls the project budget (range: Functional Manager, Project Manager) • Project manager’s role (range: full-time, part-time). Use this information to explain major differences between them. [3 marks]

1. You are a project manager at a construction company that specializes in building office buildings. You were approached by a representative of a company that was interested in your company’s services. He told you that their company was growing and they decided to build a new office building to address their needs. Then he told you that they already started the process with another construction company. They signed a contract with the other construction company and they started the building process.  Unfortunately, the other construction company experienced financial problems and went out of business. Now they were facing a problem. They have already sold the old office building and committed to a date they would move out. They asked you for a proposal for completing the building process.

As a project manager, you realized that it could be a very good opportunity. This is a win case for you and a lose case for them. Since they must move out of their old office building, they are probably very vulnerable.  Therefore, you can inflate the price, compromise on the specifications and still get the job. You think about how impressed your boss will be.

How will you handle this case?  What will you offer the potential client with respect to the price for completing the project and the specifications you will guarantee?  Please present the different alternatives you have, explain the advantages and disadvantages to each alternative, select the alternative you recommend, and justify your recommendation.

Q.Using the Performance Gap model, analyse the main problem/s, cause/s and propose solution/s for eBAY,

What training and support you would provide to a new line manager responsible for recruiting, selecting and inducting staff? List at least 3 training methods you would choose to ensure the line manager gets access to training.

How would you obtain support for the new policies and procedures regarding recruitment, selection and induction?

Why is data security important now more than ever? What are some of the steps that we can take to ensure that our database is protected and secure? How can you use user views to enhance security and restrict access?

