Read the scenario below and answer the questions that follow in your role as a member of the senior management team at Oakwood. You are reviewing budgets and actual results for the month of April for the various business activities and today, you are focusing on Golf Cart Rentals. In the recent past, there has been some tension between the management of Golf Cart Rentals and Golf Course Operations, so some information about Golf Course Operations is included below.

About Oakwood

Oakwood is a resort hotel with tennis courts, swimming pools, three golf courses, restaurants, and many other fine amenities. The resort’s management structure is highly decentralized because each business activity is quite different and requires a different set of managerial skills, experience, and staffing. For example, being a good hotel dining room manager requires a completely different set of skills and experiences than being a good golf course pro shop manager. Oakwood believes that the decentralized structure is a key success factor in its strategy and tries to operate every one of its business activities as a profit center unless the activity does not have a measurable revenue stream. Those activities are managed as cost centers. Two of the most important activities in Golf Division are Golf Course Operations and Golf Cart Rentals. Each of these activities are managed as profit centers because each has an identifiable revenue stream and each requires a specific set of managerial skills to be successful.

Golf Cart Rentals

Oakwood customers who wish to play golf may either rent a cart or walk the course. They only pay a cart rental fee if they rent a cart. The Golf Cart Rentals profit center’s revenue each month is the total of the cart rental fees. Jay MacDonald (“Mac”) is the manager of the Golf Cart Rentals profit center and he supervises all business activities related to rentals of motorized golf carts at Oakwood. The carts are leased from various vendors and Mac negotiates these leases. Most vendors like to lease for two or three years, but one of Mac’s valuable skills is his ability to make good deals with golf cart suppliers. His crafty negotiations have given Oakwood a portfolio of lease rental terms ranging from three months to three years at very good rates.

Mac manages the golf cart maintenance crew that keeps the 200-cart fleet clean, properly fueled with oil and gas, and that makes minor repairs on the carts. The carts are solidly built and rarely need major repairs as long as they are properly maintained, and Mac does a good job of hiring and keeping skilled mechanics who excel at maintenance and minor repairs. He always says that paying a little more is worth it to get hard-working, competent workers, and the golf cart maintenance crew does have a higher average pay rate than most of the other Golf Division employees. As a result of this excellent maintenance program, the few carts that do need major repairs are usually old and about to go off-lease anyway. So, instead of repairing them, Mac just takes them out of service and replaces them in the next round of leasing. The accounting department records the salaries and related costs (payroll taxes and benefits) in the Labor account.

Two years ago, Mac installed large underground tanks (one for gas and one for oil) so Oakwood could buy in bulk and get quantity discounts. This has worked out well and has reduced oil and gas costs so much that the cost of the tanks and installation will be recaptured at the end of this year. The distributor’s tanker trucks, one for oil and one for gas, stop by every three or four weeks to refill the tanks. The accounting department records these costs in the Gas and oil expense account when they get the invoice for each delivery, usually a few days after the delivery.

Golf Course Operations

Sandra Bunker (“Sandy”) is the manager of Golf Course Operations. A major part of her job is supervising golf course maintenance and repair. A resort golf course must be in excellent condition to draw resort guests and others to the course. Thus, the condition of the course is an important part of the entire resort’s reputation. Oakwood has had several marketing research studies done over the years and all of them confirm that when a resort’s golf course falls into poor condition, everything from dining room revenue to room rental revenue suffers.

Golf Course Operations is a profit center and its revenue is the total of greens fees collected from resort guests and others to play on the golf courses. Costs charged to Golf Course Operations include grounds crew salaries and benefits, the cost of outsourced services such as planting and trimming the trees and bushes that line the fairways, and the cost of supplies such as fertilizer, grass seed, bedding flowers, sand, and various kinds of mulch. The grounds crew workers are mostly unskilled laborers who are generally paid just a little more than the minimum wage.

Weather conditions are an important factor in the overall profitability of any golf course. Rainy or cold weather will reduce the number of golfers who play the course, but even more important is that the condition of the course can be affected by how it is used when it has become wet. If rain continues for several days or the rain amounts are unusually high, the course can become waterlogged. Operating golf carts on a waterlogged course can do serious and permanent damage to the turf. To prevent permanent turf damage, Sandy can choose to close the course to golf carts entirely, or she can have the grounds crew restrict golf cart use by placing rope fences around the wet areas. A course that is closed to carts can still generate greens fees paid by golfers who are willing to walk the course. On rare occasions, the course will become so wet that Sandy will close the course to all golfers. Sandy determines whether each course will be open or closed due to weather conditions on any particular day. She also determines whether players can use golf carts. As you might imagine, Sandy does hear from Mac on days when she prohibits golf carts, but Sandy does have the final say in that decision since the condition of the golf courses is, ultimately, her responsibility. Sandy is on the courses each morning at dawn supervising the maintenance crews, so she is in a good position to decide whether to rope off just the wettest parts of the course and allow carts, prohibit carts, or close the course entirely.

A Rainy April at Oakwood

This April, golf cart operating profits were extremely low, amounting to a mere 49% of budgeted profits. When you discussed this matter with Mac, he explained that the poor results were caused by the unusually heavy rains in April. He complained that Sandy had closed entire courses to carts on several days when only parts of the courses were too wet to tolerate the carts safely. He argued that, on those days, guests could play the courses (and generate revenue for Sandy), but they could not drive carts, which shut his revenue off completely. Note: Guests are not permitted to drive carts in roped off areas of a golf course; but they can rent carts and drive them elsewhere on the course. If an entire course is roped off, guests cannot rent carts at all when playing that course on that day.

Mac said he had overheard Sandy’s grounds crew members talking among themselves on the days that entire courses were closed to carts. He had heard the crew members saying that they were too busy to rope off just the wet areas and that they had gone ahead and closed entire courses to cart traffic instead because it was easier to do that than to spend time roping off the wet areas. You could see that Mac was not happy about this. In your conversation with Mac, for example, he compared the grounds crew unfavorably to his golf cart maintenance crew, noting that his crew were all hard working employees and not “lazy” like the grounds crew.

When you met with both Mac and Sandy, you learned that they communicate regularly and often share the same opinions about the operation of Oakwood as a whole. Your impression is that they generally work together in a positive and cooperative manner to resolve issues that arise. But you do see that the decisions Sandy makes about roping off the courses (or parts of the courses) are a consistent source of concern for Mac.

The resort’s controller, Ampzilla Forkwort, developed a flexible budget analysis for April that she says will help you better analyze Mac’s results. Her analysis for the month appears below (F indicates a favorable variance, U indicates an unfavorable variance):

Requirements:

Your solution should be written in single-spaced text, included in one Microsoft Word or RTF document, and should address specifically the following four questions (you do not need to reprint the questions in your solution, but do number your answers):

1. Most accountants would argue that a flexible budget is good to use when calculating variances on variable costs (such as gas and oil). In 100 words or less, using the knowledge about accounting you have gained in this course and the facts presented in the case narrative, identify and describe the most likely cause of the $900 unfavorable variance on gas and oil expense and explain the basis for your belief.

2. Categorize Mac’s performance for April using this rating scheme: “Really Great,” “Pretty Much OK,” or “Really Awful.” In 100-200 words, explain why you ranked him as you did.

3. Assume you decide to start measuring Mac’s performance using the flexible budget (experienced businesspersons with MBAs would call that “flexing out the volume effect”). In 100-200 words, describe the most likely effects (intended and unintended) of using this measure on the quality of the cart rental fleet and the profitability of the cart rental operation in the future. In your answer, describe any assumptions you make and be sure to state clear, logical arguments that lead to your conclusions.

4. A conflict between the interests of Mac and Sandy might exist in this situation. One might argue that having each of these managers achieve their goals separately might not lead to the best results for Oakwood as a whole. In 100-200 words, describe any conflict that exists here and suggest possible solutions that would better align the goals of these managers with the overall goals of Oakwood. Remember that Sandy and Mac communicate regularly and work out most issues in a friendly way, (other than the issue of closing courses to carts because of weather-related conditions) so suggesting they communicate better is not going to be a solution here. Also, remember that Oakwood has a strong policy of decentralization and that Mac and Sandy each have valuable knowledge about their specific operations that Oakwood wants to make sure they use effectively in managing their respective operations.

Discuss in detail (keeping the artical in mind), the various business environments that Hungry Lion operates in as they have an impact on these successful operations of the business. 20 Marks

The Continent’s Progressive QSR Player

Stellenbosch-based fast food specialist Hungry Lion has found ideal footing for expansion over the coming years, owed to optimised operations and an admirable outlook

Writer: Jonathan Dyble | Project Manager: Josh Hyland

Adrian Basson is a self-described Afro-optimistic. “There’s no hiding from the fact that there are a lot of challenges in Africa, but retail is a promising sector when it comes to facilitating opportunities, creating employment and generally building a business that can have a widespread impact,” he says.

“When you reach a remote town with an empty plot, the local people don’t often have much. But as we’ve built new stores and helped to launch new shopping centres, we’ve been able to not only witness, but also facilitate the construction of new, thriving ecosystems. We’re proud to be a business that contributes to the success of these societies – I guess you could say we’re a capitalist business with a socialist outlook.”

Basson, now CEO, became part of the Hungry Lion story in 2001 and has seen the company come a long way over the past two decades to be the responsible, esteemed organisation it is today.

Having opened its first restaurant in South Africa in 1997, the business today proudly operates a network constituting over 200 stores across South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Angola, with over 4,000 Hungry Lion employees. Looking at the bigger picture, however, such statistics only touch the surface of what the brand is bringing to the region.

“In many ways I like to think that our product is an afterthought in what we’re looking to achieve,” explains Basson. “Yes, serving bigger portions, more chips and more smiles is key to our operations, but it’s just one part of our overriding goal – providing joy to our employees, customers and local communities through food, served with passion.”

This ethos is relatively new to the firm, becoming more of a core focus during the company’s major rebranding process that kickstarted in 2014. Having originally been part of the Shoprite Group, Africa’s largest food supermarket chain, Hungry Lion is now a totally independent company in its own right with a unique brand and character.

“In the beginning, we weren’t really building a brand,” reveals Basson. “We purely sold chicken and chips at an affordable price on a somewhat ad-hoc basis. However, we eventually found ourselves with 100-plus stores, and with the economic challenges that came around in 2008/09, we realised that stores without a brand, a story, and an experience would fail to deliver in the long term. It was a case of changing with the times and we invested a lot into the design of our stores, our product quality and consistency, together with the development of the brand itself.”

Since transitioning from being a business-centric to a customer-centric brand, Hungry Lion has reaped the rewards with the business undergoing stratospheric growth over the past few years.

Adding a modern twist

Moving in this re-energised direction, strategy changes quickly followed for Hungry Lion, evidence of which can be found in the firm’s increasing use and the implementation of revolutionary technologies.

