Describe Walmart's Raw Materials, R&D, Production/Manufacturing, Distribution, Sales marketing/sales, & Customer service (Primary areas).

For each functional area please give a description of the major processes where they (building blocks of competitive advantage) may apply, Superior efficiency, superior quality, superior customer service, and superior innovation, and or strengths and weaknesses.  

The risks of a cost leadership strategy include all of the following EXCEPT:

A. investments in manufacturing equipment can become obsolete due to innovation.

B. firms may fail to understand customers’ perceptions of competitive levels of differentiation.

C. competitors may learn how to successfully imitate their strategy.

D. firms may fail to include enough unique features in the product.

Worldwide innovation and the development of capability to create, leverage and apply knowledge are now considered to be a new requirement to gain competitive advantage by multinational firms.
Using relevant examples, identify four types of innovative capabilities and the problems associated with each of them. According to you, which type of innovative capability is more suitable to multinational firms? Justify your answer.

OM Practice: Provide one example of a company who you believe has good operations. Explain your choice - what aspects / examples of the company’s operations supports your company choice. If your previous response has not done so, list two big OM innovations – explain each innovation and why it is a big idea (its benefits).

1. In what ways collaboration overload can have an impact on decision making?
2. What biases play into managers continued use of collaboration tools and modes?
3. How collaboration overload (requiring employees to use multiple collaboration mechanisms or become employed in open-office environments) affects innovation and creativity? What some of the positive and negative effects?

1. 2. 3. Explain the law of diffusion and innovation. Name and define the categories and list the percentage of people that Simon Sinek discussed with his bell curve. What percentage market penetration is the tipping point for mass market success? How do you “cross that chasm” for cultural change? Explain the technique used by Simon Sinek for the Millennial Training Program.

22. Consider a labor market where the demand for a particular category of labor is given by the equation LD = 20 – 2W. Suppose that the supply curve of workers in this market who are also native-born citizens is given by LN = 2W, while the supply curve of immigrants in this market is given by LI = W, where L represents the number of workers, W is the wage expressed in real terms, and the subscripts D, N, and I are used to distinguish between the quantity of labor demanded and the quantity of labor supplied by native-born and immigrant workers.

22a. Find the market-clearing wage and employment level assuming immigration is not allowed. Then find the market-clearing wage and employment level after allowing for immigration. How many native jobs are lost to immigrants?

22b. Compute the real income of native-born workers in this market before and after immigration. How much is the income flow reduced?

22c. Ignoring the cost of capital, compute the total profits of the firms before and after immigration. What is the change in total profits?

22d. Compute the total output of this market before and after immigration. How much total output does society gain because of immigration?

*22e. Taken as a whole, how much would immigrants be willing to pay in real terms for the right to work in this country (i.e., how much do immigrants earn in economic rent)?

*22f. If immigration leads to a large enough increase in output, it is possible that native workers can be kept at least as well off as before immigration without hurting immigrants or the firms. Give an example of a transfer payment scheme that would accomplish this.

22g. What other effects do immigrants have on labor markets that are not captured in this model?

Claytonhill Beverages Ltd. is 100-percent owned by Buzz Bottling. While the company has in the past been profitable, it incurred a loss for the year ended December 31, 2020. The parent company, Buzz Bottling, has indicated that if Claytonhill incurs another loss, it will put the subsidiary up for sale. In response, Claytonhill is looking to expand its market share and therefore its profitability by performing private labelling for a nationwide supermarket chain, ValueFoods Inc. Private labelling involves producing and packaging pop and other non-alcoholic beverages under the ValueFoods label. However, in order to proceed with this endeavour, Claytonhill needs a packaging facility dedicated exclusively to co-packing. To finance this expansion, the company has applied to the Better Business Bank for financing.

The bank has indicated that, before it will approve the loan application, it would like to see audited financial statements for 2020. It also wants to ensure the entity has a current ratio of 2:1.

Claytonhill Beverages has provided you, its new auditor, with the draft (unaudited) financial statements in figure 4.10:

Figure 4.10 Unaudited financial statements for Claytonhill Beverages

Calculate the three levels of materiality.