Please Use your keyboard (Don't use handwriting)

MGT 322

I need new and unique answers, please. (Use your own words, don't copy and paste)

Critical Thinking

The global marketplace has witnessed an increased pressure from customers and competitors in manufacturing as well as service sector (Basu, 2001; George, 2002). Due to the rapidly changing global marketplace only those companies will be able to survive that will deliver products of good quality at cheaper rate and to achieve their goal companies try to improve performance by focusing on cost cutting, increasing productivity levels, quality and guaranteeing deliveries in order to satisfy customers (Raouf, 1994).

Increased global competition leads the industry to increasing efficiency by means of economies of scale and internal specialization so as to meet market conditions in terms of flexibility, delivery performance and quality (Yamashina, 1995). The changes in the present competitive business environment are characterized by profound competition on the supply side and keen indecisive in customer requirements on the demand side. These changes have left their distinctive marks on the different aspect of the manufacturing organizations (Gomes et al., 2006). With this increasing global economy, cost effective manufacturing has become a requirement to remain competitive.

To meet all the challenges organizations try to introduce different manufacturing and supply techniques. Management of organizations devotes its efforts to reduce the manufacturing costs and to improve the quality of product. To achieve this goal, different manufacturing and supply techniques have been employed. The last quarter of the 20th century witnessed the adoption of world-class, lean and integrated manufacturing strategies that have drastically changed the way manufacturing firm’s leads to improvement of manufacturing performance (Fullerton and McWatters, 2002).

Consult chapter 7 of your text book or secondary available data on internet and answer the following questions.

Question:

1. Why Companies adopted Lean Thinking and JIT model?
2. Discuss major types of Waste, companies has to keep in mind during production.
3. Assess the reasons for using lean thinking (suitable examples), what are the benefits from Suppliers to end users?
4. Due to COVID 19 emergency do you think agile supply chain is the right concept in this kind of situation? Give reason with example.

The Answer should be within 4- 5 pages.

The Answer must follow the outline points below:

• Lean Thinking and JIT Concept
• Agile Supply chain
• Their Main functions
• Reasons with suitable Examples
• Reference

____________

please complete my answer to be looonnnnnnggggg answer pleaseee ..... I need new and unique answers, please. (Use your own words, don't copy and paste)

Lean Thinking is a methodological aspect of business which aims to provide innovative ways to organisations about how to organise human activities to serve the society and help indivuduals add perspective to their lives and reduce wasted. The companies adopt lean thinking to reduce the wastage of human resource and increase the productive capacity of the employees working.

JIT Model or Just-in-time Model is an inventory management model wherein the different aspects of production like labour, raw material, etc., are refiiled at the exact time when it is ultimately required. This model is used by almost all the organisations as through this model thr production is kept uninterupted and there is no wastage of time while any factor of production is exhausted.

The major types of waste that a company has to keep in mind includes mainly the wastage of raw materials, wastage of labour resource, power supply. etc.

Lean Thinking plays an intregal part in every organisation. Every organisation intends to reduce the wastage throughout the production process. Every organisation wants to keep their potential employees and a very important way is to keep the employee satisfied with the job , working conditions, pay scale, etc. Employees play the most important role as most of the production process depends on them therefore, lean thinking helps the suppliers to the end users.

Agile supply chain is a process of product distribution that is concerned with quick delivery of products, early responses to the market, cost saving, high productivity with flexibility. At this point of the emergency of COVID-19 agile supply chain is very useful as the World is under lockdown and the market is facing serious issues of scarcity of the necessity items that are demanded. As under lockdown major companies are completely shut which has resulted in the reduction in production in alot of the sectors and the Economy around the World is facing massive drop and in some countries the Economy is running negetive. This is the time to adopt agile supply chain Worldwide to save the market from reaching recession.

Richard Branson Shoots for the Moon

The Virgin Group is the umbrella for a variety of business ventures ranging from air travel to entertainment. With close to 200 companies in over 30 countries, it is one of the largest companies in the world. At the head of this huge organization is Richard Branson. Branson founded Virgin over

30 years ago and has built the organization from a small student magazine to the multibillion-dollar enterprise it is today.Branson is not your typical CEO. Branson’s dyslexia made school a struggle and sabotaged his performance on standard IQ tests. His teachers and tests had no way of measuring his greatest strengths—his uncanny knack for uncovering lucrative business ideas and his ability to energize

the ambitions of others so that they, like he, could rise to the level of their dreams. Richard Branson’s true talents began to show themselves in his late teens. While a student at Stowe School in England in 1968, Branson decided to start his own magazine, Student. Branson was inspired by the student activism on his campus in the 1960s and decided to try something different. Student differed from most college newspapers or magazines; it focused on the students and their interests. Branson sold advertising to major corporations to support his magazine. He included articles by ministers of Parliament, rock stars, intellectuals, and celebrities. Student grew to become a commercial success. In 1970 Branson saw an opportunity for Student to offer records cheaply by running ads for mail-order delivery. The subscribers to Student flooded the magazine with so many orders that his spin-off discount music venture proved more lucrative than the magazine subscriptions. Branson recruited the staff of Student for his discount music business. He built a small recording studio and signed his first artist. Mike Oldfield recorded “Tubular Bells” at Virgin in 1973; the album sold 5 million copies, and Virgin Records and the Virgin brand

name were born. Branson has gone on to start his own airline (VirginAtlantic Airlines was launched in 1984), build hotels (Virgin Hotels started in 1988), get into the personal finance business (Virgin Direct

Personal Finance Services was launched in 1995), and even enter the cola wars (Virgin Cola was introduced in 1994). And those are just a few highlights of the Virgin Group—all this while Branson has attempted to break world speed records for crossing the Atlantic Ocean by boat and by hot air balloon.

As you might guess, Branson’s approach is nontraditional—he has no giant corporate office or staff and few if any board meetings. Instead, he keeps each enterprise small and relies on his skills of empowering people’s ideas to fuel success. When a flight attendant from Virgin Airlines approached him with her vision of a wedding business, Richard told her to go do it. He even put on a wedding dress himself to help launch the publicity. Virgin Brides was born. Branson relies heavily on the creativity of his staff; he is more a supporter of new ideas than a creator of them. He encourages searches for new business ideas everywhere he goes and even has a spot on the Virgin Web site called “Got a Big Idea?”

