The McGee Cake Company In early 2010, Doc and Lyn McGee formed the McGee Cake Company. The company produced a full line of cakes, and its specialties included chess cake,* lemon pound cake, and double-iced, double-chocolate cake. The couple formed the company as an outside interest, and both continued to work at their current jobs. Doc did all the baking, and Lyn handled the marketing and distribution. With good product quality and a sound marketing plan, the company grew rapidly. In early 2014, the company was featured in a widely distributed entrepreneurial magazine. Later that year, the company was featured in Gourmet Desserts, a leading specialty food magazine. After the article appeared in Gourmet Desserts, sales exploded, and the company began receiving orders from all over the world. Because of the increased sales, Doc left his other job, followed shortly by Lyn. The company hired additional workers to meet demand. Unfortunately, the fast growth experienced by the company led to cash flow and capacity problems. The company is currently producing as many cakes as possible with the assets it owns, but demand for its cakes is still growing. Further, the company has been approached by a national supermarket chain with a proposal to put four of its cakes in all of the chain’s stores, and a national restaurant chain has contacted the company about selling McGee cakes in its restaurants. The restaurant would sell the cakes without a brand name. Doc and Lyn have operated the company as a sole proprietorship. They have approached you to help manage and direct the company’s growth. Specifically, they have asked you to answer the following questions: 3. Ultimately, what action would you recommend the company undertake? Why?

Eat-n-Run Inc. owns and operates 10 food trucks (mobile kitchens) throughout metropolitan Los Angeles. Each food truck has a different food theme, such as Irish-Mexican fusion, traditional Mexican street food, Ethiopian cuisine, and Lebanese-Italian fusion. The company was founded three years ago by Juanita OBrien when she opened a single food truck with a unique menu. As her business has grown, she has become concerned about her ability to manage and control the business. OBrien describes how the company was built, its key success factors, and its recent growth: I built the company from the ground up. In the beginning, it was just me. I drove the truck, set the menu, bought the ingredients, prepared the meals, served the meals, cleaned the kitchen, and maintained the equipment. I made unique meals from quality ingredients and didnt serve anything that wasnt perfect. I changed my location daily and notified customers of my location via Twitter. As my customer base grew, I hired employees to help me in the truck. Then one day I realized that I had a formula that could be expanded to multiple trucks. Before I knew it, I had 10 trucks and was hiring people to do everything that I used to do by myself. Now, I work with my team to build the menu, set daily locations for the trucks, and manage the operations of the business. My business model is based on providing the highest-quality street food and charging more for it than other trucks. You wont get the cheapest meal at one of my trucks, but you will get the best. The superior quality allows me to price my meals a little bit higher than the other trucks. My employees are critical to my success. I pay them a better wage than they could make on other food trucks, and I expect more from them. I rely on them to maintain the quality that I established when I opened my first truck. Things are going great, but Im feeling overwhelmed. So far, the growth in sales has led to a growth in profitabilitybut Im getting nervous. If quality starts to fall off, my brand value erodes, and that could affect the prices that I charge for my meals and the success of my business. Create balanced scorecard metrics for Eat-n-Run Inc. Identify whether these measures best fit the learning and growth, internal processes, customer, or financial performance perspective of the balanced scorecard.

Paul Golding and his wife, Nancy, established Crunchy Chips in 1938. Over the past 60 years, the company has established distribution channels in 11 western states, with production facilities in Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. In 1980, Pauls son, Edward, took control of the business. By 2017, it was clear that the companys plants needed to gain better control over production costs to stay competitive. Edward hired a consultant to install a standard costing system. To help the consultant establish the necessary standards, Edward sent her the following memo: The manufacturing process for potato chips begins when the potatoes are placed into a large vat in which they are automatically washed. After washing, the potatoes flow directly to an automatic peeler. The peeled potatoes then pass by inspectors, who manually cut out deep eyes or other blemishes. After inspection, the potatoes are automatically sliced and dropped into the cooking oil. The frying process is closely monitored by an employee. After the chips are cooked, they pass under a salting device and then pass by more inspectors, who sort out the unacceptable finished chips (those that are discolored or too small). The chips then continue on the conveyor belt to a bagging machine that bags them in 1-pound bags. After bagging, the bags are placed in a box and shipped. The box holds 15 bags. The raw potato pieces (eyes and blemishes), peelings, and rejected finished chips are sold to animal feed producers for 0.16 per pound. The company uses this revenue to reduce the cost of potatoes. We would like this reflected in the price standard relating to potatoes. Crunchy Chips purchases high-quality potatoes at a cost of 0.245 per pound. Each potato averages 4.25 ounces. Under efficient operating conditions, it takes four potatoes to produce one 16-ounce bag of plain chips. Although we label bags as containing 16 ounces, we actually place 16.3 ounces in each bag. We plan to continue this policy to ensure customer satisfaction. In addition to potatoes, other raw materials are the cooking oil, salt, bags, and boxes. Cooking oil costs 0.04 per ounce, and we use 3.3 ounces of oil per bag of chips. The cost of salt is so small that we add it to overhead. Bags cost 0.11 each and boxes 0.52 each. Our plant produces 8.8 million bags of chips per year. A recent engineering study revealed that we would need the following direct labor hours to produce this quantity if our plant operates at peak efficiency: Im not sure that we can achieve the level of efficiency advocated by the study. In my opinion, the plant is operating efficiently for the level of output indicated if the hours allowed are about 10% higher. The hourly labor rates agreed upon with the union are: Overhead is applied on the basis of direct labor dollars. We have found that variable overhead averages about 116% of our direct labor cost. Our fixed overhead is budgeted at 1,135,216 for the coming year. Required: 1. Discuss the benefits of a standard costing system for Crunchy Chips. 2. Discuss the presidents concern about using the result of the engineering study to set the labor standards. What standard would you recommend? 3. Form a group with two or three other students. Develop a standard cost sheet for Crunchy Chips plain potato chips. Round all computations to four decimal places. 4. Suppose that the level of production was 8.8 million bags of potato chips for the year as planned. If 9.5 million pounds of potatoes were used, compute the materials usage variance for potatoes.

