Assume you are the CEO of an U.S.-based e-commerce company that wants to expand internationally by exporting a product or service to one of the BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, or South Africa. First, you should choose and describe the product or service you want to export. Second, you should evaluate the business environment in the chosen country and explain why you chose this country. Third, you should evaluate the market potential for your product/service in the chosen country. Be sure to specify the indicators (country indicators and market potential indicators) that you use to evaluate the market potential for your product/service in the chosen country. Fourth, you should develop a marketing plan to export your product/service to the chosen country. Be sure to specify the positioning strategy and target market, the pricing strategy, the distribution strategy, and the promotional strategy. Finally, you should develop a 2-slide executive summary (including detailed notes) that summarizes the key points of your international marketing plan.

The following letter has been issued by the CEO of   Pharma One Company to confirm accepting your business proposal that has been sent by your company on October 1^st, 2015.                

Dear Sir/Madame,

Over the years, Our Company “Pharma One” had established its reputation as being one of the leading Pharmaceutical Companies in Egypt and the Middle East. We are principally engaged in the development, production and sale of drugs licensed for use as medications. We deal in generic and/or brand medications. They are subject to a variety of laws and regulations regarding the patenting, testing and marketing of drugs. The main aim of the company is to develop research and distribute drugs in order to provide health care for the people in the society. The Company distributes its products in Egypt and the Middle East.

At Pharma One, our people are our greatest asset; we truly believe that. Our founder and CEO rooted the company in this philosophy and we continue to stand by it. HR today has the capabilities to be that strategic partner to business whether it’s in   employee resourcing, employee development, employee rewards and compensation and employee relations; all of those functional areas have the opportunity to really help the business achieve its strategic objective.

Based on your business proposal that was sent on October 1^st, 2016, which stressed on introducing new models and innovative HR practices in a methodical manner that can help moving from an old to a new business environment, Pharma One is confirming the following:

At this phase of the project, we require:

a) Developing a competency framework for 2 managerial levels (Senior Management and Middle Management).

Icebreaker Company (a U.S.-based company) sells parts to a foreign customer on December 1, 2020, with payment of 12,000 dinars to be received on March 1, 2021. Icebreaker enters into a forward contract on December 1, 2020, to sell 12,000 dinars on March 1, 2021. The forward points on the forward contract are excluded in assessing hedge effectiveness and are amortized to net income using a straight-line method on a monthly basis. Relevant exchange rates for the dinar on various dates are as follows:

Icebreaker must close its books and prepare financial statements at December 31.

1. a-1. Assuming that Icebreaker designates the forward contract as a cash flow hedge of a foreign currency receivable, prepare journal entries for the sale and foreign currency forward contract in U.S. dollars.

2. a-2. What is the impact on 2020 net income?

3. a-3. What is the impact on 2021 net income?

4. a-4. What is the impact on net income over the two accounting periods?

5. b-1. Assuming that Icebreaker designates the forward contract as a fair value hedge of a foreign currency receivable, prepare journal entries for the sale and foreign currency forward contract in U.S. dollars.

6. b-2. What is the impact on 2020 net income?

7. b-3. What is the impact on 2021 net income?

8. b-4. What is the impact on net income over the two accounting periods?

Taking consideration of the following articles, solve the follwing question

by Joel Rosenblatt

The former chief financial officer of Autonomy Corp was found guilty of orchestrating an accounting fraud to arrive at the $US10.3 billion price Hewlett-Packard paid for the UK software maker more than six years ago.

A jury voted to convict Sushovan Hussain on Monday on all 16 counts of wire and securities fraud after three days of deliberations in San Francisco federal court.

Autonomy was the UK's second-largest software business when Hewlett-Packard acquired it in 2011. Hewlett-Packard later wrote down its value by $US8.8 billion, citing fraud by Autonomy and asking the US Justice Department to investigate.

The guilty verdict at least partially vindicates Hewlett-Packard. It also gives the company momentum as it heads toward a trial next year in London in a $US5 billion civil suit against Hussain and Autonomy co-founder and former chief executive officer Mike Lynch.

