...Marketing analysis of ABC Learning 1. Introduction ABC learning is an Australian company that is the world’s largest provider of early childhood education services before the failure. ABC learning was established in 1988 in Ashgrove, Brisbane, Queensland by Eddy Groves (ABC Learning Centres Australia, n.d.). It had 43 child-care centres in2001. In 2005 ABC rapidly expanded, reaching 697 childhood education centres in Australia. After the influence of the financial crisis the index dramatically decrease, the company had to facing bankrupt. In order to keep centres operating the government provide investment recently. In this report, I will discuss the reasons for success and ultimate failure of the company. Then answer some question. In the end, I will give some suggestions. 2. Analysis 2.1 analysis of environment Marketing environment is a significant factor that affects business. Marketing environment can bring threat to business. It would appear in many of the marketing environment issues which are unfavourable factors to corporate marketing activities. If enterprises do not take appropriate measures to avoid the risk, these factors will lead to difficulties in marketing, pose a threat. Environment also can make opportunities to business. For enterprises, environmental opportunities are an important foundation for developing business situation. Use PESTLE analysis; there were three aspects of environment factors that impacted on ABC in this case. The first is social...
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...historical interest rates Answer: A Page Ref: 3 Topic: Types of Decision Models Difficulty: Moderate 2) Which of the following variables is considered non-random or deterministic? A) next year's cash flow projections B) future interest rates C) last year's income D) projected value of the euro next week E) projected NASDAQ index Answer: C Page Ref: 2 Topic: Types of Decision Models Difficulty: Moderate 3) Determining how much the solution will change if there are changes in the input data is part of: A) model formulation B) model solution C) model interpretation D) model development E) model assessment Answer: C Page Ref: 7 Topic: Steps Involved in Decision Modeling Difficulty: Easy 4) If all the variables in a model are under the control of the decision maker, then the model is considered to be: A) probabilistic B) random C) mathematical D) schematic E) deterministic Answer: E Page Ref: 2 Topic: Types of Decision Models Difficulty: Easy 5) Which of the following models is a picture or drawing of reality? A) physical model B) schematic model C) scale model D) mathematical model E) analytical model Answer: B Page Ref: 6 Topic: Steps Involved in Decision Modeling Difficulty: Easy 6) Acquiring input data is part of: A) model solution B) model formulation C) model interpretation D) model testing E) model identification Answer: B Page Ref: 6 Topic: Steps Involved in Decision Modeling ...
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...injuries and violence. The teaching process requires interventions that address the repetitive behaviours, skill development, and play activities that promote communication and social interactions. Several authors have discussed different intervention models that are discussed in the sections below. Rita Jordan-Behavioural and Communication Intervention TEACCH Programme The programme is community based and targets children and adults with autism and communication disabilities. TEACCH aims at developing communication skills among autistic children, and help them work and play independently of adults (Jordan, Jones and Murray, 1998). The development of communication skills is based on their understanding capability and their ability to express themselves. The programme teaches several ways of communication, such as the use of photographs and pictures, symbols and words, and objects of reference. The programmes assist children with autism in their childhood and provide them with support in their adulthood. The trainers focus on the strengths and interests displayed by the students and also address the emerging skills. Part of the training involves interacting and engaging in learning activities with normally developing children (Jordan, Jones and Murray,...
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...Traditional cost allocationmethodologies in firms can provide misleading information about the profitability of products, product lines, customers, and markets. Activity Based Costing (ABC) attempts to create the big picture, crystal-clear, full, and accurate information in a firm. The following are some of best practices of ABC for a multinational firm: Phase One includes assessment phase that included project planning, team training, development of resource matrices, and coordination with MIS and quality assurance organizations within the company. Phase Two, an analysis phase, includes functional area interviews, identification of the scope of the detailed information needed, identification of activities and activity drivers, and establishment of a timetable for identifying data collection needs. Phase Three, the design phase, involves model building for resources, activities, and cost objects as well as confirming the results. Phase Four includes the implementation of the ABC methodology into the various operations and plants around the world. This included verification and validation of the model results, interfacing with the local MIS system, and institutionalizing a lessons learned approach for correcting and improving the ABC system. ABC is also a tool in the Activity Based Management (ABM) effort of the complete manufacturing process. ABM not only determines product costs more accurately but also determines capital/resource expenditure prioritization...
