Which of the following combinations of actions will likely provide the LEAST competitive benefits in helping a company catch the eye of action camera shoppers, significantly boost overall buyer appeal for its cameras versus rival brands. and cause more camera shoppers to purchase its brand instead of rival brands in each of the four geographic regions?

A. Boosting the number of weekly sales promotion from 4 to 7 in all four regions and also increasing the percentage discounts to camera retailers during these promotions from 11% to 15%

B. Boosting its P/Q rating from 5.5 stars to 6.3 stars and increasing spending for advertising from levels that are $1,000,000 above the prior-year regional averages to levels about $3,000,000 above the prior-year regional averages in all four geographic regions.

C. Boosting spending for retailer support by $500,000 in all four geographic regions and instituting $7 reductions in the average wholesale pnces charged to camera retailers in each geographic region

D. Increasing the warranty period from 90 days in each region to 180 days in each region and increasing the number of camera models from 4 to 6

E. Increasing expenditures for website product displays/info $100,000 in all four regions and increasing advertising expenditures by $250,000 in all four regions.

Which one of the following actions helps boost a company's image rating/brand reputation?​

A. Using environmentally friendly camera components and recycled materials for manuals and packaging for the company's action cameras

B. Increasing the P/Q rating of the company's UAV drones

C. Paying camera/drone PAT members attractively high total annual compensation packages, thereby enabling them to enjoy a standard of living well above the Taiwan average

D. Making it standard practice for the company to offer all buyers of its camera and drones a full 1-year warranty

E. Charging camera retailers an average wholesale price that is typically 10% or more below the highest price being charged in the region

Which one of the following is NEITHER an advantage or disadvantage of shifting to robotics-assisted camera assembly methods?

A. Robot-assisted camera assembly increases annual workstation maintenance costs

B. The capital cost of converting to robot-assisted camera assembly can increase a company's interest costs, to the extent that a portion of the capital costs are financed by bank loans.

C. Robot-assisted camera assembly boosts the annual productivity of camera PATs by 500 cameras per year

D. Installing robots at each- camera workstation enables the size of PATs to be cut from 4 members to 3 members

E. Robot-assisted assembly reduces total annual compensation costs per PAT and also reduces the overtime cost of assembling a camera.

Which of the following is not an action company co-managers should seriously consider in trying to improve the company’s credit rating? You may wish to consult the discussion of the credit rating that appears on the Help screen for the Comparative Financial Performance page of the GSR in answering this question.
Reduce dividends and use the cash saved from lower dividend payments to pay down the loans outstanding on the company’s line of credit
Repurchase shares of the company’s stock and/or cut prices to the bone
Issue additional shares of stock and use the proceeds to pay down the loans on the company’s line of credit
Strive to increase net income, which should help increase the company’s free cash flow (bigger free cash flows lower the number of years it takes to pay back the loans outstanding on the company’s line of credit)
Strive to boost operating profits (higher operating profits boost the company’s times interest earned ratio)

Which of the following is NOT an action that can help boost a company's credit rating? In answering this question, you may wish to consult the Help section for page 5 of the Camera & Drone Journal and read the discussion pertaining to The Credit Rating Measures "

A. Put increased attention on boosting operating profits and operating profit margins in all four geographic regions -- the resulting growth in operating profits companywide will increase the company's interest coverage ratio

B. Pay off any 1-year loans (and temporarily avoid the use of 1-year loans) because 1-year loans are considered a current liability and thus reduce the company's current ratio

C. Temporarily reduce dividend payments to shareholders and use the cash saved from lower dividend payments to pay down 5-year and 10-year loans

D. Issue additional shares of stock and use the proceeds to pay down 5-year and 10-year loans

E. Repurchase shares of the company's common stock to enhance the company's debt-to-equity percentages

Which of the following is NOT an action company co-managers can take to help meet or beat the investor-expected increases in the company's stock price in upcoming years?

