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A few of the Essay and Assignment tackled on Strategy assignments
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| | Assignment on Purchasing an existing business | | | Buying an existing business offers many advantages over starting a new business. The person or the company that purchases an existing business would need to think of just creation of value addition to the existing product or service and is absolved of the processes of starting a new business. Purchasing a new business has its own advantages as well as disadvantages. Advantages are that the company would already have a product or service established in the market, might already have consumer base and the company would have already built a brand value over the years. Disadvantages are that the buyer might have to own an organization built by someone with organizational culture and ways of functioning that may not necessarily conform to that of the buyer, or the company might have accumulated huge debts, which the new buyer has to repay. However, the advantages outweigh disadvantages to a great extent if the buyer is careful in evaluating the deal and in negotiating the right terms for the deal. The search process of buyout starts with the buyer assessing his or her resources such as finances, education, skills and experience. The next step would be to have an idea of what the buyer would want to own in terms of business area, business volume, geographical area etc. Once the firm for purchase is identified a careful evaluation of the assets of the organization, business volume, business potential for future etc. are carried out. The buyer at this juncture needs to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the deal before taking concrete steps in acquiring the firm. The search process of an acquisition starts with the buyer having the desire and sometimes need to own a business and the search process ends in short listing the company on sale for further negotiations. | |  |
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| | A case study of Sol Melia and requisite marketing strategy of Best Western Hotel in context to its findings | | | This report attempts to analyse SolMelia thoroughly and apply the findings to the Best Western hotel critically. Through the case study of Sol Melia, pointers for development of the future scope of Best Western Hotel have been sought. Sol Melia is the largest hotel operator in Spain (it was established in 1956) and a leader in the market. A look at its history has been beneficial to investigate into the pros and cons or the strengths and opportunities of the establishment in the market. In the face of Helms-Burton law Sol Melia came in a threatening position but looking at its strengths, its concern towards environment has been very strong. The result can be easily seen through its 2007 performance when Sol Melia exceeded its objective of raising an annual amount of 100 million Euros in revenues through asset sales. Sol Melia’s success can be credited to its excellent communication and relations that it maintains as well as to its easy adaptation and adoption of latest technology (SAPR3 technology). Luxury Destinations and Hospitality Business Solutions have been identified as the key marketing strategies for Best Western Hotel (BWH). Development of these strategies requires pinpointing of increased and more diverse accommodation offers and maximization of customer satisfaction through customer relationship management. The projected outcome of the implementation of these strategies is indeed positive. It not only promises to add value to the hotel reputation but also strengthen its base thereby, increasing the profits. In the face of cut throat competition, it is essential to adopt these forward looking strategies for the hotel. The BWH can gain an added advantage through these accommodation and customer relationship management relationship. | | |
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| | Analysis of Process, Information Technology issues and Opportunities of ABC Consultants in India | | | ABC Consultants is India’s leading professional executive selection & recruitment firm, in terms of services offered, professional team, mandates handled, database size, sectoral specializations and geographical coverage.
Founded by Dr. B P Agrawal in 1969, ABC Consultants in the past four decades has been consultant to nearly 5000 organizations, including 80% of the top 500 Indian & multinational corporate. Since the start of liberalization of the Indian economy in the early 1990s, ABC Consultants has assisted more than 230 new multinationals in hiring senior & middle management professionals. In 2008-09, ABC handled over 5000 recruitment mandates. ABC’s network includes 9 offices in 7 major Indian cities and 2 offices in abroad, one each in London and Dubai. This gives us an unparalleled reach and ability to conduct pan India search for our clients.
Today ABC Consultants employ over 325 consultants who bring with them over 1600 person years of experience with large Indian & international companies. Joining ABC, not only do the consultants bring with them their invaluable industry knowledge, but also their industry contacts, awareness of industry trends, and sensitivity to current marketplace issues.
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| | Analysis of the famous Babycare case study | | | Chris Mumford, Chief Financial Officer of Babycare Ltd and Chief Executive Officer Matthew Estes , the two executives were seeking $2-$3 million of expansion capital to fund the first major wave of new center openings in large cities throughout China. Babycare Ltd has got a novel business model but it is still in its early years of operations. The company is running on sound business model which tailor made with the emerging markets of China. But to expand the operations of business & to have more retail outlets at various centers, the top two executive are trying to convince many private equity firms & venture capitalist firms to fund their company. They have got very impressive financial statements with increasing sales & profit margins year after year. They have been offered certain investments from various angel investors & other investment companies but the valuation with the desired funds to be raised are not appropriate. Currently they are dealing with Franklin Templeton Investments, a potential third-round investor. The partner spearheading the Templeton team was Choong-Huei Seow. Who is yet to be convinced over the low working capital requirement, zero cash receivables & top-line revenue estimates derived from average sales per salesperson and growth in salespeople rather than customer additions and purchase rates business model of the company introduced by Estes & mudford. Baby care Ltd is following a hybrid of direct marketing & multi level marketing strategy with internal distribution system. They have implemented advanced technology using oracle’s ERP in the business model to enhance the control on distribution system.
Babycare is playing high on emotional front. They have their team of customer representatives of mothers who are the best sales force for a product like Babycare which would also help in face to face interaction with the customer, building stronger & long term relationship with the customer. Babycare Ltd has got healthy financial statements with sales, net income, gross income increasing year after year. They have diversified into many new markets. Currently they are facing fund raising problems because the company’s top management is looking for expansion with a perception of very high prospects for their product in the emerging market like China. But in this competitive world they are feeling the heat of it & having a tough time in negotiating with the deals with numerous venture capitalist companies, private equity firms. They do not want to dilute the hold of the management & they too think that it would too early for Babycare Ltd to jump into becoming a public Ltd by coming up with an initial public offer (IPO).
So for now they have been in negotiation with an investment company Franklin Templeton & hoping to raise funds around $2-$3 million with appropriate valuations of the company.
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| | Analysis of the famous case study –“Making Employees mobile – An exercise in strategic approaches to Expatriate Management” | | | Globalization has had many influences on the ways businesses are managed and run. Businesses are opening up their offices in far off lands. Borders have melted and cross border investments have become order of the day. The new mantra in the global business is to take the operations where resource and skills are readily available. The influence of multinational corporations on the global economy is increasing by the day and expatriates are becoming crucial to the success of these multinational corporations (Wang, 2008). While hitherto local companies are operating in many nations due to globalization, human resource is increasingly finding it easier to move and work anywhere in the world. Cross border investments have also resulted in transportation of human resource across borders. Certain talents are restricted to particular parts of world such as electronic engineers in South East Asia, automobile engineers in Europe, information technology experts in India and China. Companies that are involved in particular operations require expatriates who are skilled and experienced enough in carrying out the work. Organizations wish to have competitive advantage in the long run even in the face of additional costs. Cost saving approach in human resource management is slowly giving way to securing strategic advantage in the business. According to Harvey (1996), the key to competing successfully in the global market place is staffing important expatriate posts with skilled and experienced leaders (Lin & Wei, 2005). In order to do so, companies are willing to hire skilled manpower from abroad. This puts up many challenges to organizations such as relocation of employees, ensuring their comfort factor in the new location else the new recruits return to their home country. Related businesses such as relocation consultants are making the best out of the situation and helping employees to relocate in an alien nation. Although, it all looks easy, human resource management needs to take several steps in order to ensure willingness from the expatriate recruits to relocate and also adjust to the new surroundings. This paper analyses some of the issues of expatriate management such as attracting the right work force, dealing with cultural diversity, catering to family needs of the relocating expatriate employee etc.. The paper also discusses the role of the organization in ensuring smooth transition of expatriate employees from home country to the work place. The paper finally makes recommendations to the human resource departments of organizations on how best to offset the challenges of expatriate employee recruitment, relocation and loyalty.
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| | Application of e-Business model to ticketing system in Bus transport of South India | | | This report deals and discusses about the government bus corporation called as State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) and its selling chain. SETC is basically a government based transport corporation which operates more than 900 buses in South India interconnecting 4 states. Here its selling chain in internet is discussed which is based on e ticketing to the passengers who are considered as the customers. Initially the current working procedure of SETC as a business function and e ticketing has been discussed. Then it reports the selling chain of SETC. It further continues its discussion about the development of the business function through its e ticketing process and its value prepositions to the customers. Value prepositions include the improvement in the web page of SETC for E ticketing process and its values to the customers and their convenience in planning their trip. The problems and recommendations are also been discussed at the final part of this paper | | |
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| | Application of e-CRM strategy for airline industry | | | The objective of this paper is to develop and implement e-CRM strategy for airline industry to develop better customer relationship. CRM has been a major issue of concern in the airline industry. It is well understood by the players in this industry that those airlines that can effectively attract, serve and retain the best customers will see significant positive effects on their profitability. The deeper the relationship the airline hold with the customers, the more opportunity there will be to sell additional products and services and thus increase profitability. | | |
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| | Application of e-CRM to Banks | | | This paper has been prepared to summarize the learning on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and its implications in banking industry. Banking industry is growing very rapidly and so are the strategies and modes of reaching customer, serving them better, capturing new and retaining old customer. Banks have followed a number of such programs and procedures. Having realised need of CRM long back, banks have implemented CRM strategies but still more is to be done because of the present ever-changing world of Internet and technology. | | |
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| | Assignment analysing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) of British Airways and Virgin Airlines | | | Travel and Tourism is one of the liveliest and innovative industries and air travel generates over billion in revenues and provides million of jobs around the world. Aviation is an extremely competitive market. Airline travel is growing rapidly and with new players emerging every second day, innovation in service offerings to its customers in line with customer demands are also increasing because of globalization effect on them. This piece of writing would focus on two key organizations from this industry i.e. British Airways and Virgin and their approach to this great success of achieving customer satisfaction. | | |
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| | Assignment on Balanced Scorecard (BSC) for Boston Community bank | | | The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that is used extensively in business and industry, government, and non-profit organizations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals. The main purpose of this performance measurement framework is to add strategic non-financial performance measures to traditional financial metrics in order to give managers and executives a more ‘balanced’ view of organizational performance. The balanced scorecard transforms an organization’s strategic plan from an attractive but passive document into the ‘marching orders’ for the organization on a daily basis. Its framework not only provides performance measurements, but also helps planners identify what should be done and measured. It enables executives to truly execute their strategies. | | |
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| | Assignment on Blue Ocean Strategy and Business Ethics | | | There are various factors that contribute to the success of an organization. One of them is the management itself. Management could be of any process in the organization such as marketing, production, administration etc. There are various management theories developed by academicians as well as industry experts. Some of them deal with marketing issues in the organization, some of them deal with administration and some other on human resource and so on. Once in a few decades great works surface. The literary works change the ways the organizational operations are looked at. The literary works give a completely different perspective to the organizational processes and a new paradigm to the organizational management. Such great works or authors of those literary works go on influencing generations of researchers with their original path breaking ideas and approach. One such example is Peter Drucker, who gave a completely different perspective to the organizational activities. When Peter Drucker wrote his books the management practices had not grown to the level they are these days. Organizations were mostly hierarchical then. Decision making was mostly done by the top management. At such times. Peter Drucker gave the idea of decentralization (Robert Heller, 2001), which the organizations practice today. Another path breaking book is that of ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ by Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne (2005). This book talks about creating demand by providing value additions in a product or service. All the books on marketing talk about the ways to outsmart competition, surviving and making profits in highly competitive environment. The marketing management experts are kind of used to expecting competition and cannot visualize a situation where there is no competition and the market is as big as one reaches out to. The idea at first appears cynical until one reads the book by the authors . Blue Ocean strategy does not talk about going to a new geographical market rather it suggests to create a new market within the very competitive market one is expected to operate and survive. Organizations essentially thrive on customers’ money. The customer expects some kind of value addition to his or her life by consuming the product. The product may be essential to the customer or it may be of some value to him or her. If the organizations that promise value to the customer for the money the customer has paid behave either covertly or overtly unethical then the business loses the trust of customers. Not only that customers can become skeptical about a host of related businesses thus damaging the harmony in the market. It therefore becomes important that the companies need to realize their responsibility towards customers as well as its own employees. This calls for ethical behavior or practices from the organization. This paper discusses all the three management issues at length. The paper also discusses operations of the organization Petra Food Manufacturing Company, Kuwait, where the author of this paper works, in the light of the above theoretical discussions. The paper finally makes recommendations to Petra Food Company on the areas that need improvement. | | |
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| | Assignment on Cross cultural management | | | Cultural sensitivity is awareness and an honest caring about another individual’s culture. Such sensitivity requires the ability to understand the perspective of those living in other societies and the willingness to put oneself in another’s shoes.
International managers can benefit greatly from understanding the nature, dimensions and variables of a specific culture and how these affect work and organizational processes. This culture awareness enables them to develop appropriate policies and determine how to plan, organize, lead and control in specific international setting. Such a process of adaptation to the environment is necessary to implement strategy successfully. It also leads to effective interaction in a workforce of increasing cultural diversity, in both the United States and other countries (Black & Mendenhall, 1990).
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| | Assignment on How will the concept of sustainability affect the principles & practices of strategy in future | | | Technically defining, sustainable development is a kind of development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations. Sustainable development is a buzzword found in much environmental and some economics literature these days. Certainly the idea of sustainable development has become increasingly popular in the contemporary world. The idea deals with two key concepts-first is the economic development and second is the consumptive use of the natural resources around the world. | | |
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| | Assignment on HRM challenges that Aussie Best may face which opening its retail operations in China Market | | | Tian (1996) mentions that since 1978, China has embarked on an “Open Door” trade policy with the outside world. This has resulted in china becoming a crucial business partner for Australia with increasing bilateral trade. Kirk (2004) mentions that high Chinese economic growth has fueled the need for minerals and hence it has become one of Australia`s major minerals buyer. Australian companies have realized the huge untapped potential in the Chinese market and have started operations there. The opportunity however, doesn’t come without the challenges, largely related to human resource management.
Management of human resources is a multidimensional process with multiple effects. Treven and Mulej (2005) have mentioned that companies will face global competitive challenges regarding quality, society, technology and structure which will increase the importance of HRM. The choice of HR policies requires a study of various aspects keeping in mind the underlying objectives and the cost aspects. Any complexity which is introduced can cause information overload and may divert the focus of the organization which is incompatible with the company goals.
To open retail operations of Aussie Best, we will evaluate the Chinese retail industry to understand it better.
