Answer all the following questions, using essay format Pick a firm/company/organization from your country that you are familiar with for example apple, ikea or mcdonalds

Question 1 Business strategy allows organizations to develop a clearer understanding of their own organization and what’s required for them to succeed.

a- Explain what business strategy is and discuss why the competitive advantages are temporary along with the four key areas of a SWOT analysis.

b- Give an example to show how you may apply the SWOT. (1000 Words)

Question 2

Define critical success factors (CSFs) and key performance indicators (KPI) Explain how managers use them to measure the success of MIS projects. (1000 Words)

Q. Discuss factors affecting the adoption of environmentally friendly technological innovation among firms. From your perspective what is the most important factor with realistic examples? (maximum 400 words )

Thirty years ago, Starbucks was a single store in Seattle’s Pike Place Market selling premium roasted coffee. Today it is a global roaster and retailer of coffee with some 13,000 stores, more than 3,750 of which are to be found in 38 foreign countries. The strategy of its owner was to sell to the company’s own premium roasted coffee and freshly brewed espresso-style coffee beverages, along with a variety of pastries, coffee accessories, teas and other products, in a tastefully designed coffeehouse setting.

In 1995, with 700 stores the United States, Starbucks began exploring foreign opportunities. Its first target market was Japan. Although Starbucks had resisted a franchising strategy in North America, where its stores are company owned, Starbucks initially decided to license its format in Japan. However, the company also realized that a pure licensing agreement would not give it the control needed to ensure that the Japanese licenses’ closely followed Starbucks’ successful formula.

So the company established a joint venture with a local retailer, Sazaby Inc. Each company held a 50% stake in the venture, Starbucks Coffee of Japan. Starbucks initially invested $10 million in this venture, its first foreign direct investment. The Starbucks format was then licensed to the venture, which was charged with taking over responsibility for growing Starbucks’ presence in Japan.

After Japan, the company embarked on an aggressive foreign investment program. In 1998, it purchased Seattle Coffee, a British coffee chain with 60 retail stores, for $84 million. In Asia, Starbucks’ most common strategy was to license its format to a local operator in return for initial licensing fees and royalties on store revenues.

In 2006, Starbucks announced that it believed there was the potential for up to 15, 000 stores outside of the United States, with major opportunities in China, which the company now views as the largest single market opportunity outside of the United States. Currently the company only has 350 stores in China.

1. What could be the main reason that triggered Starbucks to pursue FDI in Britain? .

2. Starbucks decided to pursue international investment through licensing, what would be the cause of that? .

3. Assess the reasons why Starbucks chose to embark on a foreign market expansion strategy outside of the USA.

4. In your opinion what type of international business activity should have Starbucks used? Explain your answer.

1. An important principle of change management is:

   		Make sure that DEV, QA, and PRD are set up technically correct
   		Have a data collection, standardization, and harmonization plan in place
   		Involve only top management
   		Educate users during planning for ERP on the system's benefits

1. All of the following are benefits of activity-based costing except:

   		Objectively assign overhead costs based on the cause and effect of a relevant cost driver to activities
   		Help businesses better analyze the cost of making and delivering items
   		Show the profitability by segment of the company
   		Allow for more accurate product overhead costing

Suppose that we have a process that produces two types of an item: Blue Item and Orange Item. Both of the items require the same pure sequential operations: O1, O2, O3. O1 and O3 are manual operations. O2 is the main and an automated operation which differentiates the items (e.g. gives different colors). Operation 1 takes 1 minutes per item. It is a manual operation that is common to both types. Operation 2 takes 4 minutes per item. It is an automated operation. Operation 3 takes 1 minute per item. It is a manual operation that is common to both types. Draw the GANTT Chart, calculate the flow time, cycle time, throughput, value added time and waste when the setup time for machine 2 where the Operation 2 occurs is 3 minutes and the batch size is 3 items per batch.