Fast forward to today, the company now benefits from artificial intelligence, automated system checks, cloud computing and live dashboards – technologies which serve multiple purposes in the way of driving the business forward. This together with an always connected workforce, makes executing operationally so much more efficient.

“I’ve always had a connection with technology,” Basson reveals. “I used to work in the technology division of Compaq in London and also formerly as the Chief Digital Officer of Shoprite for a period. We live in an era where we can augment the people with technology to do the repetitive stuff, so that they can focus on the more human touches.”

In a space where most others in the fast food industry are franchised and owner-managed, Hungry Lion is unique in the African landscape, with almost all stores being fully-owned and managed from its Head Office. This is where automated systems and clever use of technology comes to the forefront in managing the business over vast distances and across borders.

“With technology comes data and with data comes insight,” Basson continues. “Using our systems, we’re able to see the performance of each of our stores in real time, have an overview of customer experience, and execute plans to fix problems at speed and scale. These capabilities would never have been possible if we didn’t have the right technologies in place.” With full visibility of information comes accountability, since everyone can see what needs to be done and if it was done. Transparency is a crucial merit of these technologies, a cultural trait of Hungry Lion that is accentuated in other ways.

Basson adds: “We have a network of area, country and regional managers who act as an extension of our Head office in Stellenbosch. Head office employees pay regular visits to different regions to keep a finger on the pulse of local operations. Our area and country managers, in turn, come to Head Office regularly for updates to business processes, training, and meetings. This constant exposure in both directions ensures that best practises are shared and implemented to all stores quickly.”

Prosperous career planning

Combined with both these expansive technologies and a transparent, remodelled structure, Hungry Lion recognises that its staff are key to achieving the firm’s ongoing ambitions.

To this end, the company ensures that it provides extensive benefits to its employees, bolstering its position as an employer of choice and equally its talent retention capabilities.

Such initiatives include the introduction of E-learning materials in five languages and the company’s live in-house training platform from LessonDesk, a comprehensive new employee assistance programme, access to affordable healthcare for employees and more specialised and tailored training programmes.

What’s more, Hungry Lion has a strong focus on career planning, testament to its culture of internal promotion.

“Typically speaking, joining a fast food business as the lowest level of employee, the pay isn’t fantastic and it’s not uncommon for these workers to have bigger aspirations,” explains Basson. “What we’ve realised is you can either listen to and facilitate these ambitions, or your workers will leave and look for opportunities elsewhere. We like to pursue the former, providing clear career paths for our inspirational and aspirational workers. From cashiers to controllers to junior managers to regional managers, and so on, this personal growth structure is in place at Hungry Lion.”

A core part of the company’s ethos, providing key opportunities to reward loyalty and ambition, Hungry Lion offers not just a job but an all-encompassing opportunity to build a prosperous career.

A sound, responsible outlook

Such a humble and grounded approach is not only applied internally, but equally externally through a number of corporate social responsibility initiatives.

These are built around Hungry Lion’s three-pillar CSR strategy, with the organisation contributing towards hunger alleviation, championing change in local communities and promoting skills development.

Between February and March of this year alone, for example, the company provided food for the attendees of a seminar addressing the issue of domestic violence, pupils of an underprivileged primary school during a field trip and fire fighters in the Western Cape, while also supporting a Soweto children’s home and a local police station’s cricket tournament for rural schools.

“It’s an element to our business that we take pride in,” reveals Basson. “We like to show that we care for our communities, customers and especially our employees and their families. There’s a lot of need in Africa from a poverty standpoint and being in the food business we’re able to help local communities in addressing such issues. I wouldn’t say we have a set agenda – ad hoc opportunities arise, and we react accordingly in each of the locations that we’re based, helping to give people a sense of purpose and promote skills of local communities.”

Asked about a particular such initiative that springs to mind, Basson is quick to highlight the company’s efforts in supporting the Zambian people during a cholera outbreak at the beginning of 2017.

He continues: “We immediately lowered the prices of our food, ensuring people could get nutritious, safe and affordable food, we donated money to the government that was used to help with the clean-up process. We even provided sanitation kits to our staff, helping them clean their own living environments to ensure their family’s health.”

Having developed a culture that is firmly centred around providing benefit to all people, whether it’s supporting local communities or providing unrivalled, progressive career opportunities, Hungry Lion’s outlook is unique and admirable.

Opportunity is a word that is creating an atmosphere of excitement within the company at the moment, with continued expansion firmly on the table for Hungry Lion after experiencing double digit percent organic growth over the past two years.

“We’ve set 20 new stores as a benchmark, but realistically this is a ball-park figure on the conservative side,” reveals Basson. “If we can open 50 stores then we’ll do it – if we find a good site where we can profitably trade, we will open. There aren’t any specific limitations.”

New systems and optimised procedures in place, last year’s corporate action, focus on organic growth, and consolidation allowed Hungry Lion to not only transition into independence, but equally provided the platform for the company to gear up for full throttle expansion over the coming years.

“We’re realistic at the same time,” Basson continues. “We understand that we cannot conquer the whole continent in 2019 or 2020, but the plan is to grow as fast as possible. Africa has around 1.2 billon people but in the next three decades this number will double. Further, there are 54 countries across Africa, countries that we know we’ll have a good chance of being able to expand into, whether it be through franchises, joint ventures, or other kinds of partnerships. The opportunities are immense, and I feel our business is a prime example as to why it’s a great time to be investing on the continent right now. I just hope that others will come and join us in the fun!”

Despite all the significant benefits that arise of the practice of marketing, it remains a human activity. Marketing has flaws which have been highly publicised in recent times. " Despite the social criticisms of marketing that Hungry Lion should be cognisant of." Your answer should include the impact of those criticisms on the operations of Hungry Lion. 25 ma

The Continent’s Progressive QSR Player

Stellenbosch-based fast food specialist Hungry Lion has found ideal footing for expansion over the coming years, owed to optimised operations and an admirable outlook

Writer: Jonathan Dyble | Project Manager: Josh Hyland

MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Adrian Basson is a self-described Afro-optimistic. “There’s no hiding from the fact that there are a lot of challenges in Africa, but retail is a promising sector when it comes to facilitating opportunities, creating employment and generally building a business that can have a widespread impact,” he says.

“When you reach a remote town with an empty plot, the local people don’t often have much. But as we’ve built new stores and helped to launch new shopping centres, we’ve been able to not only witness, but also facilitate the construction of new, thriving ecosystems. We’re proud to be a business that contributes to the success of these societies – I guess you could say we’re a capitalist business with a socialist outlook.”

Basson, now CEO, became part of the Hungry Lion story in 2001 and has seen the company come a long way over the past two decades to be the responsible, esteemed organisation it is today.

Having opened its first restaurant in South Africa in 1997, the business today proudly operates a network constituting over 200 stores across South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Angola, with over 4,000 Hungry Lion employees. Looking at the bigger picture, however, such statistics only touch the surface of what the brand is bringing to the region.

“In many ways I like to think that our product is an afterthought in what we’re looking to achieve,” explains Basson. “Yes, serving bigger portions, more chips and more smiles is key to our operations, but it’s just one part of our overriding goal – providing joy to our employees, customers and local communities through food, served with passion.”

This ethos is relatively new to the firm, becoming more of a core focus during the company’s major rebranding process that kickstarted in 2014. Having originally been part of the Shoprite Group, Africa’s largest food supermarket chain, Hungry Lion is now a totally independent company in its own right with a unique brand and character.

“In the beginning, we weren’t really building a brand,” reveals Basson. “We purely sold chicken and chips at an affordable price on a somewhat ad-hoc basis. However, we eventually found ourselves with 100-plus stores, and with the economic challenges that came around in 2008/09, we realised that stores without a brand, a story, and an experience would fail to deliver in the long term. It was a case of changing with the times and we invested a lot into the design of our stores, our product quality and consistency, together with the development of the brand itself.”

Since transitioning from being a business-centric to a customer-centric brand, Hungry Lion has reaped the rewards with the business undergoing stratospheric growth over the past few years.

Adding a modern twist

Moving in this re-energised direction, strategy changes quickly followed for Hungry Lion, evidence of which can be found in the firm’s increasing use and the implementation of revolutionary technologies.

Fast forward to today, the company now benefits from artificial intelligence, automated system checks, cloud computing and live dashboards – technologies which serve multiple purposes in the way of driving the business forward. This together with an always connected workforce, makes executing operationally so much more efficient.

“I’ve always had a connection with technology,” Basson reveals. “I used to work in the technology division of Compaq in London and also formerly as the Chief Digital Officer of Shoprite for a period. We live in an era where we can augment the people with technology to do the repetitive stuff, so that they can focus on the more human touches.”

In a space where most others in the fast food industry are franchised and owner-managed, Hungry Lion is unique in the African landscape, with almost all stores being fully-owned and managed from its Head Office. This is where automated systems and clever use of technology comes to the forefront in managing the business over vast distances and across borders.

“With technology comes data and with data comes insight,” Basson continues. “Using our systems, we’re able to see the performance of each of our stores in real time, have an overview of customer experience, and execute plans to fix problems at speed and scale. These capabilities would never have been possible if we didn’t have the right technologies in place.” With full visibility of information comes accountability, since everyone can see what needs to be done and if it was done. Transparency is a crucial merit of these technologies, a cultural trait of Hungry Lion that is accentuated in other ways.

Basson adds: “We have a network of area, country and regional managers who act as an extension of our Head office in Stellenbosch. Head office employees pay regular visits to different regions to keep a finger on the pulse of local operations. Our area and country managers, in turn, come to Head Office regularly for updates to business processes, training, and meetings. This constant exposure in both directions ensures that best practises are shared and implemented to all stores quickly.”

Prosperous career planning

Combined with both these expansive technologies and a transparent, remodelled structure, Hungry Lion recognises that its staff are key to achieving the firm’s ongoing ambitions.

To this end, the company ensures that it provides extensive benefits to its employees, bolstering its position as an employer of choice and equally its talent retention capabilities.

Such initiatives include the introduction of E-learning materials in five languages and the company’s live in-house training platform from LessonDesk, a comprehensive new employee assistance programme, access to affordable healthcare for employees and more specialised and tailored training programmes.

What’s more, Hungry Lion has a strong focus on career planning, testament to its culture of internal promotion.

“Typically speaking, joining a fast food business as the lowest level of employee, the pay isn’t fantastic and it’s not uncommon for these workers to have bigger aspirations,” explains Basson. “What we’ve realised is you can either listen to and facilitate these ambitions, or your workers will leave and look for opportunities elsewhere. We like to pursue the former, providing clear career paths for our inspirational and aspirational workers. From cashiers to controllers to junior managers to regional managers, and so on, this personal growth structure is in place at Hungry Lion.”

A core part of the company’s ethos, providing key opportunities to reward loyalty and ambition, Hungry Lion offers not just a job but an all-encompassing opportunity to build a prosperous career.

A sound, responsible outlook

Such a humble and grounded approach is not only applied internally, but equally externally through a number of corporate social responsibility initiatives.

