explain the following in 2 paragraphs :

1.Offensive Strategic Moves
Offensive strategic moves are proactive moves made by an organization to get/stay ahead in an industry, rather than a defensive strategy that reacts to competition. These strategic actions involve a company being proactive in attempts to increase revenue, market share, hedge from competition in the industry, and to mitigate risks of competitors getting ahead. This strategy is significant due to the potential to help stand apart from competition (or eliminate it completely). The ability for an organization to successfully implement an offensive strategy can yield vast benefits and can result in a company being perceived as a trend-setter/innovator in an industry. Despite the positive results that could occur, implementing offensive strategic moves typically involves investing a lot of capitol, which can be a major barrier for some companies to be able to attempt this strategy. Such seems to be the case for K-mart, and Sears Holdings, based on the continued struggles of the organization to compete and remain viable. Plenty of strides are being made to increase revenue and decrease global operating costs, such as merging some upper management job functions while merging various corporate locations, but, K-mart may not be at a point where it could implement an offensive strategic plan. It seems more plausible that K-mart could attempt to implement an offensive competitive strategy in a few years if it is able to leverage more savings in its costs to operate, which will likely result in more store closings and a resurgence in brand interests before that occurs to a point that would enable K-mart to invest in plans such as improving the networking infrastructure to facilitate implementing the latest technological advances to increase revenue, for example.

2. First Mover Advantage

The first mover advantage is achieved by an organization being able to be one of the first on the market with an innovative product or service. This is significant for a company because it can allow the establishment of brand recognition in an industry tied to a potentially revolutionary product/service, and brand loyalty can be established early in a product/service phase before competitors even have a chance to enter this market. Companies that are first movers also enjoy a lot of freedom in terms of pricing the products/services, while also having the time to modify and perfect the item/service that yielded the competitive advantage. In an industry that is replete with dozens, perhaps hundreds of other companies nationwide offering an identical variety of products, from groceries, to clothes, to tools, and much more, it seems like it would be hard for an organization that is struggling to maintain its market share while remaining economically viable to find ways to take advantage of being a first mover. K-mart has had little investment in the way of research and development for innovative ways to market and sell its products, and it does not seem like K-mart is in a position to utilize this type of advantage at this time.

3. Defensive Strategic Moves

Defensive strategic moves are management tools that can be used to fend off an attack from a potential competitor. It is like a battleground. Companies must protect their market share to keep their profits stable. They must hold on to what they have by using their competitive advantage.There are two approaches to defensive strategy. The first approach is aimed at blocking competitors who are attempting to take over part of a company’s market share. They can block competitors by adding incentives or discounts to their products to encourage customers to buy. A company can also increase advertising and marketing campaigns. The second approach is a company can announce new product innovations, plan a company expansion, or reconnect with old customers. This approach is not as aggressive as the first one and is done in a more relaxed manner.Kmart has used some of these moves before. They have added discounts to some of their Kmart brand products and have an incentive program, ShopYourWay, where shoppers earn points for purchases. Shoppers can redeem the points for merchandise. Kmart’s leadership should also protect its market share by increasing advertising, so customers will be aware that Kmart stores are still in business and striving to reclaim its place in the market. They should also reconnect with old customers by offering them an additional incentive to shop with them again and try to regain their loyalty.

4. Strategic Alliances
Strategic alliances are agreements among firms in which each commits resources to achieve a common set of objectives. Companies can form strategic alliances with competitors, schools, suppliers and customers. Strategic alliances allow companies to improve competitive positioning, share the risk or cost of major projects, and gain entry to new markets. I think Kmart should merge with or be acquired by Amazon. Amazon advertising Kmart’s products can give Kmart the boost that it needs. It would allow them to have their products exposed to millions of customers that would not even consider looking at Kmart’s website. Kmart merging with or being acquired by Amazon would also give Kmart the financial backing it needs to create more innovative products.

5. Horizontal Integration
Horizontal integration is the range of product and service segments that a firm serves within its market. A company who wants to expand its horizontal scope has an opportunity to do that through mergers and acquisitions. A merger is combining two or more companies into a single corporate entity, with the newly created company often taking on a new name. An acquisition is a combination in which one company, the acquirer, purchases and absorbs the operations of another, the acquired. Horizontal mergers and acquisitions usually involve combining the operations of firms within the same general industry (Thompson, 2012). Horizontal mergers and

