Graded Homework

MGMT530
Week 1 Case Analysis Problem Definition Latest 2018 May

• Read the Conference Decision
  Case on the Case Analysis page for this week.
• Define the decision problem for
  the Conference Decision Case.

As part of defining the problem, the following
questions should be addressed.

• What is the general nature of
  the problem?
• What event triggered the
  situation?
• Are we imposing any constraints
  on the situation?
• What are the underlying
  elements of the problem?
• Are there dependencies on other
  decisions?
• Submit your definition of the
  problem in a MS Word document.

MGMT530
Week 2 Case Analysis Objectives and Alternatives 2018 May

In less than two weeks, an accounting system user’s conference is
scheduled to be held in New Orleans, Louisiana on September 13–16, 2005.
Unfortunately, Hurricane Katrina has struck the city leaving a wake of destruction.
Based on what you see on television, the hotel and the city cannot possibly
accommodate this or any conference for the foreseeable future.

Approximately 200 attendees are scheduled to attend, flying in
from all over the country. All attendees pre-paid their registration fee for
the conference.

With a lot of competition in the marketplace, getting the users to
participate in the annual user’s conference is critical to retain current
customers. During the conference, several product enhancement ideas are
developed by the users, and this input is often used in future releases of the
product.

Potential new customers are invited to the event and their
involvement often leads to securing new contracts for the accounting system as
they gain confidence in the system seeing others use it.

As head of the group that puts on the conference, you are faced
with making a determination of what to do with this year’s conference. You are
getting calls from the registered attendees asking what to do.

Senior management feels that the conference is critical to ensure
continued customer engagement and fears that cancelling the conference
altogether, the company will lose the momentum it has developed over the past
few years.

Other considerations:

Keeping the original dates and moving to a different city may
drastically increase costs due to the short advanced notice. Will people cancel
because of the higher hotel costs?

If the date is changed, will the speakers and attendees still be
able to attend?

Having worked with the local Convention & Visitor’s Bureau and
the hotel, you worry about how their businesses will survive with all of this
destruction and wonder what you can do to help.

Using the same information from last week’s Case Analysis, build
on the work you did last week by identifying the following.

Define the objectives for the Conference Decision Case. The
objectives should be separated into fundamental and means objectives.

Identify the alternatives for the case.

MGMT530
Week 3 Case Analysis Problem Definition Latest 2018 May

Two weeks after New Orleans was devastated by
Hurricane Katrina, you made the decision to postpone the conference and select
a different city to hold the conference. Based on your initial objectives and a
survey you took of the registered attendees, you created the following
consequence table based on the information available.

	ALTERNATIVES
Cancel conference for this year—schedule for next year	Keep in New Orleans, but schedule for a later date (when the hotels re-open)	Keep same dates, but move to another city	Move to another city and schedule for a later date
OBJECTIVES	Maximize attendance	Does not meet objective.Senior management stated that cancelling is not an option.	Does not meet objective.Uncertainty on when New Orleans will be back in business is too far off.	Does not meet objective.Cost and logistics of finding a new location and getting attendees to change flights with such short notice is cost prohibitive.	Meets objective.In a survey of attendees, they would be willing to look at a new date in October and were most interested in Las Vegas, Chicago, or New York as alternative sites.
Keep conference costs at current level	Does not meet objective.Refunding registration fees would cause a loss for conference.	Does not meet objective.Because of uncertainty with city, the registration fees would need to be refunded.	Does not meet objective.Conference would lose money and incur additional costs for last minute scheduling.	Meets objective.A preliminary survey shows that costs would be similar to current budget.

From the survey, you found out that the
attendees were willing to still come to the conference and suggested three
cities as possible new locations for this year’s event.

1. Chicago
2. Las Vegas
3. New York City

As you move forward in locating available hotels
and conference facilities, you formulate the following objectives to select
which cities will be best to hold the rescheduled conference.

• Airfare (the estimated average
  round trip cost of the attendees)
• Hotel Room Rate (the nightly
  rate the attendees will pay during the conference)
• Conference Costs (the costs you
  will incur for meeting facilities, reception, registration, etc.)
• Survey Response (you want to
  factor in how the cities were ranked based on the survey you conducted.)

Because the budget is tight, you feel that the
Conference Cost objective is twice as important as the other three objectives.

