Bucknell MGMT 101 Company B Company Summary Report

B’s MAP TO BRIDGE THE GAP [SPRING 2014]

[COMPANY SUMMARY REPORT]

[B’s MAP TO BRIDGE THE GAP] Spring 2014 April 21, 2014

UR MISSION

B’S MAP TO BRIDGE THE GAP HAS ADOPTED A mission to promote the relationship between Bucknell University and the greater Lewisburg community through both a service and business project. We plan to establish a safe, sustainable, and educational learning environment by constructing Lewisburg’s first “Children’s Play Garden.” This will provide the children of our community with hands-on inquiry-based learning, outdoor exploration, and play. Company B aims to fund this service project by selling a unique and creative map of Downtown Lewisburg that captures the legacy of Bucknell’s off-campus residential life. We believe this business project will exhibit Bucknell pride and the charm of Lewisburg in an original way.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

ORGANIZATION CHART

2 4 12 18 24 28

COMPANY HISTORY EXECUTIVE LETTER TO STAKEHOLDERS SERVICE DIVISION HISTORY BUSINESS DIVISION HISTORY REPORTS DIVISION HISTORY HRM DEPARTMENT HISTORY AFM DEPARTMENT HISTORY

32 COMMUNITY AND RESPONSIBILITY TO INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 34 FINAL INCOME STATEMENT 35 VARIANCE ANALYSIS WORKING HOURS STATEMENTS 36 SUMMARY WORK HOUR STATISTICS 37 EXPLANATION OF VARIANCE 38 LETTER TO FUTURE COMPANIES

HOW WE MAKE MAGIC HAPPEN PETER KREBS CEO CATCHPHRASE: “Alright. Sweet.”

ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ VP of Business CATCHPHRASE: “#Lady GaGa”

JAMIE FORREST Sales Manager

CATCHPHRASE: “Relax..just don’t worry about it .”

SHANNON DONLON Product Manager

CATCHPHRASE: “Look at my baby”

QUINN FLAKS Business Finance Director CATCHPHRASE: “Guys, where is the class today?”

ASHLYN ADELMAN Market Research Director CATCHPHRASE: “Do it for the children.”

EMMA RIESER Marketing and Design Director CATCHPHRASE: “Guys...Calm down.”

MADISON FARLEY VP of Service

CATCHPHRASE: “Everything will be okay, right?”

BECCA GOLDING Project Manager

CATCHPHRASE: “Do you wanna sit next to me ?”

TOOBA ALI Construction Manager

CATCHPHRASE: “We use galvanized nails”

AUDREY DOTSON Event Director CATCHPHRASE: “Buckle up!”

KELSEY O’DONNELL VP of Reports

CATCHPHRASE: “Don’t you dare use Times New Roman.”

CAROLINE MACLURE Operating Plans Co-Manager and Archivist

CATCHPHRASE: “When we have to stay up all night, we throw pizza parties!”

ERIC GOWAT Oral Reports Manager

CATCHPHRASE: “I was there...There was no pizza”

JENNA LOCHIATTO Digital Media Manager

SOPHIE HEINBERG Donations and Materials Purchasing Director

CATCHPHRASE: “Like the instagram!!#likeforlike.”

CONNOR KUPERSMITH Scheduling and Transportation Director

CATCHPHRASE: “Seminar room one? I’ll be there.”

CATCHPHRASE: “We can totally mix 80 pounds of concrete”

CATCHPHRASE: “I take full responsibility for everything.”

SARAH ROSS Operating Plans Co-Manager/ Company Summary Manager

CHARLIE WANG Information Systems Director CATCHPHRASE: “Buy a poster!”

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PETER PULEO VP of HRM

MAX MCKELVY VP of AFM

MESSERET KEBEDE Staffing and Scheduling Director

RACHEL PERRY Head Accountant

CATCHPHRASE: “Snaps time!”

CATCHPHRASE: “Don’t forget to fill out your time sheet!”

ABIGAIL GALLOWAY Quality of Work Life Director

CATCHPHRASE: “Have to respect a man who makes forts”

KENDALL O’BRIEN Performance/ Incentives & Rewards Manager

CATCHPHRASE: “Put a compliment in the anony box”

CATCHPHRASE: *hand motions*

CATCHPHRASE: “I lift.”

JAKE LEVINE Treasurer

CATCHPHRASE: “If you have any receipts, I need them”

COOPER NIDDS Budget Controller

CATCHPHRASE: “Don’t change the budget or else .”

Dear Fellow Stakeholders of B’s Map to Bridge the Gap,

I want to start off by saying that B’s Map to Bridge the Gap would not have reached our goals without the help of everyone in the company and all of the external stakeholders that played an immense role in our success. We would not have been able to sell our poster of downtown housing or create the Children’s Play Garden without help of the Bucknell and Lewisburg Community.

These people range from Professor Hiller and Professor Boyd to Maggie Testa.

I learned, along with my fellow company members, that a positive attitude can go a long way, especially when dealing with all-nighters for Operating Plans or being faced with setbacks when we did not receive full Operating Plans approval on the first day. These events taught us a lot about who we are as people because it allowed us to see how we as a company fare under pressure. We also had some moments from this past semester which we will likely remember for the rest of our lives. For me it was getting to go on a scavenger hunt with the children who were going to be the first Nature’s Cool! Class to play in the Children’s Play Garden and realizing that our play garden was going to have a significant effect on the lives of these children. Even though the kids may not know it, they are slowly moving away from using their imaginations and the outdoors to having fun and starting to only use technology to have a good time. We believe that excessive exposure to digital devices like television, smartphones, and computers will be detrimental to a child’s learning process and imagination development. We hope that this outdoor play garden will allow them to recognize the same thing our company members learned as kids, that the outdoors gives you endless opportunities to explore and that it needs to be protected.

There is no way our company would have been able to reach this moment without the help of both Professor Hiller and Professor Boyd. They worked tirelessly to meet with us and teach us how to manage a company. Through the lectures, company sessions, and meetings, they taught us how to manage effectively and efficiently. I want to give a special thanks to Professor Hiller for communicating with us constantly and going out of her way to ensure that our company would succeed. Something that makes her different than most professors is her belief in teaching our class about the issue of sustainability. She has always been there to explain to our company the importance of creating a sustainable work environment and purchasing products from companies that operate fairly. Additionally, Professor Boyd helped our HRM division meet their goals because he made sure to communicate with them extensively.

I also want to give a big thank you to our TAs Liz Gauf and Patrick Bucaria. Because they had gone through the same process that we went through, they understood many of the struggles we were going through. From driving our company back and forth from the service site to letting us in to Taylor 12 at any time of the day or night, they were there for our company. I hope they become teachers one day because they have the skills and passion that I hope any teacher would have about a course.

I would also like to thank Maggie Testa who was the leader and creator of the Children’s Play Garden. She was the driving force in the project and served as our connection to the BVRA. Maggie inspired our company through her beliefs that outdoor learning should be central to a child’s learning experience. She was especially helpful when our service project was not approved during Operating Plans and was in constant communication when we had questions about how we should answer the Board’s concerns.We cannot thank Maggie Testa enough for helping our company reach our goals and achieve the vision for the service project.

Additionally, we would like to thank Dennis Evans who works for the Printed Page, our supplier. He worked with the Business Division to create a poster that used high quality material and was exactly what we wanted. He also delivered our posters on time and gave us an extra 300 posters for free. We also purchased our signs and banner from him, creating an even better relationship between our company and The Printed Page. We wish him luck in the future and hope he stays connected to future MGMT 101 companies.

I’d like to finish by thanking every member of B’s Map to Bridge the Gap because without your hard work and support we would not be the company we are today. We have moved past coalitions and R&D teams and have turned into a succinct unit. What has made working for this company so special is that when I do homework or meet for hours on end to talk about the company I don’t feel like it is a burden on my life but I good use of my time. I have seen the multi-tal-

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ented people that are in this company and have experienced the positivity that is evoked by everyone. This company has done more than just leave its mark on MGMT 101 and Bucknell but has affected the community of Lewisburg. This effect will be seen through the Children’s Play Garden and the map of downtown Lewisburg. I am proud to say that this is what we will be remembered for because it is a legacy that will last a lifetime.

