BUS 687 Week 2 Assignment

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.(Links to an external site.)
• 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 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 a differentiated competitive advantage through the effective use of role-playing.
    • Some role players only provide qualitative information, while others provide the ability to negotiate quantitatively.
    • 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 to 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 to 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, Five pointers to get you started, and What are your financial statements telling you.