McDonald's Corporation is an American fast food company, founded in 1940 as a
restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald , in San Bernardino, California ,
United States. They rechristened their business as a hamburger stand, and later
turned the company into a franchise , with the Golden Arches logo being introduced in
1953 at a location in Phoenix, Arizona . Although McDonald's is best known for its
hamburgers, cheeseburgers and french-fries , they feature chicken products,
breakfast items, soft drinks , milkshakes , wraps , and desserts . In response to changing
consumer tastes and a negative backlash because of the unhealthiness of their food,
the company has added to its menu salads , fish , smoothies , and fruit .
In March 2010, McDonald’s Corp. announced a policy to increase summer sales by
selling all soft drinks, no matter the size, for $ 1.00. The policy would run for 150 days
starting after Memorial Day. The $ 1.00 drink prices were a discount from the
suggested price of $ 1.39 for a large soda. Some franchises worried that discounting
drinks, whose sales compensate for discounts on other products, could hurt overall
profits, especially if customers bought other items from the Dollar Menu. McDonald’s
managers expected this promotion would draw customers from other fast-food
chains and from convenience stores such as 7-Eleven. Additional customers would
also help McDonald’s push its new beverage lineup that included smoothies and
frappes. Discounted drinks did cut into McDonald’s coffee sales in previous years as
some customers chose the drinks rather than pricier espresso beverages. Other chain
with new drink offerings, such as Burger King and Taco Bell, could face pressure from
the $ 1.00 drinks at McDonalds.
Questions
a. Given the change in price for a large soda from $ 1.39 to $ 1, how much would
quantity demanded have to increase for McDonald’s revenues to increase?
b. What is the sign of the implied cross-price elasticity with drinks from McDonald’s
competitors?
c. What are the other benefits and costs to McDonald’s of this discount drink policy?
……….

Cupid's Kiss Limited (“CK”) was founded in early 1980s focusing on the manufacturing and trading of baby food and snacks in Hong Kong. After years of development, CK is now one of the well-known baby food producers in Asia. You are the audit manager-in-charge of the audit of CK’s financial statements for the year ended 30 September 2020. The audit is substantially completed. After reviewing the audit documentation, you and your audit partner are satisfied with the audit. There are no significant issues or difficulties encountered in the audit. It has been agreed with CK that the auditor’s report for the year ended 30 September 2020 will be authorised and approved in mid-November 2020. Just a week before the planned approval date of the auditor’s report, you read a news headline: “A popular product of Cupid's Kiss is proven to contain toxic ingredients with a high risk of causing health problems as the raw materials were contaminated. Cupid’s Kiss announced an immediate product recall.”

Required:
(a) Determine and explain whether Cupid’s Kiss toxic ingredients problem is an adjusting event or a non-adjusting event. Discuss its implications to its financial statements for the year ended 30 September 2020.

(b) Suggest relevant audit procedures in response to Cupid’s Kiss toxic ingredients problem.

(c) Determine and explain the auditor’s obligation to follow up on the toxic ingredients problem if the news is only known by the auditor after the issuance of the auditor’s report and the financial statements.

- A strip footing is founded on sand having strength parameters (Φ =40⁰ and c = 0 kPa). Dry and saturated unit weights of the soil are 17.8 and 21 kN/m³ respectively. The foundation is designed to to carry a load of 4.8MN/m at a Factor of safety against general shear failure of 3. The footing depth is 1.5 m and the water table is 5 m from the surface.

a) Determine the minimum footing width (m) to satisfy the design requirements (2 d.p). Show all working

b) Is water table affecting foundation support?

c) Is water table affecting foundation support? Verify your assumption. Use unit weight of water of 9.8 kN/m³.