Sincerely,

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[DIVISION HISTORY]

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FLOWER POWER: Company members work together with eagerness and determination in creating the Children’s Play Garden. On average, company members spent 200.5 secondary hours working on the service project, constructing the garden areas, teaching a lesson to local children, and hosting the Sneak Peek Event.

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The mission of B’s Map to Bridge the Gap’s service project is to create a safe, sustainable, and enjoyable Children’s Play Garden with the Buffalo Valley Recreation Authority (BVRA). Due to the lack of natural outdoor classrooms in Lewisburg, PA and the recent excitement revolving around the Children and Nature Movement, company members hope to strengthen the relationship between the Bucknell and greater Lewisburg communities.

The idea of working with the BVRA to create a Children’s Play Garden in Lewisburg was first introduced to B’s Map to Bridge the Gap when the company was in R&D teams. Tooba Ali, Jake Levine, Charlie Wang, and Jenna Lochiatto had gone to the service fair at Bucknell University where they had met and exchanged contact information with the BVRA educational coordinator Maggie Testa, who told them about her plans to build this outdoor educational space.

When it was time to form coalitions on Thursday, January 30, Rachel Perry was the first to take initiative and represent the Children’s Play Garden as a potential service project. All other company members chose to be a part of the business coalitions, but after Professor Hiller urged us to “look around” and see how underrepresented service was, Tooba Ali, Eric Gowat, Madison Farley and Messeret Kebede joined Rachel Perry in the Children’s Play Garden coalition.

On Thursday, February 6 during the company session, the company participated in cross-coalition discussion, preliminary debates, and straw voting for the two potential service ideas and some business ideas. In terms of service, the Veterans coalition had won the straw votes. After this, the Children’s Play Garden coalition refocused and arranged a meeting with Maggie Testa for the following day in order to regain momentum and straighten out the details. Once the coalition had met with Maggie, coalition members felt reenergized and ready to continue promoting the Children’s Play Garden.The service project met many of the company’s service criteria established earlier in the semester, such as being local and serving a need. On February 11, Decision Day 1, the Children’s Play

Garden received twenty votes and the Veterans received seven. With a majority vote, the company had now collectively committed themselves to the Children’s Play Garden as their service project.

After B’s Map to Bridge the Gap chose their service project, a service coalition in Company A explored the idea of both companies joining efforts to build the Children’s Play Garden. Although coalitions had been disbanded, the previous Children’s Play Garden coalition regrouped and worked with Company A to explore collaboration possibilities.

On February 12, the coalition members sent out a survey to their fellow B’s Map to Bridge the Gap members to gauge their views on collaborating.

After viewing these results and asking Maggie Testa for her feedback, it was decided that the two companies would not work together on service. Although Company A was forced to drop the Children’s Play Garden service proposal, there was a mutual respect forged between Company A and B’s Map to Bridge the Gap because of the friendly and honest communication that occurred. Ashlynn Trimmer from Company A said that she had “… a lot of respect for [B’s Map to Bridge the Gap] because of how gracious [everyone] was in that consideration.”

On Friday, February 21, Madison was elect-

ed VP of Service. After the job fair, the executive committee named Becca Golding as Project Manager, Sophie Heinberg as Donations and Materials Purchasing Director, Connor Kupersmith as Transportation, Scheduling, and Planning Director, Tooba Ali as Construction Manager, and Audrey Dotson as Events Director.

B’s Map to Bridge the Gap’s Service Division devised a complex and creative service project with various components. There would be three workdays for company members to complete all portions of the Children’s Play Garden construction, three Event Days for smaller groups of company members to help run the nature class taught by Maggie Testa at the BVRA, and lastly, a culminating Sneak Peek Event celebrating the work as a company and bringing together the Bucknell and Lewisburg communities. In addition, the Service Division placed an order for sustainable and permanent tools for the Play Garden such as a wheelbarrow, buckets, shovels, and

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watering cans.

Besides the external and internal stakeholders to the company was also one of the main stakeholders of the service project. B’s Map to Bridge the Gap’s needs as a stakeholder were primarily to satisfy the service criteria established in the earlier phases of the class in an ambitious, meaningful, and responsible way. As a company, it was pertinent to everyone’s best interest to work towards creating a community within the company that has the ability to work effectively and efficiently with one another.

As Operating Plans neared, the Service Division prepared rigorously. Tooba Ali had not applied for the job of Construction Manager and was initially hesitant to take on the role because she lacked knowledge of constructing and designing a Children’s Play Garden. Although she knew it would be a challenging position, Ali accepted the job. Throughout the norming phase especially, Ali’s limits were tested and stress levels throughout the division skyrocketed. Although the Service Division worked tirelessly during the days leading up until Operating Plans, the Board still had various concerns regarding the lack of detail within the service workday plans and therefore service’s portion of Operating Plans did not pass on Thursday, March 20. Ali felt she did not have all of the information necessary due to her lack of task identity and feedback. This can be explained by the Hackman and Oldham’s Job Characteristics Model.

This setback ultimately united the Service Division as well as the entire company in the absence of blaming or pointing fingers at any one individual. Immediately following Operating Plans the Service Division met and discussed what steps needed to be taken next in order for the re-presentation to go well.The next day, Ali showed her resilience and devotion to the service project during this time by spending eight hours finding the answers to all of the Board members’ questions. This research solidified her knowledge of the workdays, which was extremely evident during the re-presentation of Operating Plans Friday, March 21. The Board approved

the company’s service project, and shared with the company that they felt excited to approve the company fully. It would have been really easy for Ali to become demotivated and experience the fundamental attribution theory when the Board did not approve Operating Plans due to the lack of clarity on her assignment. However, the Service Division’s sense of community and social norms encouraged Tooba to work hard and eventually led to the company passing Operating Plans with flying colors the March 21.

In order to spread the word about B’s Map to Bridge the Gap’s service project, a high level of collaboration occurred with the Digital Media Manager, Jenna Lochiatto, external stakeholders, the BVRA, and the Project Manager, Golding, in order to develop a logo and flyer for the different service events. Golding reached out to the list of media contacts as well as contacts Testa had suggested. Publicizing for the service project involved posting flyers in shops downtown. Golding also sent the press release to various contacts and received roughly ten responses from different newspapers and online journals, including an interview with a reporter from The Standard Journal and a radio interview on WKOK morning talk show “Sunrise” that occurred at 7:10 am and 7:40 am on Monday, April 7.

Golding had received approval from the Program Director at the BVRA Elizabeth Stuelke for the flyers to hang downtown, and therefore Golding sent them to be printed. However, shortly after the 100 flyers had been printed, Stuelke emailed Golding regarding a mistake she had just noticed on the flyer; the flyer said “Association” instead of “Authority” for the BVRA. Luckily, none of the flyers had been posted downtown yet, and Golding got them reprinted. Having to reprint the flyers caused minor problems for AFM with regards to budget, but to help lessen the costs of ordering more flyers, the Service Division decided to print half black and white and half colored, so the additional

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flyers ended up only costing about $20.00 more than originally expected. Golding used good crisis management by not panicking, staying positive, and making rational decisions.

Ali was delegated with the responsibility of carrying out the actual construction of the service project.

This was done by first planning out exactly how each region of the Play Garden was to be built, such as the dirt digging area, motor/climbing area, water area, garden beds, and fencing, and then assembling three groups of nine to eleven students each to attend one of the three workdays to build these areas. The instructions on how to build these areas were written up by Testa, and were further elaborated on by Ali. While at the workdays Ali stressed the importance of keeping in mind the three most prominent external stakeholders: the children of Lewisburg, the parents’ of those children, and the BVRA. After having a successful first workday on Saturday, March 29, the weather for the following day that was scheduled to be the second workday looked unpromising. Ali, in conjunction with Testa, decided to cancel the second workday scheduled for Sunday, March 30 due to the high chance of rain expected. The workday was postponed to Thursday, April 3 at 7:45 am. This required the Transportation, Scheduling, and Planning Director Kupersmith to cancel the vehicle for Saturday and reserve the car for the new day and time.

