Questions
After watching a movie about a young woman who quit a successful corporate career to start...

After watching a movie about a young woman who quit a successful corporate career to start her own baby food com- pany, Julia Day decided that she wanted to do the same. In the movie, the baby food company was very successful. Julia knew, however, that it is much easier to make a movie about a successful woman starting her own company than to actu- ally do it. The product had to be of the highest quality, and Julia had to get the best people involved to launch the new company. Julia resigned from her job and launched her new company—Starting Right.
Julia decided to target the upper end of the baby food mar- ket by producing baby food that contained no preservatives but had a great taste. Although the price would be slightly higher than for existing baby food, Julia believed that parents would be willing to pay more for a high-quality baby food. Instead of put- ting baby food in jars, which would require preservatives to sta- bilize the food, Julia decided to try a new approach. The baby food would be frozen. This would allow for natural ingredients, no preservatives, and outstanding nutrition.
Getting good people to work for the new company was also important. Julia decided to find people with experience in finance, marketing, and production to get involved with Starting Right. With her enthusiasm and charisma, Julia was able to find such a group. Their first step was to develop prototypes of the new frozen baby food and to perform a small pilot test of the new product. The pilot test received rave reviews.
The final key to getting the young company off to a good start was to raise funds. Three options were considered: corpo- rate bonds, preferred stock, and common stock. Julia decided that each investment should be in blocks of $30,000. Further- more, each investor should have an annual income of at least $40,000 and a net worth of $100,000 to be eligible to invest in Starting Right. Corporate bonds would return 13% per year for he next five years. Julia furthermore guaranteed that investors in the corporate bonds would get at least $20,000 back at the end of five years. Investors in preferred stock should see their initial investment increase by a factor of 4 with a good market or see the investment worth only half of the initial investment with an unfavorable market. The common stock had the great- est potential. The initial investment was expected to increase by a factor of 8 with a good market, but investors would lose every- thing if the market was unfavorable. During the next five years, it was expected that inflation would increase by a factor of 4.5% each year.
Discussion Questions
1. Sue Pansky, a retired elementary school teacher, is con- sidering investing in Starting Right. She is very conserva- tive and is a risk avoider. What do you recommend?
2. Ray Cahn, who is currently a commodities broker, is also considering an investment, although he believes that there is only an 11% chance of success. What do you recommend?
3. Lila Battle has decided to invest in Starting Right. While she believes that Julia has a good chance of being suc- cessful, Lila is a risk avoider and very conservative. What is your advice to Lila?
4. George Yates believes that there is an equally likely chance for success. What is your recommendation?
5. Peter Metarko is extremely optimistic about the market for the new baby food. What is your advice for Pete?
6. Julia Day has been told that developing the legal docu- ments for each fundraising alternative is expensive. Julia would like to offer alternatives for both risk-averse and risk-seeking investors. Can Julia delete one of the finan- cial alternatives and still offer investment choices for risk seekers and risk avoiders?

In: Economics

what are legislation impose on online food delivery. example for food panda and Grab food

what are legislation impose on online food delivery. example for food panda and Grab food

In: Economics

At one time or another, almost every retailer claims that their first and only priority is...


At one time or another, almost every retailer claims that their first and only priority is to make the customer happy. Few, however, can duplicate what Nordstrom does. For the Seattle-based upscale retailer, “the customer is always right” is not just a promotional motto but a way of life that guides the organization. The entire company is directed towards one goal––catering to the needs of customers. Sales associates are given incredible freedom to do whatever is needed to make customers happy––refunding a purchase made years ago, personally delivering items to airports and hotels for busy customers, and even lending out jewelry for a customer who is attending a party. The importance of making a customer happy even extends into store inventory, as managers try to stock every conceivable size, color, and variant of an item so that customers will always find what they are looking for. And in the rare instance that they can’t, employees will call other Nordstrom stores, or even competitor stores, to track it down.
This emphasis on customer service has even spawned an urban legend. The story goes that many years ago, a man walked into a Nordstrom store in Alaska (or Seattle) with two snow tires. Nordstrom, of course, doesn’t sell tires (snow or otherwise); the man had bought them from a tire store that had recently closed, the site of which was taken over by Nordstrom. Nonetheless, the man took the tires to a counter, said that he was unhappy with them, and asked for a full refund. The sales associate, eager to please the customer, gave it to him.
As the HR team of Nordstrom, you face a particular challenge––you need to create a team that is not only skilled for the job, but also has the personality, attitude, and motivation to provide consistent, superior customer service. Form a group with three or four other students and discuss how you would approach staffing and training issues at Nordstrom by answering the following questions.
Questions:
1. Can a friendly, customer-oriented attitude be developed in a person? Can Nordstrom “train” employees to prioritize making customers happy, or is it purely a matter of personality? Which training methods would you feel are most helpful? What would be there benefits?
2. What kind of selection tools from the ones you have learned would you use to find people who would fit Nordstrom’s culture of customer service? Why would they be beneficial?
3. What kind of training programs would help new employees learn what is expected of them at Nordstrom?

