After working for years as a regional manager for a retail organization, Scott Parry opened his own business with Susan Gonzalez, one of his district managers, as his partner. They formed Scott and Susan (S&S) to sell appliances and consumer electronics. S&S pursued a “clicks and bricks” strategy by renting a building in a busy part of to`wn and adding an electronic storefront. S&S invested enough money to see them through the first six months. They will hire 15 employees within the next two weeks – three to stock the shelves, four sales representatives, six checkout clerks, and two to develop and maintain the electronic storefront. S&S will host its grand opening in five weeks. To meet that deadline, they have to address the following important issues: 17. What decisions do they need to make to be successful and profitable? 18. What information do S&S need to make those decisions?

The University of Cincinnati Center for Business Analytics is an outreach center that collaborates with industry partners on applied research and continuing education in business analytics. One of the programs offered by the center is a quarterly Business Intelligence Symposium. Each symposium features three speakers on the real-world use of analytics. Each of the corporate members of the center (there are currently 10) receives five free seats to each symposium. Nonmembers wishing to attend must pay $75 per person. Each attendee receives breakfast, lunch, and free parking. The following are the costs incurred for putting on this event: Rental cost for the auditorium: Registration Processing: Speaker Costs: 3@$800 Continental Breakfast: Lunch: Parking: $150 $8.50 per person $2,400 $4.00 per person $7.00 per person $5.00 per person (a) The Center for Business Analytics is considering a refund policy for no-shows. No refund would be given for members who do not attend, but for nonmembers…

Teasha Pratt will graduate from high school next month and cannot decide what she wants to do. She had originally planned to go to college and major in marketing and accounting, but now she is thinking about opening her own business. Teasha has worked in a gift store for the last two years and gained a lot of experience and knowledge by working with inventory, pricing, customers, and accounting. However, her real interest is in crafts. After conducting some marketing research, Teasha determines that there is a very small market for a craft store (there are currently two craft stores in town), but there is a larger market for a gift store. Teasha decides to open a small gift store in the mall with a loan from the local bank. After much hard work, she locates two suppliers, Gifts Plus Wholesalers and Hearts Manufacturing Corporation, hires employees, buys display equipment, accounting equipment, a cash register, supplies, etc. Three months later, she is ready to open her store.…

When June and Jerry started their business, Kingbird Inc., their mission was simple: to provide a quiet, round-trip ride to hundreds of office workers so they could work during the commute. At the beginning, they had enough capacity to accommodate all interested customers. But as this idea gained popularity, there was demand they couldn't meet-and not just by commuters, but also by travelers heading to and from the airport. June and Jerry organized their growing business into geographical segments, evaluating each on its operating income and profit margin. The two owners retained control of asset purchases. June and Jerry still intended for their segment managers to work together, helping each other with capacity needs when required. Such participation was left up to the segment managers, though. All three segments had the same variable and absorption cost for an average two-way trip, at $16 and $24 per customer, respectively. Since the culture in this company was very open, each…