All but one company member assigned for the second workday was able to make it to the rescheduled one.

Ali worked efficiently to find a time frame and date that most everyone could attend that also suited Testa’s schedule.

The company overall was efficient in completing all of the intended regions of the Children’s Play Garden during the three workdays. Each group was able to complete their assigned regions of the Children’s Play Garden in about two hours instead of the allocated three, which allowed for company members to leave a little early or help with other work onsite at the BVRA. Workday one members graciously and happily helped BVRA employee Jack Fisher finish a few tasks around the pool. While working during the workdays, the company’s sense of community was increasing because company members from different divisions and departments were integrating with one another while working on the site. Ali noted there was a constant stream of communication that allowed the work to get done, and also laughter and casual conversation that created a pleasant and comfortable environment. In addition, Testa had let Professor Hiller know that she believed “Tooba has great stakeholder management” and that she had “learned from Tooba!”

The Event Days and Sneak Peek Event were planned by the Events Director Audrey Dotson and involved small groups of company members going to Testa’s Nature’s Cool! class to teach and interact with the children. Each Event Day needed to be customized in a certain way so that it would be appropriate for the different age groups of students. Testa and Dotson planned a scavenger hunt for the students as well as a few smaller activities that allowed the company members to connect with the students as much as possible. In the end, the Event

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Days stayed on schedule the majority of the time and were fun for all involved. At one point during the first class’ scavenger hunt, one boy remarked that the “this [was] more fun than going to McDonald’s”. For a five year old, this was taken as a huge compliment. The three Event Days were planned thoroughly and executed successfully. Playing with Testa’s students made the company even more motivated to work towards building the Children’s Play Garden because everyone involved was able to see who was going to be the benefactors of the service efforts. The Event Days not only enhanced the company’s sense of community, but also strengthened the company’s ties to the Lewisburg Community.

The Sneak Peek Event was more challenging to schedule.

One of the more difficult things to figure out for the Sneak Peek was the stepping-stones project. When deciding on the plans for the Sneak Peek Event, Testa expressed interest in a station where people could create stepping-stones that would be permanently placed in the Play Garden. However, no one in the company had much experience working with concrete, and therefore supervision was going to be necessary. After going back and forth with Testa in figuring out logistics, the Service Division eventually was able to get an experienced supervisor to help company members run this craft effectively and efficiently.

B’s Map to Bridge the Gap’s service efforts came to fruition after the Sneak Peek Event on Saturday, April 12 at the BVRA. The event was considered extremely successful by both company members and the families who came. Many of the children who company members had

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met previously while teaching one of the Natures Cool! classes came, so the relationships formed previously were strengthened in addition to the many new connections made between the Bucknell and Lewisburg community.

In conclusion, B’s Map to Bridge the Gap’s service project went according to schedule with only a few minor setbacks. Ultimately the primary external stakeholders at the BVRA appreciated immensely the work accomplished at the Children’s Play Garden, which will be a lasting and sustainable landmark of Lewisburg for children to continue enjoying for years to come. The mission of the company was achieved through the relationships created between the Bucknell and Lewisburg communities that will hopefully be sustained and furthered through the creation and celebration of the Children’s Play Garden.

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[DIVISION HISTORY]

B’s Map to Bridge the Gap’s Business Division set out to deliver an affordable, high-quality product to the students of Bucknell and the Lewisburg community. The company chose a unique and creative poster design of downtown Lewisburg, which serves as a memento to unite past and present Bucknellians with their off-campus residential life experiences. The proceeds from this product went to the construction and development of the Children’s Play Garden at the Buffalo Valley Recreation Authority which allows children to experience learning through connections with nature. The Division also made every effort to support the local Lewisburg community by choosing a local supplier, The Printed Page, for all poster and advertisement printing, and selecting a Lewisburg gift certificate as the drawing prize. Amongst B’s Map to Bridge the Gap’s primary stakeholders were Maggie Testa, Dennis Evans, and the Management 101 Board.

The Business Division comprised of six members who worked tirelessly to attain the company’s goals prior to and during operations.

The Market Research Manager, Ashlyn Adelman, was responsible for creating and distributing surveys in order to determine all specifications regarding the product, including size, quantity, color, and mix. The final survey had a total of 440 respondents with a displayed demand of 330 posters. Although the results did not display an outright demand for over 500 posters, the Business Division communally decided to order 750. This decision was made based off of the demand for the posters relative to the number of people who took the surveys. As a Division, it was felt the percentage of units demanded to total respondents was too high to not extrapolate to the larger Bucknell population. In addition, the company needed to sell 20 more posters to cover the cost of buying 750 over 500 units.

Adelman also specifically constructed the surveys to pinpoint customer desire in terms of sales locations. It was decided to pursue the most popular option, the LC Mall. In addition, sales were conducted at Fraternity chapter houses in order to make the product more accessible to the target market. The surveys also showed that 55 people who would not otherwise buy the poster would purchase it if it entered them into a drawing. For this reason, a $75 gift certificate to local Lewisburg businesses was purchased as a drawing prize. The fraternity sales sessions, although innovative, were not as successful as expected. The Business Division failed to consider the impacts of low attendance at dinner, roommates coordinating purchases, and the existence of a similar poster design. In addition, the drawing did not prove to be significant in persuading customers to purchase the poster, but rather served as an added incentive to their

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WE’RE ON THE MAP: Company members hit the ground running with the start of Downtown Map poster sales. Advertisements were scattered across campus to attract customers of different market segments.

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purchase. The customer satisfaction survey showed that the primary incentive to purchase the poster was due to a strong liking of the quality and size of the poster.

An additional attraction toward the poster was due to the efficiency of the sales team. The survey showed that the majority of customers were satisfied with the organization, personable approach, and positivity of the sales team.

The Business Finance Officer, Quinn Flaks, was responsible for tabulating all of the Business Division costs for the semester. After compiling the budget for Operating Plans, Flaks ensured that the division stayed close to their budget during the Performing Phase. In addition, the BFO filled out the purchase requisition form and made sure that all transactions between the procurement office and the supplier ran smoothly.

Flaks was meticulous about the budget from the very beginning. To calculate all of these expenses, Flaks had to ensure that all division members took every possible projected expense into account. In addition, the Division would also collaborate to ensure we had accounted for all necessary purchasable goods on every aspect of the project.

Throughout the Performing Phase, the Business Division stayed true to their projected budget, which contributed to stabilizing the projected break-even point and ensured that the service proj-

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ect would be properly funded. When the product was ordered, the Procurement Office mistakenly interpreted the unit cost per poster, which was rounded off to the cent, and therefore paid the Printed Page an extra three dollars.

Flaks immediately spoke with the Procurement Services on the phone and resolved the issue, ensuring that the company would be invoiced properly and not encounter an unnecessary loss of funds. As a whole, communication with AFM proved to be a challenge that was handled well by the Business Finance Officer. Due to an ever-changing business budget, Flaks remained in constant communication with the Budget Controller to obtain proper break-even analyses. Originally, all receipts for Business Division expenses would go through Flaks. Due to the minimization of complexity involved with direct AFM interaction, all receipts were handled directly with the Treasurer, Jake Levine, instead. This left Flaks as a flexible asset to the sales team during the performing phase.

The Marketing and Design Director, Emma Rieser, created the design and advertising campaign for the business division. For Rieser, creating the design involved several challenges, including house placement, accuracy, and the overall process of producing a print-ready, color image.

Upon the design’s approval from the Events Management office and the General Counsel, it seemed like much of the work was already done; however, there was still much work to be done to create a final digital design. The unpredictability of technology was a significant challenge Rieser faced.

Although the process of creating the design was tedious and stressful at times, it was all worthwhile upon receiving the first printed sample.

The Marketing Campaign developed and evolved over the course of Operating Plans. During the Operating Plans revision session in Taylor 12, Professor Hiller made a comment suggesting a

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lack of creativity in the original advertisements, and suggested that the ads become more “eye-catching”.

Following that company session, Rieser focused intently on making streamlined advertisements that would be eye-catching and focused on the map design while still conveying necessary information about the company’s efforts, including the use of only one slogan (“See what we did with the grid”).