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| | Assignment on Impact of technology on Coles Myer Ltd | | | The question posed by Coles Myer for which this report aims to solve is “How will the Retail Industry in 2010 be shaped by the emerging technology in our store environment?" Our approach to this problem was to undertake an analysis of the internal (Coles Myer) and external environment (customers, competitors) as well as emerging retail industry and technology trends in order to provide insight into what the store of 2010 will resemble. From our analysis of the impact of these trends and related technologies on the store environment, we were able to formulate a number of recommendations that would be suitable for Coles Myer to implement as we move towards 2010. Our selection of these recommendations was based on which proposed solutions provided the most improved profit and benefits to Coles Myer customers, shareholders and employees. | | |
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| | Assignment on Risk management in IT projects | | | ‘If you don’t manage risks, they will certainly manage you’, a maxim well said has lot to say in context with the management of projects in IT and in general also. Risk is something where some potential of going things wrong comes into the question. Taken lightly these risk factors can turn into havoc for your projects. Thus it is very important that a project manager should inlay risk management while planning for project. This will not only help him saving project from unexpected crises but also will improve the efficiency and productivity of project work as all are well prepared for any deviation from anticipated flow of results. Information Technology or more popularly known as IT is quite versatile and complex where the risks are more prone to occur. These uncertainties and risks are more to arise in IT sector as IT field is very unpredictable and hence lots of external and internal issues crops up into the midway of IT projects. A well planned project with all set targets may produce drastic results if risk assessment has not been considered into the project management schedule. Not only you loose your client with untimely delivery but you also loose a trust level and more often your competency level becomes more than a question. | | |
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| | Assignment on SWOT Analysis and Marketing strategy of Amazon.com | | | Amazon.com was started by a man named Jeffrey Bezos, former Vice President of investment banker D.E. Shaw and Company. Rebecca (2002) has stated that Bezos was looking for a good internet company to invest and got a company where the number of visitors was increasing by 2300% every month. He thought of selling books and music on the Internet, but finally narrowed down to books as there was no major online book seller in the market and the competition was much less. Rebecca (2002) mentions that in 1995, Amazon started selling books online and by the year 1998, their annual revenue reached the target of $1640 million. Their customer base increased dramatically from 180,000 in 1996 to 12 million in 160 countries by mid 1999. It was in the year 1999 that the company decided to increase its line of products. Besides books, the company at present sells toys and video games, electronics and software, electronic greeting cards, home improvement supplies, online auctions, DVD’s and an online mall called zShops.
The company’s mission is to provide the customers the best shopping experience on the Internet with the help of technology and expertise of its invaluable employees. With this mission, the company plans to move ahead in the future. Going by the reports published by the company, their sales was best ever during the holiday season of 2008. Kathie Kroll (2008) has mentioned that the peak day was December 15th, when more than 6.3 million items were ordered and 5.6 million units shipped. To any retailer, holiday sales account for 30 to 50 percent of their annual sales and during the last season, there was supposed to be less economic activity in spite of the economic recession. Let us have a SWOT analysis of the current business situation of Amazon.com.
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| | Assignment on the Impact on Climate change on Mount franklin – A product of Coca Cola Amatil | | | The issue of climate change has significant impact on the overall natural environment across the world. It has also effectively influenced the balanced natural environment of Australia, thus affecting its water resources as well as its economy. Bottled water industry in Australia is also heavily influenced by the current trends in global warming. This paper addresses the impact of climate change on the bottled water industry of Australia, and more specifically, on the business prospects of Mount Franklin, an Australia-based beverage product produced and manufactured by Coca-Cola Amatil, Australia. It also discusses the important environmental issues influencing the business of Australian bottled water industry. This research paper addresses the impact of climate change on the bottled water industry of Australia. In particular, the research is focused to explore and analyze the environmental issues related to the business prospects of the production and marketing of Mount Franklin spring water, manufactured by Coca-Cola Amatil, Australia.
The impact of global warming has already affected the Australian natural environment. As Australia is a characteristically dry continent, the consequences due to climate change are significant. One of the most important concerns of the bottled water industry is to follow environmental standards while sourcing and extracting water from spring water sources. This is relevant because water sources are closely associated with the aquatic plants and animals as well as human systems.
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| | Avid Technologies case study | | | This paper analyses the market position of Avid Technologies and make recommendations for future. | | |
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| | Business economics assignment on UK Car market | | | The UK is probably one of the first few countries that used cars as mode of transportation. The UK car market saw a slump during the great depression but recovered soon. The car market in the industry has been experiencing ups and downs over the years. However, the current recession and the subsequent credit crunch in the market has led to decline in sales of new cars as well as used cars since the past five years or so (The Manufacurer,2008). The sales figures of cars are continuously sliding since 2003 and recorded the lowest sales figures in 2008. Once booming car manufacturing industry of the UK is now faced with permanent damage to the industry, if adequate steps are not taken to arrest the downfall. Ford had to sell its Jaguar and Land Rover plants to an Indian company Tata Motors due to dwindling sales and eventual prospects of bankruptcy. The situation is no better elsewhere in the world. General Motors of the USA was on the verge of bankruptcy and had to be bailed out by the government of the USA. There were reports of Tata Motors owned Jaguar and Land Rover seeking governmental intervention to bail out from possible bankruptcy. However, it could manage funding from financial institutions. The report analyses the car market industry both used as well as new, of the UK in the last five years. The report tries to identify the reasons that led to the slide of the UK car market in the past five years. The report also forecasts future for the car market in the UK with the available data. This report finally makes recommendations on how the sales of used as well as new cars can be boosted. | | |
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| | Business Plan for ‘Factory Furniture’ and its expansion into European market | | | Furniture is such a commodity in any market of the world which has a very generic demand. It could be classified as common man’s demand at the same time high end demand as well. The moment a society head for growth and development and infrastructure start building up, furniture is the first thing comes under a lot of demand. Factory Furniture has the positive aspect of manufacturing furniture in public place convenience and that gives them the strong point to come under notice globally. New market evolution helps consumers to arrange for easy financials for residential properties or new business ventures and further expenditure on interior along furniture. Evolution of globalisation and its effect or interaction helps the demand evolve more and take a vast shape. Starting from public furniture to furniture in education institutions, offices, residential properties everything makes a change in style, colour, structure etc. The opportunity hence is large for a company like Factory Furniture to expand its horizon of new furniture, new style, new texture, new market and a large profit. Even if the production operation takes place in Malaysia, the brand still gets the opportunity to spread. Niche market like Europe is a strong economy, with high purchasing power and considered a developed nation. It is near geographically to UK and has a large population who likes innovative and stylish way of living. Europeans prefer wooden elegance than a metal one; hence, they Factory Furniture’s expansion strategy towards European market has been more of a wooden elegance.
The objective of business for Factory Furniture becomes many folds, expand their business horizon, expand their market horizon, establish the brand much largely, and make it famous in other parts of the world apart from UK and definitely getting a quick return from all requisite investments done on these. The USP for Factory Furniture is that it makes furniture which is both wooden as well as metal, giving it an elegant look. Targeting the high end class in Europe the company needs to focus on the sales optimization and the attaining of the high level of customer satisfaction as well which is typically post sale service. The business, corporate or upper middle classes are targeted for this product.
The strategic positioning for the brand Factory Furniture is to have a niche market for itself in other parts of the world also and to begin with Europe which is famous for its demand for elegant and architectural furniture. Therefore Central and Eastern Europe were identified as the potential market. Local consumers, the homemakers along with offices, corporate houses and of course other infrastructure like schools, colleges etc. would be targeted. Europe has an eye for detail and elegancy and can afford it also, so wooden than a metal has been targeted
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| | Business plan for a Furniture factory in UK | | | With a continuous change in the life style of consumers and social changes, there is growing demand for decoration of dining room decoration in the market. The demand for growth in fashion awareness is forcing the market to grow to a new height. It has been mentioned in the article UK dining room and occasional furniture market (October 2004) that in spite of the worldwide recession, the dining room furniture market is growing at a pace of 1-2% per annum in the UK.
The company is based in London, UK and it produces metal legs and tables which are made of metal legs and laminate tops. The company has got an established supply chain and the operations are managed by well trained staff. To cope with the increase in demand, the company wants to set up a new factory in Malaysia which will produce range of dining tables made from mahogany wood which can be sourced from the local wood suppliers in Malaysia.
The company’s current mission and vision is to become the leading provider of dining tables in the European Union within the next ten years, and that too, at a profit.
The current business plan will explore the business opportunities and the operational aspects of setting up the factory for manufacturing dining table in Malaysia. Though the primary objective of the plan is to highlight the operational issues, it should also clear the aspects of marketing, accounting and finance. The marketing strategy will also be discussed in detail.
The business plan will also take into account all the costs involved in transporting the finished good from Malaysia to UK.
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| | Business plan for Goodlife Pharmacy - A new venture | | | The purpose of the business plan in a pharmaceutical company is to secure either loan financing from a bank or equity capital from investors. It is remarkable that Government expenditure on health is increasing in Australia. As the ageing population of Australia is on the rise, the Government has shown green signal to the pharmacy industry with a significant amount of pharmaceutical expenditure in the sector of health spending. This paper addresses the business plan of GoodLife Pharmacy, a new venture in the pharmacy industry from Australia. It further discusses the important issues that lead to a successful business plan of a pharmaceutical company. These issues with respect to the pharmacy company are described in the paper. The purpose of the business plan in a pharmaceutical company is to secure either loan financing from a bank or equity capital from investors. The proceeds will be used to develop an interactive online pharmacy website which will offer medications, medical supplies and equipment for sale, and will also contain a large database of medical information for consumers and health care professionals. | | |
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| | Business plan for St Andrews University | | | – St Andrews is one of Scotland's first university and third oldest in the English speaking world of UK which was founded in the year 1413. St. Andrews, for over six centuries has established a great reputation for itself as one of the Europe's leading and one of the most distinctive centers for teaching as well as research. The university has 8000 plus student counts offering courses or subjects like Philosophy, Physics & Astronomy, German, Film Studies, Chemistry, Applied Mathematics, French, Psychology, English. The University is ranked the 14th in United Kingdom and second in Scotland. The University not only offers great education system but also immense facility for research and development.
As a part of the expansion plan, and grab the opportunity of expansion of education system across the world, especially in the Asia Pacific zone, St. Andrews, plans to expand its operation in Singapore.
The opportunities are high in the Asia Pacific zone and Singapore is a central place, which attracts a lot of population from various parts across the world. Singapore works as a global destination which connects a lot of other parts of the world as well. A tourist destination brings in a lot of foot fall and the economy of the nation is very high.
As the place attracts a lot of young crowd and is quite centrally located, St. Andrews University decided to open a branch operation in this destination only. The objective of this action is not only to make the brand visible and gain profitability, but at the same time, spread the techniques and processes propagated by St. Andrews University across various parts of the world. This began with a destination like Singapore as this is one of the key locations of the Asia Pacific zone (APAC) as APAC is the most promising destination in the globe in the next decade to come.
The project below gives a business plan or an objective plan to clarify or curve out the actual objective of this action for the institution as well as for the society of education as well. The mission and vision of St. Andrews University, Scotland, is to spread the unique processes of education system across and bring about the best practices in limelight. The objective is not only to look at students as mere users of the services provided and act as customers, but to learn from their actions and interactions as well. The best practices developed by St. Andrews University must come out in limelight from a small place like Scotland and set free for the other part of the world to explore and learn from. Therefore, the long-term objective of the University is high degree of education system to spread and the brand St. Andrews to get more visibility amongst the global crowd.
The business plan not only talked about spreading the brand mission and vision for St. Andrews but also the larger benefits for the education sector of the globe as a whole.
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| | Business Plan on a Chocho Factory | | | Chocolate ranks amongst one of the top 10 preferred in-takes or consumption trends today. It is said to be carrying some health benefits also especially the dark chocolate. Sales of chocolate are soaring globally making chocolate more popular than ever before, attracting entrepreneurs to cash in from this growth opportunity. Chocolate is replacing Coffee as a choice and with the change in the equilibrium position of global demand and supply as well as the parity of purchasing power of consumers, one could safely invest in a business of chocolate factory. It is advisable to get into a business, which is lucrative enough for the next five year to one decade. Therefore, whatever investment goes into a chocolate business at its overall cash-cow position currently benefits any new entrant also, provided they offer the right product in the market.
This is a business plan, which would help investor or entrepreneurs to look at an entry strategy into Chocolate business, competitive strategy, break-even point, and challenges. Our preferred geography is Kuwait as being a part of the fastest growing nation of the globe UAE; consumers globally are gradually accepting chocolate in their essential or desired product basket. The market absorption of chocolate as a product is high today and showing positive signs for future. This is largely driven by the increasing per capita income and purchasing power of consumers today. While looking at the competitive advantage of choosing a product line chocolate, we would also look at the social and climatic aspects of acceptance for chocolate in Kuwait.
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| | Business Plan on Far Horizon | | | “Far Horizon” (FA) which was established in 1994, has been steadily growing in the UK marine leisure business over the last 15 years expanding from being a supplier to a manufacturer of its own sailing dinghies and small yachts in 2001. With a current turnover of £1,250,000, it has established a presence in the UK inshore yacht market. Looking forward, the company is now analyzing the opportunity of expanding its manufacturing and sales operations to medium size sea going sailing yachts suited for 4 to 6 berths which would offer greater sales value and higher contribution, thereby expanding the company’s product portfolio and improve its long term profitability and sustainability.
There are approximately 668,000 UK households that own a boat, including canoes/kayaks, rowing boats and wind surf boards, kept in the UK or abroad (UK Trends in Water sports Participation, 2008). In addition, the report shows that demographically, the 16-34 year age group has been the most active in boating activities, but there has been a declining trend in this segment while involvement of the 35-54 and 55+ age groups has been steadily increasing over the past few years. On the other hand, in terms of socio-economic segments, while the AB has the highest participation numbers, C1 have the highest absolute numbers in sail boat and yacht activities (UK Trends in Water sports Participation, 2008).
Leisure boating and yachting is a seasonal activity strongly impacted by weather conditions. In fact, since almost 50% of boating / yachting occurs in the summer months, for example, the relatively cold and very wet summer of 2008 coupled with the economic crunch of 2008-09 led to a sharp decrease not only in new sales of marine crafts but also in overall participation by people in marine leisure activities. This strong seasonal bias in participation is also reflected in sale of marine leisure goods including dinghies, boats and small yachts. The summer months account for most of the annual sales of boats.
Other key market trends include the fact that while casual participation has seen a slight decline, committed participation has increased. Also, while motor boats continue to make up the larger segment than sail boats, sailing has seen a greater rise than power boating, which may be partially driven by the rising fuel prices.
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| | Business plan on Guess Watches | | | Guess Watches is developing innovative and creative designs in watches for the young segment of the market. The business venture is based in Melbourne, Australia and will expand to other cities of Australia. Because of the lenient and encouraging trade and market policies introduced in Australia, the conditions for the business are quite encouraging. Also, the young market segment of Australia is growing steadily and has more money power. The scope for expansion of Guess Watches is large.