Sunkist, an internet company, founded at the beginning of the technology boom had problems developing the technological systems necessary to support its rapidly expanding user base. In addition, due to the rapid expansion in recent years, many of its systems had been added hastily, resulting in poor integration and eroding data integrity. As a result, the CEO of Sunkist announced an initiative to integrate all systems and increase the quality of internal data. In compliance with this initiative, Sunkist purchased an expensive and complex billing system called Gateway, which would automate the billing for thousands of Internet accounts via credit cards. During the integration, Gateway, in collaboration with Visa, created a phony credit card number that could be used by developers and programmers to test the functionality and integration of the Gateway system. Moreover, this credit card number was fully functional in “live” environments so testers and developers could ensure functionality without being required to use actual personal or company credit card numbers (the activity on this card was not monitored). The integration went smoothly; however, it created thousands of corrupt accounts that required fixing. Michael, the manager of the Operations Department, was responsible for the resolution of all data integrity issues. His team was tasked with fixing all corrupt accounts created by the launch and integration of the Gateway system. As a result, Michael was given the phony credit card number, which was kept on a Post-it Note in his drawer. One of the top performers on the Operations team was a 25-year-old male name Robert. Robert had worked in Operations for over a year and was making $15 per hour, the same salary at which he was hired. He wan an introvert working to support a young family and put himself through school. Robert was the most technologically savvy individual on the team, and his overall systems knowledge even exceeded that of his manager, Michael. Robert was very brilliant in creating more efficient tools and methods to repair corrupt accounts. Therefore, Robert was tasked with conducting training for new employees and updating team members on new processes and tools that he had created. As a result, Robert quickly became a trusted and valuable team member, thus Michael gave him and other team members the phony credit card number in order to further increase the productivity of the team. However, after six months of working at Sunkist, Robert received an official reprimand from the company for using the company system to access Web sites containing pirated software and music. The FBI attended the investigation and determined that Robert had not been a major player in the piracy. Therefore, Robert was quietly warned and placed on a short-term probation. Michael was asked to write a warning letter for the action; however, after a brief conversation with Robert, Michael determined that Robert’s intentions were good and never officially submitted the letter because Robert was a trusted employee and elevated the overall performance of the team. A few months after the piracy incident, Michael noticed some changes in Robert’s behavior such as (a) his computer monitor was repositioned so that his screen was not visible to other co-workers, (b) he had almost all the latest technological innovations, (c) he was going out to lunch more frequently, and (d) he frequently used multiple fake usernames and passwords for testing purposes. Questions: 1. Evaluate this case using the three elements of the fraud triangle to identify the following: a. Potential pressures for Robert to commit fraud. b. Potential opportunities for Robert to commit fraud. c. Potential rationalizations that Robert could use to commit fraud. 2. What are some of the symptoms that fraud potentially exists in this situation? 3. What could Michael have done to eliminate some of the opportunities for fraud?