The Product Manager, Shannon Donlon, was responsible for all product related tasks, including the supplier contract, the ordering of the product, maintaining the relationship with the supplier, and managing inventory and quality control. The Sales Manager, Jamie Forrest, was in charge of all things related to poster sales. Due to its overlap in responsibilities with the actual product, the Sales Manager and Product Manager worked closely, alongside the VP of Business, to orchestrate the efforts of pickup and sale of the product. He developed extremely detailed sales policies and procedures by using past company’s and the support of the rest of the Business Division as resources. Sales policies were meant to be both efficient and easy to comprehend. It became clear that these goals were ultimately accomplished after an effective Sales Training day. One of the sales decisions involved targeting students who live in the downtown houses represented on the map by selling at the fraternity chapter houses during dinnertime. This had never been done before by a Management 101 Company, so Forrest had to come up with the logistics of it completely from scratch.

There were several challenges that came up during the sales process. After assuming that the market research data had not been tampered with and was truly representative of the population, the company planned to sell at least 520 out of the 750 posters which were ordered. The supplier, however, ended up delivering 1039 posters at no extra charge. Although this had its definite advantages, it made master inventory, quality control, and transportation a lot more difficult and time consuming. The Business Division struggled so much with the weight and bulk of the posters that the inventory was stored in a vehicle next to the LC Mall rather than on the third floor of Trax.

Perhaps the biggest challenge came during the Tuesday evening session on sales week after fraternity sales, where the VP of Business and Sales Manager became worried due to low sales numbers.

The Business Division had predicted fraternities as the target market because of their close association with downtown housing, which meant that sales periods were expected to be successful at each chapter house. However, after visiting three chapter houses and being turned down by a fourth, the company had sold fewer posters during the three fraternity sessions than would have been sold on one bad evening session in the LC Mall. The Business Division came to realize that some juniors and seniors already owned a similar poster design, and others were upset that their

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house wasn’t on the map or they “didn’t have any money”. The Business Division was now forced to hold a crisis aversion meeting in which new sales ideas were brainstormed to compensate for the lack of support from the primary target market. These included options such as Zelda’s, the bookstore, Admitted Students Day, and the Finance and Alumni Offices.

In the end, the Division elected to facilitate sales by having each company member offer to help friends purchase their posters through an un-official deliver type-service.

The last sales session was on Admitted Students Day in order to try and fully exhaust the Bucknell student market.

The final challenge for the Business division was managing the 553 unsold posters. We plan to donate 25 posters to Zelda’s Cafe and 50 posters to the Alumni office. In addition, we will be donating 50 posters to our supplier, Dennis Evans, and ten to our designer, Emma Rieser. Another 200 posters will be donated to the Management 101 board for future use, which can include donations to orientation or alumni related events, and 3 posters will be donated to the service client, Maggie Testa. The remaining inventory will be properly recycled.

One of the most important and meaningful aspects of the semester was the development of a close-knit community within the Business division. Although the first few meetings consisted strictly of work and were slightly stressful, Business members quickly became comfortable with each other through collaboration and communication. These meetings had turned into enjoyable sessions where Business members worked on tasks together. The group chat that the Division had together was also not strictly business-related anymore, but included informal conversation from which inside jokes began to form. This sense of community motivated the Business division to complete all of the necessary work effectively, which helped Business to pass operating plans and reach their goals during the Performing Phase. In this sense, the effectiveness and consistency of everyone’s work created a sense of interdependence within the division, which fostered the building of a community that was ready to tackle any and all challenges thrown their way during the Performing Phase.

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[[ EYE ON THE PRIZE: Reports’ hard work and countless hours were finally rewarded with compilations of the Company’s plans, story, and documentation. This Division embraced innovation, taking on challenging ideas in both Company Summary and Final Oral Reports.

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The Reports Division of B’s Map to Bridge the Gap, was fortunate to be comprised of six talented and dedicated company members who began the norming phase with a positive outlook on the monumental tasks ahead.

Comprised of VP of Reports Kelsey O’Donnell, Operating Plans Co-Manager/ Archivist Caroline MacLure, Operating Plans Co-Manager/Company Summary Manager Sarah Ross, Oral Reports Manager Eric Gowat, Digital Media Manager Jenna Lochiatto, and Information Systems Director Charlie Wang, the Reports Division hit the ground running to set up pre-controls to establish and enforce organization policies to increase efficiency and effectiveness when carrying out reports. O’Donnell created an Operating Plans Ladder, setting a strong precedent for how the Reports Division would continue to organize document responsibilities and deadlines throughout the rest of the semester. This allowed the Reports Division as well as the entire company to visually see the progress of Operating Plans and track down documents that had not been turned in. Goals were set based on the ladder which helped make the process more efficient.

To submit all documents written for one of the reports, Wang organized folders on the Company B Google Drive. Folders were organized by the status of the document (Working, Edited by VP, Final) and then by division/department. This helped track down documents more efficiently. Within the Reports Division, there have been a few times that efficiency has been forgone in favor of effectiveness. A prime example of this is in the choices made about templates which impacted the process of PDF-ing. It was decided to imbed a header within a word document so company members could easily format their document. It was also decided to have the Reports Division convert the word files into PDFs; as opposed to having the VPs of each department or division do this task. This was much more time consuming for the Reports Division, however it allowed easy copy editing of all documents. This took some burden off of the other VPs, but created more work for Reports Division.

From the start, the Reports Division has established a strong sense of community that has grown over time. Towards the early stages of the norming phase, Reports members’ work was somewhat differentiated, as Gowat, Lochiatto, and Wang were each working towards preparing what would be done during the performing phase, Ross and MacLure were focused on editing and finalizing Operating Plans. However, the division managed to come together, working with one another to lay out a Google Calendar detailing

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EPORTS

[DIVISION HISTORY]

each member’s specific tasks over the semester. During this meeting, the division decided to begin calling the late nights before deadlines, “Pizza Parties”. To Reports’ fortune, several other members of the Reports Division and company stopped by to help MacLure, Ross, and O’Donnell with formatting, answering questions, and copy editing. This lead to a positive work environment in which Division members valued each other’s opinions. The compliments and support the Reports Division provided one another with intrinsic rewards of pride that couldn’t match the extrinsic food rewards provided at meetings.

Though the Reports Division was fortunate to have few issues with deadlines, there were a few moments of crises throughout the semester. Issues arose during “Pizza Parties” when previously edited documents could not be found. To remedy this, MacLure used search tools to look through her large Downloads folder on her computer, eventually finding the correct document. To prevent more confusion between documents, Reports re-organized document submission for revisions of Operating Plans. There was also confusion with PDFing as O’Donnell had figured out an effective and rather complex method to compile PDFs on Adobe Acrobat, but only O’Donnell’s laptop could be used during this PDFing process. This slowed the PDFing process and frustrated the three division members, which reduced performance. While explaining this issue in the script during a read-through, TA Patrick Bucaria, mentioned that PDFs can easily

20

21

REPORTS

be compiled through Preview on all Macs. This information made PDFing for Archives much simpler.

A crisis arose during the printing of Final Operating Plans, in which MacLure, Ross, and O’Donnell did not realize the documents were supposed to be printed double sided. As the Reports VPs from the four companies had each worked out a specific time to print, O’Donnell knew this would be the only available time to print and it was late at night so TAs and professors would likely be unavailable. O’Donnell decided to keep printing documents and explain the issue to Professor Hiller the next day. However, MacLure suddenly discovered a method to print double sided when the PDF was in preview. This allowed Reports to print the remaining three sections double sided.

Staying calm during this crisis instead of panicking allowed MacLure, Ross, and O’Donnell to effectively evaluate the situation and decide the best solution.

