Hector Gaming Company (HGC) is an educational gaming company specializing in young children’s educational games. HGC has just completed their fourth year of operation. This year was a banner year for HGC. The company received a large influx of capital for growth by issuing stock privately through an investment banking firm.
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Hector Gaming Company
Hector Gaming Company (HGC) is an educational gaming company specializing in young children’s educational games. HGC has just completed their fourth year of operation. This year was a banner year for HGC. The company received a large influx of capital for growth by issuing stock privately through an investment banking firm. It appears the return on investment for this past year will be just over 25 percent with zero debt! The growth rate for the last two years has been approximately 80 percent each year. Parents and grandparents of young children have been buying HGC’s products almost as fast as they are developed. Every member of the 56-person firm is enthusiastic and looking forward to helping the firm grow to be the largest and best educational gaming company in the world. The founder of the firm, Sally Peters, has been written up in Young Entrepreneurs as “the young entrepreneur to watch.” She has been able to develop an organizational culture in which all stakeholders are committed to innovation, continuous improvement, and organization learning.
Last year, 10 top managers of HGC worked with McKinley Consulting to develop the organization’s strategic plan. This year the same 10 managers had a retreat in Aruba to formulate next year’s strategic plan using the same process suggested by McKinley Consulting. Most executives seem to have a consensus of where the firm should go in the intermediate page 61 and long term. But there is little consensus on how this should be accomplished. Peters, now president of HGC, feels she may be losing control. The frequency of conflicts seems to be increasing. Some individuals are always requested for any new project created. When resource conflicts occur among projects, each project manager believes his or her project is most important. More projects are not meeting deadlines and are coming in over budget. Yesterday’s management meeting revealed some top HGC talent have been working on an international business game for college students. This project does not fit the organization vision or market niche. At times it seems everyone is marching to his or her own drummer. Somehow more focus is needed to ensure everyone agrees on how strategy should be implemented, given the resources available to the organization.
Yesterday’s meeting alarmed Peters. These emerging problems are coming at a bad time. Next week HGC is ramping up the size of the organization, number of new products per year, and marketing efforts. Fifteen new people will join HGC next month. Peters is concerned that policies be in place that will ensure the new people are used most productively. An additional potential problem looms on the horizon. Other gaming companies have noticed the success HGC is having in their niche market; one company tried to hire a key product development employee away from HGC. Peters wants HGC to be ready to meet any potential competition head on and to discourage any new entries into their market. Peters knows HGC is project driven; however, she is not as confident that she has a good handle on how such an organization should be managed— especially with such a fast growth rate and potential competition closer to becoming a reality. The magnitude of emerging problems demands quick attention and resolution.
Peters has hired you as a consultant. She has suggested the following format for your consulting contract. You are free to use another format if it will improve the effectiveness of the consulting engagement.
What is our major problem?
Identify some symptoms of the problem. What is the major cause of the problem?
Provide a detailed action plan that attacks the problem. Be specific and provide examples that relate to HGC.
Film Prioritization
The purpose of this case is to give you experience in using a project priority system that ranks proposed projects by their contribution to the organization’s objectives and strategic plan.
COMPANY PROFILE
The company is the film division for a large entertainment conglomerate. The main office is located in Anaheim, California. In addition to the feature film division, the conglomerate includes theme parks, home videos, a television channel, interactive games, and theatrical productions. The company has been enjoying steady growth over the past 10 years. Last year total revenues increased by 12 percent to $21.2 billion. The company is engaged in negotiations to expand its theme park empire to mainland China and Poland. The film division generated $274 million in revenues, which was an increase of 7 percent over the past year. Profit margin was page 62 down 3 percent to 16 percent because of the poor response to three of the five major film releases for the year.
Assignment (1)
Deadline: Saturday 7/10/2023 @ 23:59
For Instructor’s Use only
Instructions – PLEASE READ THEM CAREFULLY
The Assignment must be submitted on Blackboard (WORD format only) via allocated folder.
Assignments submitted through email will not be accepted.
Students are advised to make their work clear and well presented, marks may be reduced for poor presentation. This includes filling your information on the cover page.
Students must mention question number clearly in their answer.
Late submission will NOT be accepted.
Avoid plagiarism, the work should be in your own words, copying from students or other resources without proper referencing will result in ZERO marks. No exceptions.
All answers must be typed using Times New Roman (size 12, double-spaced) font. No pictures containing text will be accepted and will be considered plagiarism.
Submissions without this cover page will NOT be accepted.
Assignment Question(s): (Marks 15)
Q1. List the two types of fixed costs and give example 2) Points)
Q2. Present and explain the equation of the total mixed cost line. (2 Points)
Q3. Why use an allocation base? (3 Points)
Q4. The following information summarizes the company’s cost structure: ( 4 points)
Required:
Estimate the following costs at the 40,000 unit level of activity:
a. Total variable cost.
b. Total fixed cost.
c. Variable cost per unit.
d. Fixed cost per unit.
Q5. ABC Corporation manufactures two products, Product M and Product N. Product N is of fairly recent origin, having been developed as an attempt to enter a market closely related to that of Product N. Product N is the more complex of the two products, requiring one hour of direct labor time per unit to manufacture compared to one-half hour of direct labor time for Product M. Product N is produced on an automated production line.
Overhead is currently assigned to the products on the basis of direct labor-hours. The company estimated it would incur SAR 500,000 in manufacturing overhead costs and produce 10,000 units of Product N and 60,000 units of Product M during the current year. Unit cost for materials and direct labor are:
Required:
a. Compute the predetermined overhead rate under the current method of allocation and determine the unit product cost of each product for the current year.
b. The company’s overhead costs can be attributed to four major activities. These activities and the amount of overhead cost attributable to each for the current year are given below:
Using the data above and an activity-based costing approach, determine the unit product cost of each product for the current year.
(4 Points)
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