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...2001 DEVELOPING AND PROMOTING STRATEGY Activity-based Management – An Overview IN THIS BRIEFING… ctivity-based management and activity-based costing (ABM/ABC) have brought about radical change in cost management systems. ABM has grown largely out of the work of the Texas-based Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing-International (CAM-I). No longer is ABM’s applicability limited to manufacturing organisations. The principles and philosophies of activity-based thinking apply equally to service companies, government agencies and process industries. The acronym itself has evolved from ABC to ABCM (activity-based cost management) to ABM, and the application of ABC evolved from a manufacturing product costing orientation to a management philosophy of activity management applied in industries and organisations other than manufacturing. A Part 1 General FAQs Part 2 Practical guidance on implementing ABM ctivity-based costing and activity-based management have been around for more than fifteen years. Most forward-thinking companies have implemented them, or are in the process of doing so. A A A Part 3 Checklist Part 4 Further reading and bibliography BC is not a method of costing, but a technique for managing the organisation better. It is a one-off exercise which measures the cost and performance of activities, resources and the objects which consume them in order to generate more accurate and meaningful information for decision-making. ABM draws on ABC to provide...
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...Dear John, Thank you for choosing ABC Consulting as your financial business development expert. I enjoyed reading your business plan and will be happy to provide you with the advice requested to start forming your business. I have taken the liberty of viewing your LinkedIn profile and I see you have a long history of start-ups and acquisitions. Congratulations! As you are well aware, starting a business can be both fun and intimidating. The first thing we need to discuss is your options for investors as partners and venture capitalists. After a brief review of your portfolio, I believe you have a couple of strong options. Before moving forward, here is a list of basics to consider as we move forward. • Location • Name of the business • Community support (goes with name) • Register your fictitious name (DBA) • Obtain all permits needed to operate Next we need to look at the “type” of business model you are going to establish. With the business plan presented, I believe we should look at either a sole proprietorship or a Limited Liability Company (LLC). First option is to go forward with one partner as an LLC. The second option is go it alone, as a sole proprietorship. It is my firm belief that with your extensive background and business sense, you should take this project on with one investor and form an LLC. As with each model, there are advantages and disadvantages, but, both types of strategies fit your business model well. With an LLC, here are a few...
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...Wilkerson Company Analysis June 30th, 2014 1. If Wilkerson were to cut prices, based on contribution margin, to just cover short-term variable costs, what consequences could it experience? Contribution margin-based pricing attempts to maximize profit generated from the sale of each unit of product by maximizing the difference between that product’s price and variable costs, or contribution margin. Under this pricing strategy, only variable costs, which increase with a higher sales volume and decrease with a lower sales volume, are considered; fixed costs are assumed to be constant over a range of sales levels and are thereby not factored in when determining prices. Since Wilkerson manufactures and sells three different products, we can use a sales-mix approach break-even analysis to determine the effect that this strategy would have on the company’s sales. In our analysis, we have assumed constant fixed costs and sales mix. Using the predetermined sales mix (calculated by individual product sales as a percentage of total sales) presented in Wilkerson’s operating results and statistics, we are able to calculate a weighted combined contribution margin of 66.12% and fixed costs of $1,365,650 (shown above). This yields a break-even sales revenue of $1,365,650/66.12%=$2,065,387 (see below). Using the sales mix, we can calculate break-even sales units and sales revenue for each product: Based on the break-even operating results above, Wilkerson’s sales revenue will be...
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...For exclusive use at EDHEC - Business School, 2015 Harvard Business School 9-198-117 Rev. September 17, 1998 Classic Pen Company: Developing an ABC Model The Classic Pen Company Case Jane Dempsey, controller of the Classic Pen Company, was concerned about the recent financial trends in operating results. Classic Pen had been the low-cost producer of traditional BLUE pens and BLACK pens. Profit margins were over 20% of sales. Several years earlier Dennis Selmor, the sales manager, had seen opportunities to expand the business by extending the product line into new products that offered premium selling prices over traditional BLUE and BLACK pens. Five years earlier RED pens had been introduced, which required the same basic production technology but could be sold at a 3% premium. And last year PURPLE pens had been introduced because of the 10% premium in selling price they could command. But Dempsey had just seen the financial results (see Exhibit 1) for the most recent fiscal year and was keenly disappointed. The new RED and PURPLE pens do seen more profitable than our BLUE and BLACK pens, but overall profitability is down and even the new products are not earning the margins we used to see from our traditional products. Perhaps this is the tougher global competition I have been reading about. At least the new line, particularly PURPLE pens, is showing much higher margins. Perhaps we should follow Dennis’ advice and introduce even more specialty colored...