The key objectives of Guess Watches are- to stimulate the market for watches, establish its reputation in the market in order to carve a niche for itself, build up a brand image as seller of trendsetting watches, attract more customers by providing good value for money and expanding sales and investment. The PEST and Industry analyses reveal that the factors are more or less leaning in favor of the business venture and therefore, it is the right time to launch the brand.
Guess Watches shall adopt an amalgam of cost leadership and product differentiation strategies in order to yield the best possible out of the business venture. The product would require sourcing of manufacturing material and expertise from UK and US. SWOT analysis reveals that the major threat to the business is from cheap Chinese watches. Guess Watches shall counter it by providing excellent quality watches with warranty and guarantee and offering the best value for money.
The right marketing mix shall steer Guess Watches towards success. Combining critical success factors and risk analysis is essential. The projected estimate of returns is 40% to 50%. Guess Watches Guess Watches has ample scope to develop in the current market.
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| | Business plan on IKEA furniture and its expansion on European market with production in Malaysia | | | Furniture is one of the greatest demanded products in a livelihood and as the economy is growing, so is per capita income followed by consumer demand. Consumers are buying house and property market is growing leaps and bounds across the world. Financial market evolution helps the consumers today to take easy loans for their dream house, and decorating it. Also, new consumer demand has raised the evolution of new product lines which eventually pushes the demand of new ventures to start up, new products, and new companies. That automatically pushes the opportunity of new infrastructure, new offices, and new education institutions and without furniture all these are empty and un-fulfilled. Therefore, furniture is something without which livelihood is incomplete. Different market would have different type of furniture demand. It all depends on the developed or developing societies in question. A developing or under-developed nation would not be able to afford metal furniture which is expensive at the same time; developed economies would be able to afford not only the metal as well as the costly and elegant wooden furniture (Koncept Analytics, 2008).
There is one largest brand Ikea and we are evaluating the concept of furniture making and selling in the niche market. Europe is a strong economy, with high purchasing power and considered a developed nation. It is near geographically to UK and has a large population who likes innovative and stylish way of living. Europeans prefer wooden elegance than a metal one; hence, they Ikea’s expansion strategy towards European market has been more of a wooden elegance.
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| | Business plan on Sony Bravia Plasma Television | | | Sony Bravia Plasma Television range is the new addition to Sony Bravia LCD televisions and PFM Series Plasma displays. Sony Bravia Plasma Televisions are fitted with built in tuner card, which the PFM series lack. Since Sony Bravia LCD televisions have made a mark in the markets worldwide, Sony had decided to introduce Plasma televisions under the brand name Sony Bravia. Sony Plasma televisions are facing stiff competition from their own LCD televisions in the USA and Japan. One of the reasons LCD televisions fare better than Plasma although the picture quality and viewing angles of Plasma are better than LCD televisions is that LCD televiews are much cheaper and affordable to middle and upper middle class consumers. Another factor that goes against Plasma televisions is the altitude factor. Plasma televisions are said to give poor performance in high altitudes. Sony with an intention to revive its Plasma television market has chosen Australia to launch their new series i.e. Sony Bravia Plasma Televisions. The reason Sony has chosen Australia to launch Plasma televisions is that Australia is one of the of the flattest continents and that altitude problems do not arise in Australia much except for the South East region.
The business launch outlines prelaunch, post launch activities, marketing, financial plan and exit strategy. The business plan also outlines market research, risk analysis SWOT analysis, competition, market segmentation etc.
The market launch budget for the product is AUD 250,000. The budgeting does not include the cost of the televisions or the stocks. It includes all the activities related to market launch such as advertising material, customer service training, online advertising, dealer/distributor appointment and training etc.. The budge also includes the advertisements given in print and electronic media, promotional campaigns etc..
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| | Business plan on the expansion of Organic Bliss | | | Organic food Industry has been quite a buzzword in the present scenario. People worldwide are actively becoming aware of their growing need for eating healthy and thus transforming towards organic bend in their diet.
Researches exhibits that sale of organic products has gone up to 49% in conventional grocery stores and has even captured 3% of total organic sales in 2000, through direct markets such as farmers markets (Greene, 2000). Wherein, in Australia, the value organic production double in six years since 2000, its now position at 250A$ million, out of which 80$A million is exported. These figures without doubt reflects the promising opportunity of delving into the organic business.
Bradford (2008) reflects that the consumers of organic products might be motivated by concern for children, recovery from illness or other health issues but environmental health is also becoming a deciding factor for many consumers who don’t agree with the use of pesticides, fertilizers or many synthetic food additives.
Organic Bliss, a cafe cum store has been set up to meet these need of increasing scope of organic foods industry worldwide and particularly in Australia. The cafe will be dedicated to organic ingredients towards the social responsibility of sustainable development and make the world better place to live in. It will be abide by all the food laws in compliance with organic food certification to all its products and services.
This business plan will explore all the business chores that Organic business is supposed to follow in line in order to venture into this cafe and store set up. It will broadly cover the areas such as plan, marketing and advertising strategy, business model and finances.
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| | Business strategy Plan report on Tiffany & Co | | | Tiffany & Co. is one of the most popular jewellery retailers. It operates mainly in the US and the Japan. In the fiscal year January 2006 the company had sales of 2,648.3 million. The company possesses the world’s largest yellow diamond crystal of 287.42 carats. Tiffany is expanded widely with 58 retail stores in the US and 95 retail stores outside the US. It also has a wide range of products which consists of diamonds, timepieces, fragrances, sterling silvers, crystals and accessories apart from jewellery. Jewellery alone contributes 80% towards the company’s revenue. The company’s existing strategies are to open new stores, to have low price products, focus on the China market and are targeting women buyers. An audit of the internal and external factors has revealed that Tiffany’s internal strength is moderate and its response to the opportunities and threats is also moderate. Tiffany is relatively stronger when compared to its competitors like Zale and Bulgari. In the current scenario, five different strategies have been recommended for Tiffany. They are (1) customize jewellery, (2) focus on the Indian market, (3) effectively mange demand and supply of its products, (4) create awareness about “No Dirty Gold” and “Conflict Free Diamond” and (5) concentrate on the watch market. | | |
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| | Business strategy report on Billabong | | | The aim of this report is to identify a company and conduct a detailed strategic audit to evaluate the existing strategies and to identify business opportunities for growth and future development of the business. The report also developed and recommended suitable business strategies that will assist the business to survive and grow in to the future. For this report, we have chosen Billabong International Limited. Billabong is the leading surf wear apparel brand in Australia and second internationally behind Quiksilver. Billabong employs over 1750 people worldwide through 110 corporate stores and 40 licensed arrangements. The company is involved in the design, production and distribution of surf and board sports apparel and accessories for both male and female markets. Surfing is not only an Australian pastime; it is also one of our countries most successful exports. Even if you don’t practice the sport, youth around the world dream of the lifestyle. Analysis of the Billabong Company’s existing strategy indicates that there are a number of areas suitable for future development within this particular industry. The major findings of the report identified a new business strategy and opportunity for Billabong to expand its operations into the Middle East / Asian block. It also identified additional opportunities due to the growing concerns regarding the health risks of the western world particularly obesity levels. Billabong can utilise these public concerns and expand into fitness apparel and equipment. Future sales of this nature will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. | | |
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| | Case study analysis – Amazon in Europe | | | This report is written to analyze the operations of Amazon.com with key focus on inventory management, process improvement, operations management, and adapting to changes in the competitive environment. Apart from having a broad overview on the position of Amazon in the global market, a special focus is given to its operations in the European market. Amazon identified UK and Germany as their key primary markets in Europe and thus modified its activities accordingly to suit the needs of the local people. An attempt has been made to look at the several challenges that Amazon faced in Europe and what steps it took to overcome those challenges. Amazon’s inventory management strategies have been closely looked at with key emphasis on the role of outsourcing. Finally, the conclusion has been made that inspite of all the challenges and drawbacks, Amazon has emerged as a biggest book, music and video retailer on the Internet and thereby offering more than 4.7 million books, videos, music CD’s, DVD’s, computer games and other products. | | |
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| | Case study on How two different Wine businesses have undertaken their Marketing Planning | | | – Wine is the most popular alcoholic beverage known to mankind. It first originated thousands of years ago in Europe and has been one of the most sought after drinks for years. Wine has several health benefits and due to which it has been consumed by majority of the population. Production of wine has increased by huge proportions in the past few centuries and today wine manufacturing has become a huge industry in itself. Wine industry has grown many folds and today has created jobs for millions all over the world (Carlsen, 2004). There are many companies through out the world which today generate huge revenues by producing wine. Wine is just not manufactured by big companies but also by people in their own backyards to produce wine of their particular tastes. Production of wine has become more of an art and passion. Globalization has also added variety to the industry since wine production methods from all over the world are easily accessible. This has led to some companies spreading out to produce wines of all flavors. Grape wine is the most famous across the globe but wine can also be produced by other fruits and berries. For big companies it is not just about producing good wine but also marketing it becomes an essential part of the business. Due to the number of players in the wine industry apart from maintaining the quality, marketing one’s own product also becomes very crucial. There are many types of wine businesses such as winery, wine consortium, wine organization, wine tourism companies, wine retailers etc. This report aims at the marketing plan strategies of two different wine businesses. This report also discusses the importance of marketing one’s own product in general and why marketing is very essential in the wine industry in particular | | |
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| | Company profile of MeadwestVaco Corporation in Packaging industry | | | MeadWestVaco (MWV) is a global leader in packaging and packaging solutions for a number of branded products and services. The company was established in as early as 1846. As a global packaging solutions provider, MWV serves the world’s most premier consumer products brands in the healthcare and pharmaceuticals, personal and beauty care, food and beverage, dispensing solutions, home and garden, and media industries. The company has sales and manufacturing facilities across six continents along with customers in over 100 countries around the world. Based in Virginia as its world headquarters, MWV has numerous office locations along with manufacturing and sales operations over 30 countries across the globe. The company designs and manufactures custom packaging solutions that enhance brand communication, product value and consumer experience. Consumer packaging solutions of MWV include printed plastic packaging and injection-molded products used for packaging products. Its converting packaging solutions (both paperboard and plastic) are manufactured at its plants in North America, Brazil, Asia and Europe. The high-quality paperboard products are manufactured in the company’s mills located in the US and Brazil. MWV’s consumer and office products are exclusively customized for students and professionals. It also provides specialty chemicals products that help improve a pollution-free environment. Moreover, the Community and Land Management Group of MWV manage the company landholdings at per the highest environmental standards. The group is also responsible for the most crucial decisions while planning for the future requirements of communities. | | |
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| | Comprehensive International Marketing assignment on Symantec Corporation | | | Symantec Corporation is one of the fortune 500 companies with global headquarters in California state of the USA. It was founded in April 1982. It went public with IPO on NASDAQ in the year 1989. Currently it has more than 17,500 employees worldwide. It showed revenue of USD 5.9 billion for the year ending March 2008 (Symantec Corporation, 2009).
Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to individual customers, small businesses and larger multinational corporations. It helps the consumers secure and manage information against threats like viruses, phishing, hacking etc. The company’s vision statement is to eliminate risks to information, technology and processes independent of the device, platform, interaction or location.
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| | Comprehensive Review report of IT/IS practices of IKEA | | | The report has been prepared for IKEA to review its current uses of IS/IT in their operations, critique their IS/IT management practices and recommend new changes and possible initiatives that would improve its business performance. The report starts by presenting a clear picture of the lacunae in the company’s operations and IS/IT management practices. These have been viewed as a human activity system rather than as a mechanical operation. It has been found that IKEA sticks to traditional methods in order to reaffirm its unique identity; but this stance needs to be changed at the following levels- Customer Service, Marketing Strategies, and Internal Organisation. For this purpose, IKEA has been viewed from an external customer’s aspect as well as an employee’s internal aspect. Its CATWOEs have been discussed to arrive at a concrete picture of the areas that need amendments. IKEA has been thoroughly analysed through a study of its organisational culture and attitude towards IS/IT practices. A SWOT analysis of the company has also been undertaken. According to the conclusions from these analysis, an IS vision has been developed for IKEA. It has been supported by IT architecture. Need of more and better machinery and software has been emphasised. Training of the personnel and modifying the work environment has been appropriately discussed. IS Strategic Plan has been included in the report to make this vision and architecture a reality. Lastly, recommendations have been summarised in the Wiseman’s framework. We wish IKEA all the best in all its future endeavours. | | |
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| | Comprehensive strategic analysis of Pan Pacific Hotel, Singapore | | | Starting and managing international operations even for a well established company domestically could pose many challenges and threats just for the simple reason that market forces in the host country are alien to the company starting venture internationally (Adler, 2005). The success or otherwise of an international venture depends upon many factors like political stability in the host nation, governmental policies, customer behavior, per capita income, customer spending habit, market potential, competition and so many other factors (Baker, 1985). It is important for the company that is starting an international venture to have sustainable capabilities to absorb possible initial failures. Another major factor that influences the success or failure of an international venture especially in the hospitality industry is the culture and religion practiced in the host country. It is well known fact that consumption of pork is not allowed in some of the Middle Eastern Islamic countries. Even alcohol consumption is not allowed in some countries in the Middle East. The company that is venturing into an alien nation must study, understand and adapt to the culture of the host nation. India and China are the two of the fastest growing economies in the world, in the current millennium (Datamonitor, 2009). This paper critically analyses the environment for Pan Pacific, Singapore chain of 5 star hotels to enter into Indian market, which hitherto has not been tested by the company. The paper uses market environment analysis tools such as PESTEL, Porter’s market forces, 7Ps required for the success of a company. The paper finally recommends the measures and precautions Pan Pacific needs to take before entering into Indian markets. | | |
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| | Critical evaluation of the potential benefits and limitations of Strategic management for SAGE Products Inc. | | | Strategic Management incorporates the whole organisation and organisational processes in its analysis, formulation and implementation. The five recurring themes in strategic management are- management process, management decisions, time scales, structure of the organisation and activities of the organisation (http://www.introduction-to-management.24xls.com).
• Management process relates to the creation and alteration of strategies for an organisation.
• Management decisions perceive problems or threats and devise solutions for them.
• Time scales may be long or short horizontally depending upon the company’s situation.
• Structure of the organisation determined the structure of the strategies adopted.
• Activities of the organisation are finalised according to the strategies implemented.
Thus, strategic management involves all levels of management in an organisation and forms the crux of all managerial and organisation activity or process. In view of globalisation which is merging the world businesses, competition has become international. International competition has created the need to build up strong competitive advantages. Thus, strategic management has become highly significant and has a large scope in the current economic scenario.