You are a business consultant who has just been hired by a young entrepreneur who is beginning a new business. The entrepreneur plans to start a privately owned business (i.e. grocery, clothing, hairdresser, auto repair, cleaning service, etc.). Your client is uncertain where to locate the business and is looking for your professional advice. Your client's initial thoughts are to establish sales of $200,000 the first year and grow the business at an average annual rate of 20% each year after. As his consultant, you are requested to prepare a report analyzing and answering the following questions:

1. What is the best small business option given today's economy?
2. What are the characteristics of the target market?
3. Who is the competition and what are their strengths and weaknesses?
4. What are your client's strengths?
5. How should the business operate?
6. How should the business be advertised and promoted?
7. How should the business be financed?
8. What are the restrictive laws and regulations affecting this type of business and how should the client comply with these laws?
9. What strategies and plans should be put in place to grow the business by 20% per year?

Toyota used to sit on top of the world. It basked in the reputation of building high-quality cars efficiently. It enjoyed unprecedented growth, even surpassing General Motors as the largest car manufacturer in the world. But all of that came tumbling down with reports that cars were accelerating out of control, careening down highways, and putting everyone’s lives in danger. There was even a recording of a 911 call from an off-duty policeman who lost control of his car and died in the ensuing crash. Toyota responded with a recall of historic proportions—nearly 8 million cars in the United States and 1.8 million in Europe. It even suspended sales of brand new models, including the best-selling Camry and Corolla, until the vehicles could be repaired. But still, there was confusion about what was causing the problems—was it the floor mats, the braking system, the software controlling the engine, or something else? Conspiracy theorists argued that Toyota had no clue what was causing the sudden acceleration and that their recall was basically worthless. By early 2009, your company was in a situation it had not faced for decades—its sales had dropped by 16 percent. Even General Motors, the bankrupt General Motors, which looked like it could do nothing right for many years, grew 8 percent during the same time. According to some journalists, the recall cost Toyota more than $2 billion. But by March 2010, things seemed to be on the rebound. Sales picked up dramatically, 35 percent from the previous year, and 88 percent from the previous month. Customers were once again buying Toyotas and putting their confidence in its ability to produce reliable cars. But just as things seemed to be rosy again, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced plans to levy a fine of $16.4 million against your company. The money itself isn’t necessarily a problem. Even with losses, Toyota still made $1.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. The fine would be less than 1 percent of what you earned in just three months. So why not just “take the medicine” as it were, pay the fine, and move on from the whole mess? Because the fine comes attached with a statement that Toyota “knowingly hid” safety problems in order to avoid a costly recall. According to LaHood, “We now have proof that Toyota failed to live up to its legal obligations. Worse yet, they knowingly hid a dangerous defect for months from U.S. officials and did not take action to protect millions of drivers and their families.” So what will you choose to do? You could just pay the fine and admit fault, but if you do, the company’s reputation for quality will take a perhaps fatal blow. You wouldn’t just be admitting that you made a mistake, but that you deliberately lied about it in order to keep making money. What’s more, an admission of covering up would give great support to the hundreds of lawsuits that claim Toyota committed consumer fraud. How much money would those settlements cost? You could, of course, just contest the fine and the admission. But, your company’s reputation is already fragile, and fighting the government (and potentially losing) may make things even worse. Form a group with three or four other students and discuss what decision you would make as a Toyota management team by answering the following questions. 1. What is your recommendation for how Toyota should approach this situation? 2. What are the decision criteria that should be used in this situation, and how should they be weighted? 3. Under what conditions do you think it is acceptable for Toyota to settle for a “good enough” decision?

