Reference no: EM13547411

1.You are a member of a newly formed team that has been tasked with designing a new product. None of the team's members have worked together previously and thus confidence is low. Which of the following tactics would be most effective in promoting the team's confidence in its capability to function successfully?

A.Discuss the team's overall mission and form an initial project plan.

B.Have each team member discuss his or her strengths and areas of expertise.

C.Determine the major tasks to be done and complete some of the less difficult ones
first.

D.Jump right into a challenging task in order to figure out your team's capability.

2.Your team is working hard to develop a strategy to serve a new client. Which of the following actions is most important to ensuring an effective strategy is chosen?

A.Suggest that each proposed strategy be evaluated against a set of key objectives.

B.Invite the client into a meeting to shape the strategy.

C.Conduct a benchmarking survey of similar clients to determine best strategy.

D.Ask the team member with the most industry-related experience to lead the process.


3. You were recently hired by the Andrews CEO as a consultant to evaluate the performance of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). As part of that process, you interview the CFO's direct reports (employees). Although they indicate that the CFO is technically competent, one individual told you stories about the CFO's verbal abuse with employees. Given this information, what would be the most effective next step in the process?

A.Focus on the CFO's work performance since his personal behavior is inappropriate in the workplace.

B.Inform the human resources department that there is a potential problem.

C.Collect more information about the extent to which this reported behavior is impacting others.

D.Tell the CEO about what you have uncovered and ask for her permission to speak about it with the CFO.

4.You are having a lunch meeting with a loyal and very good customer. Over lunch you happen to mention that your application to an exclusive golf club was denied for the second time. Your customer responds, "Hey, why didn't you tell me? My family has been members there for 40 years, let me make a phone call, I'm sure we can get it worked out." Which of the following statements should represent your primary concern about this situation?

A.If anyone else at my company learns about this, they might think that I bribed the customer.

B.Current members of the club are likely to know I wasn't accepted through the proper channels.

C.My customer has increased influence over me that he might try to use for special treatment or deals.

D.My customer likely feels forced into having to help me.


5.Looking forward to next year, if Baldwin's current cash balance is $17,334 (000) and cash flows from operations next period are unchanged from this period and Baldwin takes ONLY the following actions relating to cash flows from investing and financing activities:

Issues 100 (000) shares of stock at the current stock price
Issues $200 (000) of long-term debt
Pays $40 (000) in dividends

Which of the following activities will expose Baldwin to the most risk of needing an emergency loan?

A.Purchases assets at a cost of $15,000 (000)

B.Liquidates the entire inventory

C.Sells $5,000 (000) of their Long-term assets

D.Retires $20,000 (000) in long-term debt

6. A productivity index of 110% means that a company's labor costs would have been 10% higher if it had not made production improvements. Now refer to the Income Statement in Chester's Annual Report. The direct labor costs for Chester were $32,611. These labor costs could have been $20,000 higher if investments in training that increased productivity had not been made. What was the productivity index for Chester that led to such savings?


A.161.3%

B.155.2%

C.38.7%

D.44.8%


7.Assuming Digby's current market share for its Daft product remains the same, how many units of Daft should Digby expect to sell in the primary segment for the upcoming year?


A.1639 units

B.1653 units

C.1503 units

D.1787 units


8.Best's product manager continues to perform well in the market. However, a competing product is coming on strong and is looking to take over as the market share leader in the segment. Without sacrificing contribution margin, what can the Best product manager do in order to improve upon the buying criteria, and thus potentially increase demand?

A.Reposition Best to make it even smaller and higher performing

B.Lower the selling price since it is the second most important buying criteria

C.Increase the promotion budget to gain greater awareness

D.Increase MTBF by 2000


9.According to information found on the production analysis page of the Inquirer, Baldwin sold 1128 units of Best in the current year. Assuming that Best maintains a constant market share, all the units of Best are sold in the Nano market segment and the growth rate remains constant, how many years will it be before Best will not be able to meet future demand unless the company adds production capacity? Exclude any existing inventory.

A.4 year(s)

B.3 year(s)

C.1 year(s)

D.2 year(s)

10.Which description best fits Andrews? For clarity:

- A differentiator competes through good designs, high awareness, and easy accessibility.
- A cost leader competes on price by reducing costs and passing the savings to customers.
- A broad player competes in all parts of the market.
- A niche player competes in selected parts of the market.

Which of these four statements best describes your company's current strategy?

A.Andrews is a niche cost leader

B.Andrews is a broad differentiator

C.Andrews is a niche differentiator

D.Andrews is a broad cost leader

11.Baldwin's Elite product Bam has an awareness of 72%. Baldwin's Bam product manager for the Elite segment is determined to have more awareness for Bam than Andrews' Elite product Ant. She knows that the first $1M in promotion generates 22% new awareness, the second million adds 23% more and the third million adds another 5%. She also knows one-third of Bam's existing awareness is lost every year. Assuming that Ant's awareness stays the same next year (77%), out of the promotion budgets below, what is the minimum Baldwin's Elite product manager should spend in promotion to earn more awareness than Andrews' Ant product?

A.2M

B.3M

C.Nothing

D.1M


12.Best is a product of the Baldwin company which is primarily in the Nano segment, but is also sold in another segment. Baldwin starts to create their sales forecast by assuming all policies (R&D, Marketing, and Production) for all competitors are equal this year over last. For this question assume that all 1128 of units of Best are sold in the Nano segment. If the competitive environment remains unchanged what will be the Best product's demand next year (in 000's)?

A.2572

B.1128

C.1286

D.1207

13. Investing $2,000,000 in TQM's Channel Support Systems initiative will at a minimum increase demand for your products 1.7% in this and in all future rounds. (Refer to the TQM Initiative worksheet in the CompXM.xls Decisions menu.) Looking at the Round 0 Inquirer for Andrews, last year's sales were $163,508,343. Assuming similar sales next year, the 1.7% increase in demand will provide $2,779,642 of additional revenue.   With the overall contribution margin of 34.1%, after direct costs this revenue will add $947,858 to the bottom line. For simplicity, assume that the demand increase and margins will remain at last year's levels. How long will it take to achieve payback on the initial $2,000,000 TQM investment, rounded to the nearest month?


A.17 months

B.TQM investment will not have a significant financial impact

C.25 months

D.9 months


14.In order to sell a product at a profit the product must be priced higher than the total of what it costs you to build the unit, plus period expenses, and plus overhead.

At the end of last year the broad cost leader Digby had an Elite product Dim. Use the Inquirer's Production Analysis to find Dim's production cost, (labor+materials). Exclude possible inventory carrying costs. Assume period expenses and overhead total 1/2 of their production cost. What is the minimum price the product could have been sold for to cover the unit cost, period expenses, and overhead?



A.$21.45

B.$32.17

C.$35.00

D.$10.72