The chapter describes many companies’ individual marketing efforts that customize products for individual customers, such as M&Ms, PUMA, and Harley-Davidson. Find and describe another example and discuss whether the cost of customizing is worth the value provided to consumers.

Individual Stakeholders Report

Letter to Shareholders Assignment Details

This is an individual assignment.

Assume you are the CEO of the organization established in your simulation team (i.e. Andrews, Baldwin, etc.).

Your responsibility now is to construct the Annual Letter to Shareholders for this organization. For the annual report, include information regarding the changes from round 6 into round 7 that provides stockholders with the most up to date results and identifies projected decisions and desired outcomes expected by implementing your decisions.

Professionalism is critical when preparing the letter. Be sure that you utilize the key concepts from the text that apply to all areas of this letter.

Your letter must include the following:

Section 1 – Review the past

• Detail your overall competitive strategy; i.e. cost leadership, focus, differentiation, or a combination of any of the competitive strategies and why it was selected.
• Data and analysis regarding highpoints from the previous year and decisions that lead to this success.
• Data and analysis regarding the biggest challenges and the decisions that led to poor performance. Be sure to describe why it happened and what areas of the business were impacted. Include what you see as two or three key lessons learned.
• Note: this section should be approximately 40% of the actual letter’s content

Section 2 – Future Vision

• Based on your results, construct new strategies for the upcoming year to maximize organizational strengths and overcome weaknesses in results by completing a detailed SWOT matrix along with an analysis of its content. The explanation should include how you believe this new strategy will impact / address the problem areas and which areas of the business will ultimately be effected.
• Evaluate and describe any current or potential ethical, legal or sustainable business practices within the business or the industry identified in an environmental scan and VRIO analysis that need to be addressed in the upcoming year and the tactics you have developed to overcome these challenges.
• Note: this section should be approximately 50% of the actual letter’s content

Section 3 – Leadership Conclusion

• Complete the Shareholder Letter with a description of your leadership style/philosophy and why they should continue to invest in you and the firm.
• Note: this section should be approximately 10% of the actual letter’s content

The letter should be between 9-12 double spaced pages written in business format. Graphs and charts can be embedded into the document. First person is acceptable.

Be certain that conclusions are supported by data and that this is a professionally written document.

The table below shows the distribution of dietary vitamin-A intake as reported by 14 students who filled out a dietary questionnaire in class.
The total intake is a combination of intake from individual food items and vitamin pills. The units are IU/100 (International Units/100)

a. Calculate the mean, median, mode for these data
b. Calculate the range and inter-quartile range for these data
c. Construct a stem-and-leaf plot using this data. Describe the shape of the distribution
d. Construct a box-plot for these data. Are there any outliers? If your answer is yes, identify the outliers.

What is the purpose of the alternative minimum tax and who pays it? How was the individual alternative minimum tax impacted by the December 2017 tax reform law?

Review available tax credits discussed in chapter 12 of the text. Compare the tax credits that you actually take with the tax credits you would like to take.

Explain why you made the particular selections.

For the tax credit(s) that you would like to take, explain why you are not able to take the tax credits(s).

For the tax credits that you actually take, explain the benefits that you receive from the tax credit(s).

If you have never prepared a tax return or looked at this information before, what do you find most significant about the information that you read about tax credits?

How, if at all, were the tax credits that you take or would like to take impacted by the December 2017 tax reform law?

Question 1: Use the eight phases of the communication process to analyze a miscommunication you’ve once had with a classmate, teacher, friend, or family member. What idea were you trying to share? How did you encode and transmit it? Did the receiver get the message? How do you know? Based on your analysis, identify and explain the barriers prevented your successful communication in this instance.

Question 2: Based on what you studied in chapter 1, explain why you think this situation is an ethical dilemma or an ethical lapse.

Mark worked as a marketing specialist for 10 years in a well-known car company. Due to financial issues, he lost his job with the company. After about 6 months, he found a new job in another company with the same position he used to hold before. To impress his supervisor, he shared with him confidential information about his previous (competing) employer's major clients.

Question 3:After five years of work in the human resources department at Cell Genesys ( a company that is developing cancer treatment drugs), you were laid off in a round of cost cutting moves that rippled through the biotech industry in recent years. The good news is that you found stable employment in the grocery distribution industry. The bad news is that in the three years since you left Cell Genesys, you have truly missed working in the exciting biotechnology field and having the opportunity to be a part of something as important as helping people recover from life-threatening diseases. You know careers in biotech are uncertain, but you have a few dollars in the bank now, and you’re willing to ride the rollercoaster again. This means going back to the biotech industry.