1. An explanation of the McCumber's Cube model and how the elements of this framework interact
2. A discussion the role that the McCumber's Cube Framework plays in helping organizations form suitable policy
3. A discussion of how these cases illustrate a failure to implement the framework effectively
4. A discussion of the role management plays in information security as demonstrated by the Principles of Information Security *
5. Identify Principles of Information Security that seemed to be ignored (this may be a couple, many, or all)

You have been asked to develop your school’s first student code of ethics. How might you approach this task? Who might you try to involve? What might be some key tenets of such a code of ethics? Write a one-page paper and discuss other codes of ethics from three universities. Also discuss what items you would include in your set of guidelines and why you chose them. Include 3 references

Research the internet and or/other sources and Identify the prominent results that two organizations sustained from implementing a strategy that tied incentives directly to strategy execution. Explain why you believe they were able to do so. Note: Please be sure to reference chapter concepts as part of your response.

Public Speaking

•Preparation:

1.What do you do to prepare for your speeches?

2.What might you have done differently in order to be more effective?

•Introduction:

1.How effective were your attention-getting strategies?

2.How well did you relate your topics to your audience?

•Body:

1.Were you clear in your themes?

2.Overall, were your ideas developed thoroughly? Explain when and why.

3.How would you revise your speech so that you could improve it?

•Conclusion:

1.Overall, did you leave your audience with lasting impressions?

•Delivery:

1.What were your strengths?

2.What do you need to improve?

There are four (4) questions based on the following article from the ABA Journal. The Ohio Supreme Court has reversed an award of more than $360,000 in a suit against a grocery store chain that provided a motorized shopping cart to a customer who caused a collision and injured the plaintiff. The court said Giant Eagle wasn’t liable because there is insufficient evidence that its actions caused the incident. The plaintiff in the case, Barbara Rieger, was injured in December 2012 at a Giant Eagle in Brook Park, Ohio, when another shopper, Ruth Kurka, hit Rieger’s shopping cart with her motorized cart, according to the Ohio Supreme Court’s September 19th opinion. Rieger, who had been standing at the bakery counter, was knocked to the ground and taken to the hospital by ambulance, incurring $11,511 in medical bills. Kurka died before trial, and her estate settled with Rieger for $8,500. At trial, Rieger provided deposition testimony by Kurka’s husband, who said his wife had never been trained on how to operate the motorized cart. Rieger also presented evidence that there were 117 incidents involving motorized cars at Giant Eagle stores from 2004 to 2012. Deposition testimony by a Giant Eagle representative submitted at trial established that there are no instructions for operation on the motorized carts, and Giant Eagle assumes that people who use the carts know how to drive them. Jurors also heard evidence that Kurka had been driving motorized carts for more than a year and had no prior incidents. Jurors awarded $121,000 in compensatory damages and nearly $1.2 million in punitive damages. An appeals court lowered the punitive damages to $242,000. On appeal, Giant Eagle contended that the appeals court had eliminated the need to prove negligence and made the store an insurer for motorized cart incidents when it affirmed the verdict. The Ohio Supreme Court agreed with Giant Eagle and said a trial judge should have granted a directed verdict to the grocery store chain. It isn’t enough for a plaintiff to assert or speculate that a defendant’s actions or failure to act might have caused an injury, the court said. Instead, the plaintiff has to show that the harm would not have occurred but for the defendant’s behavior. “Despite the fact that Giant Eagle does not provide training for its customers who use the motorized carts, there is no evidence that training would have prevented the accident in this case,” the court said.

Giant Eagle took exception to the decision of the appeals court when it “eliminated the need to prove negligence and made the store an insurer for motorized cart incidents when it affirmed the verdict.” Since it was a negligence case, which requirement to prove negligence is demonstrated by the Ohio Supreme Court’s statement that “Giant Eagle wasn’t liable because there is insufficient evidence that its actions caused the incident”?

Group of answer choices

Unreasonable Behavior

Proximate Causation

Duty of Care

Causation in Fact

Describe value analysis. What are the desirable outcomes of value analysis to the firm?
To customers?

You have been invited by a large global health foundation to advise them on how to spend $10 million on a global health program. They want the program to address today’s most important global health concern. How would you advise them to spend this money? Please justify your answer using relevant data.