Your company, Acme Computers,is considering outsourcing its customer support activities. Yourteam has been assigned the job of determining which of 3 companieswould best meet the company’s needs. Your company has determinedthat the maximum yearly contract that they are willing to pay is$1,000,000. Your team has also determined that the factorsimportant to Acme Computer and the weights that the factors shouldbe assigned are “low cost” (weight factor = 4), “familiarity of thecompany with Acme’s product lines” (weight factor = 8), “number ofsupport lines the company will staff” (weight factor = 6), “fluencyof the company’s staff with English” (weight factor = 8), and“demonstrated ability to deal quickly and satisfactorily withcustomer issues” (weight factor = 3).

You have bids from 3companies: Anderson Support, which offered a bid of $800,000; BetaTechnology, which offered a bid of $950,000 and Calloway Services,which offered a bid of $1,100,000. Your team scores them accordingto the following table:

CRITERIA	Anderson	Beta	Calloway
Low Cost	5	3	2
Familiarity with Acme Products	5	7	10
# of Support Lines	5	2	3
Fluency of English	6	7	8
Ability to quickly satisfy customers	3	4	4

a.Based on theinformation given, are you satisfied with the bids that you havereceived? Why or why not?

b. Use the Kepner-Tregoe technique to determine whichcompany’s bid should be accepted if any. Show yourwork.

c. Which company should you choose for outsourcing yourcustomer support? Why? Why may you be concerned about going withthat company?