Decisions for Quarter One and Quarterly Business Review

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

Part I: Decisions for Quarter One. Prior to working on your Decisions for Quarter One, review the following through the Growing Your Business simulation, the “Suggestions for Quarter 1” pop-up screen, any Quarter One Internal Emails and/or Memos, and watch the Preparing Your Financial Commitments video. 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.  Additionally, read Turning bean counters into difference makers: How corporate finance is changing with the times, Why financial dashboards matter, and Five pointers to get you started, and What are your financial statements telling you.
The Decisions for Quarter One 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.1?
    • Consider in the R&D Projects (other than Project 2, for which you may want to complete funding in Qtr.1)?
• 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 One Budget Plan.
  • Periodically, as you modify inputs to 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 One Decisions prior to moving on this week’s Quarterly Business Review assignment.

Part II: First Quarter Quarterly Business Review (QBR). You must submit your Quarter One Decisions prior to moving on this week’s Quarterly Business Review assignment. Prior to beginning work on the First Quarter Quarterly Business Review, review the following through the Growing Your Business simulation, the Variance Analysis video and the content from the Suggestions for Quarter Two Decisions pop-up. The video will provide you with a variety of financial tools, routinely used in Financial Planning & Analysis, for planning, meeting commitments and growth purposes. These are tools any business leader, regardless of function, needs to have a working knowledge.   Real world examples will be presented throughout the simulation. You can always re-watch the Variance Analysis video in the Supplementary Review Materials in the Help section. In addition, there is a TRI Corp Critical Equation in PDF format that can also be found in the same section. Additionally, read Turning bean counters into difference makers: How corporate finance is changing with the times, Why financial dashboards matter, and Five pointers to get you started, and What are your financial statements telling you.
With the completion of Q1 you are responsible for completing your first Quarterly Business Review (QBR).  This is a qualitative and quantitative summary of your competitive performance for Q1. 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.
The 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
    • Review the How to Read the Cash Flow Walk Chart document
  • 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.)
• 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.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.
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Essay Question: You’re a consultant for a client who has requested a strategic analysis for their firm. You now face a difficult situation as you’re beginning to finalize your analysis. It so happens that as a result of the SWOT Matrix exercise the firm has identified three potential strategies, which seem to be Aggressive strategies (mostly: backward, forward, horizontal integration). However, as you look at the results of your SPACE Matrix, your vector falls on the Conservative quadrant. And then to make things really confusing, your IE Matrix analysis has the firm in Quadrant VI. What could be causing the discrepancies? And how do you reconcile the different signals or indications in your different strategic “dials” or tools? Provide a step-by-step account of what you would do to reconcile the differences.
Please use the second (and third) page of the Answer Sheet for your response in at least three well-constructed paragraphs. Your answer should take up at least 2/3 of a page.