AL Sawaidi Consultants provide business management and marketing services to SME businesses in Riyadh and AlKhobar, with 5 offices in premier locations. The business is expanding rapidly, and high performing analysts are identified for potential promotion.The corporate strategy is focused on growing local talent, while attracting top talent from the region to deliver innovative business processes in a competitive market.

Recently, the CEO noticed the following changes:

Saudi SMEs are moving on-line and embracing technology

Local talent are demanding higher salaries, while local competition increase all the time

Several clients are in very specialized areas, with current staff not having the KSAOs to match

Several high performing analysts are asking for training in non-core areas like "Blockchain", machine learning and AI technologies

The CEO asks you, as a Recruitment Specialist; what can be done to remain competitive.

essay"500 words, in your own words"

Wells Fargo: Setting the Stagecoach Thundering Again

1. What is your assessment of the financial performance of Wells Fargo during John Stumpf’s tenure as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO)?
2. What is the rationale of the “cross-sell” strategy? Was the strategy appropriate for Wells Fargo? What challenges related to the cross-sell strategy started to surface in 2011?
3. What are the key elements needed to develop and sustain an ethical corporate culture (see Schwartz 2013)? Were these elements present at Wells Fargo during the period of misconduct?
4. What constitutes ethical leadership (see Schwartz 2013)? Why is it important? What are the qualities of an ethical leader? Were they present in the leadership of Wells Fargo during the period of misconduct?
5. What changes would you recommend the new CEO make to restore the reputation of the bank while also improving financial performance? (Hint: You should outline plans for improving the culture and compensation systems, at a minimum.)

In the City of Albany, suppose the mill rate for the property tax is $33 for the year 2020 and the appraised value for your home is $300,000, how much would your property tax be in 2020?

Using the actual/365 convention, calculate the accrued interest based on $60,258 value and a 1.7% coupon.

Accrual begins on 3/12/2020 and ends (and includes) 9/3/2020

Analyse the effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policies employed to fight against the economic slow-down in the March quarter of 2020 and June quarter of 2020; and how they influenced Australia’s economic growth.

Larkin Hydraulics. On May 1, Larkin Hydraulics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Caterpillar (U.S.), sold a 12-megawatt compression turbine to RebeckeTerwilleger Company of the Netherlands for €4,000,000, payable as €2,000,000 on August 1 and €2,000,000 on November 1. Larkin derived its price quote of €4,000,000 on April 1 by dividing its normal U.S. dollar sales price of $4.320,000 by the then current spot rate of $1.0800/€.

By the time the order was received and booked on May 1, the euro had strengthened to $1.1000/€, so the sale was in fact worth :4,000,000 * $1.1000/: = $4,400,000. Larkin had already gained an extra $80,000 from favorable exchange rate movements. Nevertheless, Larkin’s director of finance now wondered if the firm should hedge against a reversal of the recent trend of the euro.

Four approaches were possible:

1. Hedge in the forward market: The 3-month forward exchange quote was $1.1060/€ and the 6-month forward quote was $1.1130/€.

2. Hedge in the money market: Larkin could borrow euros from the Frankfurt branch of its U.S. bank at 8.00% per annum

3. Hedge with foreign currency options: August put options were available at strike price of $1.1000/€ for a premium of 2.0% per contract, and November put options were available at $1.1000/€ for a premium of 1.2%. August call options at $1.1000/€ could be purchased for a premium of 3.0%, and November call options at $1.1000/€ were available at a 2.6% premium.

4. Do nothing: Larkin could wait until the sales proceeds were received in August and November, hope the recent strengthening of the euro would continue, and sell the euros received for dollars in the spot market. Larkin estimates the cost of equity capital to be 12% per annum. As a small firm, Larkin Hydraulics is unable to raise funds with long-term debt. U.S. T-bills yield 3.6% per annum.

What should Larkin do and why?

What better way to start the fall semester but with a discussion of the importance of productivity (see Chapter 1, pages 13-18). There we write: “only through increases in productivity can the standard of living improve.” For well over a century, the U.S. has been able to increase productivity at about 2.5% per year, meaning U.S. wealth doubled every 30 years. But in the past decade, the news is not good. As The Wall Street Journal’s (Aug. 10, 2016) front page headline declares: “Productivity Fall Imperils Growth.”

This longest slide in worker productivity since the late 1970s is haunting the U.S. economy’s long-term prospects. Productivity in the 2nd quarter was down 0.4% from a year earlier, the first annual decline in 3 years. That was a further step down from already tepid average annual productivity growth of 1.3% in 2007 through 2015, itself just half the pace seen in 2000 through 2007, and the trend shows little sign of reversing. Productivity has slowed dramatically since the information technology-fueled boom of the late 1990s, when strong productivity gains translated into robust growth for household incomes and the overall economy.

Adds Fed Chair Janet Yellen: “the outlook for productivity growth is a key uncertainty for the U.S. economy and a very difficult question that has divided the economics profession. Some are relatively optimistic, pointing to the continuing pace of innovations that promise revolutionary technologies, from genetically tailored medical therapies to self-driving cars. Others believe that the low-hanging fruit of innovation largely has been picked and that there is simply less scope for further gains.”

Throughout our text we examine how to improve productivity through operations management.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. Why is productivity important to OM managers?
2. What can be done to raise productivity levels in a company? In a country?

16. Larkin Hydraulics. On May 1, Larkin Hydraulics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Caterpillar (U.S.), sold a 12-megawatt compression turbine to Rebecke-Terwilleger Company of the Netherlands for €4,000,000, payable as €2,000,000 on August 1 and €2,000,000 on November 1. Larkin derived its price quote of €4,000,000 on April 1 by dividing its normal U.S. dollar sales price of $4.320,000 by the then current spot rate of $1.0800/€. By the time the order was received and booked on May 1, the euro had strengthened to $1.1000/€, so the sale was in fact worth €4,000,000 * $1.1000/€ = $4,400,000. Larkin had already gained an extra $80,000 from favor-able exchange rate movements. Nevertheless, Larkin’s director of finance now wondered if the firm should hedge against a reversal of the recent trend of the euro. Four approaches were possible:

1. Hedge in the forward market: The 3-month forward exchange quote was $1.1060/€ and the 6-month for-ward quote was $1.1130/€.

2. Hedge in the money market: Larkin could borrow euros from the Frankfurt branch of its U.S. bank at 8.00% per annum.

3. Hedge with foreign currency options: August put options were available at strike price of $1.1000/€ for a premium of 2.0% per contract, and Novem-ber put options were available at $1.1000/€ for a premium of 1.2%. August call options at $1.1000/€ could be purchased for a premium of 3.0%, and November call options at $1.1000/€ were available at a 2.6% premium.

4. Do nothing: Larkin could wait until the sales pro-ceeds were received in August and November, hope the recent strengthening of the euro would continue, and sell the euros received for dollars in the spot market.

Larkin estimates the cost of equity capital to be 12% per annum. As a small firm, Larkin Hydrau-lics is unable to raise funds with long-term debt. U.S. T-bills yield 3.6% per annum. What should Larkin do?