These are built around Hungry Lion’s three-pillar CSR strategy, with the organisation contributing towards hunger alleviation, championing change in local communities and promoting skills development.

Between February and March of this year alone, for example, the company provided food for the attendees of a seminar addressing the issue of domestic violence, pupils of an underprivileged primary school during a field trip and fire fighters in the Western Cape, while also supporting a Soweto children’s home and a local police station’s cricket tournament for rural schools.

“It’s an element to our business that we take pride in,” reveals Basson. “We like to show that we care for our communities, customers and especially our employees and their families. There’s a lot of need in Africa from a poverty standpoint and being in the food business we’re able to help local communities in addressing such issues. I wouldn’t say we have a set agenda – ad hoc opportunities arise, and we react accordingly in each of the locations that we’re based, helping to give people a sense of purpose and promote skills of local communities.”

Asked about a particular such initiative that springs to mind, Basson is quick to highlight the company’s efforts in supporting the Zambian people during a cholera outbreak at the beginning of 2017.

He continues: “We immediately lowered the prices of our food, ensuring people could get nutritious, safe and affordable food, we donated money to the government that was used to help with the clean-up process. We even provided sanitation kits to our staff, helping them clean their own living environments to ensure their family’s health.”

Having developed a culture that is firmly centred around providing benefit to all people, whether it’s supporting local communities or providing unrivalled, progressive career opportunities, Hungry Lion’s outlook is unique and admirable.

Opportunity is a word that is creating an atmosphere of excitement within the company at the moment, with continued expansion firmly on the table for Hungry Lion after experiencing double digit percent organic growth over the past two years.

“We’ve set 20 new stores as a benchmark, but realistically this is a ball-park figure on the conservative side,” reveals Basson. “If we can open 50 stores then we’ll do it – if we find a good site where we can profitably trade, we will open. There aren’t any specific limitations.”

New systems and optimised procedures in place, last year’s corporate action, focus on organic growth, and consolidation allowed Hungry Lion to not only transition into independence, but equally provided the platform for the company to gear up for full throttle expansion over the coming years.

“We’re realistic at the same time,” Basson continues. “We understand that we cannot conquer the whole continent in 2019 or 2020, but the plan is to grow as fast as possible. Africa has around 1.2 billon people but in the next three decades this number will double. Further, there are 54 countries across Africa, countries that we know we’ll have a good chance of being able to expand into, whether it be through franchises, joint ventures, or other kinds of partnerships. The opportunities are immense, and I feel our business is a prime example as to why it’s a great time to be investing on the continent right now. I just hope that others will come and join us in the fun!”

THIS IS A C++ QUESTION(SOME OTHER ASSIGNMENTS ARE DISPLAYED TO GIVE BACKGROUND INFO ON THIS QUESTION, ONLY THIS QUESTION SHOULD BE SOLVED):

Focus

• Dynamic memory

Update

• Do NOT make the Noble class a friend of the Warrior class.
• Do NOT put a pointer in the Warrior class to the Noble class.

Problem:

Building on previous assignments, we will be reading a file of commands to create Nobles and Warriors, and sending them off to battle.

Previous Assignments(As Background info):

1) We will model a game of medieval times. Our world is filled with warriors. Naturally what warriors like to do is fight. To the death. So we happily let them.

Each warrior starts out with a name and a certain amount of strength. Each time he fights, he loses some strength. (He gets to keep his name.) If his opponent is stronger than he is, then he loses all of his strength, in which case he is dead, or at the very least pretty useless as a fighter. Otherwise he loses as much strength as his opponent had. Of course, if he and his opponent had the same strength then they are both losers.

Even losers are allowed to pick a fight. It doesn't require having any strength in order to do battle with someone else. Not that you stand much of a chance of winning anything, but perhaps it's worth getting beaten (again) just to have those 15 seconds of fame.

Your program will read in a file of commands. There are three types of commands:

• Warrior creates a new warrior with the specified name and strength.
• Battle causes a battle to occur between two warriors.
• Status lists all warriors, alive or dead, and their strengths

2)

We will expand our Warrior a little. Each Warrior will have a weapon. He is "born" with it, i.e. the weapon is created together with the warrior. It can only be accessed by him. It provides him with his strength. In battle, weapons lose their edge and weaken. When a Warrior's weapon loses all of its strength, the Warrior himself dies.

Implementation

• Remember that we are using data hiding. Therefore, every field, aka member variable, must be private.
• What are the types of things in the problem? We will need a class for each type.
• What do the things / types do? These "behaviors" should be represented as methods.
• Weapons have both a name and a strength. The weapon is created together with the Warrior and cannot be accessed by anyone else.
• Note that the input file changed a little, compared to the previous assignment. When a Warrior is created, instead of simply specifying his name and strength, the Warrior command specifies the Warrior's name as well as his Weapon's name and its strength.
• The Status report will is also modified to show the name of the Warrior's Weapon.
• No one can access a warrior's weapon except the warrior himself. But the weapon is what actually holds the warrior's strength. How does this effect the programming? Any time the code needs to know or change the warrior's strength, the warrior then "asks" the weapon what the strength is or tells the weapon that the strength needs to be changed. This represents the idea of delegation. We will see this concept frequently, where one object requests that another object do some task.
• It is in fact unnecessary for any code other than a Warrior to even know about the Weapon. We will enforce this by nesting the definition of the Weapon class inside the Warrior class. To make sure that no code other than Warrior's makes use of Weapon, we need to make the class private.
• The name of the input file will be "warriors.txt".
• One last implementation detail. to display the information about an object, whether it is a warrior or a weapon, we will use that object's output operator.

3)

We will [continue to] model a game of medieval times. Our world is filled with not only warriors but also nobles. Nobles don't have much to do except do battle with each other. (We'll leave the feasting and other entertainments for add-ons.) Warriors don't have much to do except hire out to a noble and fight in his behalf. Of course the nobles are pretty wimpy themselves and will lose if they don't have warriors to defend them. How does all this work?

• Warriors start out with a specified strength.
• A battle between nobles is won by the noble who commands the stronger army.
• The army's strength is simply the combined strengths of all its warriors.
• A battle is to the death. The losing noble dies as does his warriors.
• The winner does not usually walk away unscarred. All his men lose a portion of their strength equal to the ratio of the enemy army's combined strenth to their army's. If the losing army had a combined strength that was 1/4 the size of the winning army's, then each soldier in the winning army will have their own strength reduced by 1/4.

Hiring and Firing

• Warriors are hired and fired by Nobles. Lack of adequate labor laws, have left the Warriors without the ability to quit, nor even to have a say on whether or not a Noble can hire them.
• However it is possible that an attempt to hire or fire may fail. Naturally the methods should not "fail silently". Instead, they will return true or false depending on whether they succeed or not.
• A Warrior can only be employed by one Noble at a time and cannot be hired away if he is already employed.
• As noted below, Nobles who are dead can neither hire nor fire anyone. (Note this will implicitly prevent dead Warriors from being hired.)
• When a warrior is fired, he is no longer part of the army of the Noble that hired him. He is then free to be hired by another Noble.
  • How do you remove something from a vector.
  • While there are techniques that make use of iterators, we have not yet discussed iterators so you will not use them here. (As a heads up, if you see a technique that requires you to call a vector's begin() method, that is using iterators. Don't use it.)
  • While it may seem a slight burden, certainly it does not require more than a simple loop to remove an item from a vector. No do not do something silly like create a whole new vector.
  • Soon we will cover iterators and then you will be freed from these constraints. Patience, please.

Death

It's a sad topic, but one we do have to address.

• People die when they lose a battle, whether they are a Nobles or Warriors.
• Nobles who are dead are in no position to hire or fire anyone. Any attempt by a dead Lord to hire someone will simply fail and the Warrior will remain unhired.
• However curiously, as has been seen before, Nobles can declare battle even though they are dead.
• Note that when a Noble is created he does not have any strength. At the same time he is obviously alive. So lack of strength and being dead are clearly not equivalent.

A test program and output are attached. Note that the output shown is what you are expected to generate. Pardon us, we don't like limiting your creativity, but having your output consistent with ours makes the first step of grading a bit easier. And also helps you to be more confident that your code works.

Key differences:

• Each time a warrior or a noble is defined, we will create it on the heap.
• We will keep track of the nobles in a vector of pointers to nobles.
• We will keep track of all warriors using a vector of pointers to warriors.

Commands

• Noble. Create a Noble on the heap.
• Warrior. Create a Warrior on the heap.
• Hire. Call the Noble's hire method.
• Fire. Call the Noble's fire method.
• Battle. Call the Noble's battle method.
• Status. The status command shows the nobles, together with their armies, as we did previously. In addition, it will show separately the warriors who do not currentle have a employer
• Clear. Clear out all the nobles and warriors that were created.

Our application is going to rely on each Noble having a unique name and each Warrior having a unique name. Otherwise, how would we be sure who we were hiring (or firing). Note that this is not a requirement of the Noble and Warrior classes themselves, just of this particular use of them, i.e. our application.

Whenever you are displaying a Noble or a Warrior, you will use the output operator for the class.

Handle errors!

Previously we promised that all of the commands we gave you the input would be valid. Now we would like you to take some responsibility for checking the input. First, we still guarantee that the format of the file will be correct. That means that the Warrior command will always have a name and a strength. The Battle command will always have two names. The Status command will not have any other information on it than just the word Status.

However, you will need to detect and report any issues indicating inconsistencies, such as:

• Noble command: if a Noble with a given name already exists.
• Warrior command:if a Warrior with a given name already exists.
• Hire command: If a Noble tries to hire a Warrior and either of them do not exist.
• Fire command: If a Noble tries to fire a Warrior and either the Noble does not exist or does not have the Warrior by that name in this army.
• Battle command: If a Noble initiates a battle with another Noble, but one or the other does not exist

We have not specified the format of these error messages, so we'll leave that up to you. (You get to be creative!)

