An article in Information Security Technical Report [“Malicious Software—Past, Present and Future” (2004, Vol. 9, pp. 6–18)] provided the following data on the top 10 malicious software instances for 2002. The clear leader in the number of registered incidences for the year 2002 was the Internet worm “Klez,” and it is still one of the most widespread threats. This virus was first detected on 26 October 2001, and it has held the top spot among malicious software for the longest period in the history of virology.

The 10 most widespread malicious programs for 2002

(Source: Kaspersky Labs).

Suppose that 20 malicious software instances are reported. Assume that the malicious sources can be assumed to be independent. (a) What is the probability that at least one instance is “Klez?” (b) What is the probability that three or more instances are “Klez?” (c) What are the mean and standard deviation of the number of “Klez” instances among the 20 reported?

Bernard Haldane Associates conducted a survey in March 2004 of 1021 workers who held white-collar jobs but who had changed jobs in the previous twelve months. Of these workers, 56% of the men and 35% of the women were paid more in their new positions when they changed jobs. Suppose that these percentages are based on random samples of 510 men and 511 women white-collar workers.

1. Construct a 95% confidence interval for the difference between the two population proportions.

__________________

2. Using the 2% significance level, can you conclude that the two population proportions are different? Use the p-value approach.

MARKETING RESEARCH

The principal activity of General Mills is to produce and market packaged consumer food products. The products include cereals, desserts, flour and baking mixes, dinner and side dish products, organic products, snacks, beverages and yogurt products. The products are sold under the brand names namely: Cheerios, Wheaties, Lucky Charms, Total, Chex, Pillsbury, Haagen-Dazs, Betty Crocker and Bugles. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is one of the major customers of the Group. As of 2005, the company operated in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe and Asia/Pacific.

In order to determine the impact of an important strategic move, such as lowering prices or introducing new products, General Mills uses marketing research. General Mills ran into problems when a pesticide panic hurt sales and private label makers started to cut into their market share. Store brands have become increasingly popular with consumers. Store owners took advantage of cereal prices of up to $5 per box, resulting in increased market share for the store brands. At least one cereal maker, Quaker Oats, started making a house brand version of its cereal. Quaker’s lower priced-bagged-copies of leading brands have grown rapidly and advanced Quaker’s market share to over 10%. Ralcorp Holdings Inc., the leading maker of private label cereals, expects the trend of house or private brands gaining increased market share to continue, since only about half of the leading cereals have private label competition. Ralcorp expects to gain a larger portion of the market as it continues to introduce more imitations. Some industry experts believe that unless the big brand name cereal prices are cut, or the promotions increased, this trend will continue.

In order to address this problem, General Mills conducted problem solving research to determine what, if any changes they should make to their price and promotions strategy. In order to determine the effects of changes, consumer surveys were undertaken followed by test marketing. The results of General Mills test markets suggested several pricing and promotional changes that would help increase their success. General Mills cut prices on several of its cereal lines. Along with this price reduction, General Mills cut its coupon and promotion budget in an effort to halt spiraling costs and to reduce the price gap between General Mills’ products and the competition, which had been as high as 25% in the past.   

In addition to lowering prices, General Mills launched sweetened cereals to capture the aging baby boomer market. In January 2005, the company introduced Fiber One Honey Clusters, which has slightly sweetened flakes instead of the original Fiber One’s fiber twigs. This introduction was based on the belief that if a product does not taste good, it does not matter what the nutritional benefits are. It is not going to be a success. The sweetened cereals have also helped to insulate General Mills from price competition. Private labels are less likely to knock off the sweetened brands, either because they are too narrowly targeted at market niches or because store labels cannot compete with the hefty marketing budget of General Mills. These moves have increased General Mills’ sales and profits. The strategy of consistently low prices and introducing niche products, supported by marketing research, is paying high dividends for General Mills.

Questions

2.              If General Mills decides to conduct causal research to determine the effects of the "Fiber One Honey Clusters' flavor" on demand for cereals by baby boomers, what type of true experiments would you advise them to design? why and how? . (20 points -200 words approx.)