John Keker, Hussain's lawyer, declined to comment. Robert Leach and Adam Reeves, the lead US prosecutors, also declined to comment.

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The US accused Hussain of spinning his company's financials to create a false appearance of growth.

At trial the government presented emails, phone records, earnings statements, press releases, and even an alleged payment of "hush money" to show what prosecutor Adam Reeves called "a balance sheet of fraud".

'Ponzi scheme'

From 2009 to 2011, when most technology companies were struggling in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Hussain built a facade to "eek out consensus estimates" of Autonomy's revenue before the merger with Hewlett-Packard, Reeves said in his closing argument.

Autonomy by late 2011 had become an "unsustainable Ponzi scheme", he said, leading Hussain to exhort Lynch to sell the company. Hussain was "desperate", and "constantly anguishing, and looking for revenue", Reeves said.

Keker, Hussain's lawyer, argued that HP bought, and then hobbled, an increasingly profitable software company. It was one of a string of failed acquisitions requiring write-offs, a list that includes Palm, Compaq, and Electronic Data Systems, he said.

Keker described a Hewlett-Packard "machine" that deployed an army of company lawyers and consultants to support the government prosecution, which he said relies on false testimony from cooperating witnesses who buckled under "tremendous pressure".

"They're trying to make this Englishman into a criminal, when committing a crime was the furthest thing from his mind when he was working," Keker said, referring to Hussain during his closing argument. "Everybody gets a pass but he's supposed to be a criminal. This case belongs in a civil case in London where it already is."

This case is U.S. v. Hussain, 16-cr-00462, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

In your accounting career you will be required to analyse current accounting issues and communicate your theoretical understanding to your professional colleagues and your clients. For this assignment assume that you are the senior accountant working for a major firm. Question 1 - 9 marks (1,500 words) The CEO has forwarded to you an interesting article and requires you to provide her with a deeper theoretical understanding of the issues discussed so that she can fully engage in the lively discourse at an upcoming conference. You are required to find a newspaper article or web page report of an item of accounting news, i.e. it refers to a current event, consideration, comment or decision that has been published after the 1st of January 2018. Your article could also come from one of the professional journals. The article should not come from an academic journal. Academic journals generally do not contain news articles or articles of less than one page and are usually only published 2 or 4 times a year. If you are having a problem ensuring that your article is from an appropriate source contact your subject coordinator. You then need to explain the article that you have found in your own words and clearly relate the concepts, ideas and facts within the article to one or more of the theories or topics that you have studied this session. Support your analysis of the assumptions and implications of the topic or theory as appropriate with reference to sources in APA 6 style. For example, this article from the Sydney Morning Herald in April 2016 could be linked to the topics of accounting regulation and measurement (and perhaps others). You must provide a copy of the article or web page, with details of the source, date and page number with your answer.

Sabrina Hoffman is founder and CEO of Golden Care, Inc., which owns and operates several assisted-living facilities. The facilities are apartment-style buildings with 25 to 30 one- or two-bedroom apartments. While each apartment has its own complete kitchen, in every building Golden Care offers communal dining options and an on-site nurse who is available 24 hours a day. Residents can choose monthly meal options that include one or two meals per day in the dining room. Residents who require nursing services (e.g., blood pressure monitoring and injections) can receive those services from the nurse. However, Golden Care facilities are not nursing homes, all residents are ambulatory, and custodial care is not an option. In the five years it has been in operation, the company has expanded from one facility to five, located in southwestern cities. The income statement for last year follows.

Sabrina originally got into the business because she had trouble finding adequate facilities for her mother. The concept worked well, and income over the past five years had grown nicely at 20 percent per year. However, Sabrina sensed clouds on the horizon. She knew that the population was aging and that her current clients would be moving to more traditional forms of nursing care. As a result, Sabrina wanted to consider adding one or more nursing homes to Golden Care. These nursing homes would be staffed around the clock with RNs and LPNs. The residents would likely have more severe medical problems and would be confined to beds or wheelchairs. Sabrina knew that quality care of this type was needed. So, she contacted Peter Verdon, her marketing manager, and Bernadette Masters, her accountant, for a brainstorming session.