Input:

"Noble King_Arthur
Noble Lancelot_du_Lac
Noble Jim
Noble Linus_Torvalds
Noble Bill_Gates
Warrior Tarzan 10
Warrior Merlin 15
Warrior Conan 12
Warrior Spock 15
Warrior Xena 20
Warrior Hulk 8
Warrior Hercules 3
Hire Jim Spock
Hire Lancelot_du_Lac Conan
Hire King_Arthur Merlin
Hire Lancelot_du_Lac Hercules
Hire Linus_Torvalds Xena
Hire Bill_Gates Hulk
Hire King_Arthur Tarzan
Status
Fire King_Arthur Tarzan
Status
Battle King_Arthur Lancelot_du_Lac
Battle Jim Lancelot_du_Lac
Battle Linus_Torvalds Bill_Gates
Battle Bill_Gates Lancelot_du_Lac
Status
Clear
Status"

Output:

"Status
======
Nobles:
King_Arthur has an army of 2
        Merlin: 15
        Tarzan: 10
Lancelot_du_Lac has an army of 2
        Conan: 12
        Hercules: 3
Jim has an army of 1
        Spock: 15
Linus_Torvalds has an army of 1
        Xena: 20
Bill_Gates has an army of 1
        Hulk: 8
Unemployed Warriors:
NONE
You don't work for me anymore Tarzan! -- King_Arthur.
Status
======
Nobles:
King_Arthur has an army of 1
        Merlin: 15
Lancelot_du_Lac has an army of 2
        Conan: 12
        Hercules: 3
Jim has an army of 1
        Spock: 15
Linus_Torvalds has an army of 1
        Xena: 20
Bill_Gates has an army of 1
        Hulk: 8
Unemployed Warriors:
Tarzan: 10
King_Arthur battles Lancelot_du_Lac
Mutual Annihalation: King_Arthur and Lancelot_du_Lac die at each other's hands
Jim battles Lancelot_du_Lac
He's dead, Jim
Linus_Torvalds battles Bill_Gates
Linus_Torvalds defeats Bill_Gates
Bill_Gates battles Lancelot_du_Lac
Oh, NO!  They're both dead!  Yuck!
Status
======
Nobles:
King_Arthur has an army of 1
        Merlin: 0
Lancelot_du_Lac has an army of 2
        Conan: 0
        Hercules: 0
Jim has an army of 1
        Spock: 15
Linus_Torvalds has an army of 1
        Xena: 12
Bill_Gates has an army of 1
        Hulk: 0
Unemployed Warriors:
Tarzan: 10
Status
======
Nobles:
NONE
Unemployed Warriors:
NONE"

Despite all the significant benefits that arise of of the practice of marketing, it remains a human activity. Marketing has flaws which have been highly publicised in recent times. "Despite the social criticisms of marketing that Hungry Lion should be cognisant of. Your answer should include the impact of those criticisms on the operations of Hungry Lion. 25 Marks

The Continent’s Progressive QSR Player Stellenbosch-based fast food specialist Hungry Lion has found ideal footing for expansion over the coming years, owed to optimised operations and an admirable outlook Writer: Jonathan Dyble | Project Manager: Josh Hyland Adrian Basson is a self-described Afro-optimistic. “There’s no hiding from the fact that there are a lot of challenges in Africa, but retail is a promising sector when it comes to facilitating opportunities, creating employment and generally building a business that can have a widespread impact,” he says. “When you reach a remote town with an empty plot, the local people don’t often have much. But as we’ve built new stores and helped to launch new shopping centres, we’ve been able to not only witness, but also facilitate the construction of new, thriving ecosystems. We’re proud to be a business that contributes to the success of these societies – I guess you could say we’re a capitalist business with a socialist outlook.” Basson, now CEO, became part of the Hungry Lion story in 2001 and has seen the company come a long way over the past two decades to be the responsible, esteemed organisation it is today. Having opened its first restaurant in South Africa in 1997, the business today proudly operates a network constituting over 200 stores across South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Angola, with over 4,000 Hungry Lion employees. Looking at the bigger picture, however, such statistics only touch the surface of what the brand is bringing to the region. “In many ways I like to think that our product is an afterthought in what we’re looking to achieve,” explains Basson. “Yes, serving bigger portions, more chips and more smiles is key to our operations, but it’s just one part of our overriding goal – providing joy to our employees, customers and local communities through food, served with passion.” This ethos is relatively new to the firm, becoming more of a core focus during the company’s major rebranding process that kickstarted in 2014. Having originally been part of the Shoprite Group, Africa’s largest food supermarket chain, Hungry Lion is now a totally independent company in its own right with a unique brand and character. “In the beginning, we weren’t really building a brand,” reveals Basson. “We purely sold chicken and chips at an affordable price on a somewhat ad-hoc basis. However, we eventually found ourselves with 100-plus stores, and with the economic challenges that came around in 2008/09, we realised that stores without a brand, a story, and an experience would fail to deliver in the long term. It was a case of changing with the times and we invested a lot into the design of our stores, our product quality and consistency, together with the development of the brand itself.” Since transitioning from being a business-centric to a customer-centric brand, Hungry Lion has reaped the rewards with the business undergoing stratospheric growth over the past few years. Adding a modern twist Moving in this re-energised direction, strategy changes quickly followed for Hungry Lion, evidence of which can be found in the firm’s increasing use and the implementation of revolutionary technologies. Fast forward to today, the company now benefits from artificial intelligence, automated system checks, cloud computing and live dashboards – technologies which serve multiple purposes in the way of driving the business forward. This together with an always connected workforce, makes executing operationally so much more efficient. “I’ve always had a connection with technology,” Basson reveals. “I used to work in the technology division of Compaq in London and also formerly as the Chief Digital Officer of Shoprite for a period. We live in an era where we can augment the people with technology to do the repetitive stuff, so that they can focus on the more human touches.” In a space where most others in the fast food industry are franchised and owner-managed, Hungry Lion is unique in the African landscape, with almost all stores being fully-owned and managed from its Head Office. This is where automated systems and clever use of technology comes to the forefront in managing the business over vast distances and across borders. “With technology comes data and with data comes insight,” Basson continues. “Using our systems, we’re able to see the performance of each of our stores in real time, have an overview of customer experience, and execute plans to fix problems at speed and scale. These capabilities would never have been possible if we didn’t have the right technologies in place.” With full visibility of information comes accountability, since everyone can see what needs to be done and if it was done. Transparency is a crucial merit of these technologies, a cultural trait of Hungry Lion that is accentuated in other ways. Basson adds: “We have a network of area, country and regional managers who act as an extension of our Head office in Stellenbosch. Head office employees pay regular visits to different regions to keep a finger on the pulse of local operations. Our area and country managers, in turn, come to Head Office regularly for updates to business processes, training, and meetings. This constant exposure in both directions ensures that best practises are shared and implemented to all stores quickly.” Prosperous career planning Combined with both these expansive technologies and a transparent, remodelled structure, Hungry Lion recognises that its staff are key to achieving the firm’s ongoing ambitions. To this end, the company ensures that it provides extensive benefits to its employees, bolstering its position as an employer of choice and equally its talent retention capabilities. Such initiatives include the introduction of E-learning materials in five languages and the company’s live in-house training platform from LessonDesk, a comprehensive new employee assistance programme, access to affordable healthcare for employees and more specialised and tailored training programmes. What’s more, Hungry Lion has a strong focus on career planning, testament to its culture of internal promotion. “Typically speaking, joining a fast food business as the lowest level of employee, the pay isn’t fantastic and it’s not uncommon for these workers to have bigger aspirations,” explains Basson. “What we’ve realised is you can either listen to and facilitate these ambitions, or your workers will leave and look for opportunities elsewhere. We like to pursue the former, providing clear career paths for our inspirational and aspirational workers. From cashiers to controllers to junior managers to regional managers, and so on, this personal growth structure is in place at Hungry Lion.” A core part of the company’s ethos, providing key opportunities to reward loyalty and ambition, Hungry Lion offers not just a job but an all-encompassing opportunity to build a prosperous career. A sound, responsible outlook Such a humble and grounded approach is not only applied internally, but equally externally through a number of corporate social responsibility initiatives. These are built around Hungry Lion’s three-pillar CSR strategy, with the organisation contributing towards hunger alleviation, championing change in local communities and promoting skills development. Between February and March of this year alone, for example, the company provided food for the attendees of a seminar addressing the issue of domestic violence, pupils of an underprivileged primary school during a field trip and fire fighters in the Western Cape, while also supporting a Soweto children’s home and a local police station’s cricket tournament for rural schools. “It’s an element to our business that we take pride in,” reveals Basson. “We like to show that we care for our communities, customers and especially our employees and their families. There’s a lot of need in Africa from a poverty standpoint and being in the food business we’re able to help local communities in addressing such issues. I wouldn’t say we have a set agenda – ad hoc opportunities arise, and we react accordingly in each of the locations that we’re based, helping to give people a sense of purpose and promote skills of local communities.” Asked about a particular such initiative that springs to mind, Basson is quick to highlight the company’s efforts in supporting the Zambian people during a cholera outbreak at the beginning of 2017. He continues: “We immediately lowered the prices of our food, ensuring people could get nutritious, safe and affordable food, we donated money to the government that was used to help with the clean-up process. We even provided sanitation kits to our staff, helping them clean their own living environments to ensure their family’s health.” Having developed a culture that is firmly centred around providing benefit to all people, whether it’s supporting local communities or providing unrivalled, progressive career opportunities, Hungry Lion’s outlook is unique and admirable. Opportunity is a word that is creating an atmosphere of excitement within the company at the moment, with continued expansion firmly on the table for Hungry Lion after experiencing double digit percent organic growth over the past two years. “We’ve set 20 new stores as a benchmark, but realistically this is a ball-park figure on the conservative side,” reveals Basson. “If we can open 50 stores then we’ll do it – if we find a good site where we can profitably trade, we will open. There aren’t any specific limitations.” New systems and optimised procedures in place, last year’s corporate action, focus on organic growth, and consolidation allowed Hungry Lion to not only transition into independence, but equally provided the platform for the company to gear up for full throttle expansion over the coming years. “We’re realistic at the same time,” Basson continues. “We understand that we cannot conquer the whole continent in 2019 or 2020, but the plan is to grow as fast as possible. Africa has around 1.2 billon people but in the next three decades this number will double. Further, there are 54 countries across Africa, countries that we know we’ll have a good chance of being able to expand into, whether it be through franchises, joint ventures, or other kinds of partnerships. The opportunities are immense, and I feel our business is a prime example as to why it’s a great time to be investing on the continent right now. I just hope that others will come and join us in the fun!”

Using the facts presented in the article below, evaluate the success of Hungry Lion in South Africa and the region. 10 Marks

Marketing Management

The Continent’s Progressive QSR Player

Stellenbosch-based fast food specialist Hungry Lion has found ideal footing for expansion over the coming years, owed to optimised operations and an admirable outlook

Writer: Jonathan Dyble | Project Manager: Josh Hyland

Adrian Basson is a self-described Afro-optimistic. “There’s no hiding from the fact that there are a lot of challenges in Africa, but retail is a promising sector when it comes to facilitating opportunities, creating employment and generally building a business that can have a widespread impact,” he says.

“When you reach a remote town with an empty plot, the local people don’t often have much. But as we’ve built new stores and helped to launch new shopping centres, we’ve been able to not only witness, but also facilitate the construction of new, thriving ecosystems. We’re proud to be a business that contributes to the success of these societies – I guess you could say we’re a capitalist business with a socialist outlook.”

Basson, now CEO, became part of the Hungry Lion story in 2001 and has seen the company come a long way over the past two decades to be the responsible, esteemed organisation it is today.

Having opened its first restaurant in South Africa in 1997, the business today proudly operates a network constituting over 200 stores across South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Angola, with over 4,000 Hungry Lion employees. Looking at the bigger picture, however, such statistics only touch the surface of what the brand is bringing to the region.

