Test Your Business Sense

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We've got a lot of forum regulars out there who are involved in the work-as-day world of business. Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, Sales, and Administration. The following might prove helpful in analyzing just how look at the way the corporate world looks at things, and if that approach suits your personal value system.

Test Your Business Sense

1. You are a major defense contractor and are building a gun for the army that is supposed to be able to shoot down enemy planes. So far, the taxpayers have paid you nearly two billion dollars in research and development costs. Your most recent evaluation indicates the only way the weapon would have any negative affect on an enemy plane is if you could somehow sneak into the cockpit and manually whack the pilot over the head with it. How should you deal with this problem?

a) You should try really hard to do a better job.

b) You should advise the Defense Department to consider engaging another contractor.

c) You should refund at least part of the taxpayer’s money.

CORRECT ANSWER: What problem?


2. You are a major automobile manufacturer. You have been steadily losing sales to vehicles from other nations, particularly Japan, because their products tend to be fuel efficient, technologically advanced, extremely well made, and superior in every way, whereas the most innovative concept you have come up with in the past two decades is the folding cup holder. You should:

a) Have Congress pass a law restricting Japanese imports, so consumers will have no choice but to buy your cars.

b) Have Congress pass a law making it legal for you to kidnap consumer’s children and hold them until the consumers buy your cars.

c) Have Congress pass a law ordering the United States Army to barge directly into consumer’s homes and take their money and give it to you.

d) Remind everybody a lot about Pearl Harbour

CORRECT ANSWER: Any or all are acceptable alternatives.


3. You are a major condom manufacturer with national distribution contracts. Your latest tests reveal your products have a major structural flaw making them approximately 86% ineffective. Faced with the necessity for the millions of dollars of investment required to address the manufacturing problems, as well as the potential for class-action litigation, not to mention a population increase, you should:

a) Change your advertising slogan to be, “Sure, you’re taking a chance, but we’ve got you covered...Uh Huh.”

b) Cut one third off of each condom and shift your sales effort to China; they’ll never know the difference.

c) Sell them to kids as Super Morphing Teenage Turtle Ranger Tele-Tubby Power Party Balloons; they’ll buy anything.

d) Add a disclaimer to the back of every package stating: “By opening this package, you acknowledge you are too cheap to buy our competitor’s superior products, and release us from all liability when this device fails.”

CORRECT ANSWER: All of the above


4. You are a large seafood processor with a distribution network throughout the United States. Government inspectors have discovered a significant amount of your recently shipped product is contaminated by an undersea pollutant. While the contamination is not fatal to humans, its ingestion leads to symptoms reminiscent to those of a three-day tequila shooter drinking binge. As a responsible business person, you should:

a) Contact the Centre for Disease Control and the national media to alert the public, and thusly limit your liability.

b) Announce the immediate recall of all your suspect product, but use a competitor’s return address.

c) Pretend you’re the government and don’t acknowledge the problem for ten years, or until you’re caught; whichever comes later.

CORRECT ANSWER: Eat lunch at McDonalds