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...able to run regressions, do statistical testing, solve analytic models or whatever, but they often fail to demonstrate that they have thoroughly thought about their papers—in other words, when you push them about the implicit and explicit assumptions and implications of their research models, it appears that they haven’t really given these matters much thought at all.[1] Too often they fall back on saying that they are doing what they are doing because that is the way it is done in the prior literature, which is more of an excuse than a answer. (Of course, once a researcher reaches a certain age, they all feel that youngsters aren’t as good as they were in the good old days!) Therefore, in this class we shall go beyond simply studying research in managerial accounting. For many of you, this is your first introduction to accounting research and to PhD level class. Hence, in these classes we shall also learn how to solve business problems systematically and to understand what it means to have thoroughly “thought through” a paper. We begin not with academic research, but with some real world cases, because we should never forget that ours is an applied research field: accounting research is a means towards the end of understanding business and is not an end in itself, in the way pure science research is. Developing a systematic procedure for solving a real world business problem is the starting point for developing a...
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...Africa) Activity based costing (ABC) in the public sector: benefits and challenges Abstract Peter Drucker (1986), in “Management: Tasks, responsibilities, and practices” states that business enterprises and public-service institutions, are organs of society which do not exist for their own sake, but to fulfil a specific social purpose and to satisfy need of society, community, or individual. To achieve the above objectives, managers of these institutions must plan, control and make decisions about the resources entrusted to their care. A key element of efficient organizational decision making is to use reliable information, both operational and managerial accounting data for analysis and decision support. This can be achieved by using activity-based costing (ABC) method. The underlying premise of ABC is that resources are consumed by activities to produce outputs or products and services (US General Services Administration, 2006). It focuses on the allocation of indirect costs to products and services, which was traditionally done on arbitrary basis. ABC is useful in two situations: areas with large and growing indirect and support costs (Krumwiede, 1998a; Becker, Bergener and Räckers, 2010), and areas with a large variety in products, customers and processes (Cooper, 1988a, 1988b; Groot, 1999). The unique characteristic of public sector organizations as overhead-intensive service entities, therefore, is amenable to the use of ABC methodology (Becker, Bergener, and...
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...ABC Model of Crisis Intervention ABC Model of Crisis Intervention Introduction Every person ultimately experiences crisis moments that may differ in content but tend have specific shared characteristics. Usually, crisis entails loss, threat, as well as the unexpected. There have been various theoretical techniques provided for assisting those functioning through crisis. Generally, the most effectual techniques tend to follow a short therapeutic model which stresses the episode isolated from other problems and seeks an action plan to mitigate the crisis. The ABC model provides a useful instrument to enhance the counseling procedure. “A” stands for basic attending skills, “B” stands for the identification of problem and healing intervention, while “C” represents coping skills (Grice, 2010). This paper employs the ABC model to attend, indentify, intervene and assist in coping in Jones crisis. ABC Model of Crisis Intervention The case study involve a report from Mr. John who claims that his neighbor who they have been sharing coffee and chats has stayed for about two months without being seen outside the house. According to Mr. John, his neighbor Mr. Jones failed to turn up for their usual morning coffee in the neighboring restaurant, since his son started coming on daily basis to check on him. The last time when Mr. John saw him, Mr. Jones had bruise on his face and Mr. John feels that something is amiss. With this regard he decided to report the matter to crisis workers...