In December 1999 Richard Branson was awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s Millennium New Year’s Honours List for “services to entrepreneurship. What is next on Branson’s list? He recently announced that Virgin was investing money in “trying to make sure that, in the not too distant future, people from around the world will be able to go into space.” Not everyone is convinced that space tourism can become a fully-fledged part of the travel industry, but with Branson behind the idea it just might fly.

1. Would you classify Richard Branson as a manager or a leader? What qualities distinguish him as one or the other?

2. Describe the relationship between Branson and his followers. (5MARKS)

Q2,If you were a manager in a bank and you had to choose motivating and hygiene factors to design a reward system ,keeping Herzberg’s theory in mind which two motivating and which two hygiene factors would you choose for bank employees? Justify your answer giving a detailed explanation.  

Q3a).As a leader of a small team of 20 team members working in a software company , what team decision making options do you think you have and explain any two of them

Q3b) Identify whichone would you apply for decision making for your team of 20 software professionals.

The Rise and Fall of Nokia in Mobile Phones

Nokia emerged from Finland to lead the mobile phone revolution. It rapidly grew to have one of the most recognisable and valuable brands in the world. At its height Nokia commanded a global market share in mobile phones of over 40 percent. While its journey to the top was swift, its decline was equally so, culminating in the sale of its mobile phone business to Microsoft in 2013.

With a young, united and energetic leadership team at the helm, Nokia’s early success was primarily the result of visionary and courageous management choices that leveraged the firm’s innovative technologies as digitalisation and deregulation of telecom networks quickly spread across Europe. But in the mid-1990s, the near collapse of its supply chain meant Nokia was on the precipice of being a victim of its success. In response, disciplined systems and processes were put in place, which enabled Nokia to become extremely efficient and further scale up production and sales much faster than its competitors.

Between 1996 and 2000, the headcount at Nokia Mobile Phones (NMP) increased 150 percent to 27,353, while revenues over the period were up 503 percent. This rapid growth came at a cost. And that cost was that managers at Nokia’s main development centres found themselves under ever increasing short-term performance pressure and were unable to dedicate time and resources to innovation. While the core business focused on incremental improvements, Nokia’s relatively small data group took up the innovation mantle. In 1996, it launched the world’s first smartphone, the Communicator, and was also responsible for Nokia’s first camera phone in 2001 and its second-generation smartphone, the innovative 7650. Nokia’s leaders were aware of the importance of finding what they called a “third leg” – a new growth area to complement the hugely successful mobile phone and network businesses. Their efforts began in 1995 with the New Venture Board but this failed to gain traction as the core businesses ran their own venturing activities and executives were too absorbed with managing growth in existing areas to focus on finding new growth.

Corporate culture is one of the strategic and competitive advantages of Nokia. “Connecting people” is the catch phrase which means the physical facilities of the company. Nokia buildings hold the strong corporate image. Nokia has four main values and principles at his heart of its corporate philosophy: customer satisfaction, respect for individuals, achievement and continuous learning. However, there are some basic differences between organisational culture and national culture. These are: leadership style, organisational policies and procedures, organisational and operational structure, recruitment and selection procedures and measuring the performance of the employees and reward systems, global team and leadership development.

Between 2001 and 2005, a number of decisions were made to attempt to rekindle Nokia’s earlier drive and energy but, far from reinvigorating Nokia, they actually set up the beginning of the decline. Key amongst these decisions was the reallocation of important leadership roles and the poorly implemented 2004 reorganization into a matrix structure. This led to the departure of vital members of the executive team, which led to the deterioration of strategic thinking. By this stage, Nokia was trapped by a reliance on its unwieldy operating system called Symbian. While Symbian had given Nokia an early advantage, it was a device-centric system in what was becoming a platform- and application-centric world. To make matters worse, Symbian exacerbated delays in new phone launches as whole new sets of code had to be developed and tested for each phone model. By 2009, Nokia was using 57 different and incompatible versions of its operating system.

At the same time, the importance of application ecosystems was becoming apparent, but as dominant industry leader Nokia lacked the skills, and inclination to engage with this new way of working. By 2010, the limitations of Symbian had become painfully obvious and it was clear Nokia had missed the shift toward apps pioneered by Apple. Not only did Nokia’s strategic options seem limited, but none were particularly attractive. In the mobile phone market, Nokia had become a sitting drop to growing competitive forces and accelerating market changes. The game was lost, and it was left to a new CEO Stephen Elop and new Chairman Risto Siilasmaa to draw from the lessons and successfully disengage Nokia from mobile phones to refocus the company on its other core business, network infrastructure equipment.

Questions

Q1. Discuss the main competitive advantages used by Nokia?

Q2. How Nokia lost its position to another competitors?

Total: (500 words).

J&L Packaging, Inc.: Cash-to-Cash Conversion Cycle Case Study

Jake and Lilly Gifford founded J&L Packaging, Inc. (J&LP) in 1995 after graduating from the University of Cincinnati. Jake earned a degree in robotics and mechanical engineering, while Lilly graduated with a degree in computer science. They met at the university while working on an information systems course project and married immediately after graduation. Their privately held firm manufactured cardboard packaging and boxes for computer devices such as personal computers, keyboards, replacement hard drives, servers, and so on. Many of their packages were high-end boxes with glossy finishes and the company’s logo on the box. Last year, J&L Packaging, Inc. sales were $106 million.

J&LP Packaging provided many services with their products, such as box and packaging design engineering and consulting, embossing and foil guidance, barcode advice, cartons that fold and collapse for easy storage, and a variety of colors and box strengths. In 2010, J&LP began to research the sustainability issues regarding boxes in the reverse logistics supply chain.Their research lead to a change in production technologies to accommodate up to 100 percent recycled fiber content and solar panels on the roofs of their two U.S. factories. They also hired an engineer to lead the company’s efforts to become a “Green Cycle”-certified manufacturer.