Based on your research, here is the information
you gathered on the cities the user group was interested in.

New Orleans(Not applicable, but used to compare
original costs of conference)

Average Airfare:	$300 to $400 (Round trip cost per person)
Hotel Room Rate:	$149.00 (Conference rate per room per night)
Conference Costs:	$16,000 (Meeting rooms, reception, refreshments, registration materials, etc.)
Survey Rank	Not Applicable

Chicago

Average Airfare:	$200 to $300 (Round trip cost per person)
Hotel Room Rate:	$149.00 (Conference rate per room per night)
Conference Costs:	$25,000 (Meeting rooms, reception, refreshments, registration materials, etc.)
Survey Rank	1

New York

Average Airfare:	$300 to $400 (Round trip cost per person)
Hotel Room Rate:	$349.00 (Conference rate per room per night)
Conference Costs:	$20,000 (Meeting rooms, reception, refreshments, registration materials, etc.)
Survey Rank	2

Las Vegas

Average Airfare:	$200 to $300 (Round trip cost per person)
Hotel Room Rate:	$169.00 (Conference rate per room per night)
Conference Costs:	$15,000 (Meeting rooms, reception, refreshments, registration materials, etc.)
Survey Rank	3

MGMT530 – Conference Decision Case, Part 2

Using this information, create the following.

• A consequence table
• A weighted scoring model

Are there any dominated alternatives that can be
eliminated? Are there any even swaps?

For additional resources pertaining to this
assignment, please review the Building a Weighted Scoring Model Video found
under the Week 3 Lecture Tab and the Conference Decision Case, Part 2 Video
below. A weighted scoring example is located in Files under the name Sample
Decision Problem.

MGMT530
Week 5 Case Analysis Uncertainties and Risk Latest 2018 May

INTRODUCTION

In January 2010, the island nation of Haiti was devastated by an
earthquake.

Royal Caribbean International, a major cruise line, owns a private
beach in Haiti, which is typically a port of call on several of their Caribbean
cruise itineraries. The private port, known as Labadee, is about 80 miles away
from Port au Prince. The beach was unaffected by the quake.

In the days following the earthquake, the company wrestled with
several issues as they determined whether to continue to stop in Labadee or
temporarily abandon the port of call.

Their objectives would be to 1) ensure guest satisfaction; 2)
protect the brand; and 3) maximize profitability.

Some of the consequences they considered as they tried to
determine whether the cruise line should continue to make a stop in Haiti in
the midst of this crisis are as follows.

• Will
  cruise passengers be interested in relaxing on a beach when hundreds of
  thousands are homeless and hungry just 80 miles away? Could this impact
  new reservations or cause people to cancel? Based on research and
  consulting with others, you believe there will be minimal impact.

• Because
  the community near the beach depends financially on the cruise line for
  income, would suspending the stop in Haiti make the country worse off?
  Based on your analysis, there is a high likelihood that the area would be
  negatively impacted if the line pulled out of Labadee.

• How
  would the media respond? Would they get bad press for continuing to stop
  in Haiti and be perceived as profiting in the midst of this tragedy, or
  will the public perception be worse if they suspend sailing to Haiti
  during this crisis? You determine that there is a higher chance that the
  company would get bad press if the company suspended services than if they
  continued to include it on itineraries.

MGMT530 – Labadee Decision

Using a risk profile such as the one below, define the
uncertainties and make the recommendation for a decision for the Labadee Case.

For additional resources pertaining to this assignment, please
review the How to Draw a Simple Decision Tree Video found in the Week 5 Lesson,
the Developing a Decision Tree Video found in the Week 4 Lesson, and the
Labadee Decision Video below.

MGMT530
–Labadee Decision

Week
5 Case Analysis Template

The
objectives for the assignment were to define the uncertainties using a risk
profile and make the recommendation for a decision for the Labadee Case.

Students
will have a wide variety of responses based on the limited information provided
in the case.

Risk
Profile

Uncertainty 1: List
Outcome:	Chance	Consequences:
Uncertainty 2: List
Outcome:	Chance	Consequences:
Uncertainty 3: List
Outcome:	Chance	Consequences:

Decision Recommendation

Decision Recommendation
Alternative Recommended	Summary Rationale