“In many ways I like to think that our product is an afterthought in what we’re looking to achieve,” explains Basson. “Yes, serving bigger portions, more chips and more smiles is key to our operations, but it’s just one part of our overriding goal – providing joy to our employees, customers and local communities through food, served with passion.”

This ethos is relatively new to the firm, becoming more of a core focus during the company’s major rebranding process that kickstarted in 2014. Having originally been part of the Shoprite Group, Africa’s largest food supermarket chain, Hungry Lion is now a totally independent company in its own right with a unique brand and character.

“In the beginning, we weren’t really building a brand,” reveals Basson. “We purely sold chicken and chips at an affordable price on a somewhat ad-hoc basis. However, we eventually found ourselves with 100-plus stores, and with the economic challenges that came around in 2008/09, we realised that stores without a brand, a story, and an experience would fail to deliver in the long term. It was a case of changing with the times and we invested a lot into the design of our stores, our product quality and consistency, together with the development of the brand itself.”

Since transitioning from being a business-centric to a customer-centric brand, Hungry Lion has reaped the rewards with the business undergoing stratospheric growth over the past few years.

Adding a modern twist

Moving in this re-energised direction, strategy changes quickly followed for Hungry Lion, evidence of which can be found in the firm’s increasing use and the implementation of revolutionary technologies.

Fast forward to today, the company now benefits from artificial intelligence, automated system checks, cloud computing and live dashboards – technologies which serve multiple purposes in the way of driving the business forward. This together with an always connected workforce, makes executing operationally so much more efficient.

“I’ve always had a connection with technology,” Basson reveals. “I used to work in the technology division of Compaq in London and also formerly as the Chief Digital Officer of Shoprite for a period. We live in an era where we can augment the people with technology to do the repetitive stuff, so that they can focus on the more human touches.”

In a space where most others in the fast food industry are franchised and owner-managed, Hungry Lion is unique in the African landscape, with almost all stores being fully-owned and managed from its Head Office. This is where automated systems and clever use of technology comes to the forefront in managing the business over vast distances and across borders.

“With technology comes data and with data comes insight,” Basson continues. “Using our systems, we’re able to see the performance of each of our stores in real time, have an overview of customer experience, and execute plans to fix problems at speed and scale. These capabilities would never have been possible if we didn’t have the right technologies in place.” With full visibility of information comes accountability, since everyone can see what needs to be done and if it was done. Transparency is a crucial merit of these technologies, a cultural trait of Hungry Lion that is accentuated in other ways.

Basson adds: “We have a network of area, country and regional managers who act as an extension of our Head office in Stellenbosch. Head office employees pay regular visits to different regions to keep a finger on the pulse of local operations. Our area and country managers, in turn, come to Head Office regularly for updates to business processes, training, and meetings. This constant exposure in both directions ensures that best practises are shared and implemented to all stores quickly.”

Prosperous career planning

Combined with both these expansive technologies and a transparent, remodelled structure, Hungry Lion recognises that its staff are key to achieving the firm’s ongoing ambitions.

To this end, the company ensures that it provides extensive benefits to its employees, bolstering its position as an employer of choice and equally its talent retention capabilities.

Such initiatives include the introduction of E-learning materials in five languages and the company’s live in-house training platform from LessonDesk, a comprehensive new employee assistance programme, access to affordable healthcare for employees and more specialised and tailored training programmes.

What’s more, Hungry Lion has a strong focus on career planning, testament to its culture of internal promotion.

“Typically speaking, joining a fast food business as the lowest level of employee, the pay isn’t fantastic and it’s not uncommon for these workers to have bigger aspirations,” explains Basson. “What we’ve realised is you can either listen to and facilitate these ambitions, or your workers will leave and look for opportunities elsewhere. We like to pursue the former, providing clear career paths for our inspirational and aspirational workers. From cashiers to controllers to junior managers to regional managers, and so on, this personal growth structure is in place at Hungry Lion.”

A core part of the company’s ethos, providing key opportunities to reward loyalty and ambition, Hungry Lion offers not just a job but an all-encompassing opportunity to build a prosperous career.

A sound, responsible outlook

Such a humble and grounded approach is not only applied internally, but equally externally through a number of corporate social responsibility initiatives.

These are built around Hungry Lion’s three-pillar CSR strategy, with the organisation contributing towards hunger alleviation, championing change in local communities and promoting skills development.

Between February and March of this year alone, for example, the company provided food for the attendees of a seminar addressing the issue of domestic violence, pupils of an underprivileged primary school during a field trip and fire fighters in the Western Cape, while also supporting a Soweto children’s home and a local police station’s cricket tournament for rural schools.

“It’s an element to our business that we take pride in,” reveals Basson. “We like to show that we care for our communities, customers and especially our employees and their families. There’s a lot of need in Africa from a poverty standpoint and being in the food business we’re able to help local communities in addressing such issues. I wouldn’t say we have a set agenda – ad hoc opportunities arise, and we react accordingly in each of the locations that we’re based, helping to give people a sense of purpose and promote skills of local communities.”

Asked about a particular such initiative that springs to mind, Basson is quick to highlight the company’s efforts in supporting the Zambian people during a cholera outbreak at the beginning of 2017.

He continues: “We immediately lowered the prices of our food, ensuring people could get nutritious, safe and affordable food, we donated money to the government that was used to help with the clean-up process. We even provided sanitation kits to our staff, helping them clean their own living environments to ensure their family’s health.”

Having developed a culture that is firmly centred around providing benefit to all people, whether it’s supporting local communities or providing unrivalled, progressive career opportunities, Hungry Lion’s outlook is unique and admirable.

Opportunity is a word that is creating an atmosphere of excitement within the company at the moment, with continued expansion firmly on the table for Hungry Lion after experiencing double digit percent organic growth over the past two years.

“We’ve set 20 new stores as a benchmark, but realistically this is a ball-park figure on the conservative side,” reveals Basson. “If we can open 50 stores then we’ll do it – if we find a good site where we can profitably trade, we will open. There aren’t any specific limitations.”

New systems and optimised procedures in place, last year’s corporate action, focus on organic growth, and consolidation allowed Hungry Lion to not only transition into independence, but equally provided the platform for the company to gear up for full throttle expansion over the coming years.

“We’re realistic at the same time,” Basson continues. “We understand that we cannot conquer the whole continent in 2019 or 2020, but the plan is to grow as fast as possible. Africa has around 1.2 billon people but in the next three decades this number will double. Further, there are 54 countries across Africa, countries that we know we’ll have a good chance of being able to expand into, whether it be through franchises, joint ventures, or other kinds of partnerships. The opportunities are immense, and I feel our business is a prime example as to why it’s a great time to be investing on the continent right now. I just hope that others will come and join us in the fun!”

Case Study1: APPLE’S PROFITABLE BUT RISKY STRATEGY

When Apple’s Chief Executive – Steven Jobs – launched the Apple iPod in 2001 and the iPhone in 2007, he made a significant shift in the company’s strategy from the relatively safe market of innovative, premium-priced computers into the highly competitive markets of consumer electronics. This case explores this profitable but risky strategy. Note that this case explores in 2008 before Nokia had major problems with smartphones situation. Now things have changed considerably. (Currently, 2020 has arrived and expect a different kind of strategy altogether. Take note of those changes.) (Hint: Students need to be well prepared of the trend and changes that is happen now in Apple).

Early beginnings

To understand any company’s strategy, it is helpful to begin by looking back at its roots. Founded in 1976, Apple built its early reputation on innovative personal computers that were particularly easy for customers to use and as a result were priced higher than those of competitors. The inspiration for this strategy came from a visit by the founders of the company – Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniack – to the Palo Alto research laboratories of the Xerox company in 1979. They observed that Xerox had developed an early version of a computer interface screen with the drop-down menus that are widely used today on all personal computers. Most computers in the late 1970s still used complicated technical interfaces for even simple tasks like typing – still called ‘word-processing’ at the time.Jobs and Wozniack took the concept back to Apple and developed their own computer – the Apple Macintosh (Mac) – that used this consumer-friendly interface. The Macintosh was launched in 1984. However, Apple did not sell to, or share the software with, rival companies. Over the next few years, this non-co-operation strategy turned out to be a major weakness for Apple.

Battle with Microsoft

Although the Mac had some initial success, its software was threatened by the introduction of Windows 1.0 from the rival company Microsoft, whose chief executive was the well-known Bill Gates. Microsoft’s strategy was to make this software widely available to other computer manufacturers for a licence fee – quite unlike Apple. A legal dispute arose between Apple and Microsoft because Windows had many on-screen similarities to the Apple product. Eventually, Microsoft signed an agreement with Apple saying that it would not use Mac technology in Windows 1.0. Microsoft retained the right to develop its own interface software similar to the original Xerox concept. Coupled with Microsoft’s willingness to distribute Windows freely to computer manufacturers, the legal agreement allowed Microsoft to develop alternative technology that had the same on-screen result. The result is history. By 1990, Microsoft had developed and distributed a version of Windows that would run on virtually all IBM-compatible personal computers – see Case 1.2. Apple’s strategy of keeping its software exclusive was a major strategic mistake. The company was determined to avoid the same error when it came to the launch of the iPod and, in a more subtle way, with the later introduction of the iPhone.Unlike Microsoft with its focus on a software-only strategy, Apple remained a full-line computer manufacturer from that time, supplying both the hardware and the software. Apple continued to develop various innovative computers and related products. Early successes included the Mac2 and PowerBooks along with the world’s first desktop publishing programme – PageMaker. This latter remains today the leading programme of its kind. It is widely used around the world in publishing and fashion houses. It remains exclusive to Apple and means that the company has a specialist market where it has real competitive advantage and can charge higher prices.Not all Apple’s new products were successful – the Newton personal digital assistant did not sell well. Apple’s high price policy for its products and difficulties in manufacturing also meant that innovative products like the iBook had trouble competing in the personal computer market place.

Apple’s move into consumer electronics

Around the year 2000, Apple identified a new strategic management opportunity to exploit the growing worldwide market in personal electronic devices – CD players, MP3 music players, digital cameras, etc. It would launch its own Apple versions of these products to add high-value, user-friendly software. Resulting products included iMovie for digital cameras and iDVD for DVD-players. But the product that really took off was the iPod – the personal music player that stored hundreds of CDs. And unlike the launch of its first personal computer, Apple sought industry co-operation rather than keeping the product to itself.

Launched in late 2001, the iPod was followed by the iTunes Music Store in 2003 in the USA and 2004 in Europe – the Music Store being a most important and innovatory development. iTunes was essentially an agreement with the world’s five leading record companies to allow legal downloading of music tracks using the internet for 99 cents each. This was a major coup for Apple – it had persuaded the record companies to adopt a different approach to the problem of music piracy. At the time, this revolutionary agreement was unique to Apple and was due to the negotiating skills of Steve Jobs, the Apple chief executive, and his network of contacts in the industry. Figure 1.9 shows that Apple’s new strategy was beginning to pay off. The iPod was the biggest single sales contributor in the Apple portfolio of products.