J&LP recently purchased and installed an ISOWA FALCON state-of-the-art, four-color, high-speed flexo box machine with an extensive zero defects quality control system. This box cutting and fabrication machine is manufactured in Kasugai, Japan, by the ISOWA Corporation (www.isowa.com). There are several videos of this automated machine in operation on YouTube,” for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v5XofTns666Aw.

J&LP’s financial information for last year follows. It is assumed the business operates 300 days per year. One note in J&LP financial statement states that the $4,906,000 of inventory does not include $886,000 in inventory allowances for excess, cancelled orders, and obsolete inventories. The note goes on to say, “Inventory management remains an area of focus as we balance the need to maintain strategic inventory levels to ensure competitive lead times versus the risk of inventory obsolescence because of changing technology and customer requirements. The box and packaging business is a dynamic industry that must quickly accommodate customer requirements, changes in forecasts, and new findings from research and development on product features and options.” The following data (in thousands of dollars $) is provided.

1. Should we consider services in the cash-to-cash conversion cycle computations?
2. How will you handle the $886,000 in obsolete inventory?
3. What is the total cash-to-cash conversion cycle for J&L Packaging, Inc. for last year?
4. What are your conclusions and final recommendations?

I do not want someone to simply answer the questions for me. I want to make sure I am doing it correctly.

Specifically, I would like help with question #3

The formula provided for cash-to-conversion is:

ARDS= Accounts receivable value/Revenue per day

APDS=Accounts payable value/Revenue per day

Revenue per day (R/D) =Total revenue/Operating days per year

Cash-to-cash conversion cycle =IDS+ARDS-APDS

Here's what I got:

Inventory days’ supply (IDS) =

Average total inventory/ Cost of goods sold per day=4,906+886=5792

Cost of goods sold per day (CGS/D) = 31,725/300 Days per year= 105.75

Cost of goods sold value/ Operating days per year

5792/105.75=54.77

IDS=54.77

IDS+ARDS= the firms receivable cycle is 80.08

ARDS= Accounts receivable value/ Revenue per day =7,593/300=25.31

APDS= Accounts payable value/ Revenue per day =9,338/300=31.13

APDS =31.13, which is how many days the firm has to pay back its bill.

Which means the firm receives it payments, “receivables” 48.95 days later.

Is this right? Help!

Read, and write a 1-page reaction on a single topic 400 WORD or more WITH YOUR opinion about the topic -Which you choose and whether you support or reject the idea you should use this word : I will discuss the ....... because I believe it is ......... > I also agree or desagree with the book that ......

Finding Growth and Profitability in Bookselling: Barnes & Noble and Amazon

Barnes & Noble and Amazon were the bookselling industry’s leading companies. Yet Barnes & Noble’s revenues were declining by 10 percent per year, and in the second quarter of 2015, Amazon had lost more than $0.4 billion dollars (see Exhibit 11.1). The bookselling industry was experiencing vast technological change with the introduction of e-books and tablets, and Barnes & Noble and Amazon had to figure out what to do next.

Data source: Quarterly financial reports Exhibit 11.1 Financial Performance of Major Booksellers, 2nd Quarter 2015 Barnes & Noble and the Superstore Leonard Riggio, Barnes & Noble’s founder, believed shopping was a recreational activity. Relying on the philosophy that people bought books based on emotion, he transformed bookselling into a giant industry.1 Too poor to attend college full time, Riggio had worked during the day as a clerk in the New York University bookstore. In 1965, he created a campus bookstore of his own. During the next six years, he established four other bookstores on campuses in New York City. In 1971, Riggio bought Barnes & Noble, then an unprofitable New York textbook seller, and in 1974 he opened a Barnes & Noble annex in Manhattan where he aggressively marketed low-priced books that had been returned to publishers. By 1986 he owned 142 college bookstores and 37 Barnes & Noble’s stores. When he bought B. Dalton from Dayton-Hudson, Barnes & Noble became the largest U.S. bookseller. Barnes & Noble’s main competitor had been Borders, an Ann Arbor, Michigan, chain.2 At the time, Walden Books was a part of Borders. Kmart had bought Walden in 1984. In the late 1980s, B. Dalton and Walden owned more than 600 mall-based stores. Borders pioneered the concept of the bookstore as a superstore. Barnes & Noble was an aggressive follower. The son of a professional boxer, Riggio learned from his father to be quicker on his feet and more nimble than his opponents. 203

Barnes & Noble acted more quickly than Borders and expanded more rapidly than Borders. The superstores had a special atmosphere. They were meant to serve as gathering places for people. They tried to get people to linger with comfortable seating, coffee to drink, and late-night hours. Some stores were decked out like small or full-scale libraries. Most had comfortable chairs and writing tables. They hosted readings by famous authors and other events. They played pleasant jazz and classical music in the background. The stores made an effort to build a sense of community. Advertisements featured pictures of literary greats like Hemingway and Virginia Woolf. Barnes & Noble, in particular, tried to create a literary climate. It paid a great deal of attention to décor, layout, furniture, display, signage, and selection of books. The special atmosphere meant that customers spent time browsing, and of course, the more time they spent browsing, the more they bought. Customers bought twice as much merchandise at a superstore as at a mall-based store. Barnes & Noble chose about 50,000 titles to display at each superstore. Local managers adapted the rest of their selections to local tastes. The result was that the typical store offered about 175,000 titles packed into 30,000 square feet. The competition between Barnes & Noble and Borders was fierce. They were in a race to see which would expand most rapidly. Both feared that Walmart and massmarket retailers would take away their business. Kmart spun off Walden in 1995 because it could not keep up. In that year, Barnes & Noble and Borders captured about one-quarter of the U.S. market for books, with Barnes & Noble having a market share of about 15 percent and Borders having a market share of about 10 percent.3 The focus of both companies was on aggressive expansion. The number of superstores in the United States kept growing. It jumped to nearly 800 in the mid1990s. Many independent bookstores could not keep up and folded. Barnes & Noble and Borders were focused on the competition between them and their commitment to continued expansion. When Amazon.com began operations in 1995, neither company paid much attention.4 Barnes & Noble’s goal was to expand at a pace of about 100 new stores per year. Yet by 1997, the estimate was that there were several hundred online booksellers operating on the Web and that, by 1998, they already had captured 2 percent of the adult book market.5