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...John Deere Component Works Gears And Special Products Division : Application of ABC information From ABC study on Turning Operations Team 4 Consultants 5/20/2011 Paul Cusack Brian Goh Robert Fletcher Lynn Chen Shayne Dube 2 1.0 Executive Summary Gears and Special Products Division is one of three divisions under John Deere Component Works. The division has been conducting a study on replacing their current traditional cost system with an activity based costing system. The study, which is centered around turning machine operations, indicates that implementing the ABC system across JDCW will allow operations to run more smoothly and efficiently. However implementing the ABC system alone will not yield the full benefit from the system. Management in the GSP division must utilize the data to make decisions that will result in cost reductions and better product pricing. Therefore we recommend for GSP management to utilize the data from ABC to : 1) Implement layout changes to enjoy cost reductions through activity elimination 2) Improved process planning and cell arrangements to enjoy cost reductions through efficiency 3) Analyze product mix for efficient manufacturing Additionally, we recommend GSP to utilize ABC data to prepare more accurate and competitive bid prices and to extend the ABC system to other operations and to the Hydraulics and Drive Train Divisions. 3 Contents 1.0 Executive Summary 2 2.0 Introduction 4 3.0 Layout Changes 5 3.1 Process Planning...
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...Raytheon: An International Firm Raymond C. Branham Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Managerial Accounting for Decision Making (MBAA 517) Dr. Mark Bellnap December 1, 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 3 Raytheon: An International Firm 4 Section I 4 Goods and Services, Market Share, Geographic Locations, and Major Competitors 4 Section II 5 Activity Based Costing at Raytheon 5 Section III 8 Standard Costs at Raytheon 8 Section IV 14 Relevant Costs at Raytheon 14 Section V 16 Summary, Conclusion, and Recommendations 16 References 18 Appendix 19 Abstract In today’s hectic economic environment, a company’s financial performance is becoming a highly focused upon part of successfully running a company in America and throughout the World. Equally important, is the ability to address accounting matters in this environment. At Raytheon, it is the task of each function within the company to consider each and every accounting aspect, because their customers are all over the world and each one of those customers approaches financial matters in unique ways. For Raytheon to maintain its success, it is imperative for each employee to understand how to manage these accounting aspects. The lack of accounting knowledge and specifically, each unique accounting approach, and how to execute each approach is why there is a huge problem with finances in corporate America today. Many organizations have altered their approach to this issue, but Raytheon has stood...
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...improving customer satisfaction is the key. Many organizations should always look into developing a research study to continue to improve its customer satisfaction. The research study uses feedback from the focus group and customer satisfaction surveys. The purpose of the survey is to close the gap between the organization and its consumers. An important question to ask is “How satisfied are the customers?” The business has to understand what is important to the consumer. The research study focuses on who, what, when, and where. Improving customer service sends a message to the customer of respect and appreciation of his or her business, and the business it focused on staying abreast to his or her needs. ABC auto manufacturer has been successful for the past 80 years. Unfortunately, as the years progressed the average age of its customers has been more than 50 since 1990, and logic dictates that the consumer base organically will shrink. ABC autos are high-end with an average cost in excess of $50,000. ABC auto Management has decided the target market for this automobile will be adults in the age range of 35 to 45 years if ABC will survive. The next step for ABC is to create a business research plan to accomplish its goals. Management needs to formulate a plan to attract customers in the age range of 35 to 50 to expand its customer basis and increase profits. ABC has modified the physical design and performance attributes of its automobile lineup...
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...ABC learning a CSR Dilemma Synopsis ABC Learning was an Australian provider of early child hood education services, founded in Queensland in 1988. Through its 18 child care centres it was the largest almost monopolistic single operator of early childhood education services in Australia by 1997. Led by founder and CEO Eddy Groves, ABC Learning continued to grow, by opening new centres and the acquisitions of competitors both locally and internationally. The company experienced a significant drop in their share price in 2008. Trading in the company shares was suspended in early 2008, closely followed by the company going into receivership in November of 2008. This essay will examine ABC Learning and assess the impact of the company’s corporate social responsibility policy or lack thereof and how this contributed to their spectacular collapse. Particular attention will be concentrating on the ethical internal running of the company’s corporate structure and executive leadership, focussing in particular on Eddy Groves’ poor decision making, creative accounting and resulting organisational culture. Dahlberg & Moss (2005) claim that ethics is a practical matter which involves thinking about every day actions and decisions either individually or collectively and then responding with respect for all concerned. When values underpin our responses and choices, ethics is at work. In some instances our decision making can be hindered because there...
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