In 2007, Apple followed up the launch of the iPod with the iPhone, a mobile telephone that had the same user-friendly design characteristics as its music machine. To make the iPhone widely available and, at the same time, to keep control, Apple entered into an exclusive contract with only one national mobile telephone carrier in each major country – for example, AT&T in the USA and O₂ in the UK. Its mobile phone was premium priced – for example, US$599 in North America. However, in order to hit its volume targets, Apple later reduced its phone prices, though they still remained at the high end of the market. This was consistent with Apple’s long-term, high-price, high-quality strategy. But the company was moving into the massive and still-expanding global mobile telephone market where competition had been fierce for many years. (Note that with regard to Figure 1.9, the new iPhone was too new to have made any impact on sales or profitability in 2007.) And the leader in mobile telephones – Finland’s Nokia – was about to hit back at Apple, though with mixed results. But other companies, notably the Korean company Samsung and the Taiwanese company, HTC, were to have more success later.

By 2007, Apple’s music player – the iPod – was the premium-priced, stylish market leader with around 60 per cent of world sales and the largest single contributor to Apple’s turnover –Its iTunes download software had been re-developed to allow it to work with all Windows-compatible computers (about 90 per cent of all PCs) and it had around 75 per cent of the world music download market, the market being worth around US$1000 million per annum. Although this was only some 6 per cent of the total recorded music market, it was growing fast. The rest of the market consisted of sales of CDs and DVDs direct from the leading recording companies.

In 2007, Apple’s mobile telephone – the iPhone – had only just been launched. The sales objective was to sell 10 million phones in the first year: this needed to be compared with the annual mobile sales of the global market leader, Nokia, of around 350 million handsets. However, Apple had achieved what some commentators regarded as a significant technical breakthrough: the touch screen. This made the iPhone different in that its screen was no longer limited by the fixed buttons and small screens that applied to competitive handsets. As readers will be aware, the iPhone went on to beat these earlier sales estimates and was followed by a new design, the iPhone 4, in 2010.

The world market leader responded by launching its own phones with touch screens. In addition, Nokia also launched a complete download music service. Referring to the new download service, Rob Wells, senior Vice President for digital music at Universal commented: ‘This is a giant leap towards where we believe the industry will end up in three or four years’ time, where the consumer will have access to the celestial jukebox through any number of devices.’ Equally, an industry commentator explained: ‘[For Nokia] it could be short-term pain for long-term gain. It will steal some of the thunder from the iPhone and tie users into the Nokia service.’

‘Nokia is going to be an internet company. It is definitely a mobile company and it is making good progress to becoming an internet company as well,’ explained Olli Pekka Kollasvuo, Chief Executive of Nokia. There also were hints from commentators that Nokia was likely to make a loss on its new download music service. But the company was determined to ensure that Apple was given real competition in this new and unpredictable market.Here lay the strategic risk for Apple. Apart from the classy, iconic styles of the iPod and the iPhone, there is nothing that rivals cannot match over time. By 2007, all the major consumer electronics companies – like Sony, Philips and Panasonic – and the mobile phone manufacturers – like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola – were catching up fast with new launches that were just as stylish, cheaper and with more capacity. In addition, Apple’s competitors were reaching agreements with the record companies to provide legal downloads of music from website.

As a short term measure, Apple hit back by negotiating supply contracts for flash memory for its iPod that were cheaper than its rivals. Moreover, it launched a new model, the iPhone 4 that made further technology advances. Apple was still the market leader and was able to demonstrate major increases in sales and profits from the development of the iPod and iTunes. To follow up this development, Apple launched the Apple Tablet in 2010 – again an element of risk because no one really new how well such a product would be received or what its function really was. The second generation Apple tablet was then launched in 2011 after the success of the initial model. But there was no denying that the first Apple tablet carried some initial risks for the company.

All during this period, Apple’s strategic difficulty was that other powerful companies had also recognised the importance of innovation and flexibility in the response to the new markets that Apple itself had developed. For example, Nokia itself was arguing that the markets for mobile telephones and recorded music would converge over the next five years. Nokia’s Chief Executive explained that much greater strategic flexibility was needed as a result: ‘Five or ten years ago, you would set your strategy and then start following it. That does not work anymore. Now you have to be alert every day, week and month to renew your strategy. ‘If the Nokia view was correct, then the problem for Apple was that it could find its market-leading position in recorded music being overtaken by a more flexible rival – perhaps leading to a repeat of the Apple failure 20 years earlier to win against Microsoft. But at the time of updating this case, that looked unlikely. Apple had at last found the best, if risky, strategy.

Question 1

Based on the above case study answer the following questions:

1. Analyse the mission and vision statements for Apple.Provide comments based on good characteristics of both statements that you have learned.   
2. Identify THREE (3) strengths and THREE (3) weaknesses of Apple and Nokia in the above case study.                                                                            
3. Identify THREE (3) opportunities and THREE (3) threats in the telecommunication industry for Apple and Nokia.

Threats for apple:

4. Analyse and explain the short and long run performances of Apple and Nokia. Which has the best competitive advantage? Why?                                                                                           

5. Based on your answers in 1d) Identify and develop THREE (3) competitive advantages in this case.

Your Tasks:

After reading the case study, answer the following questions:

1. Describe in your own words the meaning with examples of the following terms:-

- Unconscious Bias

- Stereotyping, Prejudice and Discrimination. (10 marks – 150 words)

2. Identify TWO theories that you have learned in this unit and then relate their relevance and applicability to the given case study. (5 marks – 200 words) Here the date, take two theories from it http://www.mediafire.com/file/vop79sq3pquzgyb/Lecture+5.pptx/file
3. Based on your understanding of the case study, what are the challenges faced by Freehills? In what ways might Freehills be affected by the challenges? (5 marks – 150 words)
4. Discuss TWO workplace implications of the unconscious bias training to Freehills in bringing behavioural change. (4 marks – 150 words)
5. If you were a diversity consultant for Freehills, suggest THREE policy changes to ensure greater workforce engagement or inclusion of people who feel different and/or are viewed as different in the workplace? (6 marks – 120 words)

The Case Study:

We interviewed Gareth Bennett, Human Resources Director at Freehills (a large legal firm) to understand (i) Freehills’ objectives with regard to diversity (ii) the steps Freehills has taken to execute its diversity strategy (iii) the impact of Freehills’ recent roll-out of unconscious bias training for leaders (iv) the outcomes and (v) next steps. Freehills has been focused on diversity for about eight years, and that focus created fertile ground for Freehills’ introduction of unconscious bias training in 2010/2011, “the unconscious bias leadership training was a breakthrough. It was a ‘light bulb moment’ for partners” says Gareth.

What are your objectives with regard to diversity?

The firm has made a concerted effort over a number of years to address the issue of the retention of highly talented women and their opportunities for advancement. We would like to broaden our focus, however, there has been a reticence to take our eye off gender until we are satisfied that we have really hard- and soft-wired the firm to get it right. I do think we can broaden our approach and not lose impact by framing diversity as “diversity of thought” and tying that into leadership - it is absolutely fundamental and targets inclusive practices and behaviour, and values difference, in all its forms.

How have you gone about executing your strategy?

There are many initiatives that can be undertaken. We have looked at flexible work and have partners working part-time. We have also expanded the career opportunities for men and women. In 2009 we created alternative career paths to partnership, so now we have a range of roles available for promotion. None of that is enough. Diversity has to be championed, it has to be the norm, championed by men and women and ingrained in our culture. Our ‘Women at Freehills’ program has made great strides over the years and it is encouraging to see its evolution. What started as essentially a networking group for our senior women has broadened in a number of crucial ways. The focus has moved to women at all career stages (rather than just at partnership level) and the needs of people more broadly within the firm. For example, men have been actively recruited as champions for flexibility. We have shifted towards inclusive thinking and behaviour, which really reflects our current focus, and that has brought men into the conversation.

For the past 12 months our strategic plan has been about behavioural and mindset change. Just like everyone else we have fantastic policies, but it is the way we enact our policies that will make a difference, and cultural change takes time.

The unconscious bias leadership training was a breakthrough. It was a ‘light bulb moment’ for partners. Statistics and a business case is one thing, but the unconscious bias program helped them to see bias and say “Hey, that’s me”. It helped people link their behaviour to the problem.

How has unconscious bias training helped with behavioural change? What have been the impacts?

Essentially, the timing was right for us and the unconscious bias piece linked the dots. It has provided fresh energy and a new direction for us. There have been a number of different impacts:

1. Hearts and minds
   I have seen a shift from systems, policies and programs to personal engagement – the hearts and minds. The training landed on fertile ground for us, as a fundamental aspect of our leadership development is ‘understanding self’. There is a new central group with new joint chairwomen as a driving force, and this is underpinned by support of the CEO and the Executive, as well as by regional groups who are the local drivers of change. So, we have both a top down and a bottom up approach. And this approach is supported by really passionate individuals. We include diversity as a standing item on the agenda of each leadership meeting, for example at practice groups and with the Executive and Board. You can’t help but talk about it when it is a standing item on the agenda.
2. Greater Awareness
   Sometimes people think they understand bias, but really, they don’t. I remember one CEO (in another organisation) who said, “I get diversity” but one of my staff challenged him by asking “What time is your first meeting?” He replied “7:30”. So, then she asked, “Who takes the kids to school?”. The penny dropped for him and he responded, “It’s difficult isn’t it”.

In many ways, the training has opened the door for people who didn’t want to have a discussion about diversity. Interestingly, we had much greater interest in the workshops once word of mouth had got around that it was thought provoking and personally insightful. It has given us courage to ‘call’ negative behaviours. I see it with management – there is a mindfulness for people to ask themselves “Why do I like this candidate?” and it has given permission for people to call out behaviours when they see unconscious bias, e.g. in the way someone is being described. We ask ourselves, are we just hiring in our own image?

More than just permission and courage, the training has put a value in people seeing something from a different perspective. We hope to encourage a culture that is not about ‘courage’, but about open and honest communication – an ability to express thoughts, even when contrary to the popular view. Holding ourselves to account, letting people question things and offer a different perspective is not seen as troublemaking, but adding a new dimension. Having this come from line management, as well as HR, is very powerful.

3. Language
   The training has mainstreamed the language of unconscious bias, for example recently two executives were involved in a recruiting campaign and were transparently asking themselves if they had engaged in any homophily when assessing the candidate. So the biggest change for me is establishing this as part of our language, and seeing it infiltrate our culture. It has given many of our initiatives a new lease of life and I expect this shift will lead to quantum changes. Without language, many policies don’t get airplay.

What about outcomes?

Again, we have seen several encouraging change points:

1. Talent
   It has made a difference in relation to our people in terms of recruitment, promotion and talent identification. This is where the conversation comes in. What does our talent profile look like? Is there any unconscious bias there? The figures for last year were that the Melbourne office considered 14% of its senior lawyers “exceptional”, with women comprising only 27% of this group (while making up 60% of senior lawyers overall). This year, 18% of Melbourne senior lawyers were considered exceptional, with women comprising 45% of this group – a huge increase from 27% the year before.