204

Amazon and Internet Commerce Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, was a summa laude graduate of Princeton in 1986 with a degree in computer science.6 He had worked for a telecom start-up and a hedge fund. Seeking to begin a business of his own, he examined 20 possibilities for Internet commerce before settling on bookselling. He understood the opportunities in books to be high because the industry was very fragmented and because Internet selling offered many advantages over conventional book stores, including enabling larger selection, greater inventory turnover, higher sales per square foot, and higher sales per operating employee. Bezos moved from New York City and started his business in Seattle, Washington, to take advantage of the software talent and proximity to Ingram’s large bookstore and electronics wholesale warehouse in Oregon. Before building its own warehouse complex, Amazon relied on Ingram. There also happened to be no state taxes on retail purchases in the state of Washington, which made Internet sales more competitive with retail. To begin operations, Amazon had to innovate. It had to pioneer in the development of software for Internet shopping. It created the look and feel of an Internet shopping site that now has become common. It provided information about the books it sold, posted author interviews, offered free book reviews, and gave links to other sites and features. Amazon spent vast sums of money on research and development (R&D), in 1999 obtaining a patent for its oneclick technology, which allowed customers to order from its site with a simple click of the mouse instead of going through several steps. In contrast to a physical store, which had fixed times when it opened and closed, Internet shopping could take place at any time of the day. The venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer invested $8 million dollars in Amazon to help it get started, and the business grew rapidly. In less than a year, Amazon had nearly $1 million in sales. Repeat customers provided more than 50 percent of its business, and the average transaction was greater than $50. Technical and business books made up a high percentage of the early orders. The company went public in 1997, and its market capitalization rose to $560 million on the first day. Bezos suddenly was a multimillionaire because he owned 42 percent of the stock. Investors continued to have confidence in Amazon’s business model year after year, although Amazon did not report that it was profitable, and it was not clear when it would be. The company stayed afloat by means of the positive cash flow it generated. Customers paid Amazon with credit cards; Amazon collected the sale price within a few days from the credit card company, but it was weeks before it paid its suppliers. Barnes & Noble launched its own book-selling website in the spring of 1997.7 The website featured personalized book recommendations and deep discounts every bit as good as Amazon’s on most items. Barnes & Noble used its brand name to capture leadership in the general interest and fiction categories. Because of its

205

warehouses and greater experience in shipping books, it tried to beat Amazon’s delivery times. It built new warehouses, in Atlanta and Reno, which it added to its existing warehouse in New Jersey to ensure prompt distribution. It also built its own version of the one-click technology, which it called “express lane” ordering. However, the company was not able to seamlessly integrate brick-and-mortar operations with the Internet, which permitted Amazon to make the claim that it, not Barnes & Noble, was “earth’s biggest bookstore.”8 Since 1970, Barnes & Noble’s slogan had been that it was the “world’s biggest bookstore.” Barnes & Noble sued, arguing that Amazon was not a bookstore at all, but a book broker. Amazon, in turn, counter-sued, and it sought an injunction against Barnes & Noble for stealing its one-click technology. In 1999, Barnes & Noble had an IPO, which spun off BarnesAndNoble.com, its online business, as a separate company. Bertelsmann, a German mass media corporation, owned 36 percent of the new company, Barnes & Noble owned 36 percent, and 36 percent of the shares were sold to the public. One month before the spin-off, Amazon took a number of aggressive steps to counter any success that BarnesAndNoble.com might have by adding 1.5 million more titles to those it already listed, introducing a personalized book recommendation service, and starting to sell bestsellers at a 50-percent discount. The 50-percent discount was especially galling to BarnesAndNoble.com, which was forced to match the discount and thus sell books at cost. Amazon’s aggressive moves had their desired effect. The stock of BarnesAndNoble.com climbed just 27 percent on the first day of the IPO, a huge disappointment in an era when stocks routinely doubled or tripled the initial asking price. Amazon was beating BarnesAndNoble.com on the most important Internet criterion: “eyeballs.”9 It had 8.4 million registered Internet customers compared to BarnesAndNoble.com’s 1.7 million, and its Internet market share was 75 percent whereas BarnesAndNoble.com’s was 15 percent. Barnes & Noble made an offer to buy Amazon’s Oregon supplier, Ingram’s Book Group in 1998, only to be rebuffed because of antitrust scrutiny

The FedEx Survey Feedback Action (SFA) program is one example. SFA includes an anonymous survey that allows employees to express feelings about the company and their managers, and to some extent about service, pay and benefits. Each manager then has an opportunity to use the results to help design a blueprint for improving workgroup engagement and commitment.

SFA has three phases. First, the survey itself is a standard, anonymous questionnaire given each year to every employee. The questions are designed to gather information about what helps and hinders employees in their work environment. Sample items include:

• “I can tell my manager what I think” and
• “My manager tells me what was expected”

A workgroup’s survey results are compiled and sent anonymously to the manager.

The second phase is a feedback session between the manager and his or her workgroup. The goal here is to identify specific concerns or problems, examine causes for these problems, and devise action plans to correct the problems.

The feedback meeting should lead to a third, “action plan” phase. This produces a list of actions that the manager will take to address employees concerns and boost results. It includes:

• What is the concern?
• What’s your analysis?
• What’s the cause? And
• What should be done?

THE FEDEX GUARANTEED FAIR TREATMENT PROCESS

FexEx’s Guaranteed Fair Treatment Process (GFTP) is sort of a turbocharged grievance process. It goes beyond most grievance procedures in several ways, perhaps most notably in that an appeal can go all the way to FedEx’s top executives. The effect is twofold:

1. Complaints don’t get a chance to accumulate;
2. All managers think twice before acting unfairly

GFTP is available to all permanent FedEx employees. It covers concerns regarding matters such as disputed performance reviews, disciplinary actions and terminations.

Employees use Guaranteed Fair Treatment Process packets, available from the HR department, to file GFTP complaints. These include a fact sheet listing the complainant’s name and work history, a GFTP tracking sheet to track the complaint at each step, management’s rationale (for instance, in terms of applicable policies and procedures); a write-up from the HR department; space for key documents (termination letters, and so on) and space for backup information including witness statements. The employee must try to resolve the problem with his or her supervisor before filing a GFTP appeal.