The world’s 3 billion-plus smartphones emit the kind of data that health authorities covet during outbreaks. They show where individuals are, where they’ve been and who they might have talked to or even touched — potentially offering maps to find infected people and clues to stopping new ones.
But gaining access to this data, even amid a global pandemic, is made complex by the legal and ethical issues surrounding government access to information that can reveal intimate details about citizens’ lives. That includes clues to their social networks, their sexual relationships, their political activity, their religious convictions and their physical movements over previous months and even years.
This is a central dilemma as officials in the United States and other nations seek troves of data that might help fight the devastating coronavirus outbreak but also could raise fears that their government is spying on them or gaining access to information that could be used against them later, after the health emergency has waned.
Public-health experts argue that the location-tracking capabilities as practiced in such countries as Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore proved remarkably effective at helping officials control the spread of coronavirus — and that the U.S. needs all the help it can get amid projections that millions of Americans may get infected and hundreds of thousands may die.
“We are at war and we are fighting for our survival, for our lives, our health, our economy,” said Chunhuei Chi, director of the Center for Global Health at Oregon State University. “We are stretched very thin in most states, so this kind of technology can help every state to prioritize, given their limited resources, which communities, which areas, need more aggressive tracking and testing.”
Many privacy advocates see value in potentially giving public health authorities access to information created by smartphone use. That’s especially true if the data is voluntarily shared, as is already happening in several nations, where apps give users the option of uploading their location histories to health authorities.
“There’s no reason to have to throw out our principles like privacy and consent to do this,” said Peter Eckersley, an artificial intelligence researcher who organized an open letter on ways the tech industry could help combat the outbreak.
There is far more concern, however, about the program underway in Israel, which is using location data the government collected for fighting terrorism, to identify people potentially exposed to the novel coronavirus and ordering them to immediately isolate themselves “to protect your relatives and the public.” Hundreds of such texts started being sent by health authorities there on Wednesday. Late Thursday, the Israeli supreme court issued a temporary injunction, allowing only those who test positive to be tracked, and ruled that a parliamentary committee would have to endorse the initiative by Tuesday or it must be shut down.
In the United States, the White House has been in negotiations with major technology companies, including Google and Facebook, about potentially using aggregated and anonymized location data created by smartphone use, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, but those efforts have been kept largely from the public Based on The Post’s reporting, Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter Thursday seeking answers about potential partnerships between the federal government and private companies.
“Although I agree that we must use technological innovations and collaboration with the private sector to combat the coronavirus, we cannot embrace action that represents a wholesale privacy invasion, particularly when it involves highly sensitive and personal location information,” Markey wrote to Michael Kratsios, the government’s chief technology officer. “I urge you to balance privacy with any data-driven solutions to the current public health crisis.”
Telecommunications giants in Austria, Germany and Italy also said this week that they would provide anonymized data on customers’ locations to government agencies hoping to analyze people’s movements.
O2, a telecom giant in the U.K., said Thursday that it was one of a group of mobile operators in the country asked by government officials to share aggregate location data on mass movements. The discussions are in an early stage, said a spokesman, who added that the company has “the potential to build models that help to predict broadly how the virus might move.”
Privacy experts repeatedly have shown that supposedly anonymous data can still be used to identify individual people, based on their known movements and other markers. Data that’s both anonymous and aggregated is far more private but also less useful in identifying people at particular risk for contracting coronavirus and spreading it to others.
The U.S. government has broad authority to request personal data in the case of a national emergency but does not have the legal authority, except in criminal investigations, to insist that companies turn it over, said Al Gidari, director of privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.
With appropriate safeguards, Gidari said the potential use of location data to combat coronavirus is “a real opportunity to do something positive with the technology and still protect people’s privacy.”
But currently there are no legal controls on how the federal government might use data once it has been collected, so location information collected for a health emergency could later be acquired by the FBI or the IRS.
Such complexities put companies in the uncomfortable position of balancing public safety and their customers’ privacy in deciding what data to share.
Many public-health experts say however that there are examples overseas of how such technology blunted the fast-spreading outbreak. In South Korea, the government directed tens of thousands of quarantined people to install a “Self-Quarantine Safety Protection” app that would monitor their phone’s location and alert health authorities if they left home. People also could use the app to report daily symptom check-ins and speak with the local government official overseeing their case.
On the app's website, the country's Ministry of the Interior and Safety said users would be protecting the “health and safety of your neighbors through strict self-isolation and observing the rules of life.” But because the app is voluntary, some critics have suggested its value is limited; people who wanted to skip quarantine could simply not turn it on.
Korean officials also routinely send text messages to people’s phones with public-health tips and alerts on newly confirmed infections in their neighborhood — in some cases, alongside details of where the unnamed person had traveled before entering quarantine.
But more so than the technology, the country’s vigorous health-screening infrastructure — more than 300‚000 people have been tested there in the last two months, compared to roughly 80,000 in the U.S. — has been credited by researchers with helping the country slow the virus’ spread.
Singapore, too, has asked people to use a voluntary location-tracking system based around QR codes — the square bar codes with information readable by smartphones — installed in cabs, offices and public spaces, which people have been instructed to scan upon passing. Health officials there have said the digital breadcrumb trail can help with infection “contact tracing,” but the data is far from complete, likely limiting its widespread use.
For an even more aggressive and seemingly effective example, some public-health experts have pointed to Taiwan, an island nation of 24 million people that has recorded only 100 infections, though it sits just 80 miles off the Chinese coast.
The country uses mandatory phone-location tracking to enforce quarantines, sending texts to people who stray beyond their lockdown range, directing them to call the police immediately or face a $33,000 fine. People who don’t have a GPS-enabled phone are issued a governmentprovided phone for the full length of the quarantine.
Devastated by a SARS outbreak in 2003, the country has spent years investing and preparing for viral outbreaks and, in some cases, disinformation campaigns from neighboring China. It also has established a government agency, the Central Epidemic Command Center, with special crisis-era powers to gather data and track people's movements.
When the outbreak spread, the government combined citizens’ health records — from its universal heath-care system — with customs and immigration records, helping piece together the travel histories of people suspected of infection. Those histories were made instantly available to medical providers, who tested for covid-19 and ordered quarantines for both confirmed cases and those who had traveled recently from widely infected countries.
For everyone else, the government offers an app that provides daily updates on reported cases, travel restrictions and details on community spread. Officials also make reams of real-time data publicly available, including online maps of where people can buy surgical masks.
The level of data gathering and surveillance is deeply intimate. But Chi, the Center for Global Health director, said it has also given Taiwanese people peace of mind about the unprecedented spread of a virus they can’t see.
“When the public doesn’t get adequate information, you give room for fake information to spread, and also panic,” Chi said. “When you do something like Taiwan did, you feel safe: You don’t have to worry about who’s infected. That’s not the case in the U.S.”
In the United States, wireless carriers such as AT&T and Verizon have extensive records on their customer’s movements based on what cellular towers their smartphones use to connect to broader networks. AT&T said it has not had talks with any government agencies about sharing this data for purposes of combating coronavirus. Verizon did not respond to requests for comment.
The information collected by some technology companies is significantly more precise, by tracking locations through GPS and the proximity of individual users to wireless data sources. Google, which operates navigation apps Google Maps and Waze and also produces the Android mobile operating system, the world’s most popular, has a particularly extensive trove of data.
Google said on Tuesday that it had not yet shared any data with the U.S. government to help combat the outbreak but it was considering doing so.
“We’re exploring ways that aggregated anonymized location information could help in the fight against covid-19. One example could be helping health authorities determine the impact of social distancing, similar to the way we show popular restaurant times and traffic patterns in Google Maps,” spokesman Johnny Luu said in a statement, stressing any such partnership “would not involve sharing data about any individual’s location, movement, or contacts.”
Government officials also could simply buy location data from companies that already collect and market such information, typically from apps that gather the locations of their users. Such data is readily accessible but regarded by technology experts as less comprehensive and reliable than data from other sources.
There are technical limits as well. Even the most granular cellphone data can be imprecise, potentially complicating its use as a logbook for establishing close interpersonal contact. Most GPS-enabled smartphones are accurate only within a roughly 15-foot radius and can be obstructed by trees and roofs.
Many privacy advocates recall a previous national tragedy, the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, not only for the human toll in deaths and dislocation but the U.S. government’s subsequent moves to aggressively gain access to sensitive data through technical means and expanded legal authorities.
The full sweep of that data grab only became clear years later, perhaps most powerfully when former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden shared a huge trove of classified information with The Washington Post and other news organizations in 2013.
That history looms over the current debate.
“It would be very unfortunate if the government’s failure to conduct testing when it had the opportunity now became the reason for expanded surveillance authority,” said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a research and advocacy group based in Washington.
The source of location data and how it was acquired could affect how useful it is to government health experts. Ryan Calo, an associate law professor at the University of Washington, said location-sharing partnerships between government and industry, like phone location data or GPS-sharing apps, could serve as critical tools for officials wanting to know, for instance, where crowds are violating social-distance rules or which hospitals are dangerously strained.
But other ideas now being pursued in the U.S., including consumer apps where people are mapped based on their self-submitted health status, threaten to promote a false sense of security that could leave more people at risk.
“The immediate and obvious trouble is where you purport to convert that information that’s crowdsourced, that’s imperfect, that can be gamed, into some kind of broader knowledge that people can deploy to avoid getting infected,” Calo said

