Instructions:

Assess several business structures and their characteristics advantages, and disadvantages for POP. Those structures are: • General Partnership • Limited Partnership • General Corporation • Limited Liability Company

Background: Plenty-O-Plants (POP)

Addison, Benita, Cynthia, and Dante are all successful business owners who are friends or professional acquaintances in the business community. Addison has been the project manager for ten years for a construction company owned by a general contractor. Benita has been the Director of Marketing for a Mid-Atlantic-based carpet cleaning company with franchises on the East Coast. Cynthia owns a mid-sized, successful nursery focusing exclusively on exotic house plants. Sam owns a residential landscaping business. The four recently attended a Chamber of Commerce presentation about “green” businesses. This spurred their interest and they went to dinner following the Chamber event to discuss possible business opportunities. After several meetings, they decided to start a business together. The group decided that a plant nursey, landscaping and design business would be a good fit for their professional experiences, skills, and interests. They agreed to pursue the possibility of launching a Maryland-based service business that they would like to name Plenty-O-Plants (“POP”). The service would focus on offering environmentally friendly native plants in the area. The four met several times with a business consultant to complete an analysis of market trends and demands in commercial landscaping and design and confirm whether POP would likely be a viable business. The market analysis showed an increased demand and need for their services environmentally responsible landscaping businesses in the region. Consequently, the group decided to move forward with their idea to establish and market POP. The potential cleaner owners recently attended a start-up business seminar sponsored by the local chapter of the Small Business Administration. Following the seminar, the owners began to define the nature and scope of the work necessary to prepare a plan for the start-up business. They realize this process requires time, thoughtful analysis, and clear guidelines. They also recognize the need for professional business consultants, such as TLG, to guide their start-up for Clean. Consequently, the four have hired TLG to advise and guide them through the start-up process for Clean.

The ABC Floral Shop sold the following number of geraniums during the last two weeks.

The ABC Floral Shop is considering fitting various forecasting models on the first seven days of demand and using the second seven days as a hold-out sample for comparing the prediction accuracy of the models. They have decided to use a = 0.25, but aren’t sure what starting value of forecast, F₁, to use.

(Round all answers to 1 decimal place.)

a. Try values of F₁ = 160, 170,180 to determine the best exponential model for the first seven days using the minimum total absolute deviation as the criterion.

F₁= 160

F₁ = 170

F₁ = 180

Which of the above forecasts is the best?

multiple choice 1

• Using 160.0

• Using 170.0

• Using 180.0

b. Compare the best model from part a to a three-period moving average model on the second set of data.

3-period moving average

Which one has the smallest sum of absolute errors?

multiple choice 2

• 3-period moving average

• Exponential Smoothing