GFTP contains three steps.

1. In step one, Management Review, the complainant submits a written complaint to a manager, senior manager or managing director, within seven calendar days of the occurrence of the eligible issue. Then the manger, senior manager and managing direction of the employee’s group review all relevant information; hold a telephone conference and/or meeting with the complainant; make a decision to either uphold, modify or overturn management action; and communicate their decision in writing to the complainant.
2. If turned down in step one, then in step two, Officer Complaint, the complainant submits a written complaint to an officer (VP or senior vice president) of the division within 7 calendar days of the step one decision.
3. Finally (if necessary), in step three, Executive Appeals Review, the complainant submits a written complaint within seven calendar days of the step two decision to the Employee Relations department. This department investigates and prepares a GFTP case file for the appeals board executive review. The appeals board – the CEO, the COO, the chief personnel officer and senior vice presidents, then reviews all relevant information and makes a decision to either uphold, overturn or initiate a board of review or to take other appropriate action. The appeals board’s decision is final.

Questions:

1. Based on the FedEx case provided to you, what do you think is FedEx’s Employee Relations Strategy? Draft the strategy in your own words

2. What communication channels does FedEx use to be one of “Fortune Magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For”? List them all and identify if it is upward or downward communication.

3. Based on FedEx Guaranteed Fair Treatment process, what two (2) Employee Discipline Guidelines do you feel that FedEx has most likely adapted as part of their Employee Relations policies and procedures? Be sure to use evidence from the case to support your answer.

4. How does FedEx incorporate employee rights in their practices? Refer to two (2) points in the case and explain them to justify your answer.

5. Describe examples of employee involvement portrayed at FedEx. How do these practices help FedEx be one of the best companies to work for?

6. As a result of the ongoing pandemic due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), organizations such as FedEx are going through significant and unexpected change.

1. Unfortunately, as a result of the pandemic, FedEx has determined that they must decrease the amount of employees in their organization. Describe two (2) issues that organizations will face as a result of decreasing the amount of employees.

2. Referring to the issues you identified in part (a), as FedEx’s Employee Relations Manager, describe how you will ensure effective Employee Involvement strategies as a result of these issues

3. The role of the HR Department is critical during organizational change. Identify two (2) important HR roles. Describe how you, as Employee Relations Manager, will ensure these roles are carried out at FedEx during the current pandemic.

Project Scope Management Questions Only

1. On a project to develop an inventory control system, the project manager is working on creating the scope management plan. He realizes that this plan must include items such as how the WBS will be created and how the scope of work will be accomplished and measured. All of the following statements are true about the scope management plan except:

A. It will not change after approval.

B. It may be based on organizational forms or templates.

C. It will be impacted by other parts of project planning.

D. It documents how scope will be iterated and controlled.

2. You are the project manager on an information technology project on which you and the sponsor have already approved the scope. While having lunch with a customer representative working with him on a software project, an information specialist on your team learns a simple alteration in the display would be a great addition to the project. The information specialist installs the change with no negative effect on the project schedule and at no additional cost. What action should be taken?

A. The information specialist should be told that his behavior was unacceptable, as it may have negatively affected the overall project.

B. The project manager should create a change control form and have the customer approve the change since the change has already been made.

C. The information specialist should be recognized for exceeding customer expectations without affecting project cost or schedule.

D. The project manager should add an activity to the project management plan with no associated time.

3. As a project manager, you are using a number of tools and techniques that are part of the Define Scope process. You will be carrying out this process with the help of the customer, the team, and other stakeholders. Which of the following is not part of this process?

A. Product analysis

B. Facilitation

C. Alternatives analysis

D. Inspection

4. Which of the following best describes the Validate Scope process?

A. It ensures the deliverable is completed on time, ensures customer acceptance, and shows the deliverable meets specifications.

B. It is an output of Control Quality, occurs before Define Scope, and ensures customer acceptance.

C. It ensures customer acceptance, shows the deliverable meets specifications, and provides a chance for differences of opinion to come to light.

D. It provides assurances that the deliverable meets the specifications, is an input to the project management plan, and is an output of Control Quality.

5. The cost performance index (CPI) on the project is 1.13, and the benefit-cost ratio (BCR) is 1.2. The project scope description was created by the team and stakeholders. Requirements have been changing throughout the project. No matter what the project manager has tried to accomplish in managing the project, which of the following is he most likely to face in the future?

A. Having to cut costs on the project and increase benefits

B. Not being able to measure completion of the product of the project

C. Making sure the customer approved the project scope

D.

Having to add resources to the project

6. During project planning, it becomes apparent that factions within the client's company have significantly different views on how the project should be structured and how the deliverables should be defined. Which of the following is the best thing to do?

A. Ask the client when they will be in agreement on the project requirements.

B. Work with leadership from each area to collaboratively engineer a mutually acceptable solution.

C. Make sure the terms and conditions of the contract are clear.

D. List the consequences of changes in the requirements section of the contract.

7. The call center’s response time has increased in recent months, resulting in numerous complaints from dissatisfied customers. Several employees have quit their jobs in the call center, as they were tired of dealing with disgruntled callers. You have been working with the business analyst and stakeholders on a project chartered to understand the problem and to determine a solution. There are diverging opinions, but through facilitation and analysis work you have a clear picture of what is desired, and have balanced and prioritized stakeholders’ needs. Which of the following would be the best place to record this information?

A. Project scope statement

B. Affinity diagram

C. Issue log

D. Requirements documentation

8. On an agile software development project, the project manager asks business stakeholders to create user stories, which will be used in the development and testing of the new application. The main purpose of writing a user story is:

A. To document features or functions required by stakeholders

B. To communicate progress

C. To perform what-if analysis

D. To create a record of issues encountered on the project

9. Alternatives analysis occurs in which parts of the scope management process?

A. Initiating and scope definition

B. Scope definition and scope control

C. Initiating and scope verification

D. Scope planning and scope definition

10. During acceptance testing on a customized scheduling software project, it is determined that, in order to provide value to the customer, several additional features and functions must be added. This change in scope will also impact the estimated time and cost to complete the project. You conclude that to facilitate these additions, the project baseline must be adjusted. Which of the following best describes when the baseline can be changed?

