I need help with the response to two peers: Topic For this discussion, imagine you've taken on the role of a manager at an engineering company. You've been approached by a supplier of goods—one you ha

I need help with the response to two peers:

Topic

For this discussion, imagine you've taken on the role of a manager at an engineering company. You've been approached by a supplier of goods—one you haven't worked with before. The supplier shows you the new software package it is launching in a few months, and it piques your interest. The demo of the new technology shows you how it could really help your team design and develop projects faster. It also includes many add-ons for items that your company is not currently working on, but that your intuition says it should be.

The supplier's study says that 90 percent of your industry will be transitioning to this new technology in a couple of years, and that if your company doesn't move forward with it, you will fall behind. You are eager to grow revenue, develop your team, and wow your clients. The supplier says it is not making the new technology available to your competitors because it would prefer to partner with a prestigious company like yours. You think the supplier's representative is knowledgeable about the new technology and your industry, and you enjoy the conversations you've had, but you still feel uneasy about making a decision on whether to partner with this new supplier.

In response to at least two of your peers, address the following:

• Can you spot bias or illogical or unethical arguments your peer's initial post? Explain your response and give examples.

Peer #1

With a decision like this, it is important to get the facts about the company and product first. I would need to research the company's mission statement and financial reporting to determine if they were a compatible supplier to sign a new contract with. Next, I would need to research the new technology and how much it could actually impact the business. I would also need to know if what this supplier is offering isn't already out in the market for a lower cost. Once you have all the information, you would want to weigh the benefits versus potential risks. If you go into business with a newer company that isn't already established, you run the risk of the company failing which could impact your business. On the flip side, if you don't go with the technology, they could go with a competitor and having success putting your business at risk.

According to the video on (Soomo, 2020), the biggest difference between quantitative and qualitative is how the information is received. Quantitative is a form of numerical data, such as things like financial/accounting reports, stock prices, costs of the technology, and the potential financial gain or loss statistics for investing in a newer product. Qualitative information would be more tangible information such as the company's mission statement, or hands on application testing to ensure it would suit the business's needs.

When doing research, it is important to make sure the resources you are using are strong and valid sources. To ensure this, you will want different forms of resources such as primary or secondary. A primary source is an account "of an event or topic from people directly connected to it, such as witnesses, and original documents." (Soomo, 2020) In this case, it would be information obtained directly from the suppliers website, or from their financial statements. A secondary source is "interpretations of primary sources or accounts of an event or topic from people who are not directly connected to it." (Soomo, 2020) This could be news articles about the company or the new technology, it could also be other customers experiences with the company.

Peer #2

There are many avenues of research that can, and should, be done before making the decision to partner with this new supplier. Here the supplier representative seems to make conflicting statements. The information we currently have is that 90% of our industry will be transitioning to this new technology within a few years. This information, however, is from the supplier's study which we have to assume is biased. The supplier has a vested interest in the results of that study. Equally problematic is the supplier representative stating they will not be offering this new technology to our competitors. How exactly is 90% of this industry going to transition to this new technology they are only supplying it to our "prestigious" company? Do we currently command 90% of the market in our engineering industry? Based on this contradiction its no wonder I would feel uneasy about agreeing to this partnership. In reality I have to assume this "new technology" is a smoke and mirrors money grab and would not be inclined to agree to any kind of partnership. But there is more research to be done.

The first thing I would do is research this company. This would include both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data, which is data that can be enumerated. This is data that can be counted or measured. For quantitative data we will break the research down into two parts. The first part of the research will focus on the other company. This will include things like the supplier market share, profitability, how large is the company, and how long has this company been in business? The second part of the research will focus on our own engineering company. We will look at how this new technology will effect our company including things like the initial cost, ongoing costs, the expected return on investment, time to achieve return on investment, the increase/decrease in labor costs, employee training costs, and any potential losses during the transition. This list is not exhaustive but it is representative of the types of quantitative data we would be interested in. Qualitative data, also called categorical data, is data that can be observed or recorded and is non-numerical in nature. This type of research would seek to answer questions such as whether this company has a reputation within their industry, are there any publicly available reviews on this company and what are they, has this company delivered any previous products and if so, how successful were those products? Reviews, both positive and negative, would be considered secondary sources, which are sources providing their own experience. A primary source, in this situation, would be the new technology itself. I would be very interested in whether the supplier representative would be open to the idea of setting up this software in a non-production environment so we can test it and develop our own qualitative data. If the supplier representative is not willing to give access to the software for testing before signing an agreement I am further skeptical that this is a legitimate deal.