In 2013, Jen Liu and Larry Mestas founded Jan and Larry’s Frozen Yogurt Company, which was based on the idea of applying the microbrew or microbatch strategy to the production and sale of frozen yogurt. Jen and Larry began producing small quantities of unique flavors and blends in limited editions. Revenues were $ 600,000 in 2013 and were estimated to be $ 1.2 million in 2014. Each small cup of yogurt sold for $ 3, and the cost of producing the frozen yogurt averaged $ 1.5 per cup. Administrative expenses, including Jen and Larry’s salary and expenses for an accountant and two other administrative staff, were estimated at $ 180,000 in 2014. Marketing expenses, largely in the form of behind-the-counter workers, in-store posters, and advertising in local newspapers, were projected to be $ 200,000 in 2014. An investment in bricks and mortar was necessary to make and sell the yogurt. Initial specialty equipment and the renovation of an old warehouse building in lower downtown occurred at…

In early 2013, Jennifer (Jen) Liu and Larry Mestas founded Jen and Larry’s Frozen Yogurt Company, which was based on the idea of applying the microbrew or microbatch strategy to the production and sale of frozen yogurt. They began producing small quantities of unique flavors and blends in limited editions. Revenues were $600,000 in 2019 and were estimated at $1.2 million in 2020. Because Jen and Larry were selling premium frozen yogurt containing premium ingredients, each small cup of yogurt sold for $3, and the cost of producing the frozen yogurt averaged $1.50 per cup. Other expenses, including taxes, averaged an additional $1 per cup of frozen yogurt in 2019 and were estimated at $1.20 per cup in 2020. Jen and Larry’s frozen yogurt venture required some investment in bricks and mortar. Initial specialty equipment and the renovation of an old warehouse building in lower downtown, referred to as LoDo, cost $450,000 at the beginning of 2019. At the same time, $50,000 was invested in…

Ten years ago, Judy Kaplan lost her marketing position due to a merger and was looking for a new job. As she discussed her search with Marty and Angela Curry, they realized she might be the perfect partner for their new business. For the last six years, the Curry’s had made and sold six different flavors of pickled garlic at local festivals. People who tried the product really seemed to like it. They had made the decision to go into the pickled garlic business full-time, but needed about $20,000 more to actually make the final move. Kaplan looked at their business plan and agreed to become a partner in the business. One of the first problems the partnership experienced was over pricing. Kaplan wanted to price the bottled garlic high enough so her money would earn the interest it would have received (10%) if she had left it in her investment account. The Curry’s wanted to set a low price so that they could acquire loyal customers. In its first year of operation, the company sold 8,000…

Heavenly Chocolates manufactures and sells quality chocolate products at its plant and retail store located in Saratoga Springs, New York. Two years ago, the company developed a web site and began selling its products over the Internet. Web-site sales have exceeded the company’s expectations, and management is now considering strategies to increase sales even further. To learn more about the web-site customers, a sample of 50 Heavenly Chocolate transactions was selected from the previous month’s sales. Data showing the day of the week each transaction was made, the type of browser the customer used, the time spent on the web site, the number of web pages viewed, and the amount spent by each of the 50 customers are contained in the file named Heavenly Chocolates. A portion of the data is shown in the table that follows: Heavenly Chocolates would like to use the sample data to determine whether online shoppers who spend more time and view more pages also spend more money during their visit to the web site. The company would also like to investigate the effect that the day of the week and the type of browser have on sales. Managerial Report Use the methods of descriptive statistics to learn about the customers who visit the Heavenly Chocolates web site. Include the following in your report. Graphical and numerical summaries for the length of time the shopper spends on the web site, the number of pages viewed, and the mean amount spent per transaction. Discuss what you learn about Heavenly Chocolates’ online shoppers from these numerical summaries. Summarize the frequency, the total dollars spent, and the mean amount spent per transaction for each day of week. Discuss the observations you can make about Heavenly Chocolates’ business based on the day of the week? Summarize the frequency, the total dollars spent, and the mean amount spent per transaction for each type of browser. Discuss the observations you can make about Heavenly Chocolates’ business based on the type of browser? Develop a scatter diagram, and compute the sample correlation coefficient to explore the relationship between the time spent on the web site and the dollar amount spent. Use the horizontal axis for the time spent on the web site. Discuss your findings. Develop a scatter diagram, and compute the sample correlation coefficient to explore the relationship between the number of web pages viewed and the amount spent. Use the horizontal axis for the number of web pages viewed. Discuss your findings. Develop a scatter diagram, and compute the sample correlation coefficient to explore the relationship between the time spent on the web site and the number of pages viewed. Use the horizontal axis to represent the number of pages viewed. Discuss your findings.