Peter: "Sabrina, I really like the concept. As you know, several of our facilities have faced seeing their long-term residents move out to local nursing homes. Not only are these homes of lower quality than what we could provide, but losing a resident is heartrending for the staff, as well as for the remaining residents. I like the idea of providing a transition from less care to more."

Bernadette: "I agree with you, Peter. But let's not forget the differences between assisted-living and full-time, nursing-home-type care. Our expenses will really increase."

Sabrina: "That's why I wanted to talk with both of you. As you know, Golden Care's mission statement emphasizes the need to make a profit. We can't continue to serve our residents and provide high-quality care if we don't make enough money to pay our staff a living wage and earn enough of a profit to smooth over the rough patches and continue to improve our business. Could the two of you look into this idea, and get back to me in a week or so?"

Throughout the following week, the three communicated by e-mail. By the end of the week, a number of possibilities had surfaced, and these were summarized in a message from Bernadette to the others.

TO: [email protected], [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

MESSAGE:

I've compiled the ideas from all of our e-mails into the following list. This may be a good starting point for our meeting tomorrow.

Buy an existing nursing home in one of Golden Care's current locations.

Buy an existing nursing home in another city.

Build a new nursing home facility in one of Golden Care's current locations.

Build a new nursing home facility in another city.

Build a wing on to an existing Golden Care facility. The Apache Junction facility has sufficient open land for an addition.

The next day, Sabrina, Peter, and Bernadette met again in Sabrina's office.

Sabrina: "I didn't realize there were so many possibilities. Are we going to have to work up numbers on each of them?"

Bernadette: "No, I think we can eliminate a few of them pretty quickly. For example, building a new facility would cost more than the other options, and it would involve the most risk."

Peter: "I agree, and I also think we might eliminate the purchase of an existing nursing home for the same reasons. Also, existing homes would not give us the option of building a facility that is state of the art and meets our needs, and it would lock us into a preexisting patient mix."

Sabrina: "I like that thinking. Let's restrict our attention to Option 5."

Bernadette: "I thought you might like that option, so Peter and I sketched out two alternatives for an extension of the Apache Junction building. We call the alternatives Basic Care and Lifestyle Care."

Peter: "There are different markets for each type of care. If we want to concentrate on Medicare and Medicaid patients, the reimbursement is lower, and we would want to offer the Basic Care option. Private insurance and private-pay patients could afford more services; if we are marketing to these patients, we could offer the Lifestyle Care option. Both alternatives provide high-quality nursing care. Basic Care concentrates on the quality nursing and maintenance activities. For example, the addition would have 25 double rooms, two nursing stations, two recreation rooms, a treatment room, and an office. The Lifestyle Care option adds physical and recreational therapy with a specially equipped gym and pool. That addition would have 30 single rooms, two nursing stations, a recreation room, a swimming pool, a hydrotherapy spa and gym, a treatment room, and an office. In each case, there would be cable TV and telephone hookups in each room and a buffer area between the nursing home and the apartments."

Sabrina: "Why the buffer area? Won't that add unnecessary cost?"

Peter: "It adds cost, but it will be well worth it. Sabrina, you must remember that the nursing home patients are different from the apartment residents. Some of the patients will have advanced dementia. We'll lose apartment residents in a hurry if they have to be reminded every day of what might be in store for them later on."

Sabrina: "I see your point. Bernadette, what will these two plans cost? I'll tell you right now that I like the Lifestyle Care option better. It fits with our history of doing whatever we can to make life better for our residents."

Bernadette: "I've checked into the costs of putting on a new wing and operating both alternatives. Here's a listing."

* Other includes supplies, utilities, food, and so on.

"In both cases, total administrative costs for Golden Care would increase by $30,000 per year. This seems high, but the increased legal and insurance requirements will add significantly more paperwork and accounting."

Sabrina: "All this sounds reasonable, but why is reimbursement such an important factor?"

