Discussion help

MGT323

Week 5 Final Paper

Alignment of the Supply Chain Strategy and Business Strategy in the Corporate Environment

[WLOs: 2, 3] [CLOs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Prior to beginning work on this assignment, read Chapters 13 and 14 in the textbook.

This final research paper must demonstrate an understanding of new learning in supply chain management and how the supply chain supports the organization’s business strategy. The paper must be eight to 10 pages in length (not including the title and reference pages), integrating readings, multimedia, and class assignments. It is mandatory to include the concepts from the course textbook, as well as learning about best practices and innovative processes found in six to eight scholarly, peer-reviewed, or credible sources (either from the internet or UAGC Library) to support your views. Please refer to the  Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.)  table for clear definitions of each source type. All sources must be properly cited and referenced, in compliance with the standards of academic integrity and APA Style requirements as noted in the UAGC Writing Center’s resource,  Introduction to APA (Links to an external site.) .

In your paper, you will describe both the business strategy and supply chain strategy for your current or former business employer, or your favorite company that utilizes exemplary supply chain practices, and organization profitability and customer service levels. Locate the annual report of the company for more details on their strategies. You can search for a company's Form 10-K filings in the SEC's  EDGAR Database (Links to an external site.)  or directly on the company’s official website under Investor Relations. For example, the Boeing webpage has an  Investor Resources (Links to an external site.)  page with “Frequently Asked Questions” that directs users to its annual report.

Your research paper will analyze how this organization aligns its business strategy with its supply chain strategy. Based on your analysis and findings, you must recommend a strategy or tactics for improvement, strategic alignment of supply chain, and business strategies. Your conclusions and recommendations should be based on scholarly resources and theory learned in this course. In addition, you may use non-course materials that support your arguments. Submit your final paper to the instructor by the last day of class.

In your paper,

· Assess the role of logistics management as a responsibility center in the organization.

· Identify the business strategy and supply chain strategy of the company.

· Briefly describe the company’s business goals;

· Identify the firm’s supply chain strategies that align with its business goals.

· Analyze transportation, warehousing, shipping and delivery, materials handling and inventory control, billing and the related credit function, and the collection of accounts receivable.

· Evaluate development of materials and components and finished products that can be controlled through standard costs and budgets in supply chain.

· Analyze how the company’s supply chain supports its business strategy and contributes to their strategic alignment.

· Generate a specific strategy or tactics for improvement of the strategic alignment of supply chain and business strategies.

· Integrate at least one metric for measuring effectiveness such as SCOR model, balanced scorecard, and other KPI measures.

In your Alignment of the Supply Chain Strategy and Business Strategy in the Corporate Environment final paper,

· Begin with an introductory paragraph that has a succinct thesis statement.

· Refer to the  Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.)  resource, and the  Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.)  guide for more information from the Writing Center.

· Address the topic of the paper with critical thought.

· End with a conclusion that reaffirms your thesis.

· Include a separate title page with the following:

· Title of paper in bold font

· Space should be between title and the rest of the information on the title page.

· Student’s name

· Name of institution (University name)

· Course name and number

· Instructor’s name

· Due date

· Utilize academic voice. See the  Academic Voice (Links to an external site.)  resource for additional guidance.

· Include a separate page with References that are formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center. Use the  Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) ,  Integrating Research (Links to an external site.) , and  Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.)  resources in the Writing Center to support your analysis.

BUS 461

Week 4 Assignment

Multiple Regression

[WLOs: 1, 2, 3] [CLOs: 3, 4]

Prior to beginning work on this assignment, review Chapter 12: Time Series Analysis and Forecasting.

You may find it helpful to review  How to Perform Multiple Regression on Quarterly Seasonal Data in Excel (Links to an external site.) .

For this assignment, you are required to complete Problem 64 in Chapter 12 of your textbook.  Once complete, submit your Excel document in Waypoint. Show all work.