In: Economics

Select a proprietary or non-proprietary Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system used by an industry or a...

Select a proprietary or non-proprietary Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system used by an industry or a business entity in Malaysia, analyze and evaluate the relevant operational; analytic; and collaborative functions of the chosen CRM and highlight their benefits to that particular industry or a business entity. (explain in detail)

In: Economics

A government is running a balanced budget. An election is approaching and the government decides on...

A government is running a balanced budget. An election is approaching and the government decides on a one-time, temporary, massive tax cut that will cut tax revenue by $50 billion in one year; after the year is over, tax rates and tax revenue return to normal. The government decides to issue perpetual bonds of $50 billion to cover the cost of the tax cut. The interest rate on these bonds is constant at 6%. The tax to pay the interest in the future will be levied onthe private sector. Suppose that half of the population plans ahead and wants to leave enough in bequests to the next generation so that they are not harmed by future higher taxes. The other half of the population spends all they can now. a. What is the impact of the tax cut on domestic saving? b. What happens to consumption? c. Who buys the $50 billion of debt?.

In: Economics

For the past six months, you’ve been heading a hiring committee in charge of hiring a...


For the past six months, you’ve been heading a hiring committee in charge of hiring a new division manager. It’s been a grueling process—filtering through thousands of applications, seemingly endless meetings and discussions debating people’s qualifications, so many interviews in different cities that it’s hard to remember whom you met and where, and even more debates about who should be flown to your headquarters for a day of final interviews.
But it’s almost over now. After so many interviews, meetings, and discussions the committee has settled on a candidate that everyone thinks is ideal for the job—Ivy-league educated, lots of management experience, a great personality, driven to succeed, willing to learn etc. He was near the top of your list when you began this process six months ago, and here he is now, in first place at the finish line.
You head into the last hiring committee meeting with lots of relief. Not only are you happy that you found the right person for the job, but you’re really glad that this meeting is just going be a formality. No more debates or arguments about applicants’ work experiences, education, or hobbies. Just walk on in, take a quick vote, and then make a call with the job offer.
But as you walk into the committee meeting, there’s a strange vibe. Some people look quite worried, whereas others are just angry. When you ask what’s going on, one of the committee members responds that in the past few days, she added the final candidate as a friend on Facebook, and what she found on his profile was quite disturbing. There were several photos of him passed out on the sidewalk after drinking too much. Other photos showed him smoking marijuana at a friend’s apartment. Another photo shows him wearing a Nazi costume for what you assume is a Halloween party. And then there’s the language—almost all of his posts are filled with obscenities.
After seeing all of this, half the committee wants to go with another candidate. They can’t imagine that this is the kind of person they want leading your company’s most important division. The other half of the committee thinks it’s not a big deal at all. They believe that how he spends his personal time has absolutely no reflection on his ability to manage, and they’re angry that committee members would try to use it against him.
So here you are, faced with a split (and angry) committee. They’re looking to you to make or break the deadlock—should we hire this guy or move on to someone else?
Questions:
1. What decision would you make? Would you hire this person or re-open the search?
2. In your opinion, are companies justified in using an applicant’s Facebook or Twitter account when considering them for a job?
3. Do you believe that a company should be concerned with how a potential employee spends his or her personal time?

In: Economics

Your start in the pizza business came in the eighth grade, when your father opened the...