Answer the following questions from the article above.

Question 1- South Korea implemented a “Self-Quarantine Safety Protection” app. Suggest five potential requirements the app could have been designed to meet.

Question 2-  Assume you’ve been asked to build a COVID-19 location tracking system. What are the limitations of the waterfall approach to software development in this scenario?

Question 3- Identify the pros and cons of using crowdsourced data in a COVID-19 response app or website.

Course- Management information system

How would you ensure the latest versions of the position descriptions and person specifications are used for the process?

Digital Transformation Technology

AmazonGo is an unmanned convenience store which is a new idea in the USA and has already 4 stores in New York. Although new in USA, this isn’t a new concept overseas. With 10,000 customers patronizing this store in just months of its existence, it has regained huge popularity among the local folk in Wellington.


QUESTION 1: Describe and explain 5 enablers (related to technology) that are necessary for this concept to work.

QUESTION 2: Give examples of technologies that can be used for minimizing shoplifting at these unmanned stores.

A business strategy:

 Clearly identifies the firm’s target market and broadly indicates what the operations and supply chain functions need to do to provide value to these customers

 Sets time frames and performance objectives that managers can use to track the firm’s progress towards fulfilling its business strategy

 Identifies the role of supply chain partners

 Identify and support the development of core competencies in the operations and supply chain areas

Draft a business strategy, for your own business, ensuring that the 4 (four) key areas mentioned above are adequately dealt with.

please analyze the resource base of Wikipedia in terms of competativie advantage using the VRIO framework