BUAD 453 Marketplace Exam

A firm is _________ if its cumulative losses exceed its common stock investment.

Bankrupt

During Q4, in what phase of the S-Curve framework is carbon fiber bicycle industry?

Early Growth

Underestimating demand and scheduling too little operating capacity can result in all of the following EXCEPT:

Excess capacity costs (excess labor and overhead)

In all quarters of Marketplace, pricing bikes below costs is the best way to gain sales in Marketplace

False

Salary is always the most important component of the compensation package.

False

You will design different ads for the web than the ones you've designed for magazines

False

What are the two most influential measures in the Balanced Scorecard?

-Financial Performance -Investment in the Future

To improve Financial Performance on the Balanced Scorecard, the management team could (Check all that apply):

-Increase Gross Profit of all brands -Minimize the total number of shares outstanding

Score can be far above (or even below for one) 1 or 0 (zero)

-Investment in Future -Financial Performance -Asset management -Wealth

Score will fall between 0 (zero) to 1

-Market performance -Manufacturing productivity -Financial risk -Marketing effectiveness -Human resource management

A useful method to track expenses related to your brands is called Activity Based Costing or ABC. Certain costs are allocated across the firm while others should be tracked to the profitability of each brand. Which of the following costs should be tracked to the brand as an ABC method (check all that apply):

-New features (RD) -Material Costs -Production Costs

Employees designated as Service people will spend ___________ of their time servicing products and __________ of their time selling.

70%, 30%

In Calculating Total Performance on the Balanced Scorecard, a negative score in any category will result in....

A Total Performance Score of "0"

At the outset of your business, the single most important set of decisions your team will make involves defining your ____.

Strategic Direction

When a company is the first to bring new research and development (R&D) features to market in their brand designs:

That company's brand judgments will likely increase, and it may capture more market share

When designing ads, you have the option to claim your company has the "Highest rated" bike in any segment (Rec, Mtn, or Spd). Which of the following must be true in order to make this claim?

The brand must have been the highest rated in the corresponding segment (Rec, Mtn, Spd) in the previous quarter

At the end of Q1, you can expect to have negative profits (losses). This is because...

The company doesn't have any bikes to sell at the end of Q1

At the end of the 4th quarter, the company will be able to borrow money from the bank. The Line of Credit from the bank is a function of which of the following elements?

The equity of the firm minus any current debt

All of the following elements generate demand for your products EXCEPT:

The number of printers

The key to estimating demand for any given quarter is to estimate:

The number of units each sales person is likely to sell, multiplied by the number of sales people employed for that quarter

Hypothetical example (but your group can calculate these numbers for your team and universe): Your business analytics team member calculates that from Q2 to Q4, for every 1% decrease in price in Recreation bikes, the quantity sold increases by 8%, whereas every 1% decrease in price in speed bikes increases the quantity sold by only 1%. Thus, you could correctly state (select best answer):

The recreation bike segment has more elasticity in demand than speed bike segment.

If your team does not have a clear strategic direction established by Quarter 4, your team will probably not have an opportunity to catch up with the leading firms in the industry.

True

In Internet Marketing, the most relevant keywords to each of your target segments can be applied to both your paid advertising AND to your webpages.

True

In the Marketplace game, operating capacity takes into account worker productivity (i.e., loss due to not being 100% productive), thus in Q2 the operating capacity is lower than fixed capacity.

True

The maximum number of units your production facility can produce each day with perfect efficiency is called _____; whereas _____ determines the number units that needed based on demand and the number of workers to hire, and _________ is based on the productivity of workers.

fixed capacity; operating capacity, effective operating capacity

You have 27 total salespeople in your bricks and mortar stores. For two quarters, your salesforce productivity has remained at around 60 bikes per person. You get some market research data that leads you to believe that a competitor, who has only 21 salespeople is able to get them to sell 80 bikes per person. Your employee satisfaction score is 75.3 while theirs is 82.9. Which action below has the greatest possibly of increasing the productivity of your salespeople? (check all that apply):

Copy your competitor's elements of sales force compensation

The primary objective of the Brand Management effort in Marketplace is to...

Help you understand the relationship between the abstract benefits sought by customers and the physical components included in the brands designed by your firm.

Which statement below is NOT correct about overtime in the Marketplace simulation?

If demand falls below the available operating capacity, overtime will be used during a quarter.

Suppose that your team is struggling to generate demand each quarter. Which of the following actions is LEAST LIKELY to have a positive impact on generating demand?

Improve total compensation packages for production workers

In class last week, I showed you a company that planned in Q2 for about $400,000, BUT actual sales in Q2 were $82,000. All of the following reasons could explain this difference EXCEPT ONE CHOICE below

Prices too low

The best ads...

Prioritize content

You would prepare and use the ______________ to project the company's revenues, expenses, and funding requirements into the future.

Pro forma statements

If you invest in additional fixed capacity in Quarter 2, when will you be able to start using those new machines to produce additional bike units?

Quarter 3