Your Task: Write an email to Calvin Morris, your old boss at Cell Genesys, reminding him of the time you worked together and asking him to write a letter of recommendation for you.

Question 4: Revise these sentences to be positive rather than negative.

1. You messed up the interview. Your answers were rude and inappropriate.
2. Despite our reminders, you have not specified the color of the electronic clocks. As we need time to make bulk arrangements, we cannot ship the shipment until you send us the information.

Question 5: Revise these sentences to eliminate bias.

1. James, an African American basketball player, lives in Los Angeles.
2. A pilot must have the ability to stay calm under pressure, and then he must be trained to cope with any problem that arises.
3. A company owned by a 65-year white woman earned a million dollars last year.

The Fleming Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Gaylord Fleming and Sandy Fleming. The Flemings intended for the charity to provide programs in health care for the elderly, particularly those in poverty. The two main program divisions of the foundation are mental health for the elderly and housing for the elderly. In addition to these programs, the Foundation also provides health care educational programs and has a significant fund-raising effort to help the Foundation grow and accomplish the goals of the founders. The Foundation is organized into two operating departments—education and program management. These departments are supported by two service departments—information technology (IT) and administration. To summarize, there are four departments (two service departments and two operating departments) and two programs (mental health and housing for the elderly). The service department costs are allocated to the operating departments, and then the operating department costs are allocated to the programs. There are $420,000 of costs directly traceable to each of the four departments. An additional $42,000 of indirect costs is shared among the four departments—$22,500 of which is allocated to the departments based on labor hours and $19,500 of which is allocated to the departments based on the number of personnel (head count) in the departments. The cost, labor hours, and head count in these departments in the most recent year are as follows: Departments Direct Cost Labor Hours Head Count Information technology $ 7,000 2,000 1 Administration 128,000 2,000 4 Education 118,000 4,000 4 Program management 167,000 2,000 3 $ 420,000 IT serves education, administration, and program management 20%, 20%, and 60% of its time, respectively. Administration serves education, IT, and program management 40%, 10%, and 50% of its time, respectively. The costs of the two operating departments (education and program management) are allocated to the two programs (mental health and housing) as follows: the costs in Education are allocated on the basis of labor hours in the programs, while the costs in program management are allocated using the head count used in the two programs. The following table shows the labor hours and head count consumption by the two programs. Labor Hours Head Count Mental health 1,000 1 Housing 1,000 2 Labor hours in education 2,000 Head count in program management 3 Required: Determine the costs allocated to the mental health and housing programs using the (a) direct method, (b) the step method (assuming that IT goes first), and (c) the reciprocal method. (Round percentage calculations to 4 decimal places (e.g., 33.3333%). Do not round intermediate calculations. Round your final answer to nearest whole dollar amount.)

Proterra was founded by Dale Hill in 2004 with a vision to design and manufacture world-leading, advanced technology heavy-duty vehicles powered solely by clean domestic fuels. After launching a first successful fleet of alternative fuel buses in the 1990s, Proterra focused on developing the 'bus of tomorrow.' Proterra Inc. also designs and manufactures heavy-duty vehicles including EcoRide, a battery electric and zero-emissions bus, and Proterra Catalyst, an electric transit vehicle. The company manufactures a TerraFlex Energy System that enables customers to select amount and type of energy storage to meet specific route requirements, plus TerraVolt fast-charge batteries, TerraVolt extended range batteries, an on-route charge station and in-depot charging services. It offers financing solutions, route simulation analysis, battery lifecycle management, and standard warranty services (Proterra, 2015). It serves customers throughout the United States. The company is privately owned, but is in the process of becoming a public corporation. With this expectation, the firm's chief executive officer (CEO) has asked for determination of which of two companies appears to be a better peer to compare itself against, New Flyer Industries, Inc. (a Toronto-based firm), or Tesla. Tesla Motor Vehicles designs, develops, manufactures, and sells high-performance fully electric vehicles and stationary energy storage units similar to certain Proterra products. Tesla Motors has subsidiaries in North America, Europe and Asia, with the primary purpose of these subsidiaries being to market, manufacture, sell and/or service their vehicles (Tesla Motors, 2016). New Flyer was founded in 1930, and is now the largest transit bus and motorcoach manufacturer and parts distributor in North America with fabrication, manufacturing, distribution and service centers in Canada and the United States. It is North America's heavy-duty transit bus leader and offers clean diesel, natural gas, diesel-electric hybrid, electric-trolley and battery-electric. Information regarding Tesla and New Flyer is given here, for your use in comparing these firms.