ASAP PLEASE!!!!

MARKETING RESEARCH

The principal activity of General Mills is to produce and market packaged consumer food products. The products include cereals, desserts, flour and baking mixes, dinner and side dish products, organic products, snacks, beverages and yogurt products. The products are sold under the brand names namely: Cheerios, Wheaties, Lucky Charms, Total, Chex, Pillsbury, Haagen-Dazs, Betty Crocker and Bugles. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is one of the major customers of the Group. As of 2005, the company operated in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe and Asia/Pacific.

In order to determine the impact of an important strategic move, such as lowering prices or introducing new products, General Mills uses marketing research. General Mills ran into problems when a pesticide panic hurt sales and private label makers started to cut into their market share. Store brands have become increasingly popular with consumers. Store owners took advantage of cereal prices of up to $5 per box, resulting in increased market share for the store brands. At least one cereal maker, Quaker Oats, started making a house brand version of its cereal. Quaker’s lower priced-bagged-copies of leading brands have grown rapidly and advanced Quaker’s market share to over 10%. Ralcorp Holdings Inc., the leading maker of private label cereals, expects the trend of house or private brands gaining increased market share to continue, since only about half of the leading cereals have private label competition. Ralcorp expects to gain a larger portion of the market as it continues to introduce more imitations. Some industry experts believe that unless the big brand name cereal prices are cut, or the promotions increased, this trend will continue.

In order to address this problem, General Mills conducted problem solving research to determine what, if any changes they should make to their price and promotions strategy. In order to determine the effects of changes, consumer surveys were undertaken followed by test marketing. The results of General Mills test markets suggested several pricing and promotional changes that would help increase their success. General Mills cut prices on several of its cereal lines. Along with this price reduction, General Mills cut its coupon and promotion budget in an effort to halt spiraling costs and to reduce the price gap between General Mills’ products and the competition, which had been as high as 25% in the past.   

In addition to lowering prices, General Mills launched sweetened cereals to capture the aging baby boomer market. In January 2005, the company introduced Fiber One Honey Clusters, which has slightly sweetened flakes instead of the original Fiber One’s fiber twigs. This introduction was based on the belief that if a product does not taste good, it does not matter what the nutritional benefits are. It is not going to be a success. The sweetened cereals have also helped to insulate General Mills from price competition. Private labels are less likely to knock off the sweetened brands, either because they are too narrowly targeted at market niches or because store labels cannot compete with the hefty marketing budget of General Mills. These moves have increased General Mills’ sales and profits. The strategy of consistently low prices and introducing niche products, supported by marketing research, is paying high dividends for General Mills.

Questions

1. In its attempt to perform descriptive research design, what type(s) of survey and observation methods do you recommend to be used by General Mills in order to determine their pricing and promotional strategies needed to face private labels. ( 20 points - 250 words approx.)

ASAP PLEASE!!

Sleepeze Company produces mattresses for 20 retail outlets. Of the 20 retail outlets, 19 are small, separately owned furniture stores and one is a retail chain. The retail chain buys 60% of the mattresses produced. The 19 smaller customers purchase mattresses in approximately equal quantities, where the orders are about the same size. Data concerning Sleepeze’s customer activity are as follows:

Currently, customer-driven costs are assigned to customers based on units sold, a unit-level driver. Assign costs to customers by using an ABC approach.

order filling rate =

selling call rate =

cost assignments:

large retailers =

smaller retailers =

COURSE : IT Enterprise systems

Consider the following enterprise scenario and answer the following questions. ABC is a wholesale company that sells electrical equipment and provides a website from which customers can inquiry about products and identify what they want to buy. When costumers order electrical equipment, they place their order on the ABC website. ABC does not own or hold any equipment as inventory. Rather, the ABC orders the equipment from the appropriate supplier and ranges for the equipment to be shipped directly from the supplier to the customers. The customers pay ABC and receive receipts. The ABC also pays the suppliers and keeps the excess as revenues.

