Gisela Schmidt was the founder of Gisela's Grout, a leading firm in the bathroom tile caulk and grout industry. She had a very profitable operation, with profits of $40 million on sales of $85 million. She had maintained this level of profitability for the past ten years. She was recently interviewed by the Financial Timesand attributed her continued success to four factors.

First, her manufacturing facility was located right next to the world's only source of clatribdium, a key ingredient in most of the firm's products. Because clatribdium is a very unstable substance before it is combined with other ingredients to form products like caulk and grout, transporting it long distances is costly for Gisela's competitors. Gisela purchased the site roughly 20 years ago before the value of clatribdium was widely known.

Second, Gisela hired new managers only from Purdue's MBA program. Gisela believed that these students had the best business training in the world.Indeed, her firm was one of the top employers of Purdue MBA grads. Most of Gisela's competitors shared this opinion about Purdue MBAs.

Third, Gisela believed that her close relationships with her senior managers were critical to the firm's success. The top management team at Gisela's Grout had worked together for twelve years. Most of the management teams at her competitors had worked together for around ten years.Gisela believed this allowed her firm to make faster and better business decisions relative to other firms in the industry.

Finally, Gisela thought that one of the most important reasons for her firm's continued success was its robots. The firm had invested heavily in robots. The firm was also currently investigating an alliance with a Japanese robot supplier. By using robots in their manufacturing operations, Gisela's Grout was able to ensure that its caulk and grout were as smooth as the caulk and grout manufactured by other firms using less automated processes.

Evaluate Gisela's explanations for the firm's success.Please justify your answer carefully. Please provide your answer on this sheet of paper, and you may also use the back side of this sheet of paper (or one more page if you are typing answers), if needed.