Despite the crises, the division’s sense of community further developed during the “Pizza Parties” through the integration of ideas and media for the final reports. Wang and Lochiatto worked together with Gowat and Ross to incorporate digital media and video into the Final Oral Report and Company Summary. Additionally, collaboration occurred outside of the division, especially with digital media. Wang and Lochiatto also worked with Emma Rieser, Marketing and Design Director to manage B’s Map to Bridge the Gap’s three social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In addition, Lochiatto worked with the Service Division to create a logo and flyers for the Children’s Play Garden as well as with the HRM Department to help create the company newsletter, “The Sunday.” Additionally, Lochiatto was able to interview Maggie Testa, the service client and create a video demonstrating all of the work the company put into building the Children’s Play Garden. Lochiatto also put together a scrapbook to give to the Children’s Play Garden which has many pictures of the progress of the Children’s Play Garden construction as well as the lessons with the Nature’s Cool! class.

The Reports Division constantly sought to elevate reports to a higher level in both content and design. This was possible through the dedication and collective creative talent of Division members. Perhaps one of the Report’s Division’s best demonstration of creativity is evident through the Company Summary. After looking through past Company Summaries, Ross and O’Donnell decided they wanted to try something new, incorporating more images and text to create a clean layout and design. Using inspiration from an urban planning project report, Morristown Moving Forward, O’Donnell, Ross, Wang, and Lochiatto worked together to format texts and photos appropriately. Fortunately, the company’s response to the finished Company Summary was one of excitement and awe. Every company member was “very satisfied” with the Company Summary. A qualtrics survey was conducted to gather this feedback.

For Archives, a similar strategy as Operating Plans was used to track documents. MacLure created

a new Archives Ladder which detailed all the different required documents, writers, and deadlines.

The Reports Division members came together for a final Pizza Party of the semester and were able to efficiently compile this extensive report.

Perhaps the most challenging project was the final Oral Report. Prior to the Performing Phase, Eric Gowat assigned everyone in the company secondary jobs to play a role in the oral report, either as a lead actor, scriptwriter, assistant director, tech operators, stage manager, prop manager, costume manager, set designer, or stage crew. Fortunately, all company members were placed into one of their top three choices. Scriptwriters were assigned from each division so that the most accurate and honest script would be written. In addition, Gowat met with the Oral Reports Managers from each of the other companies to create a rehearsal schedule based on a survey Gowat had created for company member’s availability. Additionally, Gowat also prepared the company for Operating Plans Oral Report, rehearsing each speaking part so transitions would be smooth and the presentation would fall within the time limit. He also helped the company be ready to answer all questions from the Board through quizzing members on their secondary job times and knowledge relevant to company operations. Afterwards, Gowat explained proper dress code for the presentation, and the company was recognized by the Board for their professionalism in dress and presentation cohesiveness.

Going into the Final Oral Report, company members were asked to brainstorm themes for the performance and also put together a list of events they believed were critical to the company’s experience. During the first scriptwriter meeting, the scriptwriters decided upon the theme “Slumdog Millionaire” and listed out all of the critical events they wanted to include. Scenes were divvied up and assigned to scriptwriters. However, as this was occurring during the peak of company operations with both sales and service events occurring. This created a lot of stress and frustration within the scriptwriting committee, as there was a lack of time resource to commit to this job. Although all scriptwriters had agreed to their position before Gowat cast the rest of the roles, some didn’t realize the importance of their secondary job. However, the Reports Division was firm with their deadlines, and wanted to write the script early so all company members would have the opportunity to provide input before rehearsing. Therefore, Gowat, O’Donnell, and some scriptwriters met for long hours to provide a comprehensive draft of the script to prepare for the goals Gowat had set to have dry read-through of the script. Prior to the read-through, Gowat, O’Donnell, and MacLure worked together to create a Qualtrics survey which would measure the company’s perceived accuracy of the script as well as provide feedback to the scriptwriters. During the readthrough, the company paused after each scene to have a roundtable discussion about issues they had with the script. This helped to create a script that was both accurate and reflected the perspectives of all company members. In the end, the Reports division worked nonstop to ensure the completion and success of the Final Oral Report. For rehearsals, Gowat, O’Donnell, and Stage Manager Sophie Heinberg, headed the entire operation, splitting the work and making it easier to complete with their combined effort. Gowat and Heinberg blocked out the scenes and gave a multitude of pointers and performance tips, while O’Donnell helped with logistics of planning rehearsals and keeping company members on task. After many hours of rehearsing, Company B was able to perform the final report, giving an exceptional portrayal of the Company’s journey through Man-

22

EPORTS

agement 101 which fell perfectly within the time limit. Because each company member worked hard rehearsals went faster, stress was reduced, and both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards were fulfilled upon the completion of the Final Oral Report.

Overall, the dedication of all of the members of the Reports Division has been evident throughout the semester. When Division members were asked to write a document to contribute to this Company Summary, multiple members mentioned that the effort other Reports members put into their job inspires and motivates them to do their best as well. The norms and community established within the division has ensured B’s Map to Bridge the Gap will leave behind a legacy which reflects all of the company’s work and passion.

23

[

[

THE ANONY-BOX!: One of HRM’s many successful implementations in creating a strong and appreciative community. In addition, HRM’s Snaps Policy, Sunday newsletter, and food incentives kept the company positive and eager to work together.

24

The primary objectives of B’s Map to Bridge the Gap’s HRM Department were to measure and analyze company-wide performance and quality of work life, and ensure proper job staffing. The HRM Department had to keep track of absenteeism, incentivize hard work, monitor projected and actual work hours, and provide valuable feedback to individual company members that deserved personal attention. The HRM Department consisted of four members, each contributing to the efficiency and effectiveness of the department and overall well-being of the company. Kendall O’Brien was the Performance and Incentives Manager, Abigail Galloway was the Quality of Work Life Manager, Messeret Kebede was the Staffing and Scheduling Director, and Peter Puleo was the Vice President.

Overall, the most difficult aspect of effectively implementing the many systems required of a good HRM department was the fact that few other Management 101 companies have previously attempted what Company B strives to achieve in terms of data analysis, theoretical experimentation, and schedule efficiency. However, this independence allowed the HRM Department to form unique norms that benefited the entire company.

The Performance Evaluation procedure was innovative in its effort to assess company members and their personal performance. Rather than using the graphic rating scales typically used in Management 101 companies, the Performance and Incentives Manager, Kendall O’Brien, employed a Behaviorally Anchored Rating (BAR) Scale. This method evaluated the specific behaviors that lead to job success rather than broad traits that are often irrelevant to company members. Company B’s Performance Evaluation survey was also designed for efficient data analysis.

O’Brien made this possible by designing multiple Performance Evaluation surveys: one for each department or division, one for the Executive Committee, and one for peer evaluations. While this survey-making process was more time-consuming, it proved to be very rewarding as both the efficiency and depth of data assessment were impressively high. Through this analysis, each company member received a Performance Score, which is an average of the scores received in the following categories: contribution, dependability, attitude, initiative, job knowledge, interaction with company, and communication. Performance Scores range from 1-5, with a score of 1 indicating perfect performance across all categories of evaluation. This Performance Score measured worker effectiveness and ultimately highlighted underperformance; an issue that could later be addressed by the HRM Department through personal feedback meetings. Furthermore, it allowed the HRM Department to recognize performance change over time. The Reports Division saw the greatest improvement over time, dropping from a Performance Score of 1.31 to 1.11. The HRM Department is proud to report that between the two PE surveys, improvement occurred across all departments and divisions within the company.

Overall, through increased individual contributions, Company B lowered its Performance Score by 0.08 and saw a significant decrease in standard deviation. This represents each department and division contributing a relatively equal amount to the company’s improved overall performance.

25

RM

[DEPARTMENT HISTORY]

O’Brien put much effort into designing and implementing an incentives and rewards system that would encourage hard work and improvement within the company. This system included an “Anony-Box” for anonymous comments or criticisms that were taken seriously by the HRM Department. Each week, compliments from the Anony-Box were listed in the company newsletter, “The Sunday”, which also highlighted the agenda, weather, perfect attendance, and a personal bio of one randomly chosen company member. An essential aspect of O’Brien’s incentives and rewards system was the HRM “Snaps” Policy. At the end of each company session, members could give “snaps” to others that deserved recognition. This policy was responsible for some of the most memorable moments of Company B’s Management 101 experience. Members of the company that showed significant improvement over time received a genuine letter of appreciation from the Performance and Incentives Manager, VP of HRM, and his or her supervisor. O’Brien’s successful implementation of a complex performance and incentives system was an essential aspect of the company’s growth in both effectiveness and community.