Procter and Gamble a Model of Innovative Outsourcing
Founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble, the Procter and Gamble Company, or P&G as it is often called today, introduced many of the staples of American consumer culture, including Ivory soap, Gillette razors, Tide laundry detergent, Crest toothpaste, Tampax feminine hygiene products, and Pampers diapers—products that have changed people’s lives. Today, P&G sells its products in over 180 countries to five billion people—more than 70 percent of the world’s population.
During the 1990s, P&G experienced rapid global growth. Responding to the need to service internal corporate clients around the world, the company’s Global Business Service (GBS) estab- lished three Shared Service Centers in Costa Rica, the Philippines, and England. The centers stan- dardized the way certain services were delivered to P&G business units. The transformation enabled P&G to eliminate redundant activities, streamline internal services, better support multiple business units, and improve the quality and speed of service.
Standardization of services also allowed P&G to develop a major outsourcing program. After A.G. Lafley became CEO in 2000, he and other company executives decided that P&G needed to abandon the conventional in-house services model and partner with outsourced service providers who could drive down costs and help the company promote innovation.
In 2003, P&G’s GBS took what seemed to be a major leap of faith, awarding $4.2 billion worth of outsourcing contracts to support its IT infrastructure, finance and accounting, human resources, and facilities management operations. P&G turned to IBM for employee services; Jones Lang LaSalle for facilities management; and HP for IT applications, infrastructure, and some accounts payable functions. These companies each took on a portion of P&G employees and responsibility for some of the Shared Service Centers.For example, Jones Lang LaSalle took over facility management services such as building operations, mail delivery, security, car fleet operations, and dining. It also handled strategic occu- pancy services, tracking occupancy costs, and project management. Jones Lang LaSalle oversaw a $70 million annual capital budget and bore the responsibility for the delivery of 1000 projects at 165 sites in 60 different countries—including the construction of an office building in China and a new headquarters for P&G’s Russian operations in Moscow.
Over time, the number of P&G’s strategic outsourcing partners grew and each relationship was handled a little differently. In 2010, GBS decided to launch a smart outsourcing strategy called strategic alliance management to maximize the benefits gained by its outsourcing contracts. Gleaned from best practices refined over the previous years, this program (1) adopted a joint business planning process with outsourcing partners, (2) established appropriate measures to assess progress, and (3) developed an Alliance Management platform that brought together all the data, people, reports, and communications for each outsourcing partnership.
The joint business planning process involves employees from both GBS and the outsourcing service provider who come together to set targets. Specifically, the team identifies base measures (e.g., performance or revenue) with targets and then creates a list of projects and initiatives to help meet those targets. The team brainstorms innovative goals and “wicked problems”—problems that are likely to impact business performance.
To assess projects, GBS also adopted standard service-level agreement (SLA) measures that track performance both at the granular and aggregate levels. Aggregate level measures, for exam- ple, might include rating customer satisfaction.
Finally, GBS designed and developed an Alliance Management platform, a shared online space where team members could access data, people, performance reports, service-level mea- sures, training news, the joint business plan, an integrated alliance calendar, and any document specific to the relationship with a partner. GBS ensures accountability by assigning key roles for overseeing the management of each outsourcing relationship, including an executive sponsor, a relationship manager, a deal manager, a transition manager, and an alliance architect (to over- see the governance of the outsource agreement). This strategic alliance management process allows P&G to recognize and reward good performance through renewal decisions at the end of the relationship agreement and by offering contracts for new initiatives to the outsourcing partner.
For example, Accenture helped P&G develop the Decision Cockpit, an online portal through which global teams could share and analyze data in real time. Accenture had the knowledge and experience to scale the system, giving P&G greater agility. Furthermore, through the joint planning team, the two companies reduced the number of daily and monthly reports that some managers were required to review from 370 to 30. The innovation reduced management costs by 50 percent for some business units and saved over 400 miles of paper annually.
As a result of the success of this and other joint projects, P&G looked to Accenture to help consolidate and enhance the company’s virtual solutions. P&G’s virtual reality centers are used to create and test shelving, packaging, and in-store design. “In the past,” explains GBS’s Director of Business Intelligence Patrick Kern, “a test group of consumers would go into a physical space we configured like a grocery store to go on a shopping experience. Watching their behavior in store and conducting a focus group after, we’d learn why they chose what they chose and how packaging and shelf position impacted their buying decision. You can imagine how expensive it is to put up these stores, from setting up shelves for different configurations to getting all the product there.”
The virtual solutions substantially reduced cost; however, P&G noticed that service delivery was highly fragmented as different outsource partners implemented the virtual solutions. So, P&G awarded Accenture a multiyear contract to manage all of P&G’s virtual solutions content delivery, freeing up P&G to focus on other areas of innovation. As a result of this long-term successful col- laboration, the Outsourcing Center—an online repository of white papers, articles, Webinars, market intelligence, and news on outsourcing—awarded P&G and Accenture the Outstanding Excellence Award in the Most Innovative category in 2013.
That said, P&G’s decision to outsource GBS initiatives cost thousands of Americans their jobs, white collar jobs that until the turn of the twentieth century had remained in the United States. P&G, along with IBM and Microsoft, led the pack in outsourcing U.S. jobs to India and other countries that were home to a workforce with sufficient technological expertise and English-language skills. However, in 2013, reports were leaked indicating that P&G was planning to “backsource”—or bring back in-house—some of the IT work it had been outsourcing. Some analysts argued that P&G was succumbing to pressure, like General Motors, to repatriate jobs and boost employment in the United States. Others argued that P&G was seeking to gain control over crucial IT functions that impacted its competitive positioning in the market.
Yet, even if P&G backsources some of its IT functions, it still remains deeply committed to out- sourcing. By deeply involving its outsourcing partners in every stage of its projects, P&G promotes what they call a “win-win” strategy. Today, many analysts view Procter and Gamble as a model of successful outsourcing strategy.

