Business

Only write one to two paragraphs on each question.

B1: Consider the things that the principal of your old high school had to do to ensure that the school met the needs of its students. Identify these activities and group them by the four functions of management: planning, organising, directing, and controlling.
Do you ever reach the end of the day and wonder what you’ve accomplished? To succeed in management, you need to learn how to manage your time. The internet is an interesting place to start. For many university students, surfing the Net takes up a lot of time that could be put to better use. How much time do you spend online, instant-messaging, shopping, playing games, blogging, using social media, or indulging in some other enjoyable but time-consuming activity? One approach to solving the problem of wasted online time is to apply the six-step, problem solving procedure outlined in the readings.

B5: Detail each of the steps that you take to solve the problem described above and implement a solution.
If you were developing a marketing campaign for the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Company, what group of consumers would you target? What if you were marketing an iPod? What about time-shares (vacation ownership opportunities) on the Gold Coast?

B8: For each of these products, identify at least five segmentation characteristics that you’d use in developing a profile for your customers. Explain the segmentation category into which each characteristic falls – demographic, geographic, behavioural, or psychographic. Where it’s appropriate, be sure to include at least one characteristic from each category.
Most calculators come with a book of instructions. Unfortunately, if you misplace the book, you’re left to your own devices in figuring out how to use the calculator. Wouldn’t it be easier if the calculator had a built-in “help” function similar to the one on your computer? You could just punch the “Help” key on your keypad and call up the relevant instructions on your display screen. You just invented a calculator with this feature, and you’re ready to roll it out. First, however, you have some pricing decisions:
• When you introduce the product, should you use skimming or penetration pricing?
• Which of the following pricing methods should you use in the long term: cost-based pricing, demand-based pricing, target costing, or prestige pricing?

B9: Prepare a brief report describing both your introductory and you long-term alternatives. Then explain and justify your choice of the methods that you’ll use.

B10: Companies encourage customers to buy their products by using a variety of promotion tools, including advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and publicity. Your task is to develop a promotion strategy for two products – a small domestic hatchback car and an energy softdrink. For each product, answer the following questions:
• What’s the purpose of the promotion?
• What’s your target market?
• What’s the best way to reach that target market?
• What product features would you emphasise?
• How does your product differ from competitors?
• Then describe the elements that will go into your promotion mix, and explain why you chose the promotional tools that you did.

B11: Did you ever have a XBox 360? Is the product still popular? Like all products, the XBox360 has a product life cycle. Your job is to describe that product life cycle. Identify each of the product life stages that XBox 360 has gone through, and speculate on the marketing actions that Microsoft would have taken during each stage. Where do you think XBox 360 is now in its product life cycle? Where do you think it will be in five years? Justify your answers.

B12: Who uses accounting information? What do they use it for, and why do they find it helpful? What problems would arise if they weren’t provided with accounting information?

B13: You’ve developed a financial plan for a retail business that you want to launch this summer. You’ve determined that you need $500,000, including $50,000 for a truck, $80,000 for furniture and equipment, and $100,000 for inventory. You’ll use the rest to cover start-up and operating costs during your first six months of operation. After considering the possible sources of funds available to you, create a table that shows how you’ll obtain the $500,000 you need. It should include the following items:
• Source of all funds
• Dollar amounts to be obtained through each source
• The maturity, annual interest rate, and security of any loan
• The total of your sources must equal $500,000.

B14: Write a brief report explaining the factors you considered in arriving at your combination of sources.

B15: Caesars Casino uses data mining to identify its most profitable customers and predict their future behaviour. It then designs incentives to appeal to these customers. Do you see any ethical problems with this process? Is it ethical to encourage people to gamble?

B16: Are you, or is someone you know, hesitant to buy things over the internet? What risks concern you? What are companies doing to ease consumers’ concerns about the safety of internet transactions?