1. In 2013, Jen Liu and Larry Mestas founded Jan and Larry’s Frozen Yogurt Company, which was based on the idea of applying the microbrew or microbatch strategy to the production and sale of frozen yogurt. Jen and Larry began producing small quantities of unique flavors and blends in limited editions. Revenues were $ 600,000 in 2013 and were estimated to be $ 1.2 million in 2014. Each small cup of yogurt sold for $ 3, and the cost of producing the frozen yogurt averaged $ 1.5 per cup. Administrative expenses, including Jen and Larry’s salary and expenses for an accountant and two other administrative staff, were estimated at $ 180,000 in 2014. Marketing expenses, largely in the form of behind-the-counter workers, in-store posters, and advertising in local newspapers, were projected to be $ 200,000 in 2014. An investment in bricks and mortar was necessary to make and sell the yogurt. Initial specialty equipment and the renovation of an old warehouse building in lower downtown occurred…

The Toledo Shirt Company manufactures men’s shirts sold to department stores and other outlets throughout Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. For the past 14 years, one of Toledo’s major customers has been Abraham and Sons, a chain of nine stores selling men’s clothing. Mr. Abraham retired 18 months ago and his two sons took complete control of the organization. Since that time, they have invested significant sums of money in an attempt to expand each store by also selling women’s clothing. Success in this new market has proven to be difficult. Abraham and Sons is not known for selling women’s clothing, and no one in the company has much expertise in the area.Approximately seven months ago, James Thurber, Toledo’s chief financial officer, began to notice that Abraham and Sons was taking longer than usual to make payments. Instead of the normal 30 days, the retailer was taking 45 days—and frequently longer—to pay each invoice. Because of the amount of money involved, Thurber began to monitor…

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 S&S to sell appliances and consumer electronics. Scott and Susan pursued a “clicks and bricks” strategy by renting a building in a busy part of town and adding an electronic storefront. Scott and Susan 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. Scott and Susan will host S&S’s grand opening in five weeks. To meet that deadline, they have to address the following important issues: 16. What business processes are needed, and how should they be carried out? 17. What functionality should be provided on the website?

n 2010, Jennifer (Jen) Liu and Larry Mestas founded Jen and Larry’s Frozen Yogurt Company, which was based on the idea of applying the microbrew or micro-batch strategy to the production and sale of frozen yoghurt. (The reader may recall that we introducedthis yoghurt venture in the problems section at the end of Chapter 2.) Jen and Larry began producing small quantities of unique flavours and blends in limited editions. Revenues were $600,000 in 2010 and were estimated to be $1.2 million in 2011.Because Jen and Larry were selling premium frozen yoghurt containing premium ingredients, each small cup of yoghurt sold for$3, and the cost of producing the frozen yoghurt averaged $1.50 per cup. Administrative expenses, including Jen and Larry’s salaryand expenses for an accountant and two other administrative staff, were estimated at $180,000 in 2011. Marketing expenses,largely in the form of behind-the-counter workers, in-store posters, and advertising in local newspapers, were projected…

Salma started Bag Zone in Riverside with the goal of providing good quality handbags. Unique designs and utilizing uncommon materials for the making of the handbags is her competitive advantage, and completed products can be wholesaled to fashion retailers or placed on consignment in local retail shops. Additionally, the handbags can also be sold directly to consumers by displaying the products at fashion or craft shows or selling them online. Business has been brisk and she has established a sizeable client base over the last five years. She thinks that it could be the time to spend in an information system to record details about the sales, payroll process and offer more details about the inventory Salma believes that it will be possible to modernize some of the business process for reducing the amount of time, which it is taking for data processing. She wants to open up four further stores throughout the next three years. Systems used should be capable of supporting these…

Solution Summary: The author explains that Person D and Person L formed a cake company MG in 2008, which grew rapidly with good quality and sound marketing, and hired new workers for the fast growth of the company.

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