1. How does P&G’s strategic alliance management system help it avoid the pitfalls of outsour- cing? What risks does the system not address

Electric Generator Corporation

The Electric Generator Corporation was founded in the early 1970s to develop and market electrical products for industrial and commercial markets. Recently, the company has developed a new electric generator, the EGI, with a revolutionary design. Although its initial cost is $2,000 higher than any competing generator, reduced maintenance costs will offset the higher purchase price within 18 months. The Electric Generator sales force has been instructed to concentrate all effort on selling this new generator, as the company believes it has a sales potential of $500 million.

Sandy Hart, the company's South Texas salesperson, has as her main customer the E. H. Zachary Construction Company of San Antonio, which is the largest nonunion construction firm in the world. Because of the importance of potential Zachary purchases of the EGI (estimated at $1 million), Sandy's boss asks her to take two days off and develop a plan for contacting and selling to Zachary. Monday morning, she is expected at the Houston regional sales office to present this plan to her boss, the regional sales manager, and the divisional sales manager. These two people will critique the presentation, and then the four of them will finalize a sales plan that Sandy will present to Zachary's buying committee.

Questions

1-What could Sandy have done differently?

2- What do you think about the current price?

Nike was founded in 1964 by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight in Beaverton, Oregon. It began as Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS). In 1972, BRS introduced a new brand of athletic footwear called Nike, named for the Greek winged goddess of victory.

The company employs 26,000 staff around the world with revenues in fiscal year 2005 of $13.7 billion. It has facilities in Oregon, Tennessee, North Carolina, and the Netherlands with more than 200 factory stores, a dozen Nike women stores, and more than 100 sales and administrative offices.

Its subsidiaries include Cole Haan Holdings, Inc., Bauer Nike Hockey, Hurley International LLC, Nike IHM, Inc., Converse Inc., and Execter Brands Group LLC. As of May 31, 2004, manufacturing plants included Nike brand, with 137 factories in the Americas (including the United States), 104 in EMEA, 252 in North Asia, and 238 in South Asia, providing more than 650,000 jobs to local communities.

Objective

Nike grew from a sneaker manufacturer in the early 1970s to a global company selling a large number of products throughout the world. Nike’s sneaker supply chain was historically highly centralized. The product designs, factory contracts, and delivery are managed through the headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. By 1998, there were 27 different and highly customized order management systems that did not talk well to the home office in Beaverton, Oregon. At that time Nike decided to purchase and implement a single-instance ERP system along with supply chain and customer relationship management systems to control the nine-month manufacturing cycle better, with the goal being to cut it down to six months.

Plan

The company developed a business plan to implement the systems over a six-year period, with multiple ERP rollouts over that time. The plan called for the implementation of the demand planning system first while working through the ERP system and supply chain implementation.

Implementation

The demand planning system was implemented first for reasons that made a lot of sense. The total number of users was small in comparison to the ERP system and was thought to be relatively easy to implement; however, this turned out not to be the case. When the system went live, there were a number of problems related to the software, response time, and data. In addition, training was not adequately addressed, causing the relatively small number of end users to use the system ineffectively. The single-instance ERP system and supply chain implementation plan differed from the demand planning system and called instead for a phased rollout over a number of years.

The ERP system implementation went much more smoothly. Nike started in 2000 with the implementation of the Canadian region, a relatively small one, and ended with the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions in 2006, with the United States and Europe, Middle East, and Africa in 2002. This included implementing a single instance of the system, with the exception of Asia-Pacific, and training more than 6,300 users.

The total cost of the project as of 2006 was at $500 million—about $100 million more than the original project budget.

Conclusion: What was Learned?

The demand planning system interfacing to legacy data from a large number of systems that already did not talk well with each other was a root cause for misinformation and resulted in inadequate supply planning.

The demand planning system was complex, and end users were not trained well enough to use the system effectively.

