Exercise $1\mathrm{.}15$: storyboard!

For this exercise, we'll create a storyboard using the CFO's Q$1$ financial update introduced in Exercise $1\mathrm{.}12.$ As a reminder, the background is as follows:

You are the Chief Financial Officer for a national retailer. You are responsible for managing the financial well$-$being of the company and your duties include analyzing and reporting on the company's financial strengths and weaknesses and proposing corrective actions. Your team of financial analysts just completed a review of Q$1$ and have identified that the company is likely to end the fiscal year with a loss of $$45$ million if operating expenses and sales follow the latest projections.

Because of a recent economic downturn, an increase in sales is unlikely. Therefore, you believe the projected loss can only be mitigated by controlling operating expenses and that management should implement an expense control policy $("$expense control initiative ABC"$)$ immediately. You will be reporting the Q$1$ quarterly results at an upcoming Board of Directors meeting and are planning your communication $-$ a summary of financial results in a slide deckthat you will present to the board with your recommendation.

Your goals for the presentation are twofold:

For the Board of Directors to understand the long$-$term implications of ending the year at a net loss, and

Get agreement from the daily operating managers $($CEO and executives$)$ to implement "expense control initiative $AB{C}^{\text{'}\text{'}}$ immediately.