The Quality of Work Life Director, Abigail Galloway, was tasked with assessing the emotional health of the company. To accomplish this, Galloway designed surveys that allowed the HRM Department to gauge how each employee felt about his or her job and overall role in the company.

The QWL survey was designed around an organizational model that could assess various aspects of community. This survey monitored the following categories: job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational identity, sense of community, and meaningfulness of work. Each question on the survey was drawn from academic sources. Survey results were compiled and analyzed in both an aggregate report and a confidential report of individual data for other HRM departmental purposes.

The analysis following the survey was more complicated than expected. Initial analysis involved simply scanning numbers and open ended questions for obvious problems, such as high stress levels or complaints. For example, individuals with stress levels above a 7 on a 1-10 scale were questioned and marked for tracking in future surveys. Finally, open-ended results for company concerns were analyzed. Any recorded problems or worries were tagged for follow up. In several instances, this including a request for more help within a specific division. The HRM Department was integral in resolving these issues by scheduling individual feedback meetings and identifying areas of improvement. Following the initial check, an in-depth statistical analysis was performed on the data set, including summation methods, correlation and regression analysis, ANOVA tests, and general descriptive data mining. Interesting findings included statistical significance in the differences in job satisfaction between the reports and business divisions. Furthermore, regression analysis results showed that meaningfulness of work was a key predictive factor of job satisfaction, suggested that employees that considered their jobs worthwhile were more likely to enjoy their work, and therefore be more motivated.

There was a moderate correlation between high performance and low absenteeism. Interestingly, high levels of stress have a moderate correlation with organizational commitment, which might suggest that employees experiencing more stress tend to feel more dedicated to the company’s outcome.Overall, Gal-

26

RM

loway’s analysis provided a fascinating view of the inner-workings of the company and, through personal feedback, helped individuals identify the ways in which they could improve.

As the Scheduling and Staffing Director, Messeret Kebede’s tasks included creating a projected time budget, placing company members into secondary jobs, and keeping track of all primary and secondary hours. First, Kebede devised a projected time budget of primary and secondary hours for every member within company. These numbers were determined by averaging those found in the archives of several previous Management 101 companies. Kebede used secondary job schedules in order to estimate each member’s secondary business, service, and reports hours.

Kebede sent out the projected time budget to the each company member to allow him or her to make any necessary adjustments. In order to establish an efficient system to schedule company members for their secondary hours, she requested that all members update and share their Google Calendars. This would allow her to place members into secondary jobs based on availability, and then to send out the schedule to make sure members were aware of their secondary job schedules. Kebede sought to ensure company members’ hours were equitable rather than necessarily equal. However, initial difficulty with Google Calendar made this process more complicated than expected. Eventually, Kebede was able to view each company member’s calendar, and efficiently schedule secondary jobs.

Nonetheless, issues arose when company members failed to add new commitments or priorities to their Google Calendars. This meant that they appeared to be available when in fact they were not, which led to several scheduling conflicts throughout the semester. Although this provided a significant challenge, Kebede was flexible and available at all times to make the changes that were essential. In order to track weekly primary and secondary hours in an efficient manner, Kebede shared timesheets via Google Drive for company members to fill out weekly. Although company members did not always submit their hours on time, they complied quickly after being reminded.

Kebede’s exemplary communication was key in ensuring scheduling conflicts were resolved and timesheets were filled out in a timely manner, which proved to be a definitive part Company B’s successful service and business projects.

There were several important lessons learned from the processes described above. Forethought and questioning convention is essential to innovative development. Furthermore, personal feedback and identifying areas of improvement for an individual can significantly benefit the entire company. Finally, good communication and patience are essential to the coordination of impactful service and business projects.

27

[

[

LAST CHANGE, I SWEAR: AFM’S patience and accuracy did not go unnoticed in acknowledging the reasoning behind the company’s success.

The Division stayed optimistic despite issues with changing budgets and a missing receipt.

28

[DEPARTMENT HISTORY]

29

AFM

The Accounting and Financial Management Department for B’s Map to Bridge the Gap has played a vital role in contributing to the company’s success.

The Department has been accountable for properly recording, analyzing, and providing all financial information regarding the company. These tasks were able to be accomplished through the use of projected financial statements, cash flow statements, final financial statements, and constant maintenance of a financial journal. In carrying out these responsibilities, job roles consisted of Vice President of AFM, Treasurer, Head Accountant, and Budget Controller. Max McKelvy as VP of AFM, Jake Levine as Treasurer, Rachel Perry as Head Accountant, and Cooper Nidds as Budget Controller. Ultimately, in assigning these job positions the decision heavily relied on the fact that these individuals are comfortable with numbers and had a strong desire to learn about financing. Once finally formed, the AFM Department worked hard to maintain accuracy in all financial plans, continuous communication, and upkeep of the company’s financial position.

AFM first hit the ground running during Operating Plans. The Department was responsible for providing an assortment of financial statements, policies, and procedures. Levine began with the responsibility of creating twelve different policy and procedure forms. With little knowledge of what these documents required, Levine had to look back at previous companies’ policy and procedure forms to gather information. In addition, Levine had to work with the company itself to create specific policies that would fit our own company uniquely. This task was time consuming, requiring a great deal of thought and communication.

Levine was also responsible for relaying the University’s financial policies to the company; this way, all company members were made aware of how to go about spending money properly. Communication further extended to informing the Business Department and Service Department of financial information necessary

for their own Operating Plans documentation. This information included sales and expenses, such as deciding how supplies would be paid for.

The Head Accountant, Rachel Perry was responsible for a pro forma income statement and a projected statement of cash flows. These documents provided accurate information on our company’s intended financial future.

Since this role critically involved the other departments, Perry had to work closely with Nidds to obtain correct information from all departments regarding their anticipated budgets.

While Nidds was crucial in helping the Head Accountant, he was also responsible for creating a budget template for each division to track their projected expenses. Once each department completed the template, it was then sent to Nidds. This was an efficient and effective process since the Nidds was able to delegate this task to one member in each division. However, the ease in gathering expenses did not overshadow the tediousness of Nidds’ job to record changes in these budgets. Nidds had to sacrifice his efficient process in order to make sure every change was recorded properly.

While some would think budget changes don’t seem too daunting, they were surely mistaken. Every change in the budget meant that every document had to change accordingly. For instance, the break-even analysis brought great challenges. Nidds is responsible for calculating multiple break-even points (BEP) depending on the amount of CAP sales vs. cash sales. However, whenever the budget changed, no matter by how much, the Budget Controller had to calculate every BEP over again. Furthermore, these values were important for Business to know, so Business was continuously irritated with the constant changes. Thus, keeping track of the budget was truly a frustrating process. The Budget Controller had to maintain patience while waiting for company members to relay expenses to him, but also race against the clock leading up to the Operating Plans due date. Moving forward, Nidds, as well as the entire AFM Department, was especially relieved with the conclusion of Operating Plans. It was a comforting feeling to know our Department can now put the projected expenses behind us and begin to record actual expenses, a much easier process than predicting expenses.

The Performing Phase was yet another crucial time period for the AFM Department.

During the Performing Phase, Levine, was responsible for putting together the audit binder,

30

Posters Ordered

1039 Posters Received

473 Posters Sold

338 Posters Donated

$4,730 Total Revenue

$1,095 Total Profit

reimbursing company members, and depositing cash made during cash sales. In addition, he also served as the cashier during sales and assisted on service workdays. These responsibilities were crucial and vital to our company’s effectiveness. Thus, Levine knew that in order to accomplish these tasks he would have to be organized and ahead of the schedule. Levine ended up keeping track of the sales receipts and ensuring all of the receipts matched up with the sales tracking forms. In addition, Levine deposited all cash and reimbursed company members at the soonest possible time and also keeping a record for the audit binder.

Nidd’s job during the Performing Phase largely consisted of making sure that every expense was within the company’s budget. If outside the budget, it was his job to determine whether or not we had room for the addition(s) to the budget. If there was no room, Nidds would advise whoever purchased the material to return it. However, if the purchase was necessary for the company, it would be fit into the budget. In reality, this process was relatively stress-free for Nidds as the company rarely went outside the budget.