This is a good example of the impact in the talent process statistics and there have been similar impacts in relation to salary and bonuses. We all thought we were incredibly fair and then we tested our data against gender, age and full-time vs part-time. Simply instituting a process to test the data has been enough to get people to stop, think and test their decision-making. It has been a really cathartic process for people. We didn’t realise we could be making biased decisions.

2. Clients
   It has also made a difference with clients. Our clients are demanding, and the profile of clients is changing. We must access the way they think. Clients are right to expect more of us. We know that in corporations most of General Counsels are women, and they are doing the hiring. We also have a lot of government and quasi government tenders, and they are demanding diversity as a key component of their tender process.
3. Metrics
   We have 55-60% of women in the legal profession, and it’s been like that for some time. We want to make sure that women stay in the profession. Currently, we have 60% of women at senior associate level (just before partnership) and when we started this journey we had 16% of women in the partnership. We’re now sitting at about 21.9% who are partners. Increasing that percentage is the right thing to do and we are moving in the right direction.

What does success look like?

Success is multi-faceted. To give you a few examples:

1. It’s about being valued for the unique contribution a person can make. Last year a couple of graduates said they felt welcome in Freehills and fitted in here, but they were considered ‘too different’ in other places because they were not the standard model. They felt they were different and could be themselves at Freehills. Legal hiring is very traditional and we all hire from the same law schools. We have tried to embrace the broadest diversity of thought. It has differentiated Freehills and the message is, if you are smart enough, we will take you in. That is success.
   
   2. It’s also about men accessing flexibility. A male partner wanted to take parental leave and it took courage, but we need these role models. This is not just about women. The partners now see this as a broader agenda and relevant to all people.
   
   3. I saw the tangible power of diversity of thought when I was at Ford. We were incredibly fast in the design period and yet it took us three times as long as the Japanese manufacturers to hit market. Why? We realised that we had a homogeneous design team (US based male designers); they could design fast but then it took the builders months fixing up problems with the design. In contrast, the Japanese manufacturers got the designers, builders and sellers together at the design stage. That stage took longer but then it went straight to market and that was more cost efficient. At Ford, the design team hadn’t considered all the variables.
   
   4. Ultimately success will be having a female chairman and/or CEO within five years, and a diversity of thought throughout Freehills from people who relish their role of invigorating and innovating throughout the firm. This will allow us to grow and serve a much broader client base.

What are your next steps?

A diversity agenda rather than a focus on gender, and for it to be driven by the business - that is where we want to go. We want to work with our clients all the way through the food chain and deliver something more satisfying for our people and clients.

We will continue to refresh the conversation and improve our people’s knowledge about unconscious bias until it is part of the hard and soft wiring of the organisation. We are looking for more dispersed leadership and different leaders in different contexts.

Ultimately, we aim to lower the threshold of interest and welcome diversity as added value.

Summary

For Freehills, this journey is about:

1. Focusing on diversity of thought to build engagement with staff at all levels and meet client needs
2. Creating a structure of dispersed leadership, both top down and bottom up
3. Developing a shared language through unconscious bias leadership training
4. Creating multiple points of accountability, including holding the metrics up to the light and setting diversity as a standing item at key organisational meetings

Using the CNA Insurance company Knowledge Management scenario (below), carry out the following knowledge management assignment Questions after reading the scenario/essay:

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For Gordon Larson, telling stories is all in a day's work at his job as chief knowledge officer at CNA, and that's just fine with executives at the Chicago-based insurance giant. Larson owes his job to a shift in corporate direction. Three years ago, under the direction of a new chairman, CNA set off on a new mission. The ultimate goal, says Karen Foley, CNA's executive vice president of corporate development, was "to get out of the distribution business and become a great underwriting company." And in order to do that, the company had to become more informed about the industries and customers it served. But CNA's traditional structure of 35 separate strategic business units made sharing internal information among employees nearly impossible. A single customer seeking answers to different insurance needs might be passed along to a variety of departments.

CNA knew it had to create one uniform face to customers, and that meant it had to reeducate its employees. Branch offices would have to be consolidated to facilitate closer working relationships among staff teams. Most important of all, CNA had to equip its employees—many of whom had focused solely on niche markets—with the much broader knowledge of all the company's products. To do that, CNA set about building a Web-based knowledge network that captures the expertise of its employees. And it's that expertise that Larson uses as the fodder for his "knowledge" stories. In 1999, a team of CNA executives evaluated the feasibility of becoming a "great underwriting company," and what they found wasn't pretty. In North America, 175 branch offices supported CNA's 35 business units. In order to create a single face for customers, the executives decided to reorganize the company's business into three major areas: property casualty, life and group benefits, and reinsurance. By December 2001, the trio of new business units was established. CNA is still consolidating its field operations into 75 offices organized around five geographic regions, and that process is expected to be complete by early next year.

Along with the physical reorganization, the very nature of what employees did had to change as well. "Just by reorganizing, we wouldn't get people to change how they think and work with other people," Larson says. "Moving from a decentralized culture to a collaborative one is a major change-management challenge." As the new "single face" of the company, each employee had to cede narrow product and market expertise to gain general knowledge of the company's entire product portfolio. In the past, a CNA small business customer that wanted additional coverage in the international arena would have to contact another underwriter and complete separate applications. With the new CNA, such customers would get all their needs met through one representative. "We needed to give the frontline underwriter the ability to appear like an expert for a variety of products," Larson says.

But how to make instant experts out of the staff? CNA's offerings include hundreds of products in more than 900 industry segments for both businesses and individuals, and in-depth knowledge was dispersed among 15,000 employees. The company had to figure out how to make the collective expertise of so many employees readily available to anyone, when and where it was needed. And it would have to do so in a way that didn't crimp individual work styles or create undue burdens on employees looking for information. Larson knew the company would have to "make it easy for any individual to have access to people within CNA who had answers and information." Even if that staff was geographically dispersed. Then Larson hit upon the idea of an expert locator system, software that allows employees to post questions and give answers via the Internet or an intranet.

Working with consultants from Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, a team of CNA managers spent the end of 2000 evaluating numerous expert location software products. In late 2000, the team chose AskMe Enterprise software from AskMe Corp. of Seattle. Factors in AskMe's favor included software that was scalable and capable of being integrated with Microsoft Outlook (already used by the company's employees), which meant a quick implementation. In February 2001, Bob James, CNA executive vice president of the technology and operations group, spearheaded a team of consultants from AskMe's professional services group to customize the software and create a small pilot project of 500 employees. The system, which CNA calls the knowledge network, has since been rolled out companywide and is being actively used by 4,000 employees.
Now if a CNA employee needs someone with underwriting experience in the inland marine industry, for example, he can type in a query and other employees are notified via e-mail that a question in their area of expertise has been posted. When employees answer questions, the software automatically adds to the archive, which eliminates the headache of answering the same question over and over again. Employees who have identified themselves as subject experts are known as knowledge sources. "Our knowledge network is a high-tech, geographically neutral watercooler that enables access to thousands of people," says James.

Larson, a 20-year veteran of the insurance industry and CNA employee since 1995, didn't officially join CNA's knowledge management effort until four months after the pilot launch of the expert locator system. Back then, Larson was working with Foley in the corporate development department on efforts to bring together CNA's various products and expertise in professional liability and standard property casualty. "It was hard to bring our internal expertise to our customers because each business unit had separate channels and distribution," Larson says. Given his prior experience in cross-marketing and in getting employees in different units to collaborate, he was very interested in taking a key role in CNA's new strategic direction. In June 2001, Foley formalized a leadership role around knowledge management, and Larson assumed the helm of a four-person team dedicated to promoting KM.

As Larson sees it, implementing KM represented a significant cultural change at CNA, where employees traditionally didn't collaborate with one another. For Foley, creating a KM department under the corporate development umbrella was a nod from management to the importance of knowledge sharing. "Our KM sits in corporate development for a specific reason," she says. "We chose not to put KM under technology because we don't want it viewed as a piece of technology. We chose not to put it in HR because it's not a training program. For us, KM involves brand development, research and employee communication."

Daniel Wright, AskMe's vice president of professional services, who consulted with James on implementing the knowledge network, says that CNA's establishment of a high-profile chief knowledge officer (CKO) role in conjunction with rolling out a KM system is part of an increasing trend. "Having a CKO not only shows commitment from the executive team, but it helps create accountability," he says. "Leaders within an organization have to drive adoption of knowledge-based networks in order for them to be effective."

That's not to say that Larson has had it easy simply because he now wears an official CKO mantle. He is quick to admit that creating an environment receptive to knowledge sharing came at a particularly problematic time. When CNA announced its reorganization plans, the inevitable rumors of layoffs and restructuring that resulted sent nervous vibes throughout the company. "Getting traction for the knowledge network in the second half of last year was difficult," Larson concedes. "We were reorganizing the company into three major business units, there was a great amount of organizational turmoil, and employees were not sure of their roles or where they would fit in the new structure." However, now that the reorganization is complete, organizational roles have been clarified. "There's now a clear understanding of the importance of collaboration and knowledge sharing because the knowledge network is aligned with our corporate strategy," Larson says. For their part, employees are now clearer about their roles, responsibilities and accountabilities, and Larson has seen a groundswell of interest in the knowledge network as a result.

Much of that interest in the knowledge network is attributable to Larson's message and the way he has chosen to deliver it. He has hammered home to employees and CNA's leadership alike the connection between presenting one face to the customer and shared knowledge. Larson has done that by telling stories about how sharing knowledge has helped employees on the job. He highlights individual success stories and publicizes them on CNA's intranet via a newsletter called Inside Scoop that's pushed to employees' desktops. As of April, Larson was in the process of recruiting so-called knowledge champions in about 20 functional areas throughout the company who will be responsible for collecting stories and passing them his way. "Storytelling is a helpful way for people to understand the role of the network," he says. "I highlight some of the ways using the network has helped us land new business or avoid unnecessary costs."

The case of Donald Schwanke is a perfect example. A claims consultant in commercial insurance from Syracuse, N.Y., Schwanke received a claim from Canada in February 2001 that involved a lawsuit relating to alleged abuses that took place between 1953 and 1962. Included with the claim was a policy written through Continental Insurance, which had merged with CNA. Canada would not allow any statute of limitation defense—making this, potentially, CNA's responsibility. However, some of Schwanke's colleagues, former employees of Continental, recalled that all the Canadian policies had been sold following the merger. Schwanke needed to find out if the policy in question was among those sold and if so, which company had purchased it. Schwanke turned to the CNA knowledge network, where he posted his question. His answer came the next day from an executive in a different business line who pointed Schwanke to a Canadian insurance company that had indeed purchased the policy. Schwanke was then able to notify the party who'd sent the claim of the correct insurer. According to Larson, the end result was Schwanke saving hours researching the issue—and CNA was spared settling a potentially very expensive claim.