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| | Customer & Competitive analysis of Publishing & Broadcasting Limited business of ACP magazines | | | This report provides a customer and competitor analysis of the Publication & Broadcasting Ltd business of ACP Magazines. It uses graphs for illustrating average Issue Readership of consumer titles of Australian magazine market, share of market by size of circulation in Australian magazine market and average No. of reading occasions per reader per issue. There is a Pie chart for showing composition of Magazine Market of Australian magazine market. A Map of strategic groups in the Australian Publishing Market shows the standing of Publishing groups and their market dynamics. There is a Competitor capabilities map which shows the comparison of certain capabilities among different competing giants of the Australian Magazine Market. Space analysis map is used to show the strategic position of ACP Magazines and its action evaluation as compared to the Australian magazine market environment. Appendices are used to describe the Heavy Magazine Readership Profile of Australian Magazines; Media Qualities show the comparison of magazines with newspapers, TV, Radio and cinema. There are also graphs showing the reading statistics of Australian Market. A table shows the Readership profile of TOP 30 Australian Magazines. Advertising Expenditures in Magazines are illustrated using Bar graphs | | |
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| | Customer & competitive analysis on Coles Ltd | | | Coles Everyday has been chosen for this analysis. Everyone can be a customer of supermarkets, with the wide range of product with different prices; supermarkets serve all people (no limit of gender, age, income) to satisfy daily needs and wants. Thus target market has been divided into 3 categories i.e. Family Shoppers, Time saver buyers and International students.The major competitor of Coles Everyday is Woolworths who holds around 42% of the total market share where Coles holds around 30% of the total market share. Some of the strategies that Coles is currently pursuing to increase its market share are Coles Online Shopping, Promotion of Housebrands, Coles Meal Ideas, Coles Healthy Living, Baby Club, FlyBuys and Coles Cares. To counter the strategies of Coles, Woolworths is pursuing the strategies like Shop online, Weekly Specials and Kids Corner.Some of the future strategies of Coles include Increasing investments in supermarkets, Training of supermarket manager and store teams, Transformation of supply chain and IT systems by 2008, Enhancement of loyalty programs like FlyBuys etc. | | |
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| | Customer & Competitive analysis on QANTAS airlines | | | This report provides a customer and competitor analysis for the Qantas Group. It indicates the stage at which the company stands at the moment whilst talking about its gross earnings, profits, sales, operations figurations, etc. Similarly, it also displays where the other airlines of similar genre stand. | | |
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| | Customer & Competitor analysis on ANZ bank | | | This assignment covers the customers and competitor analysis of the ANZ Bank and its retail banking. The retail banking of ANZ covers the savings and checking accounts, mortgages, personal loans, debit card section and credit card section and so on. The competitor analysis also covers these sections of ANZ bank with their competitor banks which is discussed here. SPACE analysis is also done for retail banking sector of the ANZ bank and their position based on their operations compared to the competitor. SWOT analysis is also performed on ANZ bank’s retail operations in account with its customer segments. | | |
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| | Customer & competitor analysis on Woolworths Ltd | | | This report does the customer and competitor analysis of Woolworths Limited Company, the biggest supermarket chain in Australia, through secondary research from published information and Internet. Firstly, the overview information of Woolworths Limited was presented with the comparison of 4 major divisions (Supermarkets, Hotel group, General Merchandise and Consumer Electronics). Secondly, this Supermarkets industry is analyzed to point out the proportion of competitor and the influences of environmental factors to them. This information will give an overview of competitive environment as context for analysis of competitors. Thirdly, analysis of competitor of Woolworths Limited is done to answer the questions about what the competitors want, how is their current strategy, what is the weakness and strength of their products and what should they do next in the future. Besides, the customers are considered not only the current customers of Woolworths but also both the competitor customers and the potential customers in order to understand them clearly. Finally, based on the knowledge of competitors and customers, some recommendations to the Woolworth Limited strategies development are made to improving customer experience as well as maintaining the competitive advantage. | | |
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| | Design of Manufacturing strategy for Aylesford Newsprint, UK | | | The success of a manufacturing industry depends mainly on the external environment such as the demand for goods in the industry and the availability of raw materials required manufacturing the good. A manufacturing facility with the latest technology, equipment, expertise, is prerequisite for any manufacturing activity. There are too many factors that determine the success or otherwise of a manufacturing firm. A production process unit involves several operations such as purchase management, production management, quality management, facilities management, logistics, distribution channels, configuration management etc.. Manufacturing is quite an involved process that needs the coordination among all these departments. The manufacturing process starts from procurement of raw materials and processing the raw material to make a finished good. It is the technology that is of importance in the production process. If all other operations of a company are characterized by management skills and require highly managerial skills to carry out the tasks efficiently such as logistics management, the production process requires high degree of technical and engineering skills than mere management skills. Production is in the area of production process that all the engineering and scientific skills are applied to practice. If all other sections of a manufacturing industry can be thought of as purely managerial activities, production and quality control involve a lot of engineering and scientific activities than mere managerial activities. Aylesford has an efficient distributor system, but an online ordering system using payment gateways over the phone or emails. No doubt the company website has exhaustive information of the company and its products, online ordering system would add more brand value to the company. Therefore the paper recommends Aylesford to have an online transaction system to add more value to its already efficient offline ordering process.. The company can enhance the quality of all its operations by installing ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning software that enables integration of all the processes of the organization and brings them into a central database and central control system. The company can invest in such value addition which greatly integrates all the operations that were hitherto functioning individually. A software application such as ERP would greatly improve monitoring and control of processes thereby ensuring efficient operations. | | |
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| | Designing a business model and web strategy assignment on InfoInc | | | The report aims to design a strategy for InfoInc, an entrepreneurial initiative aimed at providing information in specialized fields. The first field it is targeting is that of accounts and taxation. For the same it is targeting general public and professionals in the field. To device a business strategy for the same, research has been done on the strategy followed by various other dotcoms, expert opinion on it.
Not only have success stories been researched, effort has been made to identify reasons of failure to steer clear of them. For this interviews of marketing and internet Gurus like Kotler and Tapscott have been referred to. The report dwells on the various aspects of a business and takes examples from other successful sites to derive its winning strategy.
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| | Dissertation / Thesis on the topic - Employee stress management strategies for supermarkets in Auckland | | | This study follows a line of investigation about the existing knowledge of stress management strategies among Auckland supermarket employees. The author reviewed number of different issues related to occupational stress and extended the range of discussion about factors causing stress to supermarket employees. To understand the stress factors effectively, an in-depth study has been conducted to investigate the issues faced by the supermarket employees and importance of managing stress levels in the organisation.
The primary data has been collected from the respondents specifically selected from four different supermarkets in Auckland city. Majority of respondents working in supermarkets experienced greater impact on physical reactions which contributes to stress and work related injury among employees working in the different departments of supermarkets. Recognising the implications of stress in an organisation will increase employee satisfaction and performance. The outcome of this study identifies the problems causing stress to the workers.
This study concluded with a number of recommendations in the supermarket industry to increase productivity and reduce absenteeism among the Auckland supermarket employees. Stress can be managed effectively and inexpensively, if the employees learn what stress is, what are the consequences of stressors, and how to control it effectively.
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| | Dissertation focussing on using Weighted Return on Investment (ROI) as a framework for the companies to measure their marketing effectiveness | | | Organizational marketing efforts are aimed at achieving the desired business and market objectives. Although, organizations are interested in making more sales, many of the organizations do not really measure the outcome of the marketing efforts. However, more and more companies these days are interested in measuring their marketing efforts. A simple marketing effectiveness measurement method is the calculation of marketing ROI. Marketing audit using marketing ROI is done for the purpose of knowing effectiveness of the marketing efforts and are not made public to shareholders. Marketing ROI is completely different from the organizational ROI. Marketing effectiveness or ROI is also done to estimate the marketing budget and for improvising marketing efforts. Marketing ROI is single dimensional and does not consider intangible benefits of the marketing efforts such as creation of brand value, sales inquiries etc. However, these intangible benefits can be weighted to provide an accurate picture of the outcome of marketing efforts. The marketing ROI does not take into account the influence of internal and external environments of the organization on the outcome of marketing efforts. The paper discusses the intangible benefits and how they could be weighted to measure the overall ROI. However, the main purpose of this dissertation is to create a frame work that accounts for the influence of internal and external environment to the outcome of the marketing efforts. Internal environmental factors are strength of the product, strength of the brand, effectiveness of dealer network, reliability and effectiveness of service provided. The external environmental influences are economy of the nation, economy of the industry governmental policies, competition etc.. While internal environmental factors are specific to the company, external environmental factors affect the industry in general. The car manufacturing companies BMW UK, Toyota UK and Nissan UK are considered for the purpose of this study. The paper first discusses the UK car market in general and the operations of each of these companies. The paper provides a framework to these companies individually to measure the marketing effectiveness using weighted ROI. The companies will have a better picture of the efficacy of their marketing efforts if they consider both tangible and intangible factors that contribute to the success of the marketing efforts.
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| | Dissertation on Customer satisfaction and retention in Standard and Budget hotels in United Kingdom | | | The dissertation titled ‘Customer Satisfaction and Retention in Standard and Budget Hotels in the United Kingdom’ is a comparative study of budget and standard hotels with main focus on customer satisfaction and retention. Over the last few years, budget hotels have been gaining popularity (especially in the United Kingdom) because of the low prices that they offer for provision of comfortable services. Customers are waning away from standard hotels to budget hotels because a greater value for money is achieved at budget hotels.
For the purpose of the study, qualitative research approach has been adopted. Two hotels were chosen for the purpose of this study- Marriott and Travelodge (of United Kingdom). Marriott is a standard or luxury hotel while Travelodge is a budget or limited services hotel. Various aspects of customer satisfaction and retention in these hotels have been researched. Employee training and employee-customer relationship emerged as a major factor and was amply studied for the said purpose.
Chapter 1 of the dissertation introduces the concepts of customer satisfaction and retention, their importance and their measurement. Customer satisfaction entails meeting or exceeding the expectations of the customers while customer retention is a much longer drawn measurement of customer satisfaction. Chapter 2 discussed the research design for the study. Questionnaires and interviews were used to elicit information and gather data from customers and employees of the hotels. After a comprehensive Literature review in Chapter 3, Chapter 4 has tabulated the findings of the research. These have then been discussed and concluded meaningfully and logically in the last chapter of the dissertation.
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| | Dissertation on Measuring Marketing and its impact on Return-on-Investment in a business | | | Marketing activities today are being measured for the return on investments they generate and not only the brand visibility have they created. Marketing of the products and services produced or generated by a firm is the most essential thing, but at the same time, it is becoming increasingly important that each step of marketing are measured and checked. Any marketing activity of a firm is invested with a lot of capital expenditure and hence, in a tough market like today, where saving is imperative for each function within the organization, it is important that a measured return on such capital investments are identified.
Marketing is one of the core functions for a firm, therefore, if other functions can showcase a tangible benefit and quantify it also, marketing department cannot stay aloof from this concept. However, the process of such quantification becomes thousand times difficult and complex for marketing department than any other function. A marketing activity is always a combination of many sub-activities such as advertising, sales promotion, sales and distribution, and pricing. When it comes to sales or retail sales, it is also more or less quantifiable immediately however, corporate sales could hardly be forecasted and budgeted for.
In this report our key area of research has been how to measure marketing activities and show a tangible impact on the profitability of a firm. How could we measure return on investments made on marketing activities within a firm. This is primarily because, without the visibility of substantial return on capital invested, no management would want to go on making investments, and therefore, it is essential to quantify the efforts put in. We assessed the technical know-how of measuring marketing in this report.
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| | Dissertation on the topic - influence of technology and specially internet in our business activities or how we do business today. | | | The research work emphasizes on the influence of technology and specially internet in our business activities or how we do business today. Technology has been a significant influence in changing the business environment across the world and the global boarders have shrink in. It is directly related to level of the operational activity as well as growth of the business and economy of a country at a macro level. One of the diverse aspects of technology at the present day is prevalent use of internet by masses, be it individual or organizational and at the same time increased demand of innovation by consumers. Today consumer preferences are fast delivery, innovativeness of products, one stop shop for a global product range with a reduced cost. Market segmentation has become more of a Geographical segmentation. Research further evaluates that competition is increasing in the market and its imperative for manufactures to understand consumer buying behavior in depth and influential role of technology. Internet plays a very important role in creating a brand image of the business within the market, easy accessibility and quick delivery. The need for high preference to technological intervention and extensive use of internet options in business is therefore highlighted for companies that want to not only retain their market but take positive steps to increase their market share. Saying this it is not such an easy task. For years, the globe and especially developing nations all across, have become used to legacy systems and traditional work barriers. It is all the time not an easy exercise to implement change in society, especially, when the change is at a large level. Any change management principles are difficult to implement as there comes a lot of acceptance problem. Implementation of technology and its supremacy in terms of growth and expansion in a society, which could develop mankind, society and culture as a whole, also face a lot of obstacles in its way. These obstacles could be of any shape, size and character. In the project below we see the legacy system with its drawback, we have realized the need to change and implementation of technology in a business environment as that is the liquidity injection machine, and we have seen how the entire idea is faced with multi-faceted obstacles. The most important objective for any society, culture and organization to even think to incorporate change in their system, is control of wastage - wastage of liquidity, energy, manpower, infrastructure, time to name a few. The other objective becomes, increasing the horizon of operation or increase of market share. The influence of globalization in such an idea of technological changes acts strongly without ignore the vintage systems; rather old getting clubbed-up with the contemporary, can create new history. The objective of this project is the identify obstacles and evaluating them, at the same time, work out mechanisms to overcome them, to look at larger changes in our business environment and society as a whole. | | |
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| | Dissertation on the Use of Internet Return on Investment (ROI) as a tool to measure their internet marketing effectiveness | | | Online marketing is the latest tool in the marketing efforts of an organization. Online applications are aimed at achieving marketing goals of organizations. Online marketing is becoming one of the most effective marketing channels in the recent years. While some companies realize the importance of having online presence to the growth of their business, there are many companies that invest in online infrastructure just not be left behind without realizing what the online presence can do to achieve the overall objectives of the company. It is a common belief that online marketing allows for easier measurement of outcomes of marketing efforts due to data intensive methods that normally constitute the online infrastructure. However, if the data thus obtained is not used effectively with the help of online marketing measurement tools then the data in itself cannot produce meaningful derivations on the performance of the website or online transactional application. One of the marketing measurement techniques used in measuring effectiveness of online marketing is marketing ROI or internet ROI. Online marketing ROI along with an efficient performance of the website should provide fairly accurate measurement of online marketing effectiveness. However, not many organizations are keen in measuring website effectiveness although, they might be using internet ROI as the sole measurement criteria to ascertain the success or otherwise of the online presence. Marketing audit using internet ROI serves the purpose of knowing the realization of tangible benefits of the online marketing efforts but they fail to measure intangible benefits such as creation and enhancement of brand value. Internet marketing ROI is single dimensional and does not take into account intangible benefits of the marketing efforts such as creation and enhancement of brand value, purchase intent etc. Banking is one of the first few industries that experimented with online marketing. Traditional banking system of late, has made way for online banking in a big way. The technological developments in E-banking or E-commerce have grown to such an extent in the past couple of decades that the banks might lose the customer base to competitors if they do not have an efficient and effective online presence. These days the customers expect efficiency of an online merchandising of the bank and the safety of online transactions devoid of any fraudulent activities. This dissertation discusses the operations of the three banks viz., Barclays Bank UK, Bank of Scotland and Triodos Bank and their online banking systems. While Barclays Bank and the Bank of Scotland have efficient online presence in the form of a neatly designed websites and transaction systems, the Triodos bank needs to improve on its online presence on the web. It is easy for the banks to use internet ROI to measure their online marketing effectiveness. However, marketing ROI provides measurement of just the tangible outcomes of the online operations. This dissertation makes a few recommendations to the banks to improvise upon their website performances and provides them framework for measuring intangible benefits such as creation and sustenance of brand value, creation of awareness, creation of sales inquiries for possible future business. The paper recommends all the three banks to incorporate the methodologies presented in this paper to measure the intangible benefits of their online marketing efforts and to make changes to their online marketing approaches.