Perry’s responsibilities during the Performing Phase included keeping an updated general journal and general ledger used to record all transactions made by company members. Using the information recorded in the general journal and general ledger, she then made weekly statements of cash flows, comparing them to our projected statement of cash flows. To do this, she created an excel document with multiple worksheets then placed the projected weekly cash flows next to the actual weekly cash flows. At the end of the Performing Phase, Perry created the following company’s final financial statements: actual operating budget; statement of cash flows; income statement; and income tax form. In addition, she compiled the transactions recorded throughout the semester to create these documents.

Perhaps the largest crisis that AFM dealt with directly was tracking down a CAP Center receipt after sales. As usual, before filling out the Cash Box Log Levine would count the receipts to ensure none are missing as well as record the correct amount of posters. However, in this situation it turned out that the company was missing one receipt. Since we had the poster number of the receipt that was missing, Levine was able to refer to the Sales Tracking Form, obtain the purchaser’s email address, and send the person an email to see if she had the yellow and/or pink copy of the receipt. This was a stressful process for AFM because this woman did not know who we were, and there was a good chance that she had thrown out her receipt directly after buying the poster. She ended up responding, rather promptly, saying she had the yellow copy of the receipt, and that she would give it to company member Kendall O’Brien to give to Levine in class. Another minor crisis AFM had to deal with was figuring out what went wrong when the cash box and inventory logs did not match up. To deal with this Levine physically counted out (on the sales tracking form) the posters sold and corrected the mistakes that were made.

31

AFM

750

COMPANY WIDE COMMUNITY & RESPONSIBILITY

Coming into Management 101 the members of B’s Map to Bridge the Gap were unsure how they were going to play a part in the running of the company. The company members had heard stories about the service and business projects that had been done in the past but didn’t know about the work that occurred behind the scenes. The company members quickly learned that community was going to be a very important part of our company’s effectiveness and efficiency.

Starting off the semester the company was required to memorize everyone’s names and faces. It seemed like a good way to create a sense of connection between members and allow people to get to know each other. However, this only created a superficial relationship between members and while company members knew the names and faces of their co-workers, they did knew nothing about their personality.

After memorizing everyone’s names for the names and faces quiz our company started to learn more about each other. This began with the forming of Research & Development teams and then moving into creating coalitions. Company members were beginning to interact with each other on a more personal level. The connection gained between students was only within small groups, so the overall company community was less prevalent. However, the company’s ability to work together was evident during the discussion session in which time was divvied up so each company would have a chance to conduct market research through handing out surveys to the other companies. Company B was the only company to work together and follow the correct procedures for this class period, a feat which brought the company closer together and fostered a sense of pride.

A strong sense of a community felt throughout the company didn’t occur for most people until being placed in their respective jobs. The elected Executive Board met for about five hours to figure out where everyone would fit best in the company. When the entire company accepted their jobs, it allowed people to feel that the company was working for a common goal instead of being biased towards a personal service or business project.

The week before Operating Plans presentation the entire company met several times in Academic West to work on finalizing operating plans and making sure that everyone understood their roles in the company. While these sessions were not mandatory for the entire company, there was still a large turnout for each night. Especially, the night before presenting Operating Plans, the company was able to efficiently practice fielding possible questions from the Board and giving an initial overview of what our company hoped to accomplish. This was a very enjoyable experience for the company because it was one of the first times that everyone had come together to work on a specific project while having a fun time doing it. The company was able to prepare for the next day while creating a sense of community, whether the company members realized it or not. Even though the company’s Operating Plans was not passed the next day, there was still a belief that the company would be able to persevere and get passed the next day. That night there was yet another meeting in Academic West during which the CEO Peter Krebs asked the company to come if they had any concerns about the service project. The turnout was overwhelming. The company continued to show support for the service project even though it had not been passed.

The company gave feedback and suggestions to the Service Division, which helped them prepare for the next day. During class the next day the Service Division, mainly the Construction Manager

32

Tooba Ali spoke to the board. The Board was pleased with the progress the Service Division had made and approved the project. The passing of Operating Plans was a group effort that helped build community through the support shown by company members. This was one of the biggest steps in creating a company that cared about one another.

Hopefully, the Sneak Peek Event for the Children’s Play Garden will increase the community even more because it will be the moment when the company sees how the Lewisburg community will be affected by the play garden. This event and the presenting of Oral Reports are two moments when the company expects to feel proud of all the work that the students did to reach the goal of oral reports and a finished Children’s Play Garden.

Another important aspect of forming a cohesive work environment throughout the company, was developing intra-departmental relationships. Naturally, the demanding Norming Phase required each department or division of the company to work together outside of class (often for hours on end) which undeniably strengthened our community. After the VPs worked hard to delegate work and ensure healthy norms were formed within their respective sectors of the company, the HRM Department began implementing important community-building systems to bring all five departments/divisions together into “the Company B family.” A policy that the HRM department used to compliment company members that went above and beyond was called “Snaps”. This would occur at the end of class and would be open to anyone. The VP of HRM Peter Puleo would ask if anyone would like to compliment someone in the class. A student would raise their hand and thank a student for doing something positive for the company. Then the entire company would snap for the person being thanked. Even though it was a small gesture to the person who performed the good deed, it recognized the person in front of the entire company.

While there are many examples of good leadership and hard work forming the foundation of B’s Map to Bridge the Gap’s strong community, it is essential to recount the instances in which failure and re-design allowed the company to grow in a unique way. Early on, the perception of an already strong community led to instances of groupthink within the company. This was especially apparent during both Decision Days. During the Service Decision Day, some company members perceived that it was groupthink which led to a decision being made without proficient information being presented to the company. During the Business Decision Days, some company members ended up voting for the downtown map poster solely because it seemed inevitable it would win. These moments led the company away from the goal of creating an effective community environment. However, voting together prevented company members from taking on a winners and losers mentality, and instead embraced both business and service projects.

Through all of the ups and downs of creating a strong community, the company was able to become closer to one another. The class created an efficient working environment while gaining new friends because of the class. It taught the company that when people feel comfortable around each other and know that they can trust their fellow company members, it creates sustainable working conditions. This company has been able to perform at a high level throughout all of the phases of the class while still keeping a close bond between company members and is proud of the work they have been able to accomplish.

33

FINAL INCOME STATEMENT

Sales

473 Posters @ $10/ unit Gross Sales Revenue Less: PA Sales Tax (6%) Less: CAP Center Fees (46% of total sales at 5%/unit) Net Revenue

Cost of Goods Sold 473 Poster 14 Defective Goods 338 Posters Donated, 214 Recycled Total CGS

Gross Profit

Operating Expenses

Business

Service

Reports

HRM

AFM

Total Operating Expenses

Operating Income Income Tax (10%) Net Income

Donations from Outsiders Total Donation to Service Project 34

$ $ $ $

4,730.00 4,730.00 269.61 119.29

$

4,341.10

$ $ $ $

749.86 1,189.00 416.93 1,189.00

$

3,152.10

$ $ $ $ $ $

313.90 1,541.34 59.41 60.10 26.85 2,001.60

$ $ $

1,150.50 115.05 1,035.44

$ $

60.26 1,095.71

VARIANCE ANALYSIS Expense Variance Analysis

The total variance for the operating budget of the company was $ (376.01). This amount is negative, meaning that our company performed $1541.34 $1641.52 $(170.18) under the projected budget. There were overestimates in each division except for AFM, which Business $1503.17 $1504.31 $(1.14) operated with their preliminary budget. HRM overestimated their budget due to company Reports $59.41 $161.00 $(101.59) events that eventually fell through. A trip to the Freez was budgeted for, but due to lack of interHRM $60.10 $230.88 $ (170.78) est, the trip was eventually called off. This event was replaced with much less costly events, such AFM $26.85 $28.90 $ (2.05) as Dunkin Donuts at the beginning of class or the final company celebration. We also learned that Total $3190.60 $3566.61 $ (375.74) we would be getting $50 for our final company celebration, so the budgeted finances for that event weren’t necessary. Reports operated fairly far away from budget, with a budget difference of $101.59. We totally overestimated the cost of the final oral reports budget since we were able to make our own props or find costumes from our own wardrobes. Business operated close to their original budget. Business overestimated the cost of their advertising materials and also realized that some of their advertising expenses were unnecessary, causing some expenses in the projected budget to not be included in the actual budget. The business budget, both projected and actual, includes the cost of goods sold. Service had the second highest variance of any division/department within the company, amounting for a $100.18 difference. This is a negative value however, so service still operated under their preliminary budget.