Your start in the pizza business came in the eighth grade, when your father opened the Village Pizza restaurant. After graduation, you entered the construction business, building homes for more than a decade. But, then, something drew you back. So, you took the family recipes and started your own restaurant, Nick’s Pizza & Pub (far enough away to avoid competing with Dad).
Your goal was simple: to build a fun, family restaurant. Nick’s Pizza & Pubs—there are now two—have 26-foot high, floor-to-ceiling stone fireplaces, stuffed bears and moose, “antler chandeliers,” huge aquariums separating the bar and the restaurant, and wood everywhere—oak floors and huge beams recycled from century-old barns. And they’re huge, each seating 320 guests. On a Friday night, 1,500 customers will eat at Nick’s, most waiting an hour for their tables, while having a drink and eating free peanuts at the bar. Those 1,500 customers will eat 600 pizzas, and carryout customers order another 200. Why do they come? Beyond the great pizza, they come for the value. A medium cheese pizza is $11; soft drinks are $1.75, with free refills; and the popular Italian beef sandwich is under $6.00. Nick’s is really affordable, especially for a sit-down restaurant.
With things going so well, you decided to open three more restaurants in the next five years. Unfortunately, the recession changed your plans. Guest counts dropped by 20 percent, or 100,000 people per year, decreasing revenues by nearly $1 million. On top of that, your managers were having difficulty controlling costs. Each week, they conducted a physical count, comparing food inventories (tomato sauce, flour, cheese, beef, liquor, etc.) to the previous week, and then adjusted for this week’s sales. But beverage and food costs were still above goal, 22 percent of revenues for beverages and 20 percent of revenues for food. The problem, as you discovered, was your management, all hired externally because of their extensive experience at established well-known restaurant chains. Their idea of leadership, learned in the “command and control” cultures of other restaurants, was telling people what to do. So, they had someone else put in the inventory numbers, and when the numbers came out wrong, they didn’t dig deeper or ask questions to discover why.
In the end, with costs up, revenues down, and lending standards tightening, the bank didn’t approve the new construction loans. So rather than expanding, your immediate challenge is to fix and grow the two Nick’s restaurants that you’ve got. Frustrated with your managers, you gave responsibility for reducing costs to a 24-year-old who had worked for you since she was 16. She fixed the problem in four weeks by discussing the problem with the kitchen, wait, and bar staffs, who suggested immediate solutions to reduce costs.
Sensing that she was onto something, you pulled together the staffs in both restaurants to make a financial presentation that showed in detail how and where Nick’s was earning revenue and incurring expenses. After answering their questions, you asked for their help on three key issues: pay, hiring, and training.
1. Of course, everyone wants to be paid more, but with costs being an issue, are there ways to pay people more but link those increases to the company’s profitability and workers doing their jobs better and staying with the company longer? If so, how?
2. Next, because hiring talented workers is key in the restaurant business, how should Nick’s redesign its interview and selection process to do a better job of finding and keeping the best kitchen, wait, and bar staff? What is it about interviews that doesn’t work and should be abandoned? If so, what should be done instead, and why?
3. Finally, at most restaurants, training is simply shadowing experienced workers to see what they do. So, what could be done at Nick’s to improve training that would help them do their jobs better and to continue learning and improving over time? If you were in charge at Nick’s, what would you do?

In: Economics

1.     Consider the following game, which illustrates Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling's solution to the problem of how...

1.     Consider the following game, which illustrates Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling's solution to the problem of how a kidnapped person can induce a kidnapper to release him after the person has learned the identity of the kidnapper.

