Assignment:
Answer the following questions:
Question 1) In your own words, what does it mean to perform a situation analysis of a company? What types of company information would you review in order to gain this understanding? Where specifically would you search to find each type of information? How does the understanding you gain from the situation analysis influence problem solving and decision making?
Question 2) Evaluate the following problem statement - "Apple needs to improve their employee performance evaluation systems." Does it meet the criteria we discussed in class? Why or why not? Create an example showing how you would improve the Apple problem statement so that it meets all of the criteria?
Question 3) What is cognitive bias and how might it impact business decisionmaking and problem solving? Define one specific type of cognitive bias and explain it thoroughly. Give an example (hypothetical is fine but if you can offer a real example, even better) of how that bias might result in a poor decision.
Question 4) What does it mean to perform a root cause analysis? In general, how would you go about conducting one? Why is this process important in the context of business problem solving?
Question 5) What kind of information can you find at webwire.com/industries.asp? What kind of information at
webwire.com/industrylist.asp
(be careful - these are 2 separate web addresses)? How could the webwire site be useful in your research for BA 301?
Question 6) Find a Mintel marketing report for Tires from November 2015. Locate the Market Size and Forecast section of the report. What happened to US retail sales of consumer passenger and light truck tires in 2015 compared to 2014(non-inflation adjusted)? Compared to 2010?
Question 7) Looking at the sales forecast for coming years, what does the Mintel report above project the 2020total retail sales of passenger tires in the US (non-inflation adjusted) to be? What is the best case? The worst case?
If you were performing a situation analysis of a company in this industry, how might this information (along with the information in #5) be useful for your paper?
Question 8) In class we discussed several different tools which can be used to evaluate alternative solutions to a problem in order to select the "best" of those alternatives. During this discussion I stated that, regardless of which evaluation tool you are using, the first step of your evaluation is the same.What is this step and why is it step so important? How does this relate to our discussion of logical vs intuitive decision making? Can you describe how cognitive biases might enter into this?
Question 9) What is the purpose of a weighted decision matrix? How do you prepare one and how do you interpret the results? How might a matrix be useful in a business situation?
Question 10) What is the purpose of a cost benefit analysis? How do you prepare one and interpret the results? What is the critical first step in preparing a CBA and why is that step so important? What do we mean by tangible and intangible costs and benefits? How is a CBA different from a weighted decision matrix?