Most of their Sneak Peak materials were purchased for a little under the budget, which contributed to some of the variance. The rest of the variance is due to a Weis donation in the form of a gift card.

This donation essentially gave us a $20 cushion when purchasing materials at Weis and accounted for $ (20.00) in the budget, which contributed to some of the variance. The rest of the variance is due to a Weis donation in the form of a gift card. This donation essentially gave us a $20 cushion when purchasing materials at Weis and accounted for $ (20.00) in the budget.

Division/ Department Service

Actual

Projected

Variance

Revenue Source Cash Sales for Posters ($10) CAP Sales for Posters ($10) Gross Revenue Less: Cap Fee Less: Sales Tax Net Revenue

Actual

Projected

Variance

$2200.00

$3000.00

$(800.00)

Revenue Variance Analysis

As one would be able to see, the revenue variance is considerably large, meaning we projected much higher revenues than our actual revenues. We had absolutely stellar market $2530.00 $4500.00 $(1970.00) research that led our company to believe we could sell out of 750 posters. Of the 750 posters we ordered, we sold only 472 of them, $4730.00 $7500.00 $(2770.00) which equates to about 63.07% of our inventory. These numbers do not include the extra $118.91 $211.50 $ (92.59) 289 posters our supplier gave us; when including those posters, we sold about 45.52% of our $269.61 $427.50 $ (157.89) stock. The CAP to Cash sales ratio is actually better than expected; 53.49% of posters sold $4,341.10 $6,861.00 $ (2,519.90) (253) were sold with the CAP, a percentage lower than our projections of 60% CAP. This would mean that cash sales were proportionally higher than anticipated at around 46.51% sold (220). We were able to sell most of our inventory in the LC Mall, during CAP sales. The rest of our sales were done after CAP sales in the LC, at fraternity houses, in the library, or at admitted students day.

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SUMMARY WORK HOURS STATISTICS Actual and Projected Primary Hours Exec

Service

Business

Reports

HRM

AFM

Projected Total Projected Average Actual Total

675

280

290

430

190

180

112.5

56

58

86

63.3

60

608

281

285

221

129

110.5

Actual Average

101.3

56.2

57

44.2

43

36.8

Projected & Actual Secondary Hours Service

Business

Reports

Projected Total

172

170

800

Projected Average

6.4

6.3

29.6

Actual Average

7.4

11.2

23.6

200.5

302

637

Total

Projected & Actual Company-Wide Hours Primary

Secondary

Total

Projected total

2045

1142

3187

Projected average

75.7

42.3

118

8.4

4.7

13.1

1563.5

1139.5

2703

57.9

42.2

100.1

Projected avg/week Actual total Actual average

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EXPLANATION OF VARIANCE

Scheduling and Staffing Director Messeret Kebede estimated the primary and secondary hours for company members by looking at archive binders for past Management 101 companies and calculating the average number of hours for each position. After creating a projected time budget, she sent it out to the entire company and had members make adjustments in order to aim to have the projected time budget resemble the actual time budget. The primary projected hours for both the business and service division were very close to the actual hours spent. However, for reports, HRM, and AFM, Kebede overestimated the primary hours that would be spent by division members. The actual hours may be significantly lower because company members were very efficient, which would have led them to complete tasks much quicker than expected.

As for projected and actual secondary hours, there were substantial discrepancies that can be explained. For business secondary hours, Kebede underestimated by almost half because sales did not go as well as the company had projected. Since our posters were not as successful as we thought they would be, we had to add several more sales sessions in order to sell as many posters as we could before the selling period ended. This resulted in company members having to spend nearly double the amount of time they expected to on sales. For service secondary hours, a few company members spent a considerable number of hours working on service secondary jobs, which increased the total and average company-wide secondary hours for service. For example, Jenna Lochiatto (Digital Media Manager) spent a lot of time at service events taking pictures and videos. There few members who spent more time than projected on secondary service jobs made the actual hours higher than anticipated. For reports secondary hours, the actual hours were less than the projected hours because our company was very cooperative during oral reports presentation rehearsals. Therefore, we did not use all of the time we had allocated for rehearsals. Overall, there is no way the projected time budget could have matched perfectly with the actual time budget because unexpected events are bound to happen, which result in spending more or less time on certain tasks.

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LETTER TO FUTURE COMPANIES

Welcome to a class that will teach you more about managing in one semester than some people will learn during their entire time in college. This class will push you to your limit by challenging you to learn as much as possible as quick as you can. It will be a difficult process and will take up a large portion of the semester but it is worth it. You will become emotionally invested in this class to a point where it will feel like other work is getting in the way of MGMT 101. This class is a full body learning experience and will teach you more than just how to manage company members but how to manage your time and life. Hopefully, you are very excited for the semester ahead. Something important to understand is that it is okay to be unsure about of how you are going to fit into the company dynamic; just let yourself fit in wherever you are needed and feel most comfortable.

Here is some advice that B’s Map to Bridge the Gap would like to pass onto you because they believe that this information will help make your semester run smoother. The company has learned a lot over this past semester and hope you will be able to have as good of an experience as we have had.

Community: This will be a central part of what creates an efficient and effective company. You

will not be able to carry out your goals that you set at the start of the semester if you don’t have a strong community within your company. You can create this by making sure that you set norms for the company with how you should act when interacting with people in the company and outside stakeholders. Additionally, if you make sure to incentivize hard work, their will be a greater interest in making an effort to connect to fellow company members. Also, this class will give you the opportunity to meet new people and make close friends that could last a long time. These people that you will be working with could become a new best friend; make sure to keep an open mind with everyone in the company.

Job Placement: The process of filling jobs will be a very slow but important process. Make sure

that you consider both their top choices and where you think they would fit best in the company.

Something important to remember is that you should try to fill the hardest positions first and place people who you are unsure about first. If you don’t fill the hardest positions first they can come back to haunt you at the end. Also, when trying to persuade someone to take a job that wasn’t one of their top choices, make sure to tell them that they will have the ability to redesign their job in a way that better fits their interests. While talking to someone about a job that wasn’t on their top choices make sure that you don’t force it upon them by giving them the option to say no. Let them know that you will be happy to give them some time to think about it. You don’t want someone in a position that will make them miserable the entire semester.

Positive Attitude: Trying to stay positive during the up’s and down’s of the semester is a very

difficult thing. If you can go into a task like having to pull an all nighter to be able to finalize operating plans with a positive attitude then it can make the process more enjoyable. This can apply to anytime when you feel down or the stress of the class is getting to you, find a way to calm yourself down and keep a level head because your emotional state will rub off onto other company members. Furthermore, if your company doesn’t pass operating plans on the first try, make sure to stay positive and understand that it is very common to not pass on the first day. Just make sure to finalize all of the problems with your operating plans overnight and stay confident in your company.

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Passion: When choosing and carrying out your service project make sure that your entire company is committed to your service project and goal. This is important because it will ensure that people are passionate about the project, which creates a sense of community and increases efficiency.

Also, it means that people will be willing to go out of their way to finalize the service project and make sure that it will represent your company’s mission statement.

These are some things that the member’s of B’s Map to Bridge the Gap believe will help you complete your companies goal and have a good time doing it. This class will teach you a lot about applying the managerial skills, you will learn during the lectures, in the real work environment.

Something important to remember is that you should keep a level of professionalism during everything you do for this company. You are representing Bucknell and your company. Finally, the company members from B’s Map to Bridge the Gap want to wish you luck in your upcoming semester and hope that you leave this class feeling like you made a difference in the world through both your business and service project.

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