Reference no: EM132301827
1. Which of the following statements about purchasing a franchise is false?
A. One of the greatest benefits of buying a franchise is gaining access to a business system that has a proven record of success.
B. When they purchase their franchises, franchisees gain the right to use a regionally or nationally known brand name, which usually provides a great deal of drawing power.
C. Franchisees benefit from the power of a regional or national advertising program that the franchisor coordinates.
D. Potential franchisees are limited to a relatively small set of franchise options because franchisors are concentrated in only a few industries, such as fast food, hotels and motels, automotive parts, and a handful of others.
E. Most franchises offer franchisees training programs that include both classroom and onsite instruction to help them learn to operate their franchises efficiently.
2. Which of the following is not a characteristic of the typical franchisor-franchisee relationship?
A. Franchisees purchase a "success package" from franchisors.
B. When franchisees invest in franchises, they are purchasing a successful business model.
C. Failing to follow the franchisor's business formula is one of the primary reasons that some franchisees fail.
D. Franchisees, like owners of independent businesses, have the freedom to run their franchises as they choose.
E. Franchisees pay fees and royalties to the franchisor for the right to be affiliated with the franchise.
3. A large global financial services company, say Alpha Corp. that does business (has customers) only in the US and the EU zone countries, opens a research center in Dalian in China. The research center is called Dalian Alpha Research Inc. The research center has several highly trained financial analysts that work for Alpha Corp (and only Alpha Corp). They can access the data in Alpha Corp’s Data Repositories. Whenever the managers of Alpha Corp have the need for data analysts to answer questions, they make requests to these analysts who work in real-time and send their output to managers in the US and EU. They can also work iteratively with the managers in the US and EU and refine their models and predictions based on requests from these managers.
Based on the scenarios outlined above, below are some statements about Offshoring and Outsourcing. One of these statements is wrong. Identify the incorrect statement.
a. Because the research center is fully owned by Alpha Corp there is no Operational Risk associated with this data center.
b. This is what we – using the frameworks developed in this course - would call an example of offshoring of work but not outsourcing.
c. This kind of work is made possible by the availability of cheap bandwidth (connectivity) and interoperability of many computing platforms.
d. While this offshore research center may help save some costs, it cannot be guaranteed to have a beneficial impact on Alpha Corp’s customers and/or markets (strategic impact on Alpha Corp’s business).
e. As technological advances are made both in telecommunication and computing platforms, it may be possible that a variety of new services could be sourced from this center.
4. Two years after the research center has been in operation, Alpha Corp has moved some more services offshore. They have renamed the research center as Dalian Digital Services Center (DDSC from here on). DDSC offers document scanning, digital document management, tech support call center services and invoice processing and management services for Alpha Corp’s offices in the US and EU zone countries (and only to Alpha Corp’s offices).
Based on the above which of the following statements below are correct? Identify all the correct statements.
a. To understand the extent of risk associated with executing these business processes (services) offshore, it is possible to use the framework of the Knowledge Continuum.
b. The nature and extent of complexity of each of those services executed offshore by DDSC is determined (amongst other factors) by how precisely the metrics for quality are defined and understood by the managers of DDSC as well as those of Alpha Corp (in the US and EU).
c. The ‘high end’ work of research analysts is always more tricky and prone to higher levels of operational risk than the ‘low end’ work of call centers and document managers.
d. High end services offered by DDSC have greater Strategic Risk associated with them and Low end services offered by DDSC have greater Operational Risk associated with them.
5. Which of the statements below best describes the DDC’s global sourcing arrangements outlined above?
DDC should source services from all these companies using a Command and Control sourcing system.
DDC and some of its partners can use a Sense and Adjust mode of functioning for sourcing these services.
DDC and some of its partners can function as members of Collaborative Networks.
Statements (b) and (c) together represent the best description of DDC can work with its global partners.
None of the above statements is correct, because in a complex global network DDC will have to use all four modes of sourcing with all of its partners.