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| | Dissertation on theoretical aspects of segmentation and then discussing segmented market focus of Amazon | | | Market segmentation is about dividing a market into different homogeneous groups of consumers. Market segmentation makes it possible for organizations to customize the marketing mix for specific target markets rather than offer the generic marketing mix to vastly different customers, in order to satisfy customer needs. Marketing segmentation is not about having a completely different marketing mix for each of the market segments. Promotional campaigns too differ among segments as needs of each segment would be different. A market segment has to be measurable, accessible by communication channels and needs to be different in its response to marketing mix, durable and substantial enough to be profitable, A market can be segmented based on multiple actors. Business markets are segmented differently from consumer markets as the purchasing behaviors of both are different. The purpose of segmenting the market is to allow the marketing programs to focus on specific subsets of prospective buyers that are most likely to purchase the products or services. If segmentation is done in an effective way it will result in the highest possible returns for the marketing expenses. Depending on whether the company is selling its products or services to individual consumers or businesses, there would be distinct characteristics among segments in what the company considers when defining market segments. Marketing segmentation also enables brands to customize their products and services to match the needs of different consumer groups. Segmentation of the market has the advantages of being able to target and cater to customers that have similar consumption patterns. At the same time too much of segmentation might be efforts intensive and could result in loss of focus on the overall market scenario. Furthermore, too much of segmentation can result in increased costs, which may not justify the earnings from individual segments. Amazon UK is one of the most successful retail firms. It combines two channels successfully, retailing and online business. While it implements segmentation into its marketing efforts, this study reveals that the approach of Amazon UK to consumer market is over segmented. This paper recommends Amazon UK to minimize on its segmentation efforts and benefit from increased profits and reduced costs. | | |
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| | Dissertation on theoretical aspects of segmentation and then discussing segmented market focus of Symantec UK | | | One of the most important components of marketing is segmentation. It is rare that a company operates in a market without segmenting it. If an entire market is homogeneous then firms can sell their products without segmenting. However, practically no market in its entirety is homogeneous. A potential market can be segmented based on several factors. Business markets are segmented quite differently from consumer markets as the purchasing behaviors of both business and individual customers are different. The purpose of segmenting the market is to allow the marketing programs and efforts to focus on specific groups of prospective customers that are expected to purchase the products or services. Marketing efforts require identification of consumers with similar consumption patterns and customizing the products and promotional offers to suit them. Grouping of customers based on their needs and buying behavior is required for effective marketing. Segmentation is this grouping of customers with similar characteristics of consumption and purchase. Grouping of customers in a market into different homogeneous clusters is called segmentation. Organizations can customize the marketing mix for specific target markets rather than offering the generic marketing mix to vastly different customers to satisfy customer needs with the help of market segmentation. Markets segments are not completely exclusive. Instead different segments can have some of the characteristics common among them. Organization can fetch higher returns by incorporating efficient segmentation of their markets. A broad segmentation can be between business and individual customers. These business and individual customer segments can further be divided based on common characteristics. Marketing segmentation enables organizations to customize their products and services to match the needs of different consumer clusters. Segmentation of the market has the advantage of being able to target and cater to customers groups who have similar consumption patterns. The flip side of segmentation is that of over segmentation. Over segmentation is about dividing the market into too many smaller groups. While the advantages of optimum segmentation can be increased profits, disadvantages of over segmentation can be many. One of the main disadvantage of over segmentation is increased costs and resources that are need to maintain all the segments. And if one of the smaller segment is not doing well, it could pull down the performance in other segments. Promotional campaigns vary among segments as the needs of each segment is different. A market segment needs to be measurable if the effectiveness of the segment and the marketing efforts can be accounted for. Symantec Corporation is one of the most successful antivirus software company in the world. It is headquartered in the USA and has a branch in the UK. It operates through offline stores of retailers and has an online store in the UK. It caters to both individual and corporate customers. It has high degree of segmentation in its market focus and product range. This dissertation research first discusses theoretical aspects of segmentation and then discusses segmented market focus of Symantec UK. | | |
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| | Dissertation on theoretical aspects of segmentation and then discussing segmented market focus of W H Smith | | | Marketing efforts require identification of consumers with similar consuming patterns and customizing the products and promotional offers to suit them. In other words, efficient marketing efforts call for grouping of customers based on their needs and buying behavior. This grouping of customers with similar characteristics of consumption and purchase is called segmentation. Market segmentation is about grouping of customers in a market into different homogeneous clusters. Market segmentation enables organizations to customize the marketing mix for specific target markets rather than offering the generic marketing mix to vastly different customers to satisfy customer needs. Marketing segmentation is not about having a completely exclusive marketing mix for each of the market segments. If segmentation is done in an efficient way it will result in the increased returns as compared to the marketing costs. Depending on whether the organization is selling its products or services to individual consumers or business customers, there would be distinct characteristics among segments when defining market segments. Marketing segmentation also enables companies and brands to customize their products and services to match the needs of different consumer clusters. Segmentation of the market has the advantage of being able to target and cater to customers groups who have similar consumption patterns. At the same time excess of segmentation could be efforts intensive and could result in loss of focus on the overall market scenario. Promotional campaigns vary among segments as the needs of each segment would be different. A market segment has to be measurable, accessible by communication channels and needs to be different in its response to marketing mix, needs to be durable and substantial enough to be profitable. A market can be segmented based on several factors. Business markets are segmented quite differently from consumer markets as the purchasing behaviors of both the segments are different. The purpose of segmenting the market is to allow the marketing programs and efforts to focus on specific subsets of prospective customers that are most likely to purchase the products or services. Furthermore, too much of segmentation can call for increased costs, which may not justify the earnings from the individual segments. W H Smith is one of the oldest and most successful retail firms of the UK. It has been having brick and mortar stores for a century and recently it has entered into the online business. It combines both the forms of marketing successfully.. While it implements segmentation into its marketing efforts to some extent, this study reveals that the approach of W H Smith to consumer market is under segmented. This paper recommends W H Smith to increase the degree of segmentation and benefit from increased profits and reduced costs. | | |
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| | Dissertation or Thesis on the topic - An analysis on risk & rewards of outsourcing New Zealand Computer Aided Design (CAD) in India | | | Offshore outsourcing, a magic word used by companies around the world to compete in the global market. Reasons for stepping into offshore outsourcing can be many, but they can revolve around two broad spectrums, one is cost effective business operations and the second one is the unavailability of required skills.
New Zealand has number of engineering firms that are into CAD for their business functions. Currently India acts as the global hub for information technology (IT) and information technology enabled services (ITES), and India offers services to many engineering firms around the world.
While New Zealand engineering firms are striving for highly skilled and professional CAD engineers, India offers CAD services that result in cost effectiveness, and quality. This study has brought forward the advantages of outsourcing New Zealand engineering firms’ CAD to India, and has also made recommendations which can facilitate the process of offshore outsourcing.
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| | Dissertation proposal on Consumer Behaviour by taking examples of two of the largest multiples of Ireland viz., AIDL and LIDL | | | Consumer behavior varies to a great extent depending on their age, sex, demography, food habits, living style, socio economical status etc... Different consumers have different reason as to why they purchase a particular brand. A consumer can purchase a soft drink for the sheer pleasure derived from the distinct taste of it. Or another consumer might purchase the same soft drink brand as a style statement. We see in the advertisements soft drinks target customers in particular age group. For example, a particular soft drink might advertise as meant for those who are young and energetic. So a young customer might consume the soft drink in the eagerness to show that he or she is young. Similarly, a set of consumers may be price conscious. And another set of customers may be brand conscious or quality conscious. The first type of customers is that, which hog to clearance sale or discount sale outlets. The second type of customers knows what they expect out the product, make a study, choose a brand and generally stick to the brand for longer time. However, with the initial hype of discount sales is dying and with consumers increasingly having disposable incomes, consumers these days opt for quality over cheaper price and quantity. The paper does a research on consumer behavior by taking examples of two of the largest multiples of Ireland viz., AIDL and LIDL. The research is cross sectional, which spans consumers in the age group between 20 and 60. A cross-sectional survey is conducted to prove that the numbers of consumers that prefer quality are more than the number of consumers that prefer price and quantity over price. | | |
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| | Dissertation proposal on Dell supply chain management | | | Number of Companies has spent a decade reconstructing their core business process for efficiency. The objective has been to straighten out the kinks in supply chain-from suppliers through incoming logistics through work-in-progress through outbound logistics and customer fulfilment (Hamel, 2002). In this parlance Dell has been remarkable in its integration of Supply Chain. From an outside view, Dell computer delivery process appears both short and slick.
As defined by Mentzer (2001) Supply Chain Management is systematic, strategic coordination of the traditional business functions within a particular company and across business with supply chain, for the purposes of improving the long-term performance of the individual companies and the supply chain as whole. For a better understanding Supply chain can be defined in layman terms as something which encompasses all activities connected with the flow of materials, services and information through processing of product/ services facilities to end customer.
In this context Dell adaptation to changing time for the need of SC has been quite noticeable and it is one such company among very few to sustain it without any hiccup.
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| | Dissertation Proposal on IBM Diverse Workforce: Success strategies | | | The onset of globalization has witnessed a wide shift in demographic profile of workforce within the organizations. And, perhaps, in this purview organizations are also coming on terms with cultural diversity at their workplace. Thus, nowadays, organizations are quite vigilant to rope in culturally diverse management for their workforce as cornerstone of their policies to attract and retain the best talent from all around the globe.
In this framework of rigid competition between multinational companies to acquire best talent, it is highly significant that how company deals with their employees/workforce coming from different backgrounds and cultures. Henceforth a key that question arises is, “How do companies manage cultural diversity in the workplace?’ At more fundamental one can question, “How do managers manage cultural diversity in workplace?” Early, 2006 pg 103)
IBM is one such multinational organization that has to effectively deal with cultural diversity to maintain its global existence. IBM demarcates itself very strongly in enduring successful cultural diverse environment in its policy statement. Ted Child (vice president of workforce diversity at IBM) proudly identifies cultural diversity management at IBM with issues concerning to cultural awareness and acceptance, ethnic minorities and multilingualism as key components in IBM’s global workforce diversity challenges.
This research will incorporate an exploratory study on IBM way to manage culture diversity at workplace. For this first a critical literature review will be conducted to understand the concept. Global Policies of IBM will be taken to know about IBM vision. Once having a detailed perspective IBM Pune will be encircled as case study to narrow down the research towards the research aims and objectives
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| | Dividend Policy Analysis of four companies from UK – Tesco, Sainsbury, Shell & BP | | | An empirical investigation is conducted on four UK companies representing two different industries (i.e. Retail – Tesco and Sainsbury, Oil & Gas – Royal Dutch Shell and B.P.) to analyze their dividend setting behavior. A correlation and multiple variable regression analysis is then conducted on these companies financials. The observed results support published studies in literature on dividend setting behavior. They show the influence of socio-economic factors and signaling power of dividend policies by showing greater stability in DPS than that warranted changes in the net profits and earnings of the company. In addition, it is seen that the single most important factor influencing the level of dividend paid is the earnings of the corresponding period. Other factors impacting dividend setting behavior are the net profits, past earnings and dividends, size of the firm and size of long term liabilities. | | |
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| | Environmental analysis of Wesfarmers ltd | | | Wesfarmers is a large Australian company. It started way back in 1914 as Western Australian farmers cooperative and has grown manifold since then. Today it employs around 200,000 people across Australia and New Zealand and boasts of 400,000 shareholders. Wesfarmers has become a company known for its focus on providing value to its shareholders and developing a relationship of trust, commitment and loyalty. Its business is highly diversified ranging from liquor to supermarkets to coal.
In the recent past, Wesfarmers acquired Coles as a retail division. Coles is an extremely large company with over 160,000 people involved in it. The deal, struck in 2007, is a landmark deal because it offers scope for unprecedented control over the market by Wesfarmers. This deal is very well spelled out with all the monetary and share holding under discussion. The detailing of the deal is beneficial towards determining the nature of relationship that the company and the customers are to enjoy. An external environment consists of the outside influences on the company. These may be political, economic, social or even cultural in nature. Keeping Wesfarmers at the centre and the competitive environment and the remote environment in the outer peripheries, a report into the external environment of Wesfarmers has been attempted. Legal, social, cultural and political factors along with the external economic environment have been discussed. Competitive Environment is primarily guided by Rivals, Customers, Suppliers, Employees, Managers and Board Members, while the remote environment is influenced by Shareholders, Government, Financial, Community, Host Community, Ecological Environment and Society in General. Various strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the company have been analysed. These aspects cannot be segregated and are often found to be overlapping in nature.
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| | Essay discussing the internal and external pressures on organizations to create and market new products | | | Marketing strategy is not just about advertising and other marketing efforts. But market strategy is also about recommending and introducing new products into the market. New product introductions into the market serve the strategic purposes of organizations to retain and enhance the market presence. Some of the products are introduced to offset the competition from similar products of rival companies. Some other products are introduced by recognizing the need for the product in the market and hence to be the first to introduce patented product. Irrespective of the reason, new product introduction brings about whole new dimension to the marketing efforts and brand value to the company introducing the product. Some of the new products may multiply the brand value in the market of the company, while some other products may adversely influence the brand value depending upon the reception of the product in the market. The paper discusses some of the underlying reasons and pressures, internal as well as external to the organization, which prompt the company to introduce a new product. The paper also discusses the timing of the product launch that helps companies to make the best of the market trends.