(S/B: 12/64) Let Yt be the sales during month t (in thousands of dollars) for a photography studio, and let Pt be the price charged for portraits during month t. The data are in the file  Week 4 Assignment Chapter 12 Problem 64   Download Week 4 Assignment Chapter 12 Problem 64. Use regression to fit the following model to these data:

Yt = a + b1Yt−1 + b2Pt + et

This equation indicates that last month’s sales and the current month’s price are explanatory variables. The last term, et, is an error term.

For your assignment, complete the following:

· If the price of a portrait during Month 21 is $10, what would you predict for sales in Month 21?

In your Excel spreadsheet,

· Utilize the regression model.

· Utilize the support tool of Excel.

· Predict sales as described.

Week 4 Journal

Week 4 Self-Check Reflection

[WLOs: 1, 3] [CLOs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Prior to beginning work on this journal, review Chapter 10: Regression Analysis: Estimating Relationships, Chapter 11: Regression Analysis: Statistical Inference, and Chapter 12: Time Series Analysis and Forecasting in your course text. In addition, it is suggested that you review Chapter 7: Sampling and Sampling Distributions, Chapter 8: Confidence Interval Estimations, and Chapter 9: Hypothesis Testing.

Once you have completed the self-check interactive, reflect on how you did, what you learned this week, what you need to focus on, and how you can apply the material learned so far to real-world situations in a journal entry of at least 50 words. Submit your reflection to Waypoint as a journal.

Week 5 discussion

Prior to beginning work on this discussion forum, read Chapter 13: Introduction to Optimization Modeling and Chapter 14: Optimization Models.

After reviewing the optimization models in the text,

· Identify a specific business process.

· Select one model that you can use to improve that specific business process.

· Explain your objective function and your constraints.

· Describe how your objective function and constraints relate to your hypothetical situation.

· Explain your reasoning.

· You can work with a business process at your current job, previous jobs, think of a hypothetical situation (e.g., how FedEx may be routing their shipments or how a call center may be scheduling their employees), or use the real-life situation you outlined in The Modeling Process discussion forum from Week 1.

It is not expected that you will include an Excel spreadsheet or detailed solution.

Week 5 Final Paper

Evaluating an Organizational Initiative

[WLOs: 1, 2, 3] [CLOs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Prior to beginning work on this assignment, review Chapter 13: Introduction to Optimization Modeling and Chapter 14: Optimization Models.

Now is the time to celebrate what you have learned in the course and apply it in practice. Imagine you are a business analyst who is writing an article for Forbes magazine evaluating a recent initiative by a prominent organization of your choice and the data-based decision-making processes they implemented. Your editor has asked you to include the below bullet points in your evaluation.

In your final paper,

· Select an organization.

· Describe the industry and business model.

· Examine a recent initiative that the organization implemented.

· Assess the success of the initiative.

· Describe the organization’s decision support systems and their decision-making process.

· Identify the decision support tools used by the organization to make various structured, semi-structured, and unstructured decisions.

· Outline their processes and tools the organization used following the decision tree model.

· Evaluate how their decision support system contributed to either the success or failure of the initiative.

· Assess how the organization could have approached the initiative differently to realize greater success.

The Evaluating an Organizational Initiative final paper

· Must be five to six double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to  APA Style (Links to an external site.)  as outlined in the Writing Center’s  APA Formatting for Microsoft Word (Links to an external site.)  resource.

· Must include a separate title page with the following:

· Title of paper in bold font

· Space should appear between the title and the rest of the information on the title page.

· Student’s name

· Name of institution (The University of Arizona Global Campus)

· Course name and number

· Instructor’s name

· Due date

· Must utilize academic voice. See the  Academic Voice (Links to an external site.)  resource for additional guidance.

· Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.

· For assistance on writing  Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.)  and  Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.) , refer to the Writing Center resources.

· Must use at least two 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.

· To assist you in completing the research required for this assignment, view  Quick and Easy Library Research (Links to an external site.)  tutorial, which introduces the University of Arizona Global Campus Library and the research process, and provides some library search tips.

· Must document any information used from sources in APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center’s  APA: Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.)  guide.

· Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center. See the  APA: Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.)  resource in the Writing Center for specifications.