North Country Auto

6. Depreciation/Amortization remained consisted despite the increase in sales, thus the per unit breakdown shows a decrease in per unit costs.

The problem that Deere faces is how they can successfully move to the middle of the perceptual map to be respected as a manufacturer of both small tractors and large tractors. There are several observations that can be made regarding the positioning of the competitors. The first observation is both International Harvester and Case are competing in both the large and small tractor market. It is evident that International Harvester experience financial difficulties perhaps as a result of not having a singular focus. Another observation is that Caterpillar’s decision to “reposition” itself from a small manufacturer to a large manufacturer could easily be explained by Paretti’s 80/20 rule. Caterpillar enjoyed an extensive dealer network, and their dealer sales ranged from $12 million to $70 million, versus Deere’s $1 million to $16 million in sales per dealer. By tapping into Paretti’s 80/20 principle, Deere could enjoy increased margins from the sale of parts alone.

Question 1: Using budget data, how many motors would have to be sold for Waltham Motors Division to breakeven?

Although the company did show an increased gross profit of $8,255,000 with $6,358,000 less Net Sales in 2013 versus 2012, that increase is due to the reduction in product Cost of Goods Sold by $14,613,000. Since increases in product price will negatively affect sales, one of management’s primary goals is to keep prices stable. This objective is achieved through implementation of cost cutting programs, investing in more efficient equipment, and automation of more steps in the production process.

Management should note that the level of activity was above what had been planned for the month. This led to an expected increase in profits of $1,100. However, the individual items on the report should not receive much management attention. The favorable variance for revenue and the unfavorable variances for expenses are entirely caused by the increase in activity.

A2 Auto Corporation is one of the world’s largest manufacturers and distributors of automobiles and automobile ancillary parts. In its Form 10-K, filed with the SEC, the following information was disclosed.

While it was foreseen that the company would initially take financial setbacks because of the reorganization, it was not believed that the financial risks would be drastic. However, the impending report that Mr. Elesser has to present to the board will detail a net income that will be nearly 26 million dollars in the red for 2004 (see exhibit 2)3. The blunt force restructuring met resistance on numerous fronts. First of all, the various components of the company did not operate under the same uniformed leadership objectives. Each division was set up to look out for their own interests and markets. When the restructuring plan that focused on a more centralized management process, many of the things that worked for one division did not necessarily work for other divisions of the company. This left some divisions at a severe disadvantage. Another obstacle that worked against the restructuring was the employee unions in which the company had to deal. The unions were not on board with the various downsizing and restructuring methods. In addition, the company had to deal with a couple of different unions which posed a problem with negotiating tactics. Benefit costs were also a significant investment that did not hold up well under the auspice of restructuring.

11. Prepare a table that illustrates the percentage change in costs between the volume-based system and the strategic activity-based system.

Victoria Heavy Equipment’s most recent organization has been lacking effective communication practices amongst all of its divisions. The company has been suffering from lack of clear goals in measurable terms, for its divisions. The idea of each division functioning as an independent unit, whether it being cost or profit center, is a remarkable beginning. However, clear goals and key measurable need to be set for each center, which in our case have been overlooked. As a result, many of these centers have over spent, resulting in over expenditures, something we can definitely not afford with anticipated slower market.

Sales centre A, they had achieved great success over the last year and consistently outsells other sales centres. In fact, due to the large number of accounts managed by our sales team and larger staff, Sales centre A is expected to sell as much volume as the other two sales centres put together. That means, the expense budget for Sales centre A must be more than other, at least twice time then the other centre. Because, they need a lot of money to pay for their cost, such as Wages, telephone, office supplies, and commission. That seems not fair for Sale centre A.

Regionalization: New structures were formed in order to approach the ID problems. The organizational reconstruction focused on speed of results, process to be driven by B&L executives, and input from as many B&L employees as possible. A significant amount of time and money was dedicated to creating a task force that was goal was to evaluate organizational structure. They concluded that it was necessary for a fine-tuning of the current organization structure, a regional structure, a product-region matrix, and a global product structure.

To answer those questions, I will perform an evaluation on the corporate-owned store control system from budgeting, performance evaluation, incentives, and transfer pricing perspectives. Part King is a decentralized organization. Every corporate-owned store is a profit center. The stores buy auto parts from Part King and then sell them to the two segmentations: hobbyists and commercial customers. Profit is the difference between revenue and cost. Thus, profit center managers are evaluated in terms of

|250000 indirect employees & 9000 vehicle for distribution). |position in profitability due to drop in prices by nearly 30% since 1950’s. |

Under the original costing system used by Dakota Office Products, Customer A is shown to be slightly less profitable than Customer B. From the calculations above, we see that Customer A is slightly profitable at 0.3% profit as a percent of sales, and Customer B is not profitable, at a loss of (7.1%). We observe that Customer A is a consumer of low-cost services and generally pay their bills within 30 days unlike customer B who took 90 days or more. Timely servicing of debt led to profitability of Customer A.

With direct-connect structure, the business leaders or functional managers of specific business divisions report to their headquarters in the U.S.. After the direct-connect structure is implemented, it has changed the operation in GE Canada. In the past, the Canadian CEO was fully responsible for the profitability of the Canadian operating division, with the manufacturing plants made a full line of products primarily for the Canadian market with some exporting possibilities. After the new management system implemented, the U.S. divisional bosses is responsible for the profitability of each operational business division both in the U.S. and Canada. With the change in management system, the business development group has changed its position in GE Canada by switching the role of conducting feasibility studies and new market development for the business unit in Canada to the role of looking for opportunities to leverage the strengths of Canadian activities on a global basis. The business development group felt that the change in management system has made the U.S.-based business leaders to ignore the potential business opportunity in Canada and added more uncertainty to the business development group role. Most decisions need approval from the U.S. divisional bosses, whom do not have a complete picture of the business potential in Canada and want full control of the business operations