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| | Essay on Project risk management in IT projects | | | This paper addresses the important issues related to project risk management with specific reference to the field of IT (Information Technology) management. The paper discusses the nature of risks involved in IT management along with other significant issues. It also studies the implications of the essential strategies with regard to various tools and techniques used in the project management. | | |
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| | Essay on Sustainability of Logistics management with key focus on ‘Green Logistics’ | | | This paper will throw light on the sustainability of Logistics management. It will talk about various changes that are taking place in logistics and how these changes have given rise to new concepts like “green logistics”. The paper will have a brief descriptions of examples of how sustainability has been made objective to be achieved by various organizations. | | |
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| | Essay on the Role of Outsourcing in IT industry | | | With computer systems and projects and their implementations getting more complex with every day that passes, the tendering of IT responsibilities to external parties is becoming attractive to the organizations of all size. The common name for this type of operation is “outsourcing”. It is the attempt of this essay to explain outsourcing, mainly the benefits it brings concluding it with how it solves the problems that are present now in IT organizations. | | |
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| | Essay on the Strategic Management of Symantec Corporation and future recommended strategies | | | Strategic management is important in order to survive in the market amidst competition. The earlier days of linear management methods of industries of the past are no longer relevant to the current scenario of heightened competition and changing market demands. The companies need to constantly reinvent their products, services, marketing strategies, value additions etc. in order to remain in the market. Strategic approaches to management, product development, product placing in the market become important in order to order to gain competitive edge in the market. Symantec Corporation was established in 1982 in California State of the USA (Symantec Corporation, 2009). Symantec is one of the foremost companies in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to individual customers, small businesses and larger multinational corporations (Symantec Corporation, 2009). The business and home suites help customers their computers against threats like viruses, phishing, hacking etc. Symantec is also into storage management and protection in large organizations. It offers business suites to medium and large organizations to manage their servers, storage devices, batch activities such as back up and restore (Symantec Corporation, 2009). The essay discussed strategy development processes of Symantec. The essay also discusses some of the strategies adopted by the company in order to gain and retain market leadership.
Businesses are facing increasing competition at local, national and international levels and responsiveness to these changes are considered crucial to their success (BPM, 2004). Efficiency and effectiveness are not sufficient in the current global competition, instead strategic actions of the companies are more relevant to the success of current day businesses (Milan, 2008). Strategies make or break an organization. A good strategy might take a company far ahead of its competitors. Some of strategies that are crucial to the success of a business are organizing strategies, resource management strategies, change management strategies, expansion strategies etc. The essay discusses key strategies of Symantec Corporation that are crucial to the success of the organization as the market leader. The essay also recommends a few strategic plans in order to retain the market leader position.
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| | Evaluation and comparison of the websites of Amazon and W H Smith on the criteria of Core Identity, Extended Identity, Value Proposition and Relationship | | | The companies need to establish brand identity in the market if they are to sustain amid changing marketing forces for a long time. Brand identities can be thought of as promise statements by the companies and their members to consumers about the benefits of the use of their products (Schmidt & Ludlow, 2002). Brand identity is the projected value addition to the customer’s life (Balmer & Grey, 2000). Brand identity is a set of associations that the customer identifies with the product or the company (Kotler et al, 2006). In order to create brand identity the company has to define core values of the brand, its associations, perceptions by the customers about the brand, the personality traits the customer associates with the brand and relationship of the brand with the customer (Holt, 2004). For example, a jeans trousers brand may project a macho image of the wearer. The customer identifies with the brand’s ruggedness, toughness of character, and macho man image. The brand can have psychological and emotional bearing on the minds of customers too. A person wearing the particular brand of jeans may actually think and behave like a macho man. Thus the brand identity of the particular jeans brand can be that of macho image. These projections are not the results of how the products were perceived by larger sections of customers. But they are carefully thought out strategies by the brands themselves. Before launching a new product in the market the companies normally strategize and plan as to what the brand image of the product is. The branding strategy depends upon the target customers, their demography, salient features of the product, life cycle of the product etc (Stuart, 1999). Amazon UK and WH Smith are two of the largest book sellers and retail merchants of the UK. Both the companies have online as well as physical stores. Both the companies started as book selling stores and later expanded their business to retail sector. The products range showcased on their web sites are similar. The brand identities of thee two stores as planned by their brand strategists are different. The report analyses the web sites of both Amazon UK and W H Smith Plc to study the brand identity of the two companies. The report also analyses the four components of brand identity viz., core identity, extended identity, value proposition and relationships as applied to both the brands. The report makes recommendations to both W H Smith and Amazon UK to improve upon in areas that fall short of optimum performance. | | |
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| | Evaluation and Recommendations of E-business strategies for ‘I want one of those’ | | | ‘I Want One of Those’ is an innovative business brand marketing a wide range of products, especially luxury and fun items. Its products are quite popular as gifts. The brand line of ‘I Want One of Those’ reads- “stuff you don’t need…but you really, really want”. Since the range of items is wide, it caters to a large market comprising of varied customers. Unique products and innovative gift ideas on ‘I Want One of Those’ are its selling points.
E-business has expanded rapidly and many companies are turning to internet to provide a bigger base to their brand and products. Internet ensures a larger market and therefore, more sales. Hence, to move with the changing times and changing demands of its customers, ‘I Want One of Those’ is also marketing its items online. The web portal of ‘I Want One of Those’ is www.iwantoneofthose.com’.
The web site www.iwantoneofthose.com is attracting customers because of its fresh approach. The items are systematically displayed and the services are appealing to the customers. However, there are certain flaws within the site. Further, there is scope for improvement of this e-business through other means. Various aspects like segmentation, branding, elation building, transactions etc have been discussed.
This Report has been constructed to suggest measure to improve the e-operations of “I Want One of Those’. The Report has been outlined as- Introduction (2.1 E-business, 2.2 About ‘I Want One of Those’), Performance Evaluation and Improvement of E-business, Assessment of ‘I Want One of Those’ (4.1 Home Page, 4.2 Link Pages, 4.3 Other Services), Recommendations and Conclusion.
Application of the recommendations made is expected to improve the e-operations of ‘I Want One of Those’ significantly.
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| | Evaluation and Recommendations of the Brand Management Strategies of Adidas | | | ‘Brand Management’ has emerged as an important area of research in the recent past decades. This Report has been prepared for the brand Adidas. Adidas has been taken up because it is a globally established brand and therefore, has several areas of brand management that can be explored. The research on the brand has been carried out through literature review and by studying the official web site of Adidas- www.adidas.com.
Adidas was started in 1920 by Adi Dassler because of his passion for sports and shoemaking and with three guiding principles in mind - to produce the best shoe to serve the needs of sport, to protect the athlete from injury and to make the product durable. With profits and with more family members joining in, the company expanded in the next decade.
Adidas has streamed into three divisions- Performance, Style and Originals. With these divisions, Adidas diversified into fashion and style for the general public. Adidas, as a brand, is quite popular especially among sports persons/ athletes. It boasts of an attractive consumer value proposition. The tangible and intangible resources of the company are integrated with the brand in terms of brand image and reputation.
Adidas has a strong brand image in the terms that it is recognised as a company that provides durable and sporty products. The three stripes logo of Adidas is well recognised and the consistency in the use of this logo has created a strong association of three stripes with Adidas. The clothing and accessories of Adidas are not so popular in the general public as its footwear. This is because the brand image is mainly related to footwear, especially sports footwear.
Therefore, it is recommended that the company explore new vistas and expand into the wider market that is available to it right now. The present profits of Adidas have increased in the past one year by around 8%. With further development of the company’s marketing strategy and business plans Adidas can grow to be the largest brand in the market, not only the sports market but also the general market of footwear, clothing and accessories.
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| | Evaluation and Recommendations of the Brand Management Strategies of Puma | | | This is an individual assignment based on the selection of one particular brand which illustrates its strengths and weakness with a view to determining its effectiveness. The report demonstrates brand value, the intended target market, product range and brand’s image with the realistic information collected from different sites and books. Puma has been selected as a brand, which is famous for its quality, innovation, colours and reputation. Desk research technique is applied for collecting the information which saves the time, cheap and gives large amount of information. The report also contains information regarding the brand situation. No doubt the recession hits the business but Puma is doing well, and based upon the research the revenue is more as compared to the competitors. It is very important for the companies to maintain the reputation in this competitive market. Finally the report is supported with the recommendations which are useful for the further improvements. | | |
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| | Evaluation of E-commerce and E-business practices of Bank of Scotland | | | E-commerce and E-business have become integral part of banking system of the 21st century. Integrating E-commerce in banking has become a specialized field itself. The success of the overall banking system includes the efficiency with which these E-commerce applications function in the banking environment. The success of E-commerce also depends upon customers’ participation. There are many potential hazards though linked to E-business such as security threats, data integrity issues, performance of the hardware and software applications in view of heightened transaction traffic. Success of E-business depends upon the ease with which transactions are done. The report deals with evaluation of The Bank of Scotland in the backdrop of its E-commerce applications in areas such as branding, customer segmentation, transactional facilities and degree of integration of online and offline operations. The report makes recommendations in those areas for improved performance and efficiency. | | |
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| | Evaluation of e-commerce strategies of Bharti Airtel | | | Any business that has a huge customer base and that deals with customers on a day to day basis requires E-commerce and E-business applications. To have an official web site for a business has become mandatory since 1990s. Customers browse the web site of a company to ascertain its credentials. Other business entities that deal with large number of customers use the web site with e-commerce applications to cater to customers’ needs such as answering their queries through online customer support, allowing them to purchase products and services online, allowing customers to update their personal and contact information etc.. So the efficient use of E-business or E-commerce is vital to the success of a retail business that has huge customer base. In turn the success of E-commerce depends upon customers’ participation. If more and more customers are able to use E-commerce applications of the company in an efficient way, the company can cut down costs of managing retail brick and mortar outlets. Success of a company that is involved in large scale retail industry directly depends upon the success and efficiency of its online business. There are many pitfalls linked to E-commerce though such as security threats, data integrity issues, performance of the hardware and software applications, the speed with which web pages open etc. The report does an evaluation of Bharti Airtel, one of Asia’s leading telecom service provider, with respect to its E-commerce applications in areas such as branding, customer segmentation, transactional facilities and degree of integration of online and offline operations. The report then makes recommendations to improve performance and efficiency of their E-commerce applications. | | |
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| | Evaluation of Marketing Mix Strategy of Air Asia in the online context | | | This project has been prepared to review, analyse and evaluate how Air Asia is executing its Marketing Mix Strategy in the online context. Air Asia is the leading low cost airline for domestic travel within Asia. A study of the marketing mix of the chosen enterprise, its expansion of online execution, key issues and basic principles of online marketing has been undertaken. The flaws in the application have been dealt with and suitable recommendations made. | | |
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| | External environment Audit of Mcdonalds | | | Given the fierce competition in the market, all firms try to outdo one another through various means. In such a scenario, the external environment has become very important. Companies are very much concerned about the factors outside their organisation that affect their functioning in the market. Any company existing in the market cannot afford to remain in isolation and is therefore, inevitably thoughtful about its external environment and forces. Hence, external environment analysis has become quite popular. This analysis assists an organisation in determining the factors that may affect an organisation and the manner or nature of that effect. It helps through various ways and is recommended to be undertaken regularly for maintaining competitiveness.
External environment analysis is also known as the Opportunities and Threats analysis. However, there are many variations in the nature of this analysis. Smith (2004) says that the external environment analysis in particular looks at supporters, competitors, opponents and other external impediments. He includes social, political and economic factors in other external impediments as they are likely to affect the organization from the outside. This analysis is also known as external environment audit. SWOT and PEST/ PESTEL analysis are also considered to be means to the external environment analysis of a company.
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| | Feasibility plan for Travel Guide Pro for mobile phones | | | Mobile phones these days are used literally in all the activities be it accessing emails, chatting, video conferencing and even in planning a family vacation. Managing business trips or family vacations from the mobile device is the latest trend in the telecommunications market. The need is for mobile phones that can be used to plan a travel with maps containing roads, hotels, important sites to visit etc.
Although currently there are a few free software available that can have maps of major tourist places, they are kind of passive software that can be used for reference and not for navigation. There are mapping software available for GPS (Global Position System) enabled phones but they offer very limited usage in that the maps are not exhaustive (Nimesh Dubey, 2007). So it is the need of the customer to have an exhaustive mapping software for GPS use as well as to have a mobile travel portal.
The proposed Travel Guide Pro software for mobile phones integrates these two features i.e. to act as a tourist map as well as a navigator. Travel Guide Pro will have GPS compatibility along with tourist maps and guides so that the user need not use two applications separately one for map reference and another for navigation. Travel Guide Pro allows the users to plan their vacation using the map and hotels information as well as to know where exactly they are and where they are heading when they actually make a trip to the place. Travel Guide Pro can be operated from iPhone.
This is an original idea conceived by ---enter student’s name here--- and the idea is awaiting the patent approval.
The target market is all the mobile users whose handsets support GPS and who travel frequently. The market is growing now and saturation point is still far as GPS has still not found its place in many developing countries. So this is the best time to enter the market which is still at its infancy.
The projected sale for the first year of the product hitting the market is 1,000,000. The mode of selling is online. Estimated revenue generation in the first year of product launch would be $ 1,000,000.
The amount needed for initial set up costs and operations for the first month would be $ 150,000. The estimated net profit after deducting start up costs and operational costs for one year would be around $ 500,000
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| | Global Business plan for Map plus for GPS mobile phones | | | Mobile phones have become part and parcel of an individual’s communication needs. The mobile phones are not just used for basic communication between individuals but advanced communication such as sending and receiving emails, chatting, video conferencing, web browsing and even in planning holidays. Managing business trips and family vacations by accessing travel portals from the mobile device is another value addition to the use of mobile phones. There is an increasing need is for mobile phones that can be used to plan a travel with maps of towns, cities etc. There are a few software available that provide maps of major tourist places, towns, cities etc.. However, they have a limitation. They provide maps but they do not have navigation inbuilt in them. There are quite a few mapping software available for GPS (Global Position System) enabled phones but the maps are not exhaustive (Nimesh Dubey, 2007). So GPS enabled mobile phone users require exhaustive mapping software for planning travel as well as for navigation in a strange place.
The proposed Map Plus software to be developed and sold by the yet to be created company, integrates the two features of navigation and making travel bookings. The Map Plus will have GPS compatibility along with tourist maps and guides so that the user need not use two separate software one for navigation and one for general reference. Simply, put Map Plus is a GPS enabled mapping software and it automatically communicates with the GPS network available in the town or city. If the user has subscribed to GPS service with a service provider in that town, then the software automatically brings up the town’s map and identifies the location of the user. The second use of Map Plus is that with its vast database of tourist information guides, the software allows the user make bookings and travel plans. Map Plus can be operated from iPhone.