Larson spent last winter and early spring reorganizing the categories on the knowledge network to better reflect CNA's new strategy and the roles of employees. For example, within the underwriting group, Larson is organizing content into casualty, property and specialty categories to capitalize on internal expertise. In the process, Larson is also recruiting new knowledge sources to populate the categories with information. To get out the word about the new knowledge network, Larson and his KM team took their message on the road this summer by visiting CNA's field offices and offering a hands-on introduction. In addition to gathering feedback from employees about the knowledge network and its relevancy to their job, Larson gathered more stories to share. To demonstrate the value of the knowledge network in the future, Larson wants to incorporate a more formal metrics process through regular employee surveys.

Despite high-level executive support for the knowledge network in particular and knowledge management in general, Foley remains circumspect about KM's ability to completely transform CNA. "We're excited about the [KM] initiative, but we've come to understand that people and paper are still important," she says. James is a bit more enthusiastic. "The idea of using technology to connect people in a knowledge network is a very interesting one for corporations with a lot of intellectual talent geographically dispersed," he says. "Where it's difficult to get to know your colleagues, these networks can really help collaboration efforts." For Larson, the end result is the power of collective knowledge. "With the network," he says, "we have the tremendous capability to deliver the expertise of thousands of people to our customers."

=============================================================================

Using the Essay above to help answer with the Questions:

Conclusions – summarize your findings in the form of an overall description of the current KM situation. (Answer must be at least 2 paragraphs)

Evaluation of this answer will be based on completeness in addressing all key KM dimensions (e.g. BTOPP Framework or KM Maturity Model), ability to analyze and to justify discussion and recommendations made (e.g. level of persuasiveness of your arguments, justifications, and prioritization).

Bullet In the Brain by Tobias Wolff

Anders couldn't get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. He was never in the best of tempers anyway, Anders - a book critic known for the weary, elegant savagery with which he dispatched almost everything he reviewed.

With the line still doubled around the rope, one of the tellers stuck a "POSITION CLOSED" sign in her window and walked to the back of the bank, where she leaned against a desk and began to pass the time with a man shuffling papers. The women in front of Anders broke off their conversation and watched the teller with hatred. "Oh, that's nice," one of them said. She turned to Anders and added, confident of his accord, "One of those little human touches that keep us coming back for more."

Anders had conceived his own towering hatred of the teller, but he immediately turned it on the presumptuous crybaby in front of him. "Damned unfair," he said. "Tragic, really. If they're not chopping off the wrong leg, or bombing your ancestral village, they're closing their positions."

She stood her ground. "I didn't say it was tragic," she said. "I just think it's a pretty lousy way to treat your customers."

"Unforgivable," Anders said. "Heaven will take note."

She sucked in her cheeks but stared past him and said nothing. Anders saw that the other woman, her friend, was looking in the same direction. And then the tellers stopped what they were doing, and the customers slowly turned, and silence came over the bank. Two men wearing black ski masks and blue business suits were standing to the side of the door. One of them had a pistol pressed against the guard's neck. The guard's eyes were closed, and his lips were moving. The other man had a sawed-off shotgun. "Keep your big mouth shut!" the man with the pistol said, though no one had spoken a word. "One of you tellers hits the alarm, you're all dead meat. Got it?"

The tellers nodded.

"Oh, bravo, " Anders said. "Dead meat." He turned to the woman in front of him. "Great script, eh? The stern, brass-knuckled poetry of the dangerous classes."

She looked at him with drowning eyes.

The man with the shotgun pushed the guard to his knees. He handed up the shotgun to his partner and yanked the guard's wrists up behind his back and locked them together with a pair of handcuffs. He toppled him onto the floor with a kick between the shoulder blades. Then he took his shotgun back and went over to the security gate at the end of the counter. He was short and heavy and moved with peculiar slowness, even torpor. "Buzz him in," his partner said. The man with the shotgun opened the gate and sauntered along the line of tellers, handing each of them a Hefty bag. When he came to the empty position he looked over at the man with the pistol, who said, "Whose slot is that?"

Anders watched the teller. She put her hand to her throat and turned to the man she'd been talking to. He nodded. "Mine," she said.

"Then get your ugly butt in gear and fill that bag."

"There you go," Anders said to the woman in front of him. "Justice is done."

"Hey! Bright boy! Did I tell you talk?"

"No," Anders said.

"Then shut your trap."

"Did you hear that?" Anders said. "'Bright boy.' Right out of 'The Killers'."

"Please be quiet," the woman said.

"Hey, you deaf or what?" The man with the pistol walked over to Anders. He poked the weapon into Anders' gut. "You think I'm playing games?'

"No," Anders said, but the barrel tickled like a stiff finger and he had to fight back the titters. He did this by making himself stare into the man's eyes, which were clearly visible behind the holes in the mask: pale blue, and rawly red-rimmed. The man's left eyelid kept twitching. He breathed out a piercing, ammoniac smell that shocked Anders more than anything that had happened, and he was beginning to develop a sense of unease when the man prodded him again with the pistol.

"You like me, bright boy?" he said. "You want to suck my dick?"

"No," Anders said.

"Then stop looking at me."

Anders fixed his gaze on the man's shiny wing-top shoes.

"Not down there. Up there." He stuck the pistol under Anders' chin and pushed it upward until Anders was looking at the ceiling.

Anders had never paid much attention to that part of the bank, a pompous old building with marble floors and counters and pillars, and gilt scrollwork over the tellers' cages. The domed ceiling had been decorated with mythological figures whose fleshy, toga-draped ugliness Anders had taken in at a glance many years earlier and afterward declined to notice. Now he had no choice but to scrutinize the painter's work. It was even worse than he remembered, and all of it executed with the utmost gravity. The artist had a few tricks up his sleeve and used them again and again - a certain rosy blush on the underside of the clouds, a coy backward glance on the faces of the cupids and fauns. The ceiling was crowded with various dramas, but the one that caught Anders' eye was Zeus and Europa - portrayed, in this rendition, as a bull ogling a cow from behind a haystack. To make the cow sexy, the painter had canted her hips suggestively and given her long, droopy eyelashes through which she gazed back at the bull with sultry welcome. The bull wore a smirk and his eyebrows were arched. If there'd been a bubble coming out of his mouth, it would have said, "Hubba hubba."

"What's so funny, bright boy?"

"Nothing."

"You think I'm comical? You think I'm some kind of clown?"

"No."

"You think you can mess with me?"

"No."

"mess with me again, you're history. Capiche?"

Anders burst our laughing. He covered his mouth with both hands and said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," then snorted helplessly through his fingers and said, " Capiche - oh, God, capiche," and at that the man with the pistol raised the pistol and shot Anders right in the head.

The bullet smashed Anders' skull and ploughed through his brain and exited behind his right ear, scattering shards of bone into the cerebral cortex, the corpus callosum, back toward the basal ganglia, and down into the thalamus. But before all this occurred, the first appearance of the bullet in the cerebrum set off a crackling chain of ion transports and neurotransmissions. Because of their peculiar origin these traced a peculiar patter, flukishly calling to life a summer afternoon some forty years past, and long since lost to memory. After striking the cranium the bullet was moving at 900 feet per second, a pathetically sluggish, glacial pace compared to the synaptic lighting that flashed around it. Once in the brain, that is, the bullet came under the mediation of brain time, which gave Anders plenty of leisure to contemplate the scene that, in a phrase he would have abhorred, "passed before his eyes."

It is worth noting what Ambers did not remember, given what he did remember. He did not remember his first lover, Sherry, or what he had most madly loved about her, before it came to irritate him - her unembarrassed carnality, and especially the cordial way she had with his unit, which she called Mr. Mole, as in, "Uh-oh, looks like Mr. Mole wants to play," and "Let's hide Mr. Mole!" Anders did not remember his wife, whom he had also loved before she exhausted him with her predictability, or his daughter, now a sullen professor of economics at Dartmouth. He did not remember standing just outside his daughter's door as she lectured her bear about his naughtiness and described the truly appalling punishments Paws would receive unless he changed his ways. He did not remember a single line of the hundreds of poems he had committed to memory in his youth so that he could give himself the shivers at will - not "Silent, upon a peak in Darien," or "My God, I heard this day," or "All my pretty ones? Did you say all? 0 hell-kite! All?" None of these did he remember; not one. Anders did not remember his dying mother saying of his father, "I should have stabbed him in his sleep."

He did not remember Professor Josephs telling his class how Athenian prisoners in Sicily had been released if they could recite Aeschylus, and then reciting Aeschylus himself, right there, in the Greek. Anders did not remember how his eyes had burned at those sounds. He did not remember the surprise of seeing a college classmate's name on the jacket of a novel not long after they graduated, or the respect he had felt after reading the book. He did not remember the pleasure of giving respect.

Nor did Anders remember seeing a woman leap to her death from the building opposite his own just days after his daughter was born. He did not remember shouting, "Lord have mercy!" He did not remember deliberately crashing his father's car in to a tree, of having his ribs kicked in by three policemcn at an anti-war rally, or waking himself up with laughter. He did not remember when he began to regard the heap of books on his desk with boredom and dread, or when he grew angry at writers for writing them. He did not remember when everything began to remind him of something else.

This is what he remembered. Heat. A baseball field. Yellow grass, the whirr of insects, himself leaning against a tree as the boys of the neighborhood gather for a pickup game. He looks on as the others argue the relative genius of Mantle and Mays. They have been worrying this subject all summer, and it has become tedious to Anders: an oppresssion, like the heat.

Then the last two boys arrive, Coyle and a cousin of his from Mississippi. Anders has never met Coyle's cousin before and will never see him again. He says hi with the rest but takes no further notice of him until they've chosen sides and someone asks the cousin what position he wants to play. "Shortstop," the boy says. "Short's the best position they is." Anders turns and looks at him. He wants to hear Coyle's cousin repeat what he's just said, but he knows better than to ask. The others will think he's being a jerk, ragging the kid for his grammar. But that isn't it, not at all - it's that Anders is strangely roused, elated, by those final two words, their pure unexpectedness and their music. He takes the field in a trance, repeating them to himself.

The bullet is already in the brain; it won't be outrun forever, or charmed to a halt. In the end it will do its work and leave the troubled skull behind, dragging its comet's tail of memory and hope and talent and love into the marble hall of commerce. That can't be helped. But for now Anders can still make time. Time for the shadows to lengthen on the grass, time for the tethered dog to bark at the flying ball, time for the boy in right field to smack his sweat-blackened mitt and softly chant, They is, they is, they is.

Part B: Character

From the story "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff in the link below, Answer the questions:

1. Who is the protagonist in "Bullet in the Brain"?

2. Who or what is the main antagonist in the story "Bullet in the Brain"?

3. List the three most important characters in the story "Bullet in the Brain" and explain whether each is static or dynamic and round or flat.