MANAGEMENT EXERCISES EXERCISE 1 Assessing a ski shop environment Your best friend's sister and brother-in-law run a ski shop near your campus, but they have recently bought another type of business elsewhere in town. They want you and your friend to manage the ski shop. If you run it successfully, you and your friend will gradually be given substantial equity in the shop and eventually would own the whole business. So far, the shop has been only marginally profitable. While the shop carries ski equipment and clothing, it often runs out during the peak ski season. Extra merchandise ordered to meet demand often arrives so late it cannot be sold until the next season, if at all. In addition, the shop does very little business from October to April. Due to a dispute over the size and prominence of an outside sign displaying the shop's name, the relationship with local government is poor. Tact and diplomacy are not major strengths of your friend's brother-in-law. As a result, the shop gets more than its share of inspections, and a recent effort to gain permission to expand the parking lot was turned down. So far, other than minimal advertising, nothing has been done to make inroads on campus. Yet the campus should be lucrative. The student population includes many avid skiers, since good skiing is about an hour and a half's drive away. Unfortunately, many buy their ski equipment and clothing at the lodges. In part, this is because lodges tend to have good arrangements for ski equipment repair and maintenance. Your initial assessment is that, so far, the ski shop has not tried to deal with its environment. There have been persistent rumours another ski shop may open nearby next year, creating a competitor. You and your friend (and possibly some others willing to give you advice) plan to get together soon to try to develop approaches to help manage the ski shop's environment better. This analysis is crucial to your decision about whether to manage the shop. Also, your friend's sister and brother-in-law want to hear your ideas. First, outline the major elements in the ski shop's task environment. Then prepare a proposal showing how you would attempt to better manage the shop's environmental elements