A. Putting increased attention on boosting operating profits in all four geographic regions -- the resulting growth in operating profits companywide will act to increase total net profits and EPS. higher earnings per share are an important driver of the company's stock price

B.  Making it a frequent management practice to allocate a portion of internal cash flows from operations to repurchasing shares of the company's common stock

C.  Increasing annual dividend payments to shareholders most every year

D.  Making it company practice to issue additional shares of stock each year and use the proceeds to pay down the debt outstanding until the company's debt-equity percentages reach 20% or lower for debt and 80% or more for equity

E. When the company's stock price drops because of unexpectedly weak company performance in the prior year but is expected to recover and rise in the next several decision rounds, opting to borrow money preferably in the form of 1-year loans from the Global Community Bank (but not so much as to impair the company's credit rating) and using the borrowed funds to repurchase outstanding shares of common stock

Which one of the following represent the MOST important/helpful results from the latest decision round that company managers need to review/study in order to guide their strategic moves and decisions to improve their company's competitiveness and overall company performance in the upcoming decision round?

A. The company's Income Statement on p. 4 of the Company Operating Report.

B. The comparative competitive efforts of rival companies in each geographic region that are found in Competitive Intelligence Report

C. The Industry Overview information on p 4 of the Camera & Drone Journal.

D. Each company's performance on EPS. ROE. stock price, credit rating and image rating displayed on pages 2 and 3 of the Camera & Drone Journal

E. The Industry Scoreboard data on p.1 of the Camera & Drone Journal.

Which one of the following is NOT an attractive way to reduce the design, assembly, marketing, and other costs per action-capture camera sold in an effort to achieve a sizable low-cost competitive advantage over rivals?

A. Spending aggressively (but also taking care not to overspend) on camera product R&D

B. Paying PAT members an attractive assembly quality incentive to help reduce warranty claims on cameras sold and also boost PAT productivity

C. Striving to keeping marketing costs per camera sold in all 4 geographic regions sold to levels that are below the industry-average benchmark and better still close to the industry-low benchmark (as reported on p. 6 of the Camera& Drone Journal)

D. Trying different combinations of components, product enhancements. and extra performance features to be used in action cameras in order to discover the lowest cost combination for achieving a competitively appealing P/Q rating

E. Doing whatever it takes to entirely avoid any use of overtime in assembling cameras because paying PAT members 1.5 times the hourly base wage to assemble cameras at overtime is much too expensive.

Which of the following is NOT an action company co-managers can take that has good potential for increasing the company's average ROE and helping the company meet or beat the investor-expected ROE targets in upcoming years?

A. Using a portion of the company's internal cash flows from operations for the next several years to repurchase shares of common stock

B. Increasing annual dividend payments to shareholders (because all net profits not paid out as dividends are treated as retained earnings and because bigger retained earnings have the effect of increasing shareholder equity)

C. Borrowing money from the Global Community Bank (preferably in the form of a 1-year loan that can be fully or mostly repaid the following year) and using the proceeds to repurchase outstanding shares of common stock; such actions make considerable financial sense when the company's stock price is expected to rise substantially in future years and/or when unexpectedly weak company performance in the prior year causes a drop in its stock price.   

D. Pursuing efforts to boost total operating profits in all four geographic regions -- the resulting growth in operating profits companywide will increase total net profits (a company's net profits are the numerator in calculating the company's ROE)

E. Paying a small annual dividend to shareholders (less than $0.50 per share) which is increased annually by about $0.05 per shares; a small but growing dividend provides the company with more cash to fund capital expenditures and/or pay down bank borrowings ahead of schedule

If your company earns an ROE of 20% at a time when the investor -expected ROE target is 25% and if the instructor-determined weight for achieving the ROE target is worth 20 points, then your company's ROE score on the Investor Expectations scoring standard will be

A. 18 points

B. 16 points (80% of the 20 points awarded for meeting the ROE target)

C. 15 (75% of the 20 points awarded for meeting the ROE target)

D. 20 points (1 point for each 1% the company earned on total shareholders' equity)

E. 17 points

The website prices virtually all companies in the industry charge Asia-Pacific buyers for UAV drones are likely to be higher than the website prices they charge UAV drone buyers in North America

A. Because the administrative costs per drone sold that companies incur on sales to buyers in the Asia-Pacific region are over $10 higher than those incurred on sales to buyers in North America.