Tesla Versus New Flyer

Significance

Measure

TSLA

NFI

Total Market Value of all outstanding shares.

Market capitalization

33.63B

1.831B

Number of outstanding shares currently held by all shareholders.

Outstanding shares of stock

147.28M

59.742M

A Beta coefficient indicates the systemic risk that an asset has relative to an average asset. A risk-free asset has a Beta of zero.

Beta

1.28

0.16

The return the firm must earn on its existing assets to maintain the value of its stock, and the required return on any investments by the firm that have essentially the same risks as existing operations.

WACC

9.03%

8.34

PE ratio divided by expected future earnings growth (after multiplying the growth rate by 100).

PEG Ratio

18.47

0.5

A measure of profit per dollar of assets.

ROA

-7.04%

6.26%

A measure of how the stockholders fared during the year.

ROE

-113.20%

13.21%

A measure of how much investors are willing to pay per dollar of current earnings. Higher PEs are often taken to mean the firm has significant prospects for future growth.

P/E Ratio

-29.17

25.3

Ratio of Net income to sales.

Profit Margin

-23.91%

-3.83%

References

Bloomberg. United States rates and bonds.

Federal Reserve. (2016). Federal Reserve economic data.

Korosec, K. (2015). This startup is gearing up to be the Tesla of electric buses. Fortune Magazine.

Proterra. (2015). About Proterra.

Securities and Exchange Commission. (n.d.) SEC.gov home.

Tesla Motors. (2016). Tesla Motors, Inc. 2016 annual report.

Yahoo. (n.d.) Yahoo finance.

Assume that you are the finance manager for Proterra and you have been asked to provide an analysis of the following issues, as the firm develops benchmarks for its cost of capital (WACC) estimates. The firm's CEO has instructed you to use the pure play approach to estimate its WACC cost of capital, and has chosen Tesla Motors (ticker symbol TSLA) and New Flyer (ticker symbol NYI.TO) as possible representative peers (Korosec, 2015).

QUESTION: Analyze the relative applicability or inapplicability of utilizing these firms as peers to evaluate Proterra's likely cost of capital, with the given above data about Proterra, Tesla and New Flyer, and the lessons of Capital Market History.

Proterra was founded by Dale Hill in 2004 with a vision to design and manufacture world-leading, advanced technology heavy-duty vehicles powered solely by clean domestic fuels. After launching a first successful fleet of alternative fuel buses in the 1990s, Proterra focused on developing the 'bus of tomorrow.' Proterra Inc. also designs and manufactures heavy-duty vehicles including EcoRide, a battery electric and zero-emissions bus, and Proterra Catalyst, an electric transit vehicle. The company manufactures a TerraFlex Energy System that enables customers to select amount and type of energy storage to meet specific route requirements, plus TerraVolt fast-charge batteries, TerraVolt extended range batteries, an on-route charge station and in-depot charging services. It offers financing solutions, route simulation analysis, battery lifecycle management, and standard warranty services (Proterra, 2015). It serves customers throughout the United States. The company is privately owned, but is in the process of becoming a public corporation. With this expectation, the firm's chief executive officer (CEO) has asked for determination of which of two companies appears to be a better peer to compare itself against, New Flyer Industries, Inc. (a Toronto-based firm), or Tesla. Tesla Motor Vehicles designs, develops, manufactures, and sells high-performance fully electric vehicles and stationary energy storage units similar to certain Proterra products. Tesla Motors has subsidiaries in North America, Europe and Asia, with the primary purpose of these subsidiaries being to market, manufacture, sell and/or service their vehicles (Tesla Motors, 2016). New Flyer was founded in 1930, and is now the largest transit bus and motorcoach manufacturer and parts distributor in North America with fabrication, manufacturing, distribution and service centers in Canada and the United States. It is North America's heavy-duty transit bus leader and offers clean diesel, natural gas, diesel-electric hybrid, electric-trolley and battery-electric. Information regarding Tesla and New Flyer is given here, for your use in comparing these firms.

Tesla Versus New Flyer

Significance

Measure

TSLA

NFI

Total Market Value of all outstanding shares.

Market capitalization

33.63B

1.831B

Number of outstanding shares currently held by all shareholders.

Outstanding shares of stock

147.28M

59.742M

A Beta coefficient indicates the systemic risk that an asset has relative to an average asset. A risk-free asset has a Beta of zero.