The target market is mobile phone users with GPS enabled handsets and who travel frequently. It is a growing market and GPS is yet to find its due market place in developing countries. The market in developed countries is in the early growth stage. However, it is still at infancy in the developing countries. The market is global as the mobile telephone market itself. The product will initially be launched in the Australian market but soon will be expanded to all over the globe by online marketing. The projected sale for the first year is 1,000,000.. Estimated revenue generation for the first year is $ 1,000,000. The seed money required for initial set up costs and operations for the first month is $ 150,000. The estimated net profit after deducting start up costs and operational costs for one year would be around $ 500,000.
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| | International marketing strategy for Kids & Co | | | The paper seeks to draw a marketing plan for establishing “kids and company”, a Canada based child care services in Florida. The business of the company is providing child care for corporate employees. They have a huge client base and now wish to expand in other markets. The paper establishes the need for such services and identifies competition in the new market. Further it provides analysis of the new market, i.e., Bonita springs in Florida and bases that draws a marketing strategy comprising entry strategy, pricing strategy, marketing and advertising strategy. The paper emphasizes upon the importance of a strong brand in expansion plans of a company and measures to achieve it. Subsequently it identifies the challenges of a new market and ways to meet them. | | |
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| | Internet Business Strategy for Aerospace Alloys | | | Aerospace Metal Alloys are a distributor of exotic steel, aluminium and titanium alloys to the aerospace industry and other speciality industries. Aerospace is based in United States of America. Aerospace metals has a unique offering to its customers by offering them all kinds of metal solutions like service centre, forge facility, melt operation, customer bar producer, value added service producer and an information service producer all under one roof. (All metals and forge, 2008)
Aerospace provides various types of alloys in all mill forms as well as customer hand rolled bars which are not commercially available.
The forging operation of Aerospace provides forged materials in various sizes like discs, hubs, blocks, shafts etc. The value added services include hot and cold forming, heat treating, cutting, machining and extrusions, rolling and welding operations. (All metals and forge, 2008)
The unique custom operations include hand rolled bars in many shapes and sizes. Customized melting process can produce metals with custom chemistry, controlled chemistry, an out of date or an obsolete alloy, or a vacuum melt of a common grade and provide ingots or mill forms. (All metals and forge, 2008)
Aerospace has been consistently meeting customer expectations through its extensive logistic network which has been expediting materials to customers whenever they want to meet critical deadlines, or respond to an emergency material needs, shutdowns, rush orders, critical item list and other critical services. Logistics of Aerospace also provides JIT inventory fulfilment for its clients. (All metals and forge, 2008)
Aerospace is having strict quality control measures since all the materials become parts in aircrafts and other high performance products. Aerospace primarily sells raw materials formed in the shape of bars, sheets, rings and forgings. (All metals and forge, 2008)
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| | Internet Business Strategy for All metals and Forge | | | They are distributors of exotic steel, aluminium, titanium, super and special alloys as well as carbon to aerospace industry, also to many other speciality industries. An US based company with specialised offerings of various kinds of metal solutions like service centre facility, forging, melting operation, customised bar producer, value added service producers as well as information base and use it as a new service that could be provided under one roof. It also provides alloys in different forms for different types of demands in the market both from industries as well customer’s point of view and its unique selling proposition is that this customised delivery is not usually available in the market. The third major offering is forging and they provide steel for forging in various size and shapes. Forging is a complex set of activity and hence this firm also provides value added service (VAS) such as rolling and welding operations, heat treating, cutting, machining and extrusions etc. These activities forms a larger part of work for the industry it serves i.e. Aerospace industry. (All metals and forge, 2009) Apart from the standard product and services, a customized operation is also offered which include hand-rolled bars, which are made available in many shapes and sizes. Through a customized melting process All Metals & Forge produce metals in export variety (All metals and forge, 2009). It has an extensive logistic network which has been rushing up materials to customers whenever there is a demand to meet critical deadlines, or may be responding to an emergency needs, shutdowns emergency, rush orders and many other critical services to name a few. A just-in-time (JIT) method is followed for order fulfilment process (All metals and forge, 2009)
Security of materials used, hence high quality of materials required, could easy be understood by any supplier as aerospace would have strict quality control measures, All metals, and all parts form a part of the aircraft and other high performance products. Aerospace primarily sells raw materials formed in the shape of bars, sheets, rings and forgings. (All metals and forge, 2009).
The model of business followed is business-to-business (B2B). Large corporates or aircraft fabricators produce the final aircraft from these materials. These customers could even be a middleman, between the All Metals and Forge company and the aircraft manufacturers like Boeing or Airbus. A sales staff is maintained to sell metals to companies. The inventory storage system is spread across United States and the sourcing is done from various steel and metal manufacturers across North America. They have a system or mechanism to place special orders received from its customers to other companies on their behalf and this happens All Metals doe not have stock of that particular product. The company has a unique combination of a steel service center, forge facility, customised vacuum melt operation, customised bar producing mechanism, value-added services as well as knowledge management for its customers. It is a quality certified company having ISO-9001:2000/AS9100/EN9100 registration (All metals and forge, 2009)
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| | Literature review on How to manage International Joint venture successfully | | | In the shrinking globalised world economy of today International Joint Ventures have become relevant realities. Matthews (2001) calls International Joint Ventures ‘part of a strategy’. Simply put, it is a group of firms from various countries operating as a single organisation. Most commonly, IJVs have just two firms merged together for matters of convenience. The two firms are the ‘parents’ of the organisation that emerges out of their merger. But there are quite a few examples where three or even more firms form IJVs. This is especially true of already merged firms joining hands with some other bigger and established organisation. So, the operation is as a single firm, but actually within that single firm there are a large number of inter-organisational operations to be managed. Another variation of IJVs is a collective organisation comprising of firms from the same country but operating elsewhere, that is, in some other country. | | |
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| | Management report analysing the reasons for the reduction in productivity of a five star hotel in India | | | The hospitality industry is a several billion dollars industry depending on the availability of leisure time and disposable income of citizens in a country. The sector covers a wide range of hospitality units including restaurants, hotels, etc. with each unit containing multiple groups and sub-groups such as management, marketing, human resources, facility maintenance, direct operations, and so on. The importance of the hospitality sector can be evidently recognized. A substantially larger portion of the economy of a nation can be significantly determined by the effectiveness and success of its hospitality sector.
This paper addresses the broad picture of the hospitality sector in India, with particular reference to the efficiency and operationality of the food and beverage sector. The current scenario in the Indian hospitality industry is a little complicated as it is going through a phase of transformation. Most of the leading players in the hotel industry are suffering considerable profit falls while others are complaining of major decline in net profit. In this context, a quality check in the food and beverage sector is also significant. Because the hotels are witnessing noticeable decline in the productivity of food, which can play a deciding role in the overall profit fall. Before going into further details, it is necessary to look into the food and beverage sector of the hospitality industry of the country.
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| | Marketing and implementation strategy for an ad agency | | | The ad agency focuses on the availability of new ideas and good creative work. Conceptualization of novel ideas is the driving force for pioneering innovative communication processes. That is why; the organization spiritedly embraces the advanced digital world. Technology opens up new routes and multiple channels for expanding the prospects of profitable marketing. With innovation as the agency’s standing platform, the organization aims at brand pioneering. There are efficient scope and environment for creativity in the ad agency. The company looks for new big brand ideas with the opportunities of various creative awards. The world is a small village, thanks to the progressive development of technology. Being in a global network, the organization gains much confidence as well as competitive advantages over other companies. | | |
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| | Marketing Communication Plan of Wittner Shoes | | | Wittner Shoes is a leading shoe brand of Australia. The brand is well known for its quality, creative designs and affordable prices. The company has got stores located in all the major cities and big shopping centers of Australia. Established in 1913, the company is in the business for long years and has been able to sustain as their main motive was customer satisfaction.
The company has a wide range of products which includes hot heels, flab flats, sexy sandals, boot and classic corporate. It attends to a wide range of customers from casuals to corporate to evening wear. All their existing items or any new arrival is mentioned in the website. If you want to gift a Wittner shoe to somebody, you can give her a gift card. She can visit the store and buy any design for herself. The staff at the stores is quite helpful. If you do not have a size for a particular design, they always help you to get one from another store
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| | Marketing Decision Analysis assignment on Sony | | | Sony is a Japanese multinational company dealing mainly into electronics goods. The products highly targets consumers and professional markets. It’s one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding ¥7.730.0 trillion or $78.88 billion U.S. (FY2008) (Source: Financial Report, Sony, 2009). Its segmentation of business is divided mainly into five operating lines- electronics, games, entertainment (motion pictures and music), and financial services & others.
While Sony Ericsson came into origin as telecommunication branch with the merger of Sony and Swedish company Ericson and is now a successful top global industry player in the mobile handset market with sales of over 100 million phones in 2007 and operations in over 80 countries including manufacturing and R&D sites in China, Europe, India, Japan and North America. Sony Ericsson was established as a 50:50 joint venture by Sony and Ericsson in October 2001, with global corporate functions located in London.
“Ericson primarily supplies network equipment and services that enable telecommunication. Through the Sony Ericson mobiles communication joint venture a range of mobile handset and other mobile devices including those that enhance multimedia applications and other personal communication services are offered.” (Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericson 2006).
Sony Ericson is responsible for product design and development, as well as marketing, sales, distribution and customer services. Where 1/3rd of its handsets are produced in China, rest 2/3rd of production line is divided in several countries in Asia, Latin America and Europe.
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| | Marketing Dissertation on Sona Castings Pvt Limited, an Indian Steel company | | | As businesses have evolved over the decades so are the management sciences. Many researchers, management Gurus have put across their ideas as to how an organization has to be run. The theories and concepts derived out of vast experience of that management experts work in real life management situations most of the time. However, there are times when even with careful planning going by the management books does not work. Similarly, an organization, which operates contrary to the management theories, flourishes. The reasons for such occasional failures of well planned organizational processes and success of an unorganized company can be many. Irrespective of the reasons, exceptions do exist. One such example is that of Sona Castings Private Limited, India. The company, without proper organizational structure and without marketing efforts is flourishing thanks to the high demand for steel castings and steel ingots in the market. The company is an established brand among the local buyers and suppliers due to its reliability. The company does not have a marketing department and yet the organization receives orders over the phone and castings and ingots are delivered depending upon the availability of the stock. The company does not advertise at all. However, the current high demand may not last long. And if the organization has to survive amid stiff competition in view of possible decreased demand in future, it has to make some fundamental changes to the organizational structure. There is also displeasure among junior workers due to dominance of long term serving senior workers. Given the volatile nature of Indian workers and their unions, the discontent might translate into strikes and lockouts. In order to avoid all these possibilities, this report suggests Sona Castings, a threefold change to the organization. The report first dwells on the Indian steel market, analyses strengths and weaknesses of Sona Castings and then makes recommendation to Sona Castings to migrate from hierarchical organizational structure to team organizational structure. The report also suggests Sona Casting to have a full-fledged marketing department. The report provides a marketing communication plan to Sona Castings. The report then finally provides a business expansion plan of the existing unit to cater to the present high demands of the market. The paper then suggests Sona Castings to tap steel markets of other Indian states. | | |
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| | Marketing plan for Razzle Holidays | | | Razzle Holiday (RH) grew from the Thomas Travel (TT), a private limited company set up in 1951 by Trevor Thomas as a traditional travel agency offering travel tickets and coach/train based family package holidays to popular resorts. In the past five decades, RH has seen a lot of ups and downs in search of newer policies to expand their business and profits in the market. Since 1998, the company has been running in the hands of junior members of the family. | | |
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| | Marketing report providing an insight into Positioning strategy of Wittner Shoes | | | Wittner Shoes, registered as Wittner’s Australia Pty Ltd, is counted amongst the highly reputed fashion brands in Australia. They provide excellent quality, in-vogue design, and cost-effective price. It’s been over a century that “Wittner shoes” is providing it’s footwear to its customers. Established in 1913 by H.J. Wittner in footscray, Victoria as a family shoe store, it’s an Australian owned and managed business which has continued to win accolades and gain customer satisfaction over the years and spreaded there reach throughout the mainland. Their stores are located in all capital cities and major regional shopping centres in Australia. The company main motive has always been the customer satisfaction which as a result has made it among the top pioneers in this field in Australia. Now being handled by 3rd generation, commitment to quality and style hasn’t changed and it still continues to be one of favourite brands in Australia.
There were many initiatives which were taken by the company like selling shoes by mail order, introduction of free chiropody with purchase of Dr. Arnold Health Shoes, which was the first brand in Australian footwear and “Wittner Shoes’s” also introduced x-ray fitting machines that enabled customers to see if footwear was correctly fitted to their feet. Hot heels, Flab Flats, Sexy sandals, boot and classic corporate are few of the categories it rolls out its products in. “Wittner Shoes” is at the forefront of fashion retail, specializing in shoes, from casual to corporate and evening wear. It also has a fantastic selection of matching bags and accessories. Every sale item and new arrivals are mentioned on the website. If you are thinking of gifting a Wittner shoe to anybody, you can also give a gift-card so that person can purchase it himself/ herself. Wittner shoes are loved by the customers as it always has something new and staff is helpful, and easy to reach. Prices are not too bad and better during sale. Even if a store doesn’t have a particular size in stock, it is always helpful in getting sizes.
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| | Marketing strategy for Allanasons Ltd for entry into Australian market | | | This report is written to demonstrate a marketing strategy for Allanasons Limited to enter into Australian market through its product of fruit pulp. Allanasons Limited is an Indian company which was incorporated in 1865. It possesses a well diversified product range and is particularly strong in the product segments of Halal meat, Coffee, Fruits and Vegetables and Marine products. The company has the long term strategy of exporting its frozen fruits and vegetables in the markets of UK, USA and Australia. Frozen fruits market in Australia is growing at a rapid pace and thus it has been identified as a primary target for exporting fruit pulp. Fruit pulp will first be exported to three major states in Australia i.e. Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland and after a period of 2 years expansion will be done in other parts of Australia. The primary target market of fruit pulp has been identified as university students, vulnerable groups like infants and pregnant ladies and health conscious people. The product will first be distributed to Convenience stores and Take away food outlets near the target market areas and once the product is popular, it will be introduced in major supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths. Coles and Woolworths have been identified as the major competitors and their strengths and weaknesses have been closely studied. Several marketing communication tools like mobile promotion teams, branded merchandise, point of sale display material and product specific pamphlets have been chosen to create an initial awareness about the product. November 2008 has been found to be a suitable month for launching of fruit pulp in Australian market and Planning budget suggests that the project will start to generate profits from the fourth month of its launch. Six months would be an ideal time period after which fruit pulp can be introduced in major supermarkets to compete with housebrands of Coles and Woolworths. | | |
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| | New Venture Strategy assignment on McDonalds | | | When an organization starts a new venture in an alien country, the success or failure of the venture depends upon many factors. Some may be internal to the organization and some of the reasons may be external to the organization. Internal reasons could be organizational architecture with power centre at the top management, insufficient capital to sustain initial failures etc. External factors to the organization that contribute to the success or failure of the venture could be political, cultural, religious, demographic and the availability of technology and resources. The organization may have a successful business in its home country over the years. However, the success of its international venture cannot be taken for granted. McDonald’s successfully ventured into conservative Chinese market by carefully studying the environmental influence for a few years. It is currently flourishing in niche market segment of China. The paper recommends McDonald’s to enter the in-line fast food segment, which is currently dominated by KFC taking into consideration vast market potential of China.