B. Because the corporate profits taxes that all companies have to pay to governments in the Asia-Pacific region are 35% higher on average than the corporate profits companies have to pay governments in North America.

C. Because unfavorable exchange rate adjustments are consistently $10 to $30 higher on sales to buyers in the Asia-Pacific region than for buyers in North America.

D. When the import duties on shipments of UAV drones to buyers in the Asia-Pacific region are significantly bigger than the import duties on shipments of UAV drones to buyers in North America.

E. Because the production/assembly costs per drone that companies incur on UAV drones shipped to the Asia-Pacific region are many dollars higher than production/assembly costs per drone shipped to North America.

The industry-low, industry-average, and industry-high cost benchmarks that appear on p. 6 of each issue of the Footwear Industry Report

            are worth careful scrutiny by the managers of all companies because when the benchmarking data signals that a company's costs for one or more of the benchmarks are out-of-line, managers are well advised to take corrective action in the next decision round.

            are of value only to the managers of companies having negative operating profit per pair sold in one of more geographic regions.

            are of considerable value to the managers of companies pursuing a low-cost strategy but are of very limited value to company managers employing other types of strategies.

            are of little value because the benchmarking data do not identify which companies have the lowest/highest costs for any of these cost benchmarks.

            are most valuable to the managers of companies whose cost benchmarks are above the industry average and/or who are looking for evidence to confirm the need to substantially increase their efforts to secure celebrity endorsements in the upcoming decision round in order to help take branded market share away from rivals.

A company's managers sholud give serious consideration to changing from a low-cost low price startegy for action cameras to a different startegy in the 4 regional markets for action cameras when?

Actions that can lead to higher labor productivity assembling cameras/drones do NOT includes ?

Which of the following is NOT an action that can help boost a company;s credit rating? in answering this question, you may wish to consult the help section for page 5 of the cameras $ Drone journal and read the discussion pertaining to "The Credit Rating Measures"

Which one of the following actions helps boost a company's image rating/brand reputation?

Which one of the following is NOT  a way to improve the P/Q rating of a company's brand of action-capture cameras?

If a company adds 60 new workstations at a cost of $75,000 each and also spends $20 million for addition space in its camera/drone assembly facilities to accommodate more workstations, then its annual depreciation costs will rise by

$1,750,000

$3,500,000

$980,000

$1,225,000

$24,500,000

If a company pays each camera PAT member a base wage of $21,000, thereby resulting in base wage of $84,000 per 4-person PAT,and if camera PATs work an average of 2,000 hours per year to assemble 3,000 cameras annually, it follows that

Which one of the following represent the MOST important/helpful results from the latest decision round that company managers need to review/study in order to guide their strategic moves and decisions to improve their company's competitiveness and overall company performance in the upcoming decision round?

Which one of the following actions helps increase a company's EPS?

If your company earns an ROE of 20% at the time when the investor-expected ROE target is 25% and if the instructor-determinded weight for achieving the ROE target is worth 20 points, then your company's ROE score on the investor expectations scoring standard will be?

If a company earns net income of $40 million in year 8, has 10 million shares of common stock outstanding pays a dividend of $1.00 per share, and has annual interest costs of $10 million then?

After each decision round, company managers should make a point of examining the information on p.2 of the company operating report that concerns the company's profitability in the action cameras segment in each geographic region because?

The industry-low, industry-average, and industry-high cost benchmarks on pp 6-7 of each issue of the camera & Drone Journal?

The benefits of pursuing a startegy of social responsibility and corporate citizenship include?