System testing was not well planned and “real” enough to find issues with legacy system interfaces.

The overall business plan for all the systems and reasons for taking on such a highly complex implementation were well understood throughout the company. Thus, Nike had exceptional “buy-in” for the project and was able to make adjustment in its demand planning system and continue with the implementation. The goal was to ensure business goals were achieved through the implementation, and not so much to get the systems up and running.

Nike exhibited patience in the implementation and learned from mistakes made early in the process.

Training was substantially increased for the ERP implementation. Customer service representatives received 140–180 hours of training from Nike, and users were locked out of the system until they completed the full training course.

Business process reengineering was used effectively to clarify performance-based goals for the implementation.

Case Questions

1. How could OPM3 have helped to identify the problems with implementing the demand planning system?

2. What were the three primary reasons Nike was successful with the ongoing ERP implementation?

3. Why was a phased rollout the correct decision for Nike?

Fiat

Fiat is an Italian car manufacturer based in Italy. The company was founded in 1899, and has grown to become the world's ninth largest car maker, and the largest in Italy. The company is best known for producing small, economical family cars. Fiat designed cars are manufactured worldwide, and the company has factories in Brazil, Poland and Argentina, and has licensing agreements with many other countries, including Russia, India, Pakistan and China. The company has tended to buy out its component suppliers and also minimized the number of suppliers it deals with. This creates greater security of supply and reduces costs, in some cases dramatically.

The Products Although Fiat has a reputation for small, cheap cars, the company has won the prestigious European Car of the Year Award 12 times in 40 years, more often than any other manufacturer. Fiat has also made a major breakthrough in its engine technology, developing an engine (the Fiat 500 model) that has the lowest emissions in the world. In addition, the car is extremely economical to run

Emerging Markets Fiat has made a decision to focus on emerging countries. Since cars sold in these countries need to be simple to maintain and operate, they tend to have fewer features (e.g. often do not have air-conditioning), so Fiat is well-placed to exploit these opportunities. Re-engineering the cars to have fewer features is obviously a great deal cheaper than adding features, so development costs can be minimized.

Promotion on Communications Fiat has concluded an agreement with the British School of Motoring (BSM), which is the UK's largest driving school. BSM uses Fiats for teaching people to drive, and in exchange Fiat provides the cars at a heavily discounted rate, and also offers special deals for graduates of BSM. Fiat's website emphasizes the 'fun' aspects of driving a Fiat. The company believes that Italians have a fun-loving approach to life, and that this is reflected in the design and performance of the cars.

During 2009, the car scrappage scheme adopted throughout Europe (by which governments subsidized the replacement of old cars with new ones in order to stimulate the economy) provided a major boost to Fiat, at a time when the worldwide recession was damaging sales. However, Fiat faces a number of challenges in the next few years. The relative strength of the euro has eroded the firm's competitive price advantage, the rising price of steel worldwide has raised costs, and the entry of
Japanese and Korean manufacturers into Europe has increased competition in Fiat's traditional markets.

The Future As people become more environmentally aware, and as governments worldwide look to bring in legislation to reduce greenhouse gases, Fiat is well placed, with its fuel efficient, cheap-to-run, economical cars. In addition, Fiat's expertise in creating engines that can run on alternative fuels also gives the company an advantage over competitors.

1-Conduct SWOT analysis for Fiat?

2-Discuss the factors Fiat should consider before deciding the price of their cars?

3-Produce 2 objectives for Fiat in 2012?

4- Recommend How Fiat should coordinate its marketing mix in order to maintain its competitive position during an economic recession?

5-Discuss 2 promotional techniques that Fiat can use to promote its cars?

Do you think that the United States is tolerant of “difference?” Our country was founded on the concept of religious tolerance, but...Wikipedia defines religious intolerance as:

Religious intolerance, rather, is when a group (e.g., a society, religious group, non-religious group) specifically refuses to tolerate practices, persons or beliefs on religious grounds (i.e., intolerance in practice).

What do you think? Are there some cultures more tolerant/less tolerant?

Are the U.S. experiences any different than that of other cultures? Frame your discussion within the context of the sociological perspectives.