acquisitions provide an effective means for firms to rapidly increase the scale and horizontal scope of their core business. Combining two or more companies is an attractive strategic option for strengthening the company’s competitiveness and it also opens avenues for new market opportunities. Increasing a company’s horizontal cope can strengthen the business and increase its profitability in five ways: (1) by improving the efficiency of its operations, (2) by heightening its product differentiation, (3) by reducing market rivalry, (4) by increasing the company’s bargaining power over suppliers and buyers, and (5) by enhancing its flexibility and dynamic capabilities. In order to achieve the benefits of a horizontal integration, companies must be able to aim their strategies to one of the following outcomes: by increasing the company’s scale of operations and market share; by expanding a company’s geographic coverage; extending the company’s business into new product categories; by gaining quick access to new technologies or complementary resources and capabilities; and/or by leading the convergence of industries whose boundaries are being blurred by changing technologies and new market opportunities.For Kmart, they were able to accomplish a horizontal integration back in 2004 when they merged with Sears, Roebuck Co. Kmart and Sears are very similar companies, offering very similar types of products. Up until the past 5 years or so, this has worked really well for both companies. With the rise of Amazon, other major companies like Walmart and Target executing the same strategy as Kmart, they are driving business away from them. Like stated above, there have been 225 locations closed down just in 2017 with another 60 estimated to close in 2018. With such a decline in revenues over the years, it is not economical for them to keep stores open that are not making money. If not for the merger in 2004, Kmart would not still be around today because other companies are doing the same thing better, cheaper, and more cost effective.

6. Company Value Chain
A company’s value chain identifies the primary activities that create customer value and the related support activities. The value chain is the underlying intent of a company’s activities to do things that ultimately create value for buyers (Thompson, 2012).To be successful, a company must think about what choices it will make now and in the future. Once a company focuses on the value-creating activities, the value chain is an ideal tool for examining how a company delivers on its customer value proposition. This allows the company to look at its cost structure and ability to offer lower prices. This allows them to look at what emphasis is placed on activities that enhance differentiation.Kmart is continually making improvements to their value chain because if not, they will fall behind to the likes of their competitors. With the popularity of online shopping taking over, Kmart offers all of their products sold in store on their website. Doing this helps ensure the customer has the best experience and can access any product whether it is online or in-store. This also allows Kmart more “shelf space” because they can sell some products strictly online and keep the more popular items in store. Kmart also offers a layaway program for customers to put items on hold, make payments, and receive the item once it is paid off. Many of their competitors do not offer layaway anymore due to credit cards being readily available. Lastly, Kmart, along with Sears, offers customer a rewards program called Shop Your Way. Shop Your Way allows customers to earn 10 points for every $1.00 spent, 1,000 points equals $1 in value, and they can earn points at any of the participating locations

(“About Points”). Rewards programs are great values to customers because they can earn back money they spent, which in turn will incentivize them to shop more at Kmart

7. Outsourcing
Outsourcing, is business practice used by companies to cut costs and increase profit over the long term by sending nonessential functions on work to third parties. These third parties are usually able to specialize in that specific function better than the main company can. This makes it possibly cheaper for a business to pay a third party to perform an activity rather than performing the activity themselves. Outsourcing is important to do because it allows a business to spend more time and money on the more important functions of the business.

In Kmart’s case, they outsource much of their IT infrastructure to a third party called CSC. The Kmart help desk is also currently handled mostly by Indian workers. Although outsourcing preserves the resources that Kmart has, it has also taken jobs away from Kmart employees in America. Since Kmart is currently closing down stores in order to salvage the little “good reputation” it has left, it may need to think about outsourcing other nonessential functions in order to focus on saving the rest of its stores.

The revenue R (in millions of dollars) for a company from 2003 through 2016 can be modeled by

R = 6.211t³ − 152.89t² + 990.1t − 414,    3 ≤ t ≤ 16

where t represents the year, with t = 3 corresponding to 2003.

(a) Use a graphing utility to approximate any relative extrema of the model over its domain. (Round each value to two decimal places.)

Relative maximum: (t,R)=

Relative minimum: (t,R)=

(b) Use the graphing utility to approximate the intervals on which the revenue for the company is increasing and decreasing over its domain. (Enter your answers using interval notation. Round each value to two decimal places.)

Increasing: ( )

Decreasing: ( )

(c) Use the results of parts (a) and (b) to describe the company's revenue during this time period.

How would you satisfy both retailers and consumers when using revenue management tactics, since the same two customers might actually pay different prices for the same product/service as discussed.

On January 1, 2021, the general ledger of Dynamite Fireworks includes the following account balances:

During January 2021, the following transactions occur:

The following information is available on January 31.

• Rent for the month of January has expired.
• Supplies remaining at the end of January total $2,900.
• By the end of January, $3,275 of services has been provided to customers who paid in advance on January 17.
• Unpaid salaries at the end of January are $5,730.

Solve Service Revenue, Retained Earning for Jan 31 and retained earning for jan 31. Create income statemenent and balance sheet

[The following information applies to the questions displayed below.]

Cane Company manufactures two products called Alpha and Beta that sell for $205 and $164, respectively. Each product uses only one type of raw material that costs $8 per pound. The company has the capacity to annually produce 127,000 units of each product. Its average cost per unit for each product at this level of activity are given below:

The company considers its traceable fixed manufacturing overhead to be avoidable, whereas its common fixed expenses are unavoidable and have been allocated to products based on sales dollars.

