CAPSTONE COMP-XM 1) Looking forward to next year, if Digby's current cash balance is $17,624 (000) and cash flows from operations next period are unchanged from this period and Digby 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 Digby to the most risk of needing an emergency loan? Select: 1 Liquidates the entire inventory Retires $20,000 (000) in long-term debt Purchases assets at a cost of $15,000 (000) Sells $5,000 (000) of their Long-term assets 2) 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 Baldwin's Annual Report. The direct labor costs for Baldwin were $32,707. 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 Baldwin that led to such savings? Select: 1 161.1% 38.9% 45.0% 155.0% 3) Investing $1,500,000 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 Decisions menu.) Looking at the Round 0 Inquirer for Andrews, last year's sales were $163,712,225. Assuming similar sales next year, the 1.7% increase in demand will provide $2,783,108 of additional revenue. With the overall contribution margin of 34.2%, after direct costs this revenue will add $951,823 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 $1,500,000 TQM investment, rounded to the nearest month? Select: 1 13 months 19 months 6 months TQM investment will not have a significant financial impact 4) Chester's product manager is considering lowering the price of the Cake product by $2.50 and wants to know what the impact will be on the product's contribution margin. Assuming no inventory carry costs, what will Cake's contribution margin be if the price is lowered? Select: 1 34.00% 31.57% 32.30% 29.99% 5) According to information found on the production analysis page of the Inquirer, Digby sold 1129 units of Dome in the current year. Assuming that Dome maintains a constant market share, all the units of Dome are sold in the Nano market segment and the growth rate remains constant, how many years will it be before Dome will not be able to meet future demand unless the company adds production capacity? Exclude any existing inventory. Select: 1 2 year(s) 1 year(s) 4 year(s) 3 year(s) 6) Larry is in charge of collecting customer service and satisfaction data for his company. He's not sure which key groups in the company would be the most appropriate audience to communicate the recent customer satisfaction results, including call center employees, senior management, and company-wide. As Larry begins to develop his communication plan, which of the following questions would MOST help him strategize a plan for targeting a specific audience? Select: 1 How can you communicate the information in a way that will be acceptable to all groups? What are the potential advantages and disadvantages of communicating customer satisfaction results to one group versus another group? What are the consequences of not communicating the information at all? What format would each group prefer to see in a report on customer satisfaction? 7) You just hung up the phone after a 3-hour conference call with your colleagues in India. After the call, one of your co-workers stopped by to see you. She proceeded to give you some feedback about the call and finished by asking, "why were you so impatient with them? I know we didn't get through the agenda, but it was like you had somewhere else more important to be and they were clearly offended by your behavior." Which of the following actions BEST DESCRIBES how to improve your own cross-cultural communication with your colleagues in India? Select: 1 Tell your co-worker that she should probably run the meeting next time so that you can observe her style and its effectiveness with your Indian colleagues. Examine your expectations for conducting the meeting and determine how they might be different than your Indian colleagues. Communicate more clearly in advance about the agenda format and time so you don't feel bad moving the discussion along. Send an email to your colleagues in India apologizing for your insensitivity and tell them it will never happen again. 8) 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? Select: 1 Andrews is a niche differentiator Andrews is a broad cost leader Andrews is a broad differentiator Andrews is a niche cost leader 9) Dug is a product of the Digby company. Digby's sales forecast for Dug is 506 units. Digby wants to have an extra 10% of units on hand above and beyond their forecast in case sales are better than expected. (They would risk the possibility of excess inventory carrying charges rather than risk lost profits on a stock out.) Taking current inventory into account, what will Dug's Production After Adjustment have to be in order to have a 10% reserve of units available for sale? Select: 1 557 units 364 units 506 units 415 its 10) Digby's Elite product Dug has an awareness of 72%. Digby's Dug product manager for the Elite segment is determined to have more awareness for Dug than Andrews' Elite product Able. 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 Dug's existing awareness is lost every year. Assuming that Able's awareness stays the same next year (77%), out of the promotion budgets below, what is the minimum Digby's Elite product manager should spend in promotion to earn more awareness than Andrews' Able product? Select: 1 Nothing 2M 1M 3M 11) Demand is created through meeting customer buying criteria, credit terms, awareness (promotion) and accessibility (distribution). According to the Thrift segment's customers, which of these products was the most competitive at the end of last year? Select: 1 Bolt Ark Buzz Cute 12) Crimp is a product of the Chester company which is primarily in the Nano segment, but is also sold in another segment. Chester 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 700 of units of Crimp are sold in the Nano segment. If the competitive environment remains unchanged what will be the Crimp product's demand next year (in 000's)? Select: 1 700 798 749 1596 13) Your team has recently experienced some difficulties and setbacks. Some of your teammates have expressed their lack of confidence in the team. Which of the following tactics is most likely to help boost your teammates' perception of the team's capability to perform well? Select: 1 Encourage your teammates to focus on the future and not to dwell on the past. Discuss the past successes your team has had and how the team pulled together to get the job done. Allow time at a team meeting for everyone to openly share any complaints they might have about one another. Identify the team's weak links that led to the team's past failures. 14) 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? Select: 1 Suggest that each proposed strategy be evaluated against a set of key objectives. Invite the client into a meeting to shape the strategy. Conduct a benchmarking survey of similar clients to determine best strategy. Ask the team member with the most industry-related experience to lead the process. 15) 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? Select: 1 Inform the human resources department that there is a potential problem. Focus on the CFO's work performance since his personal behavior is inappropriate in the workplace. Collect more information about the extent to which this reported behavior is impacting others. Tell the CEO about what you have uncovered and ask for her permission to speak about it with the CFO. 16) 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? Select: 1 If anyone else at my company learns about this, they might think that I bribed the customer. My customer has increased influence over me that he might try to use for special treatment or deals. Current members of the club are likely to know I wasn't accepted through the proper channels. My customer likely feels forced into having to help me