     The game starts off with the kidnapper, say Alex, deciding whether or not to kidnap Bart. If he decides not to kidnap Bart, the game ends. Alex gets a payoff of 3, while Bart receives a payoff of 5. However, if Alex decides to go through with the kidnapping, he is successful, but there is a scuffle in which he is unmasked, so that his identity is revealed to Bart. This creates another problem for Bart, since Alex would now be inclined to kill Bart since Bart, if released could identify Alex to the police. Bart then decides whether to reveal something compromising/incriminating about himself to Alex that is not known to the rest of the world. (For example he could have embezzled funds from the company he works in or has had an extramarital affair his wife does not know about. Effectively, he is offering this secret as a "collateral" which Alex can use to ensure his silence). Whether or not Bart decides to tell his secret, Alex has to decide to either kill him or release him. If he kills Bart the game ends and payoffs to Alex and Bart are respectively 4 and 0. If he releases Bart, then Bart has to decide whether to tell the police or not. If Bart does not tell the police the game ends and payoffs to Alex and Bart are respectively 5 and 2. If Bart chooses to tell the police, however, there are two scenarios to consider. If he hasn't revealed his incriminating secret to Bart, the game ends and the payoffs to Alex and Bart are 1 and 4 respectively. But if he has revealed his secret to Alex, then Alex has to decide whether to reveal that secret to the world. If he does then the game ends and payoffs are 2 to Alex and 1 to Bart. If he doesn't the game ends with payoff of 1 to Alex and 3 to Bart.

(a) Draw the extensive (tree) form of the game. How many strategies do Alex and Bart have? Write them down. {Hint: In doing so do not forget that a strategy is a complete plan of action.}

(b) Now present the game in strategic form. {Hint: The payoff table is pretty big! J } Identify all of the Nash equilibria in this game.

(c) Which of these equilibria is the subgame perfect Nash Equilibrium (SPNE)? Explain and illustrate your answer using backward induction on the game tree.

(d) Pick any two of the other Nash equilibria that are not SPNE. Discuss the credibility problems associated with these equilibria.

In: Economics

How might threats prevent people from experiencing the “suboptimality” of the Prisoners’ Dilemma? Please provide two...

How might threats prevent people from experiencing the “suboptimality” of the Prisoners’ Dilemma? Please provide two or more specific illustrations and please, very briefly, comment on the extent to which threats are, therefore, justified.

In: Economics

Show a loanable funds graph with a negative equilibrium interest rate. What kind of surplus or...

Show a loanable funds graph with a negative equilibrium interest rate. What kind of surplus or shortage exists if the ZLB binds?

In: Economics

What could the government do to ease the transition to an automated economy?

What could the government do to ease the transition to an automated economy?

In: Economics

Many reasons for why the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union have been proposed....

Many reasons for why the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union have been proposed. A common one is that imports from the EU hurt low-skilled British workers. Suppose that there are two industries, financial services and manufacturing. Further assume that there are two factors of production, low- skilled and high-skilled workers, and that finance is high-skill intensive and manufacturing is low-skill intensive. Further assume that the United Kingdom is abundant in high-skill labour.

a) Show using the Heckscher-Ohlin model of international trade how relative wages for low-skilled and high-skilled workers are determined when the UK is a member of the EU (i.e. when there is free trade between the UK and the rest of the EU). Explain your answer.

b) Now suppose that the UK leaves the EU. For simplicity, we will model this as autarky (i.e. that all trade between the UK and the EU stops). How do real wages of low-skilled and high-skilled workers change (remember that the UK is abundant in high-skilled labour)? Explain your answer.

In: Economics

Write a 2-3 page paper on the economic impact of globalization on the US economy. Comment...

Write a 2-3 page paper on the economic impact of globalization on the US economy. Comment on national income, US debt, unemployment, foreign exchange/currency, security, technology, etc.

Ideally, argue for or against using some of the topics suggested. Consider both the positive and negative effects and summarize on whether the costs or benefits outweigh the other.

Pay attention to content, writing mechanics, APA style (apa.org) and ensure originality, cite and reference in other words support your analysis with a body of knowledge.

Submit on a word document first to the link to check similarity percentage which needs to be 25% max and then submit the final draft to Assignment link for grading.

In: Economics

Write the simple formula for the money multiplier. If some borrowers hold loan money as cash,...

Write the simple formula for the money multiplier. If some borrowers hold loan money as cash, is this money multiplier too high or too low. Explain briefly.

In: Economics

6. Make revenue forecast for Pacific Shoes for 2020 based on historical data if the company...

6. Make revenue forecast for Pacific Shoes for 2020 based on historical data if the company generated the following revenues for the last five years. Calculate the forecast error, draw a graph with the actual and forecasted revenue by year, and show the forecast error on the graph.

Year.                      2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Revenue (Million $) 23 27    27        32.     30

In: Economics

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