(Solved): Nichole Stuart is the current president of Maplewood Products Inc. (Maplewood Products), a family - ...

Nichole Stuart is the current president of Maplewood Products Inc. (Maplewood Products), a family - owned business that was started 47 years ago by her grandfather. Maplewood Products is a manufacturer of residential outdoor storage solutions, including two of its main products, a wooden shed and a large wooden storage container. Most of its products Are sold to large retailers, including large garden centers and home building stores, but they also operate one of their own retail locations where customers can purchase directly from Maplewood Products. Since taking over as the companys president, Nicholes strategic objectives for the company have focused on steady sales growth and Profitability. Maplewood Products has always focused on producing high quality outdoor storage solutions for residential Consumers . Currently, the company is comprised of three departments: Procurement, Production, and Marketing. Each department is overseen by a department manager. While each department operates relatively autonomously fRom the other two departments, they are all expected to make decisions that contribute to the strategic objectives of the company. Lidia Chan is the Procurement Manager. She is very proud of the work that her team has done, after reviewing the performance for the most recent year. The Procurement department worked hard to find new suppliers to help the company to save money on their Material costs and improve profitability. Tom Jerry is the Production Manager. Reflecting on the most recent year, Tom noted that his department Had experienced a lot of issues. Overall, the Production department had worked hard to increase the volume of production. Tom had expected that they would save money on production costs byIncreasing economies of scale, but that was not the case. An Unexpected increase in quality issues with the output produced due to the new materials that were procured meant that Tom had to schedule overtime hours to meet the production targets and to address quality control issues. This caused an increase in the labour costs and the manufacturing overhead costs incurred. To try to increase production capacity, Tom had reduced the regular maintenance on the machinery and equipment in the factory. During a major production run, some of the machinery used in the factory had broken down, resulting in a huge backlog in production. Arnav Patel is the Marketing Manager and has focused on generating greater unit salesYear - over - year across both of their main products. The Marketing department invested considerably in marketing costs to help increase Maplewood Products market share. In an effort to help to increase sales of the storage containers, Arnav reduced the selling Price for the storage containers for one of its major retail customers to be more competitive. Although the increased revenues were impressive, they had not come without a cost. Arnav had heard from Tom on many occasions that the Production department was struggling to keep up with demand. Additionally, while overall sales volume was increasing, the companys own retail store sales were down. Reflecting on each departments activities and knowing that each of the departments had access to the Companys financial results, Nichole wondered whether the activities and decisions made by each of the department managers were contributing to the companys long - term profitability. Using the data provided (see separate Excel file), Nichole has requested that you, a business consultant, include the following items in a business report for her to review:2. Compute the following variances:Selling price variance (for each product and total)Direct material price and quantity variances (for each product and total)Direct labour rate and efficiency Variances (for each product and total)Sales mix variance (for each product and total)Sales quantity variance (for each product and total)Market share varianceMarket size variance