Case Study 4

A relational database is to be designed for a medium sized Company dealing with industrial applications of computers. The Company delivers various products to its customers ranging from a single application program through to complete installation of hardware with customized software. The Company employs various experts, consultants and supporting staff. All personnel are employed on long‐ term basis, i.e. there is no short‐term or temporary staff. Although the Company is somehow structured for administrative purposes (that is, it is divided into departments headed by department managers) all projects are carried out in an inter‐disciplinary way. For each project a project team is selected, grouping employees from different departments, and a Project Manager (also an employee of the Company) is appointed who is entirely and exclusively responsible for the control of the project, quite independently of the Company's hierarchy.

Description: The following is a brief statement of some facts and policies adopted by the Company.

• Each employee works in some department.

• An employee may possess several skills

• Every manager (including the MD) is an employee

• A department may participate in none/one/many projects.

• At least one department participates in a project.

• An employee may be engaged in none/one/many projects

• Project teams consist of at least one member.

Austin Peay State, a university near Nashville, Tennessee, is applying a data-mining approach to higher education. Before students register for classes, a robot looks at their profiles and transcripts and recommends courses in which they are likely to be successful or have higher chances of success. The software takes an approach similar to the ones Netflix, eHarmony, and Amazon use to make their recommendations. It compares a student’s transcripts with those of past students who had similar grades and SAT scores. When a student logs in, the program offers 10 “Course Suggestions for You.” This recommendation is based on the student’s major and other information related to that student. The goal is to steer students toward courses in which they will make better grades. According to Tristan Denley, a former programmer turned math professor turned provost, students who follow the recommendations do substantially better. In the fall of 2011, 45 percent of the classes that students were taking had been on their top 10 recommendations list. This data-mining concept is catching on. Three other Tennessee colleges now use Denley’s software. Institutions outside the state are developing their own versions of the idea.

1. What are the benefits and drawbacks of this approach to course recommendations?
2. Are there any data that should or should not be included in data mining for this purpose? Why or why not?

Insurance companies pay for (or cover) health services for employed people who have insurance. What group decides what services will be paid for? A) Federal government B) State government C) Company that issues the insurance policy D) Employer who purchases the insurance

Who is ultimately responsible for setting high quality standards for a business? Choose a company you are familiar with and explain who deserves credit, or takes the blame, when production exceeds (or fails) a high quality standard. Is it fair that they have so much responsibility? Why or why not?

1. Assume the following accounts and amounts were   

    reported by a nation last year. Government Purchases of Goods and Services were US$5.5        

    Billion; Personal Consumption Expenditure were US$40.5 Billion; Gross Private Domestic   

    Investment amounted to US$20 Billion; Capital Consumption Allowances were US$4 Billion;

    Personal Savings were estimated at US$2 Billion; Imports of Goods and Services amounted

    US$6.5 Billion; and exports of Goods and Services were US$5 Billion.

1. Determine the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
2. How would your answer change if the Dollar amounts of imports and exports were reversed?

b.Describe the MI definition of the money supply and indicate the relative significance of the MI components.

Kitchen Envy produces cabinets to order. It is a mature business that earned EBITDA of $950,000 on revenues of $6million in the most recent year and is expected to continue to generate these figures in perpetuity. The company is considering carrying some of its most popular models in inventory, with an eye on increasing sales and operating profits. It has collected the following information:

• With the inventory, the company expects its annual revenues to increase to $7.7 million and its overall EBITDA margin (EBITDA as % of sales) to increase to 20%.

• For the next decade, the inventory will be maintained at 11% of total revenues, with the investment made at the start of each year. The inventory will be sold for book value at the end of 10 years.

• The cost of capital for the company is 11% and it faces a 40% tax rate.

A. Estimate the NPV of the project (carrying inventory) assuming at ten-year life for the investment.

B. Estimate the breakeven EBITDA margin for the company, for the investment to have a zero NPV, if you now assume that the project lasts forever

Most graduate schools of business require applicants for admission to take the Graduate Management Admission Council’s GMAT examination. Scores on the GMAT are roughly normally distributed with a mean of 540 and a standard deviation of 125.

a) What is the probability of an individual scoring above 515 on the GMA T?

b) What is the probability of an individual scoring below 460 on the GMA T?

c) If a sample of 36 individual are selected, find the probability that their average is between 470 and 580 on the GMAT?

d) How high must an individual score on the GMAT in order to score in the highest 10%?

5. Suppose the quantity of good X demanded by individual 1 is given by X1 = 10 − 2PX + 0.01I1 + 0.4PY and the quantity of X demanded by individual 2 is X2 = 5 − PX + 0.02I2 + 0.2PY

a) What is the market demand function for total X (= X1+X2) as a function of PX, I1, I2, and PY .

b) Graph the two individual demand curves (with X on the horizontal axis, PX on the vertical axis) for the case I1 = 1000, I2 = 1000, and PY = 10.

c) Using these individual demand curves, construct the market demand curve for total X. What is the algebraic equation for this curve?

d) Now suppose I1 increases to 1100 and I2 decreases to 900. How would the market demand curve shift? How would the individual demand curves shift? Graph these new curves.

e) Suppose PY rises to 15. Graph the new individual and market demand curves that would result.

PLEASE ANSWER ON PAPER WITH ALL STEPS

Developing Job Descriptions for Red Lobster

Red Lobster operates over 670 casual-dining seafood restaurants in the US and Canada, employing more than 63,000 people. When Red Lobster developed a new business strategy to focus on value and improve its image, it established a new vision, mission, and goals for the company. The restaurant chain simplified its menu with the highest-quality seafood it could offer at mid-range prices, traded its restaurants’ tropical themes for a crisp, clean look with white-shirt-and-black-pants uniforms for its employees, and added Northeastern coastal imagery to its menu and Web-site. Executing the new mission and differentiation strategy required hiring fun, hospitality-minded people who shared its values.

Although Red Lobster had not had any problem with hiring restaurant managers, the company felt that the managers it hired did not always reflect Red Lobster’s strategy, vision, and values. The company feels that their old job descriptions do not convey the passion and creativity that the new strategy requires from its employees. They want their job descriptions to help bolster recruitment of the kind of managers that will help advance the mission and create restaurant environments where employees feel motivated and customers feel welcome upon entering the establishment and positive about their experience when they leave.

The Charge

You have been hired as a consultant to help Red Lobster recruit management level staff. They have asked you to design an overall strategy that will help create job descriptions to improve the fit between its new management hires and its new business strategy. Job descriptions should help convey the importance of the Restaurant Manager position within the company and also in the restaurant itself. The process you design will help them, later on, develop other restaurant job descriptions for the service-level staff.

Question

Draw up a job description for the Red Lobster Restaurant Manager position that includes, at a minimum, the following:

Job title

Overall purpose statement - overall description of the broad function and scope of the position

List of duties or tasks performed critical to success

Decision-making requirements

Description of the relationships and roles within the company, including supervisory positions, subordinating roles and other working relationships

List of minimum qualifications and what experience/competencies an ‘ideal candidate’ would possess.

A finance company issues commercial paper to an insurance company, which pays for them with the funds raised by issuing bonds to Mrs Jones. The finance company then buys shares issued by Telstra for the funding of its new tower.

Who provides funds to Telstra?