1. Create a value chain REA model that represents the flow of ABC's resources between the sales/collection process with other business processes.
2. Create a business process level REA model for ABC's sales/collection process. Be sure to include all relevant entities, relationships, and attributes.

note: NEED A UNIQUE ANSWER AND NO HANDWRITING PLEASE..

THANK YOU

The Fashion Store sells fashion items. The store has to order these items many months in advance of the fashion season in order to get a good price on the items. Each unit costs Fashion $100. These units are sold to customers at a price of $250 per unit. Items not sold during the season can be sold to the outlet store at $80 per unit. If the store runs out of an item during the season it has to obtain the item from alternative sources and the cost including air freight to Fashion is $190 per unit. What is the initial order quantity that maximizes the profit for the Fashion Store? x f(x) 61 0.01 62 0.01 63 0.01 64 0.01 65 0.01 66 0.02 67 0.02 68 0.02 69 0.02 70 0.03 71 0.03 72 0.03 73 0.04 74 0.04 75 0.04 76 0.04 77 0.04 78 0.04 79 0.04 80 0.04 81 0.04 82 0.04 83 0.04 84 0.04 85 0.03 86 0.02 87 0.02 88 0.03 89 0.02 90 0.02 91 0.02 92 0.02 93 0.01 94 0.01 95 0.01 96 0.01 97 0.01 98 0.01 99 0.00 100 0.00 101 0.00 102 0.00 103 0.00 104 0.00

Finance research has shown that managers of actively managed mutual funds or exchange traded funds (ETF), on average, do not outperform the overall stock market as measured by the S&P 500 index (see chapter 7 PP slides and your book). In some years, more than 80% of fund managers were unable to beat the overall stock market return. The year 2013 is a good example when the S&P 500 yielded nearly 29% return, which was better than the average return on 95% of actively managed stock portfolios with similar risk. (a) If you believe these results which seem to support informational efficiency of equity markets in U.S., what would be your investment strategy so that your average long-run returns are better than the returns realized by more than two-third (75%) of professional money managers of actively traded funds. Explain. (b) If equity markets are informationally efficient and rational to a larger extent, how would you explain the stock market bubble of 2008 in the presence of efficient markets. 

On June 1, 2007, Prens Funds, Ltd. purchases a call option for $3,000, which gives Prens Funds the right to buy 20,000 shares of Delta Plumbers, Inc., for $54 each until December 1, 2007. Delta shares are currently trading for $52. At June 30, 2007, the option contract could be traded in the market at $96,000. At December 1, 2007, with the shares being traded at $70 each, Prens Funds exercised the option and took delivery of the shares of Delta.

Required: Record all necessary entry/entries related to this contract on the following dates:

a]   June 1, 2007 when Prens Funds acquired the call option.

b]   June 30, 2007, when Prens Funds closes its books of accounts.

c]   December 1, 2007 assuming Prens Funds exercised the call option and took delivery of the shares of Delta.

d] December 1, 2007, assuming Prens Funds settles the call option for cash without taking delivery of the Delta shares.

NOTE:       If no entry is needed, write "No entry necessary".

On 1 January 2017, Peachy Ltd bought a machine for $142 000 cash. The useful life of the machine was 10 years and the residual value was $17 000. The machine was to be depreciated using the straight line method. On 30 September 2019, the machine was traded in for a new model which cost $220 000. Peachy Ltd received a trade in allowance of $90 000 for the old machine. The new machine had a residual value of $25 000 and is to be depreciated using the diminishing balance method at a rate of 15%.

Prepare General Journal entries to record all the transactions for the above events up to 30 June 2020. Post the journal into the ledger. NOTE: you have to show the recording of the depreciation expense at the end of EACH financial year. Peachy Ltd uses the 30th June as the end of its financial year. You may find it helpful to draw a timeline showing each financial year to make sure you have all the required entries. Assume when the machine was traded-in on 30 September 2019 that the additional amount payable on top of the trade-in allowance was paid with cash.