(Q1) Janet Richards and Gilbert Baker own a small firm named InterCat. The firm specializes in the creation and maintenance of Internet catalogues aimed at small businesses. It currently employs around 50 people, most of whom are computer programmers and analysts that follow the high technology market closely. As partners of the firm, they have decided to continue growing and to capture new business from its competitors. To do so, they have decided to start the process of making an initial public offering (IPO). The goal is to start this process as quickly as possible for several reasons, including becoming first to market to capture most of the market share, obtaining a good stock price, and to be one of the few private firms in the
(Q5) To meet the new constraint date of Monday, 18 May 2009 for the IPO project to go public at the same time with their competitor, Soft Sales, Janet and Gilbert reevaluate their public launch plan to 22 weeks by crashing and fast tracking some of the activities on the schedule. The revised schedule network diagram for InterCat IPO project, as shown in Figure Q5, is derived from shortening tasks’ duration and increasing costs that Janet and Gilbert have mapped out to meet the new deadline. Upon this adjustment, the project can be completed within 21 weeks; on Friday, 8 May 2009. Thus, the total project cost would increase by 92% from $221,500 to $425,300.
(Q6&7) As a start-up company, InterCat is facing many challenges and risks of having limited capital base for sustaining cash flow. Even though the company has a contingency cash reserve to cover uncertainty costs on the IPO process, the set aside funds are still not enough to assist with other associated uncertainty expenses. Fortunately, Janet and Gilbert were able to negotiate with an investment bank to provide them with an additional $200,000 bridge loan for covering other project related costs. Yet, the funds are only allowed after receiving registration confirmation. After Janet and Gilbert performed the calculation, they realized the project costs up until the loan is