A. When the project sponsor determines it is appropriate

B. Only under emergency conditions

C. With approved changes

D. The original baseline is always maintained throughout the project

11. During acceptance testing on a customized software project, it is determined that, in order to provide value to the customer, several additional features and functions must be added. This change in scope will be assessed in integrated change control to determine possible impacts on other aspects of the project. As a result of this change in scope, any of the following are likely to change except:

A. Project charter

B. Cost baseline

C. Requirements traceability matrix

D. Schedule baseline

12. You are working to identify all of the points where your project scope requirements interact with existing system components so that you can develop requirements. Which tool are you using?

A. Context diagram

B. Bar chart

C. Networking

D. WBS

13. The Collect Requirements process entails the elicitation and documentation of requirements from all stakeholder groups. These requirements may be categorized into subsets, including business requirements, quality requirements, stakeholder requirements, and technical requirements. Business requirements include:

A. Training and rollout plans

B. Why the project was undertaken

C. What stakeholders want to gain from the project

D. Project requirements

14. You are managing a project that is anticipated to have far-reaching impact throughout the organization. It is considered critical that the team capture requirements of all stakeholder groups before the executing processes are begun. You and the team have used document analysis, interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and several facilitated requirements sessions, resulting in an abundance of requirements from stakeholders. Which of the following is the best way to prioritize these requirements for inclusion in the project scope description?

A. Multicriteria decision analysis

B. Affinity diagramming

C. Voting

D. Mind mapping

15. It is critical to define requirements during planning on a project. The greater the number of stakeholders, the more difficult it is likely to be to define all requirements, and to then get agreement from all stakeholders on which requirements should go into the project management plan. As a project manager, you can best resolve the differences between the requirements of one stakeholder and those of another by making which of these statements?

A. There are many points on which we agree. I am certain if we focus on them, we will find a solution.

B. This discussion is getting too heated. Let's regroup to solve the problem tomorrow.

C. I have made the decision to resolve the problem this way.

D. Let's look at why there is a difference of opinion on the requirements.

16. A project has just started the second phase, in which work packages are being created. A new team member has completed his work packages for this phase, and has asked the project manager to validate the scope of his work packages. The team member is anxious to have the customer see his work packages. The project manager, although confident in this new team member, wants the team member to gain confidence after the customer sees his work packages. When should the Validate Scope process be done?

A. At the beginning of the project

B. At the end of the project

C. At the end of each phase of the project

D. During the planning processes

17. The graphic designer on the project recommends a blue background for the marketing materials, while the customer strongly argues for red. The graphic designer explains that, in color psychology, blue is more calming and is likely to generate a better reaction from potential buyers. A decision must be made today. How should this requirements conflict be resolved?

A. Get a consensus of outside experts.

B. Use red.

C. Compromise between the two options and use purple.

D. Use blue.

18. You have a signed project charter and a scope management plan, and are in the process of creating a project scope statement. You have asked the team for input to ensure the project scope statement is complete. However, the team is struggling with defining the scope. Which of the following best describes the problem?

A. The project objectives were not identified before the project scope statement was begun.

B. The team is working on the project scope statement without the benefit of organizational process assets.

C. The team is in the Define Scope process and needs the project scope statement as an input.

D. A WBS was not completed before the project scope statement was begun.

19. To manage a project effectively, work should be broken down into small pieces. Which of the following does not describe how far to decompose the work?

A. Until it can be realistically estimated

B. Until it has a meaningful conclusion

C. Until it can be done by one person

D. Until it cannot be logically subdivided further

20. The project manager and team have finalized the WBS for their bridge construction project. It took a lot of time and many meetings to break the scope of this large project into manageable pieces. As they worked through this process, the team identified additional requirements that were incorporated into the WBS document. All the following are outputs of the Create WBS process except:

A. Updates to the requirements documentation

B. Scope baseline

C. WBS dictionary

D. Change requests

21. All of the following are parts of the scope baseline except the:

A. Scope management plan

B. Project scope statement

C. WBS dictionary

D. Work breakdown structure

22. A project manager is concerned about the amount of gold plating that has occurred on past projects. All the following would not be of use in controlling gold plating except:

A. A risk management plan

B. A project charter

C. A work breakdown structure dictionary

D. A staffing management plan

23. The process of scope definition is key to a successful project. All the following come after the Define Scope process except:

A. Plan Resource Management

B. Estimate Activity Durations

C. Collect Requirements

D. Estimate Costs

24. The scope management processes are generally completed in which order?

A. Validate Scope, Collect Requirements, Define Scope, Create WBS

B. Define Scope, Validate Scope, Collect Requirements, Create WBS

C. Collect Requirements, Define Scope, Create WBS, Validate Scope

D. Create WBS, Collect Requirements, Define Scope, and Validate Scope

25. The best way to gain an understanding of how a business process is performed, in order to identify requirements, is to:

A. Read the job description/training manual description of how to perform the work.

B. Ask the manager of employees who perform the work.

C. Observe an employee performing the work.

D. Ask an employee who regularly performs the work.

CASE 2-3: Starnes-Brenner Machine Tool Company: To Bribe or Not to Bribe?