Peter: "Well, if you admit Medicaid patients, the state will reimburse at most $30,000 per year. Private insurance policies will pay roughly $46,000 per year. We can charge up to about $65,000 for private patients, but this type of care is so expensive that many of these patients exhaust their funds and go on Medicaid. The nice aspect of Medicaid is that we can be virtually assured that we will operate at capacity."

Sabrina: "Can we cross that bridge when we come to it?"

Peter: "No, not really. Once the patient is a resident of our facility, it is hard to evict him or her. Also, while it is legal to force patients out before they go on Medicaid and to refuse to accept Medicaid patients, once we do accept Medicaid patients, we are prevented by law from evicting them—no matter how high our costs go."

Sabrina: "OK, it looks as if we have some hard work ahead of us to decide whether or not to get into this line of business."

Required:

1. Indicate the order in which these steps will be performed in the tactical decision making model.

Sabrina Hoffman is founder and CEO of Golden Care, Inc., which owns and operates several assisted-living facilities. The facilities are apartment-style buildings with 25 to 30 one- or two-bedroom apartments. While each apartment has its own complete kitchen, in every building Golden Care offers communal dining options and an on-site nurse who is available 24 hours a day. Residents can choose monthly meal options that include one or two meals per day in the dining room. Residents who require nursing services (e.g., blood pressure monitoring and injections) can receive those services from the nurse. However, Golden Care facilities are not nursing homes, all residents are ambulatory, and custodial care is not an option. In the five years it has been in operation, the company has expanded from one facility to five, located in southwestern cities. The income statement for last year follows.

Sabrina originally got into the business because she had trouble finding adequate facilities for her mother. The concept worked well, and income over the past five years had grown nicely at 20 percent per year. However, Sabrina sensed clouds on the horizon. She knew that the population was aging and that her current clients would be moving to more traditional forms of nursing care. As a result, Sabrina wanted to consider adding one or more nursing homes to Golden Care. These nursing homes would be staffed around the clock with RNs and LPNs. The residents would likely have more severe medical problems and would be confined to beds or wheelchairs. Sabrina knew that quality care of this type was needed. So, she contacted Peter Verdon, her marketing manager, and Bernadette Masters, her accountant, for a brainstorming session.

Peter: "Sabrina, I really like the concept. As you know, several of our facilities have faced seeing their long-term residents move out to local nursing homes. Not only are these homes of lower quality than what we could provide, but losing a resident is heartrending for the staff, as well as for the remaining residents. I like the idea of providing a transition from less care to more."

Bernadette: "I agree with you, Peter. But let's not forget the differences between assisted-living and full-time, nursing-home-type care. Our expenses will really increase."

Sabrina: "That's why I wanted to talk with both of you. As you know, Golden Care's mission statement emphasizes the need to make a profit. We can't continue to serve our residents and provide high-quality care if we don't make enough money to pay our staff a living wage and earn enough of a profit to smooth over the rough patches and continue to improve our business. Could the two of you look into this idea, and get back to me in a week or so?"

Throughout the following week, the three communicated by e-mail. By the end of the week, a number of possibilities had surfaced, and these were summarized in a message from Bernadette to the others.

TO: [email protected], [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

MESSAGE:

I've compiled the ideas from all of our e-mails into the following list. This may be a good starting point for our meeting tomorrow.

Buy an existing nursing home in one of Golden Care's current locations.

Buy an existing nursing home in another city.

Build a new nursing home facility in one of Golden Care's current locations.

Build a new nursing home facility in another city.

Build a wing on to an existing Golden Care facility. The Apache Junction facility has sufficient open land for an addition.

The next day, Sabrina, Peter, and Bernadette met again in Sabrina's office.

Sabrina: "I didn't realize there were so many possibilities. Are we going to have to work up numbers on each of them?"

Bernadette: "No, I think we can eliminate a few of them pretty quickly. For example, building a new facility would cost more than the other options, and it would involve the most risk."

Peter: "I agree, and I also think we might eliminate the purchase of an existing nursing home for the same reasons. Also, existing homes would not give us the option of building a facility that is state of the art and meets our needs, and it would lock us into a preexisting patient mix."