13. Assume that Cane’s customers would buy a maximum of 97,000 units of Alpha and 77,000 units of Beta. Also assume that the raw material available for production is limited to 247,000 pounds. How many units of each product should Cane produce to maximize its profits?

14. Assume that Cane’s customers would buy a maximum of 97,000 units of Alpha and 77,000 units of Beta. Also assume that the raw material available for production is limited to 247,000 pounds. What total contribution margin will it earn?

15. Assume that Cane’s customers would buy a maximum of 97,000 units of Alpha and 77,000 units of Beta. Also assume that the raw material available for production is limited to 247,000 pounds. If Cane uses its 247,000 pounds of raw materials, up to how much should it be willing to pay per pound for additional raw materials? (Round your answer to 2 decimal places.)

In February, a company wants to lock in the interest rate that will be earned for three months on a $9 million deposit to be made after seven months in September. The company decides to trade in Eurodollar futures and the September Eurodollar futures price is 98.50. Assume that in September the company closes out its position in the futures market when the LIBOR is 2.0% per annum and the futures price is 98.00. Assuming that the correct number of contracts were traded, what is the effective interest earned (in dollars) by the company on its deposit after taking into account the gain or loss in the futures market?

Using his TightWad(R) database, Stu's MileageMiser has developed a new GPS based service to certify drivers for insurance discounts. He tracks their speeds, locations, and braking activity and delivers reports to insurance companies. January 1, 2009 he had 10,000 paying customers. Of that group, a year later, 9,900 were still customers. He spent $24,000 on programs designed to keep current customers happy and $45,000 on marketing to acquire new customers. His total number of customers on January 1, 2010 was 14,000. His revenue per customer is $55 per year and variable costs before marketing per customer are $5 per year.

e) What is Stu's annual churn rate? What is the retention rate?

Backstory: General Electric Co. decided sustainability was a business opportunity rather than a cost and pushed into the field in 2005 with its new initiative. But the products and services weren’t only for its customers they first transformed GE.

Key moves: GE began looking at sustainability as part of a demographic trend, realizing that scarcity would increase with population growth. Energy and water use, waste, carbon emissions all would decline among the most efficient and sustainable companies. GE saw a profitable business opportunity in helping companies along this sustainable path to offer environmental solutions.GE also gambled that carbon would eventually be a cost, following the implementation of previous regulatory regimes such as limiting acid rain. Although the precise way carbon would be regulated was unknown, as it still is, the company had little doubt that regulation would happen rather than wait, GE joined a climate coalition with nongovernmental organizations to press for a cap and trade system to build certainty into the future.

Within the company, GE began engaging employees to see where energy savings could be found. That might include turning off the lights when a factory was idle or even installing a switch so that lights could be turned off. Ecomagination sold solutions within GE, whether the project involved installing LED lights on a factory floor, recycling water at a nuclear facility or offering combined heat and power generation units at a plant in Australia. Within GE, managers began to be measured on how much energy savings they had achieved.

Impact: The company so far has saved $100 million from these measures and cut its greenhouse gas intensity — a measure of emissions against output — by 41%, according to the company’s sustainability report. The work inside GE became a proof of concept to external customers grappling with similar issues. Ecomagination targeted C-level executives to build this business since most problems cut across divisions (improving energy efficiency, for example). So far GE has invested $4 billion in this effort, much of it in research and development. But it reaped sales of $17 billion in 2008, up 21% from a year earlier, and is striving for $25 billion in sales in 2010.

1. Describe the 3 Strategic Management Process GE used.

2. Explain the need for integrating and the use of strategic management for GE (Give 3 examples).

3. Please list 5 examples of strategic management that GE either can use or already is using.

4. What are the strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation activities that GE can potentially use to make its innovation better than what it is now (Give 3 recommendations)

5. If you were brought in as a consultant, what is the 1 recommendation you would make that would set GE apart from all its competition?

The 2019 financial reporting season saw many Australian companies issue their first annual reports applying the new revenue standard, IFRS/AASB 15 Revenue from contracts with customers. The objective of the new standard was to provide greater clarity and better disclosure of a company’s revenue, as well as more consistency between companies.

Required

Write the impact of applying AASB 15 with reference to the Qantas Group’s 2019 Financial Report.

1. Outline the key changes under the AASB 15, with reference to the Qantas Group Annual Report and AASB 15

The amount of money in an investment is modeled by the function A(t)=650(0.943)t. The variable A represents the investment balance in dollars, and t the number of years since 2006.

(A) In 2006, the balance was $.

(B) The amount of money in the investment is

(C) The annual rate of change in the balance is
r= or r=%.

(D) In the year 2016 the investment balance will equal
$. Round answer to the nearest penny.