Beta

1.28

0.16

The return the firm must earn on its existing assets to maintain the value of its stock, and the required return on any investments by the firm that have essentially the same risks as existing operations.

WACC

9.03%

8.34

PE ratio divided by expected future earnings growth (after multiplying the growth rate by 100).

PEG Ratio

18.47

0.5

A measure of profit per dollar of assets.

ROA

-7.04%

6.26%

A measure of how the stockholders fared during the year.

ROE

-113.20%

13.21%

A measure of how much investors are willing to pay per dollar of current earnings. Higher PEs are often taken to mean the firm has significant prospects for future growth.

P/E Ratio

-29.17

25.3

Ratio of Net income to sales.

Profit Margin

-23.91%

-3.83%

References

Bloomberg. United States rates and bonds.

Federal Reserve. (2016). Federal Reserve economic data.

Korosec, K. (2015). This startup is gearing up to be the Tesla of electric buses. Fortune Magazine.

Proterra. (2015). About Proterra.

Securities and Exchange Commission. (n.d.) SEC.gov home.

Tesla Motors. (2016). Tesla Motors, Inc. 2016 annual report.

Yahoo. (n.d.) Yahoo finance.

Assume that you are the finance manager for Proterra and you have been asked to provide an analysis of the following issues, as the firm develops benchmarks for its cost of capital (WACC) estimates. The firm's CEO has instructed you to use the pure play approach to estimate its WACC cost of capital, and has chosen Tesla Motors (ticker symbol TSLA) and New Flyer (ticker symbol NYI.TO) as possible representative peers (Korosec, 2015). You will deliver your analysis in the form of a memo, or formal communication addressed to the firm's CEO. In this discussion, you are to present this memo in which you:

QUESTION:

Using the information provided here and speaking of Finance Director of Proterra, brief the firm's CEO, analyzing: Analyze the relative applicability or inapplicability of utilizing these firms as peers to evaluate Proterra's likely cost of capital, given what you know about Proterra, Tesla and New Flyer, and the lessons of Capital Market History.

SOHO House was founded in 1995 in London as a private members’ club for individuals within the creative industries. SOHO House is aggressively expanding globally and has a diverse range of luxury properties spreading around the globe; from New York to Mumba and Barcelona to Hong Kong while also venturing into other industries to include homewares, cinema, restaurants, and hotels. Though SOHO House remains the leader in the private club sector, their recent diversification into other industries has impacted its customer's perception of their brand, specifically their loyal private club customer base.

An opportunity has arisen for you to join the Sales and Marketing team as the Director of Communications and Promotions. You are required to develop a communication strategy targeting current and prospective private club members.

Develop a new communication and pricing strategy for SOHO House’s private club.

• Discuss the integrated marketing communications concept to support your answer.
• Analyse the types of promotional tools that are best suited to SOHO House.

Identify the type of pricing strategy that best suits the target market.

The Fleming Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Gaylord Fleming and Sandy Fleming. The Flemings intended for the charity to provide programs in health care for the elderly, particularly those in poverty. The two main program divisions of the foundation are mental health for the elderly and housing for the elderly. In addition to these programs, the Foundation also provides health care educational programs and has a significant fund-raising effort to help the Foundation grow and accomplish the goals of the founders. The Foundation is organized into two operating departments—education and program management. These departments are supported by two service departments—information technology (IT) and administration. To summarize, there are four departments (two service departments and two operating departments) and two programs (mental health and housing for the elderly). The service department costs are allocated to the operating departments, and then the operating department costs are allocated to the programs.

There are $260,000 of costs directly traceable to each of the four departments. An additional $46,500 of indirect costs is shared among the four departments—$25,500 of which is allocated to the departments based on labor hours and $21,000 of which is allocated to the departments based on the number of personnel (head count) in the departments.

The cost, labor hours, and head count in these departments in the most recent year are as follows:

IT serves education, administration, and program management 20%, 20%, and 60% of its time, respectively. Administration serves education, IT, and program management 40%, 10%, and 50% of its time, respectively.

The costs of the two operating departments (education and program management) are allocated to the two programs (mental health and housing) as follows: the costs in Education are allocated on the basis of labor hours in the programs, while the costs in program management are allocated using the head count used in the two programs. The following table shows the labor hours and head count consumption by the two programs.

Required:

Determine the costs allocated to the mental health and housing programs using the (a) direct method, (b) the step method (assuming that IT goes first), and (c) the reciprocal method. (Round percentage calculations to 4 decimal places (e.g., 33.3333%). Do not round intermediate calculations. Round your final answer to nearest whole dollar amount.)