The Starnes-Brenner Machine Tool Company of Iowa City, Iowa, has a small one-man sales offi ce headed by Frank Rothe in Latino, a major Latin American country. Frank has been in Latino for about 10 years and is retiring this year; his replacement is Bill Hunsaker, one of Starnes-Brenner’s top salespeople. Both will be in Latino for about eight months, during which time Frank will show Bill the ropes, introduce him to their principal customers, and, in general, prepare him to take over. Frank has been very successful as a foreign representative in spite of his unique style and, at times, complete refusal to follow company policy when it doesn’t suit him. The company hasn’t really done much about his method of operation, though from time to time he has angered some top company people. As President Jack McCaughey, who retired a couple of years ago, once remarked to a vice president who was complaining about Frank, “If he’s making money—and he is (more than any of the other foreign offi ces)—then leave the guy alone.” When McCaughey retired, the new chief immediately instituted organizational changes that gave more emphasis to the overseas operations, moving the company toward a truly worldwide operation into which a loner like Frank would probably not fi t. In fact, one of the key reasons for selecting Bill as Frank’s replacement, besides Bill’s record as a top salesperson, is Bill’s capacity to be an organization man. He understands the need for coordination among operations and will cooperate with the home offi ce so that the Latino offi ce can be expanded and brought into the mainstream. The company knows there is much to be learned from Frank, and Bill’s job is to learn everything possible. The company certainly doesn’t want to continue some of Frank’s practices, but much of his knowledge is vital for continued, smooth operation. Today, Starnes-Brenner’s foreign sales account for about 25 percent of the company’s total profi ts, compared with about 5 percent only 10 years ago. The company is actually changing character, from being principally an exporter, without any real concern for continuous foreign market representation, to having worldwide operations, where the foreign divisions are part of the total effort rather than a stepchild operation. In fact, Latino is one of the last operational divisions to be assimilated into the new organization. Rather than try to change Frank, the company has been waiting for him to retire before making any signifi cant adjustments in its Latino operations. Bill Hunsaker is 36 years old, with a wife and three children; he is a very good salesperson and administrator, though he has had no foreign experience. He has the reputation of being fair, honest, and a straight shooter. Some back at the home offi ce see his assignment as part of a grooming job for a top position, perhaps eventually the presidency. The Hunsakers are now settled in their new home after having been in Latino for about two weeks. Today is Bill’s fi rst day on the job. When Bill arrived at the offi ce, Frank was on his way to a local factory to inspect some Starnes-Brenner machines that had to have some adjustments made before being acceptable to the Latino. government agency buying them. Bill joined Frank for the plant visit. Later, after the visit, we join the two at lunch. Bill, tasting some chili, remarks, “Boy! This certainly isn’t like the chili we have in America.” “No, it isn’t, and there’s another difference, too. The Latinos are Americans and nothing angers a Latino more than to have a ‘Gringo’ refer to the United States as America as if to say that Latino isn’t part of America also. The Latinos rightly consider their country as part of America (take a look at the map), and people from the United States are North Americans at best. So, for future reference, refer to home either as the United States, States, or North America, but, for gosh sakes, not just America. Not to change the subject, Bill, but could you see that any change had been made in those S-27s from the standard model?” “No, they looked like the standard. Was there something out of whack when they arrived?” “No, I couldn’t see any problem—I suspect this is the best piece of sophisticated bribe taking I’ve come across yet. Most of the time the Latinos are more ‘honest’ about their mordidas than this.” “What’s a mordida ?” Bill asks. “You know, kumshaw , dash , bustarella , mordida ; they are all the same: a little grease to expedite the action. Mordida is the local word for a slight offering or, if you prefer, bribe,” says Frank. Bill quizzically responds, “Do we pay bribes to get sales?” “Oh, it depends on the situation, but it’s certainly something you have to be prepared to deal with.” Boy, what a greenhorn, Frank thinks to himself, as he continues, “Here’s the story. When the S-27s arrived last January, we began uncrating them and right away the jefe engineer (a government offi cial)— jefe , that’s the head man in charge—began extra-careful examination and declared there was a vital defect in the machines; he claimed the machinery would be dangerous and thus unacceptable if it wasn’t corrected. I looked it over but couldn’t see anything wrong, so I agreed to have our staff engineer check all the machines and correct any fl aws that might exist. Well, the jefe said there wasn’t enough time to wait for an engineer to come from the States, that the machines could be adjusted locally, and we could pay him and he would make all the necessary arrangements. So, what do you do? No adjustment his way and there would be an order canceled; and, maybe there was something out of line, those things have been known to happen. But for the life of me, I can’t see that anything had been done since the machines were supposedly fi xed. So, let’s face it, we just paid a bribe, and a pretty darn big bribe at that—about $1,200 per machine. What makes it so aggravating is that that’s the second one I’ve had to pay on this shipment.” “The second?” asks Bill. “Yeah, at the border, when we were transferring the machines to Latino trucks, it was hot and they were moving slow as molasses. It took them over an hour to transfer one machine to a Latino truck and we had ten others to go. It seemed that every time I spoke to the dock boss about speeding things up, they just got slower. Finally, out of desperation, I slipped him a fi stful of pesos. and, sure enough, in the next three hours they had the whole thing loaded. Just one of the local customs of doing business. Generally, though, it comes at the lower level where wages don’t cover living expenses too well.” There is a pause, and Bill asks, “What does that do to our profi ts?” “Runs them down, of course, but I look at it as just one of the many costs of doing business—I do my best not to pay, but when I have to, I do.” Hesitantly, Bill replies, “I don’t like it, Frank. We’ve got good products, they’re priced right, we give good service, and keep plenty of spare parts in the country, so why should we have to pay bribes? It’s just no way to do business. You’ve already had to pay two bribes on one shipment; if you keep it up, the word’s going to get around and you’ll be paying at every level. Then all the profi t goes out the window—you know, once you start, where do you stop? Besides that, where do we stand legally? The Foreign Bribery Act makes paying bribes like you’ve just paid illegal. I’d say the best policy is to never start: You might lose a few sales, but let it be known that there are no bribes; we sell the best, service the best at fair prices, and that’s all.” “You mean the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, don’t you?” Frank asks, and continues, in an I’m-not-really-so-out-of-touch tone of voice, “Haven’t some of the provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act been softened somewhat?” “Yes, you’re right, the provisions on paying a mordida or grease have been softened, but paying the government offi cial is still illegal, softening or not,” replies Bill. Oh boy! Frank thinks to himself as he replies, “Look, what I did was just peanuts as far as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act goes. The people we pay off are small, and, granted we give good service, but we’ve only been doing it for the last year or so. Before that I never knew when I was going to have equipment to sell. In fact, we only had products when there were surpluses stateside. I had to pay the right people to get sales, and besides, you’re not back in the States any longer. Things are just done different here. You follow that policy and I guarantee that you’ll have fewer sales because our competitors from Germany, Italy, and Japan will pay. Look, Bill, everybody does it here; it’s a way of life, and the costs are generally refl ected in the markup and overhead. There is even a code of behavior involved. We’re not actually encouraging it to spread, just perpetuating an accepted way of doing business.” Patiently and slightly condescendingly, Bill replies, “I know, Frank, but wrong is wrong and we want to operate differently now. We hope to set up an operation here on a continuous basis; we plan to operate in Latino just like we do in the United States. Really expand our operation and make a long-range market commitment, grow with the country! And one of the fi rst things we must avoid is unethical . . .” Frank interrupts, “But really, is it unethical? Everybody does it, the Latinos even pay mordidas to other Latinos; it’s a fact of life— is it really unethical? I think that the circumstances that exist in a country justify and dictate the behavior. Remember, man, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.’” Almost shouting, Bill blurts out, “I can’t buy that. We know that our management practices and relationships are our strongest point. Really, all we have to differentiate us from the rest of our competition, Latino and others, is that we are better managed and, as far as I’m concerned, graft and other unethical behavior have got to be cut out to create a healthy industry. In the long run, it should strengthen our position. We can’t build our future on illegal and unethical practices.” Frank angrily replies, “Look, it’s done in the States all the time. What about the big dinners, drinks, and all the other hanky-panky that goes on? Not to mention PACs’ [Political Action Committee] payments to congressmen, and all those high speaking fees certain congressmen get from special interests. How many congressmen have gone to jail or lost reelection on those kinds of things? What is that, if it isn’t mordida the North American way? The only difference is that instead of cash only, in the United States we pay in merchandise and cash.” “That’s really not the same and you know it. Besides, we certainly get a lot of business transacted during those dinners even if we are paying the bill.” “Bull. The only difference is that here bribes go on in the open; they don’t hide it or dress it in foolish ritual that fools no one. It goes on in the United States and everyone denies the existence of it. That’s all the difference—in the United States we’re just more hypocritical about it all.” “Look,” Frank continues, almost shouting, “we are getting off on the wrong foot and we’ve got eight months to work together. Just keep your eyes and mind open and let’s talk about it again in a couple of months when you’ve seen how the whole country operates; perhaps then you won’t be so quick to judge it absolutely wrong.” Frank, lowering his voice, says thoughtfully, “I know it’s hard to take; probably the most disturbing problem in underdeveloped countries is the matter of graft. And, frankly, we don’t do much advance preparation so we can deal fi rmly with it. It bothered me at fi rst; but then I fi gured it makes its economic contribution, too, since the payoff is as much a part of the economic process as a payroll. What’s our real economic role, anyway, besides making a profi t, of course? Are we developers of wealth, helping to push the country to greater economic growth, or are we missionaries? Or should we be both? I really don’t know, but I don’t think we can be both simultaneously, and my feeling is that, as the company prospers, as higher salaries are paid, and better standards of living are reached, we’ll see better ethics. Until then, we’ve got to operate or leave, and if you are going to win the opposition over, you’d better join them and change them from within, not fi ght them.” Before Bill could reply, a Latino friend of Frank’s joined them, and they changed the topic of conversation.