Sabrina: "I like that thinking. Let's restrict our attention to Option 5."

Bernadette: "I thought you might like that option, so Peter and I sketched out two alternatives for an extension of the Apache Junction building. We call the alternatives Basic Care and Lifestyle Care."

Peter: "There are different markets for each type of care. If we want to concentrate on Medicare and Medicaid patients, the reimbursement is lower, and we would want to offer the Basic Care option. Private insurance and private-pay patients could afford more services; if we are marketing to these patients, we could offer the Lifestyle Care option. Both alternatives provide high-quality nursing care. Basic Care concentrates on the quality nursing and maintenance activities. For example, the addition would have 25 double rooms, two nursing stations, two recreation rooms, a treatment room, and an office. The Lifestyle Care option adds physical and recreational therapy with a specially equipped gym and pool. That addition would have 30 single rooms, two nursing stations, a recreation room, a swimming pool, a hydrotherapy spa and gym, a treatment room, and an office. In each case, there would be cable TV and telephone hookups in each room and a buffer area between the nursing home and the apartments."

Sabrina: "Why the buffer area? Won't that add unnecessary cost?"

Peter: "It adds cost, but it will be well worth it. Sabrina, you must remember that the nursing home patients are different from the apartment residents. Some of the patients will have advanced dementia. We'll lose apartment residents in a hurry if they have to be reminded every day of what might be in store for them later on."

Sabrina: "I see your point. Bernadette, what will these two plans cost? I'll tell you right now that I like the Lifestyle Care option better. It fits with our history of doing whatever we can to make life better for our residents."

Bernadette: "I've checked into the costs of putting on a new wing and operating both alternatives. Here's a listing."

* Other includes supplies, utilities, food, and so on.

"In both cases, total administrative costs for Golden Care would increase by $30,000 per year. This seems high, but the increased legal and insurance requirements will add significantly more paperwork and accounting."

Sabrina: "All this sounds reasonable, but why is reimbursement such an important factor?"

Peter: "Well, if you admit Medicaid patients, the state will reimburse at most $30,000 per year. Private insurance policies will pay roughly $46,000 per year. We can charge up to about $65,000 for private patients, but this type of care is so expensive that many of these patients exhaust their funds and go on Medicaid. The nice aspect of Medicaid is that we can be virtually assured that we will operate at capacity."

Sabrina: "Can we cross that bridge when we come to it?"

Peter: "No, not really. Once the patient is a resident of our facility, it is hard to evict him or her. Also, while it is legal to force patients out before they go on Medicaid and to refuse to accept Medicaid patients, once we do accept Medicaid patients, we are prevented by law from evicting them—no matter how high our costs go."

Sabrina: "OK, it looks as if we have some hard work ahead of us to decide whether or not to get into this line of business."

Required:

4. What would the price per month for a Basic Care patient be if the same markup were used? For a Lifestyle Care patient? (Assume in both cases that occupancy is at 80 percent of capacity.) Round your intermediate calculation to 3 decimal places and final answers to the nearest dollar amount.

Reading:

Steve Jobs was Apple’s founder and icon CEO. Much of Apple’s phenomenal success, especially after 2000, was attributed to Steve Job’s “genius” and leadership. Because of this and Tim Cook having a significantly different style from Jobs, he was given little chance for success. Yet, in 2014, several years after Cook assumed the CEO position, Apple had what Tim Cook referred to as an unbelievable year. Apple sold 200 million iPhones and had $200 billion in revenue. Apple’s stock price increased by 65 percent, and the company’s market value reached more than $700 billion, the largest ever of any U.S. firm. The $700 billion in market value is more than twice as much as either Microsoft or Exxon Mobil. Cook’s primary experience has been as manager of operations; he was Apple’s COO prior to assuming the CEO role. And, much of Apple’s sales are based on products developed and introduced to the market under Job’s lead- ership. So, the jury is still out on Cook, especially with regard to developing new products and making them a success in the marketplace. Steve Jobs was a master at this process. Cook’s style of lead- ership is much different from the approach used by Jobs. Some consid- ered Jobs to be ruthless and impulsive and almost maniacal in developing new products and ensur- ing a high quality product desirable in the market. Cook’s knowledge and skills do not make him an expert in product development, design, or marketing. So, he delegates those respon- sibilities but remains as the leader and decision maker. Cook tries to buffer and maintain Apple’s corporate culture developed largely by Jobs. Thus, the emphasis remains on innovation that is valued in the marketplace. Cook has learned the importance of hiring other top managers with talent but who also fit into Apple’s culture. He has made some very good hires, such as Angela Ahrendts who now heads Apple’s very important retail stores. Cook takes a much less emotional approach than Jobs. Some refer to it as a “measured emotional approach to leadership.” He empowers his team to manage their functional areas and emphasizes the need to take a long-run perspective. Observers have been able to highlight other differences between Cook’s and Job’s strategic leadership approaches. Cook shares the limelight with his leadership team, whereas Jobs kept the light on himself. In fact, one analyst suggested that Cook is a good leader who builds an effective team around him. Cook is leading Apple to be more philanthropic than in the past. His strategy has entailed a major acquisition (an audio company for $3 billion) and developing enterprise solutions for corporate IT units, both strategic actions that Jobs eschewed. Apple has formed an alliance with IBM to develop enterprise applications many of which will be designed for the iPad, especially the new and larger versions. Innovations developed during Cook’s leadership include the Apple watch, introduced to the market in April 2015. Many are waiting to learn its rate of success. Initial reports suggest that demand is exceeding supply, causing Apple to increase production. In addition, hints provided by Cook suggest that Apple may be planning to enter the television market. Most importantly, Cook claims that Apple’s goal is to change the way people work and will target the development of future products for that purpose.

Question:

What do you think of Jim Cook’s strategic leadership for Apple’s recent success after Jobs passed away?

Q 4:
Tyco International Private Limited is operating in over 60 countries and claims to be the largest
designer and maker of undersea telecom equipment’s. Tyco International is also considered as
world's largest maker and provider of electrical and electronic components; and they are also
maker of fire protection systems and electronic security services.
Tyco's former CEO Dennis Koslowski, former CFO Mark Swartz, and former General Counsel
Mark Belnick were blamed of giving themselves interest free loans that were never approved by
the Tyco board of directors. They were also accused of selling their company stock without
informing investors. Koslowski, Swartz, and Belnick stole $600 Million from Tyco International
through their unapproved incentives.
Tyco also incorrectly accounted for certain executive bonuses they paid, thereby excluding from
its operating expenses the costs associated with those bonuses. As a result of these various
practices, Tyco made false and misleading statements and omissions in its filings with the
commission and its public statements to investors and analysts.
a. In your opinion, what was the outcome of Tyco’s misuse of funds on professional bodies and
shareholders? What was the challenging part for SEC in investigating this high profile scandal?

b. What would you suggest to auditing companies and Securities Exchange Commission to take
steps to avoid such scams in future?
Your answer should be around 400 words for each question

MBA, spring 2020

Assignment 7

Topic: Logistic Management:

Your task is simple and exploratory: come up with a max. 1000 words write up that covers following:

Autonomous Truck & Drones: how play important roles in logistic management and that are impacting a particular facet of Logistics Management. Write a maximum 1000 words analysis.

On July 1, 2020, Adams Company acquired a new machine for $ 200,000 and estimated that it would have a useful life of 10 years and residual value of $ 10,000. On January 2, 2022, Adams spent $ 31,500 to perform a major overhaul on the equipment which improved the efficiency of the machine by 20%. Due to this change, Adams believed that the machine should have a total useful life of 12 years and residual value should be increased by $ 4,000. On November 1, 2023, the machine was sold for $ 110,000. The company uses straight line method of depreciation and closes its book on December 31.
Required: 1. Calculate the carrying value of the equipment at December 31, 2021.
2. Calculate depreciation expense for 2022.
3. Prepare the journal entry on November 1, 2023.