ABSTRACT
Jane was very excited about the opportunity to work on a project that would be highly visible in the organization. She had been at Yum Burger a relatively short time of four months, and was looking to make a professional reputation for herself. She began working on the kids’ meal project right away by helping brainstorm themes, identifying possible menu items for inclusion, and scouting for potential toy inserts. Emilie told Jane to concentrate on nailing down the details of locating where the toys should be sourced by working with a list of vendors provided by operations and purchasing. After a few weeks, Jane was ready to present some of her ideas to her supervisor, Emilie, and to get feedback about what she had learned. The marketing team was almost at the point where they needed to decide what toys would be offered with the meal. The work teams had done considerable research and gotten several price quotes from various vendors. Jane and Emilie both knew that they needed to get toys at a relatively low price to maintain a profi table margin and stay in a competitive price range with their kids’ meal box. All of the toys in Yum Burger’s target price range were made in China. The vendors there were fl exible enough to produce a variety of items and consistently presented a price advantage of between 20 and 25 % compared with any other domestic or global options. Jane presented these ideas to Emilie who was impressed with her hard work and thoroughness. But Emilie had some other issues that she wanted to think about for a few days before moving forward.