QUESTIONS 1. Is what Frank did ethical? By whose ethics—those of Latino or the United States?

2. Are Frank’s two different payments legal under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act as amended by the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988?

3. Identify the types of payments made in the case; that is, are they lubrication, extortion, or subornation?

4. Frank seemed to imply that there is a similarity between what he was doing and what happens in the United States. Is there any difference? Explain.

5. Are there any legal differences between the money paid to the dockworkers and the money paid the jefe (government official)? Any ethical differences?

Handout Question 1:

Stokes Bay Fishing Corporation manufactures and sells fishing boats. The CEO of the company, Keith Jones, has been fishing since he was a young boy and is very excited to be the majority owner of a successful fishing-related business. All of the company’s sales come from two products: the Fish Hauler and the Trolling Deluxe. Both are 16-foot aluminum boats. The Fish Hauler is a basic boat built with the minimum required components necessary for a successful outing and sells for $12,000. The Trolling Deluxe sells for $14,500 and is built for the luxury-minded outdoors person; it includes adjustable padded seats, moveable storage boxes, and rod holders, among other conveniences, to make the trip more comfortable. The boats are sold to retailers who then usually add an outboard motor and a trailer before selling to the consumer.

Stokes Bay Fishing Corporation management is meeting to discuss recent financial results and to plan for the future. John Singh, the sales manager, has been successful in convincing Keith to keep the boats close in price, basing his argument on the fact that the boats are the same size and about the same weight. In fact, he argues, each boat has the same seating capacity and is used for essentially the same purpose. Keith, however, is concerned. He has reviewed the financial results for the boating business and is confused by the results. Keith has noticed that while sales volume is increasing, profits are decreasing (as a percent of sales). Keith has consulted with his production manager, Jeff Knowles, who told him that he is doing his best to manage production costs but is challenged by the fact that the proportion of Trolling Deluxe boats manufactured and sold is growing at a far greater rate than the Fish Hauler.

Keith has asked his CFO, Janet Costa, for financial data regarding the sales and manufacturing activities for the past year. The following is what Janet provided.

Stokes has been applying variable overhead on the basis of direct labour hours. For the past year, factory overhead was $640,000 and total direct labour hours for the year were18,600. The hourly rate for direct labour hours is $22. Also, sales and administrative expenses for the year totalled $984,000.

Keith has hired a financial consultant, Sue Wong, to analyze the activity of the past year, and to help management to understand the deteriorating profit results. Sue specializes in the application of activity-based costing (ABC) in small manufacturing businesses. The focus of her work was to determine key activities, cost drivers, and related costs in the business. Sue has found several overhead activities and related costs, and the associated cost drivers. She has also determined the amount of each activity consumed by the two products. This information is presented below.

Activities and Cost Drivers:

            Factory Overhead

Activities and Cost Drivers:

            Factory Overhead

Financial data for the two products, based on ABC analysis:

Required:

1. Calculate unit cost using the current process costing system. Calculate gross and net operating income generated for the company by the two products.
2. Calculate activity rates, rounding to the nearest dollar.
3. Calculate unit cost using activity-based costing, and recalculate gross and net operating income generated by the two products.
4. Based on the results above, what advice would you give to Keith regarding his observation of increasing volume but decreasing profit?