BUS687 Week 4 – Assignment

Decisions for Quarter Three and Third Quarter Quarterly Business Review (QBR)

[WLOs: 4] [CLOs: 1, 3, 4]

Part I: Decisions for Quarter Three. Prior to beginning work on the Decisions for Quarter Three, carefully review the content found in the “Suggestions for Quarter 3” pop-up screen and read any Quarter Three Internal Emails and/or Memos available through your Growing Your Business simulation. The pop-up will be available at the lower left (Blue Guidelines) of the Executive Summary Decisions Tab and the video, emails, and memos can be re-accessed through the Help section.

In your Growing Your Business simulation,

· Evaluate quantitative and qualitative techniques for business analysis and decision-making.

· Utilize tools from finance, marketing, information technology and human resources management to manage the profitability of overall business operations specific to Quarter 3.

· Create specific business tactics to achieve organizational survival and growth.]

The Decisions for Quarter Three Assignment

· Must be completed through the Growing Your Business simulation.

· Consider the following questions as you prepare your annual budget/plan (if the answer is “No” to any of the questions you may be at a Competitive Disadvantage and lack critical information to draw inference from):

· Did you

· Request/purchase the Marketing Report and Business Intelligence Dashboard (BID)?

· Utilize the 3 available role plays for Qtr.3?

· Consider in the R&D Projects?

· Must use the Role Play

· It is critical you read the details of the role play very carefully and any questions should immediately be referred to the Help Desk.

· You can gain differentiated competitive advantage through effective use of the role play.

· Some role players only provide qualitative information, while others provide the ability to negotiate with quantitatively.

· The role play is a scarce resource because of the limited number of calls per quarter.

· Must submit your Quarter Three Budget Plan.

· Must not have a short-range outlook over the credit limit.

· Periodically, as you modify inputs, use the “Model My Plan” at the lower right to see the impact of your decisions on the Financial Metrics.

· Input your financial decision and then click on the blue Submit My SRO button on the bottom right of the Quarterly Decisions screen.

· You must submit your Quarter Three Decisions prior to moving on this week’s Quarterly Business Review assignment.

Part II: Third Quarter Quarterly Business Review (QBR). Due by Day 7. You must submit your Quarter Three Decisions prior to moving on this week’s Quarterly Business Review assignment. Prior to beginning work on the Third Quarter Quarterly Business Review, review the following content from the Growing Your Business Simulation, the Suggestions for Quarter Three Decisions pop-up and your Business Intelligence Dashboard. The graphics in the dashboard should provide you with the trends (that is the time series data is growing) in data to critically analyze your competitors for the first two quarters their positions for the longer term.

With the completion of Quarter Three, you are responsible for completing your third Quarterly Business Review (QBR).  This is a qualitative and quantitative summary of your competitive performance for Quarter Three. Business reviews (or Operational Reviews) are a routine part of annual corporate activities and are very cross-functional in nature.  A major component of a QBR is around meeting commitments that are embedded in your budgetary planning process. Meeting commitments are seen explicitly in your Variances. These learnings are designed to enhance your performance in future Quarters.

In your Growing Your Business simulation,

· Evaluate quantitative and qualitative techniques for business analysis and decision-making.

· Assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with the corporate strategy & policy process.

· Utilize tools from finance, marketing, information technology and human resources management to manage the profitability of overall business operations.

· Create specific business tactics to achieve organizational survival and growth.

The Third Quarter Quarterly Business Review Assignment

· Must be completed through the Growing Your Business simulation.

· After logging in, go to the Quarterly Decisions tab on the top right of the simulation site and then click on the Executive Summary tab to access the Quarterly Business Review section.

· Must be completed and submitted using all of the data provided including

· Quarterly Pre-Tax Net Income relative to Plan for the Quarter

· Review the Pre-Tax Net Income Chart Explanation  document

· Cash Flow walk

· Pre-tax Net Income in Plan

· Must show that Hisco is on track to Meet/Exceed its Annual Net Income Commitment through an evaluation of both quantitative and qualitative techniques for business analysis and decision making.

· Must create specific business tactics to achieve organizational survival and growth.

· After completing, check the box and submit in the lower right.

· After completing the simulation, students must save the provided pdf from the pdf found within the Executive Summary tab of the Quarterly Decisions page and submit it through Waypoint. Verify your submission was successful.

· To access the PDF for submission, click on the QTRLY Decisions tab from the simulation home page and then go to the Executive Summary tab. Within the Executive Summary page, you will find a Download link associated with each quarterly decision you completed.

· Remember, you will be receiving feedback on your QBR each quarter. You should review the feedback prior to submitting next quarter’s decisions, as there may be some critical learning that can help your performance in the next quarter.

· Must use scholarly sources in addition to the course text.

· The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.

· Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) guide.

· Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.

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Scenario

As a director of leadership and learning, you collaborate with many different employees throughout the prosthetics manufacturing organization you work for. You were recently contacted by Eduardo, who was promoted from an individual contributor to a manager four months ago. Eduardo is seeking your advice on developing his leadership style after receiving his first quarterly review from his supervisor.

The following are the key takeaways from your conversation with Eduardo:

“I’ve been told that I am extremely intelligent and typically get to solutions before others. However, this can lead me toward moving too quickly to implementing a solution when the organization is two steps behind. I was cautioned that this can create a disconnect with my team. I’m told to focus on working alongside my team to better empower them. However, I get frustrated with the lack of responsiveness from the organization and my team. My supervisor says this can create insecurity and frustration, with people feeling they cannot live up to my expectations.”

After your meeting with Eduardo, you follow up with his supervisor to gain additional insight. This was their feedback:

“Eduardo does not leverage his team to create the desired vision. Because he is intelligent and gets to answers faster than most, he loses patience and decides to do all the work himself. By doing so, he misses out on the input of others and fails to garner support for the vision. When he becomes quickly entrenched in his position, he often ignores valid input and alternative points of view.”

“Eduardo thinks he knows best and hence may not always listen to others. Nor does he inspire confidence in his team. As a result, his ‘professional arrogance’ creates more of a dictatorial leadership style, which in turn produces adversarial relationships internally (Eduardo versus everyone). I am concerned that over time this outcome will also spread to external partners. In the end, we will continue to lose talent, which will eventually impact business performance.”

Since the vice president of leadership and learning has asked you to create an adaptive leadership toolkit, these conversations are extremely valuable because they provide specific insight into areas of leadership that can be improved across the organization. Some of the strategies that you recommend for Eduardo’s situation can be used to help inform the improvement of leadership skills throughout the prosthetics manufacturing organization.

Prompt

Given the case as described, provide an analysis of Eduardo’s situation as it currently exists and recommend steps he can take to help transform his leadership style.

Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:

1. Define the following leadership skills and explain why Eduardo should focus on developing each of these:
   • Strategic thinking
   • Emotional intelligence
   • Communication skills
2. Describe two actionable steps Eduardo should take towards developing these leadership skills and explain how each step might help improve his situation.
3. Explain how Eduardo can utilize the flywheel effect to transform his leadership style and identify the tasks he should perform to promote gradual improvement that provides tangible evidence his strategy is yielding results. Support your response.

Guidelines for Submission

Submit a Word document using double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch margins. This assignment must be 2 to 4 pages in length and include references cited in APA format. Consult the Shapiro Library APA Style Guide for more information on citations.

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