that the company's computer systems are outdated. and as the business has grown with locations worldwide. the older computer equipment has been unable to handle the volume of transactions. He thinks that a new computer system could keep better track of customer orders, reduce customer com plaints, and issue more timely invoices, thus improving cash flow. The employ- ees in Ieff' s operation joke about their outdated computer systems and put pressure on left" to buy newer equipment. lennifer has told left" in the past that she is not interested in spending money on new computers just for the sake of having the latest equipment, especially if the current system is working all right. She had suggested that Ieff look into hiring an outside service to do the accounting operations and reduce his own staff. left" would like to use this year's excess prots to buy new computers and to hire a computer programmer to upgrade the software to run on the new computers. He feels that this would be cost-effective. After Jennifer's October staff meeting, Ioe Sanchez, manager of marketing, stops by Jennifer's ofce. He says that although he has not been asked to come up with project ideas for the extra prots, his feeling is that she should forget this project nonsense and just give him a larger budget to hire more sales representa- tives in several additional countries. \"That would increase sales faster than any- thing else," Joe tells her. \"And besides, that's what your father would have done!" Joe is counting on disagreements among the other three managers in establishing priorities. He hopes that if Jennifer sees a lack of consensus. she might give him funds to hire the additional sales representatives. A Midsize Pharmaceutical Company lennifer Childs is the owner and chief executive officer of a midsize global phar- maceutical company with sales ofces or manufacturing plants in eight countries. At an October stall meeting she tells her managers that company profits for the year are expected to be $2,000,000 more than anticipated. She tells them she would like to reinvest this additional prot by funding projects within the company that will either increase sales or reduce costs. She asks her three key managers to get together to develop a prioritized list of potential projects and then to meet with her to "sell" her on their ideas. She mentions that they should not assume the funds will be divided equally among the three of them. She also mentions that she is willing to put all of the funds into just one project if it seems appropriate. Iulie Chen, manager of product development. has had a team of scientists work- ing on a new prescription drug. This effort has been taking much longer than expected. She is worried that larger rms are Working on a similar prescription drug and that these firms might get it to the marketplace rst. Her team has not made any major breakthroughs yet, and some tests are not producing the expected results. She knows this is a risky project but feels that she cannot stop it now. Julie believes the company's long-term growth depends on this new drug, which can be sold worldwide. She has tried to be optimistic at stall" meetings about progress on this development project, but she knows that lennifer is growing impatient and that her peers believe she should have terminated the project after the initial tests were less than promising. Iulie would like to use the additional funds to accelerate the development project. She waild hire a highly respected scientist from a larger rm and buy more sophisticated laboratory equipment. Tyler Ripken, manager of production at the rm's largest and oldest manufacturing facility. has been with the company only six months. His early observation is that the production ow is very inefcient. He believes this is the result of poor planning when additions were made to the plant over the years as the company grew. Tyler would like to form several employee teams to implement a better layout of the equipment in the plant. He thinks this would increase plant capacity while reducing costs. When Tyler mentions this idea to some of his super- visors. they remind him that when Jennifer's father ran the business, Iennifer was in charge of production. and she was responsible for the design of the current plant layout. They also remind Tyler that lennifer is not a fan of using employee teams. She believes production employees are paid to do their jobs. and she expects her managers to be the ones to come up with and im lenient new ideas. Iec Matthew's, manager of operations, is responsible for e company's com- puters and information systems as well as its accounting operations. leff believes