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| | PC Build Inc Case study | | | This paper analyses the PC Build Inc case study and answers the following questions –
1) Briefly summarise the opportunity presented in the case. What factors give rise to this opportunity?
2) Do you think Bob & Mike are the right team to implement this opportunity? Why or why not?
3) Evaluate the opportunity using relevant screening techniques.
4) Based on the evaluation should Bob & Mike start the business? Why?
5) Would you invest in this business? Why?
6) Is there a better opportunity? If YES - what is it? If NO – what should Bob & Mike do next?
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| | Portfolio analysis assignment on Coles ltd | | | This report is prepared to analyse the product portfolio of Coles Myer Ltd. Coles Myer Ltd. is an Australian retailer having its retail outlets in Australia and New Zealand. Their portfolio of product includes supermarkets, departmental stores, liquor retailing, electrical goods, office/stationary, petrol and auto.This report analyse their product portfolio at this point of time and the expected portfolio after 2 years. Then recommendations are given to achieve the desired results. Growth share matrix is used for analysing the product portfolio of Coles Myer Ltd. | | |
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| | Project analysis of Mumbai Airport and Mass Redevelopment Scheme | | | Mumbai Airport and Mass Redevelopment Scheme contract is about the up gradation of existing facilities at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai, India such as air traffic control, personnel movement, offices, logistical support activities, commercial activities and so on. The contract has been awarded to Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), a consortium comprising of GVK Industries Limited and Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) was selected to undertake the entire mass redevelopment scheme. Mechanical and civil works have been subcontracted to Leighton India Limited. The project report is complete with all the information such as project scope, objectives, financials etc. However, it lacks sufficient human resource planning, which is crucial to the success of the project. Although, the stake holding companies share different work responsibilities, there is a need for a centralized team comprising of managers from all the stake holding companies. The project plan also lacks other aspects of human resource planning such as the number of manpower required for the project, responsibility assignment matrix, reporting schedule and modes, the duration and time the specific manpower required in the course of project execution etc. Another shortfall of the project planning is that it fails to provide a single point of contact or a single node that is wholly responsible for the project such as either the ACSA Project Manager or the GVK Project Manager. The paper also recommends the project team to have a single project manager responsible for both commercial activities and operations.
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| | Project management plan by Infosys | | | Infosys Technologies Limited, an Indian software development company has bagged order to develop user interface software for an American capital investment company ACIC Inc. ACIC is in need of a software application for its web site to enable internet users to create a brokerage account, view history of the account, to manage transactions etc.. It also requires a second part of the application, which enables authorized representative to open brokerage accounts on behalf of the customers after receiving filled in paper application forms. The application is an enhancement of the existing application, which was also developed by Infosys. The Project Management Plan developed by Infosys is aimed to serve two purposes viz., to show the client objectives, deliverables and process details and to use as a guideline for the team management and members to execute the project. Financial budgeting is excluded for third party reviews due to confidentiality issues. The objective of this academic report is to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the Project Management Plan developed by Infosys. The report uses a theoretical framework comprising of standard PMP modules such as Introduction, Missions and Objectives, Work Scope, Planning Basis, Work Breakdown Structure, Organization Development Plan, Resource Plan, Procurement and Logistics Plan, Logic and Schedules, Financial Management and Budgeting, Risk Analysis and Contingency Plan, Quality and Productivity Plan, Environmental and Safety Plan, Security Plan, Project Control and Administration Plan and Documentation and Configuration Management Plan. The framework also consists of the use of graphical tools such as MS Office Project, WBS charts, Gantt charts, flow charts etc.
The paper finds the PMP concise and to the point. The PMP is rich in information but poor in presentation. The PMP includes all the technicalities of the software development environment. The PMP is scientifically designed and developed. The PMP uses statistical weightings to analyze the impact of defects on the overall progress and success of the project. But it lacks good presentation. The PMP lacks the use of the project development tools such as MS Office Project, WBS charts, flowcharts, Gantt charts etc. It is a complete project plan with all the details required for the concerned people to know the project objectives, deliverables and project stages. However, since it lacks graphical tools the understanding of the project processes takes longer time. The PMP is technically and logically sound but poor in presentation. The paper recommends Infosys to make good use of MS Office Project, WBS, flowcharts using SmartDraw and Gantt charts in its future Project Management Plans.
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| | Project report on product launch of New patented herbal hair oil by Dabur India Limited | | | Every company wants to launch the “right” products in the market quickly and retain loyal customers for a long time. So why is this so difficult for most companies? Often, product launch failures are due to such fixable factors as: poor understanding of user needs; lack of competitive analysis; lack of understanding of regulatory or channel issues; lack of up-front planning; and poor cross-functional communication. This project focuses on launching a new product by the multinational organization, Dabur India Ltd. It considers some of the processes which are essential to the successful launch of a product, such as the marketing strategy for the product, the product’s positioning, launch strategy and post launch analysis.
Product launch normally involves steps for mass production, marketing strategies, necessary documentation, training of sales and support personnel, internal as well as external, channel setup, setting up of technical support and customer service facilities (DRM Associates, 2002). Mass production involves production unit setup, quality assurance process and deliverance as per planned specifications. Marketing strategies include many factors like attractive packaging, documentation of product literature, identifying target market, advertising, promotional campaigns, channel network setup etc. It also involves direct and online selling (DRM Associates, 2002).
Market launch involves the introduction of a new product into the market. Market launch alone does not involve production aspects. The company marketing the product may or may not manufacture the product itself. It could market the product manufactured by some other company. There are various factors that need to be considered before the market launch. They are benefits from the overall marketing strategy, level of penetration into the market, impact of advertisements in print and electronic media in terms of image building and economic terms, consumers satisfaction, the section of society that buys the product most, the variant of the product that is more successful, if any, optimum price etc. (GFK Austria, 2009).
In their article on methods and apparatus to improve market launch performance, Adrien Christopher, Stagaman Joseph & Wilke Joseph discusses the methods and apparatus to improve market launch performance (Adrien Christopher, Stagaman Joseph & Wilke Joseph 2007). According to the them, manufacturers or marketing agencies to whom the launch of a new product is entrusted, may employ techniques or sample surveys to determine as to whether the product itself or the manner in which the product is marketed yield maximum benefits. The marketing groups may also employ qualitative research methods that include setting up focus groups in order to determine consumer attitudes, reactions, expectations etc. Product marketers may also employ opinion polls on sample groups and the results obtained may be extrapolated to derive conclusions about the general population or demographic groups. This is done with the help of questionnaires presented to consumers for their opinions (Adrien Christopher, Stagaman Joseph & Wilke Joseph 2007).
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| | Project report on Strategic analysis of Coles Myers Limited | | | Corporate structure is the way in which the parts of a corporation are put together. Corporations usually have several strategic business units (SBUs). These SBUs are also called strategy centers, strategic planning units, or independent business units (Jain, 1990, p.17). Kotler (1997, p.71) states that an SBU is a single business or collection of related businesses that can be planned separately from the rest of the company. An SBU can be a company division, a product line within a division, or sometimes a single product or brand (Kotler et al., 1998, p.35).
Coles Myer Ltd. is an Australia's retailer. It is a merge of two large retailers, namely G.J. Coles & Coy. Ltd. and The Myer Emporium Ltd. G.J. Coles & Coy. Ltd. started its first store in Collingwood, Melbourne on 9 April 1914; while The Myer Emporium was established in 1900 in Bendigo, Victoria, by Sidney Myer. G.J. Coles operated variety stores; Myer operated department stores, as well as discount and specialty stores. The two companies united in 1985 and became Coles Myer Ltd. with a new company logo.
Coles Myer Ltd. has a mission to be the best retailer in every market in which it operates. It wants to produce benefits to its stakeholders. It also wants to be known for honesty and leadership. For this purpose, it considers communication as a very important aspect. It needs to have an open and responsive communication with every aspect of the environment to achieve its goals.
Coles Supermarket's business philosophy is societal marketing philosophy. Coles Supermarket focuses on customer needs and wants. It can be seen clearly from the mission statement and the slogan in the logo that is "serving you better". However, it also does activities that show it cares about the environment, which currently is the society best interest. For instance, Coles has provided $150,000 to help the WRAP (Waste Reduction Accreditation Program) campaign and it also will be the first retailer to run the program in its entire stores. Its activities also include recycling, using energy efficiently, and providing green products.
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| | Report analysing a sample project plan prepared for Dabur India Limited by a consultancy firm for the launch of new patented hair oil manufactured by Dabur | | | Accurate costing and time planning are vital to the success of a project. Planning time considering practical constraints would provide a realistic picture of the project duration and project outcome. On the other hand, time planning without considering practicalities of execution of the project plan would result in extended timelines and the stress arising out of the perceived delay in completion of the project. The report analyses a sample project plan prepared for Dabur India Limited by a consultancy firm for the launch of new patented hair oil manufactured by Dabur. The report discusses various stages of project life cycle, time planning, time definition, network analysis and cost planning and cost definition. The report discusses the strengths and weaknesses of time planning presented in the sample project report and recommends to allow for contingency time schedule arising out of practical constraints such as unforeseen events that could disrupt normal public life. The sample project plan has a cost estimation plan that is aimed at senior management and the client. The report recommends to include break-up of costs of subtasks in the cost estimation. This would function as a guide to carrying out the tasks with allocated budget for each of the subtasks. The report also recommends the use of unit man-hour requirement while estimating human resource requirement and their costs in order to make the costing even more transparent for the stakeholders to see. The report finally recommends the project report be prepared not only for the stake holders such as senior management and the client but also for the use of team members that execute the project. | | |
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| | Report analysing the Business branding and Internet Marketing strategy of Triodos Bank | | | E-commerce and E-business are slowly becoming integral parts of banking system since the last couple of decades. According to Crane and Bodie (1996), banking and financial industry is growing rapidly in unpredictable ways (Wu, Hsia & Heng, 2006). Some of the technology enhanced products and services are multi-function ATMs, tele-banking, online banking and trading of stocks and shares etc. (Wu, Hsia & Heng, 2006). Integrating E-commerce in banking system is probably the most challenging task since huge money rides the operations of E-commerce and a small bug or lapse in the application could lead to serious repercussions (Chaffey, 2002). E-commerce differs from traditional banking to a great extent. While traditional banking at the branches is slow and time consuming, internet banking allows transactions to be done with the touch of fingertips in no time. The flip side of the internet banking is that it is prone to hacking, data theft and even malicious transactions costing the bank and customers to a great extent. Nonetheless, E-commerce in banking system is inevitable feature in today’s fast paced world. The banks use their web site and internet banking facilities to build brand value and to attract more customers. Since traditional banking at branches is slowly giving way to online banking, customers judge the performance of the banks not by the helpfulness or lack of it of desk clerks but the facilities and the ease of operations of their online banking systems. Since these days the web sites and online banking systems are the face of the bank to the customer, utmost care is taken to project the image of the bank to the customers as well as to show their concern to the customers’ needs (Wu, Hsia & Heng, 2006). The Triodos Bank known as the ethical bank since it funds mostly to organizationas involved in green, iconological or socially beneficial causes (Triodos Bank, 2009). The bank is based in Netherlands and has branches in UK, Belgium, Germany and Spain (Triodos Bank, 2009). It uses E-commerce applications to enable its customers transact online. The Triodos Bank has a web site that allows online banking and uses highly segmented approach. This report analyses the online banking system and the web site design and presentation of Triodos Bank, UK. The report uses evaluation criteria such as content quality, performance of web site infrastructure, customer support and customer privacy and security to analyze the impact of the efforts of the bank on branding and internet marketing strategy. The report finally makes recommendations to the bank to improve their online banking system in those areas.
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| | Report analysing the cost reduction methods followed by multinational corporations due to global recession | | | Global recession which started as a sub prime crisis of banks and then falling real estate sector in the USA has caught with all the businesses across the globe. It was initially considered as bankers’ and realtors’ problem but now has spread to all the financial markets. It has serious consequences of falling down of share prices, dwindling businesses and hence increased unemployment. Multinational corporations are being hit by recession too. Multinational corporations in the retail industry as well as IT and finance sector are seriously hit by recession. The impact of recession is manifold on multinational corporations since they have operations worldwide. The organizations faced with decreased earnings are forced to adopt cost reduction methods to survive through recession. Some of the cost reduction methods multinational corporations adopt are downsizing manpower and operations, outsourcing and organizational restructuring. The report does an analysis of each of these cost reduction methods. This report finally recommends organizations to attempt organizational restructuring outsourcing and finally downsizing in that order to minimize adverse impact on their businesses due to implementation of cost reduction methods. | | |
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| | Report investigating the operations management, marketing management and financial management of Symantec Corporation and making recommendations for improvement | | | Symantec Corporation is one of the market leaders in storage management and systems protection. Since its inception in 1982 Symantec has gained market leadership in home users, medium organizations and large organizations segments. This report investigates operations management, marketing management and financial management of Symantec Corporation. The report analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of methodologies adopted in each of these management areas. The paper tries to identify the approach of the company in those areas that brought success to the company. The paper finally tries to identify areas that need improvement and makes recommendations for change in those areas. | | |
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| | Report on Impacts of Information system technology on Woolworth supply chain | | | In industries such as the retail industry where reducing cost-bases is crucial, improved communication strategies through more efficient communication technologies and information systems is imperative in ultimately improving responsiveness to consumers and maximising consumer value. This report seeks to explore the information system technology that has improved Woolworth’s operations, and will analyse the impact on consumers, suppliers, employees and shareholders. Further, recommendations will be made based on industry trends | | |
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| | Report on Import of Keo Karpin Hair Products in Australia | | | Australia is a place on the globe, which has been famous for its natural beauty and hence has always been a great place of attraction for tourists from across the world. That’s how the economy of the country has grown. Major revenue for the government of Australia comes from tourism only. The place used to be natural in its core and hence, beauty is personified. Gradual developments, a lot of global interaction, pushed the place to develop largely. While we write this project today, Australia is a strong part of the Commonwealth Nations membership, with 17th position in the world in terms of GDP, 16th in the world in terms of per capita income, and increasing further. We see them everywhere now and they are extremely receptive to any new change coming or happening around the world. With the increasing globalization, and linkage with the United Kingdom, Australia had the privilege of being exposed to the international market quite fast. Various contemporary products for various purposes are introduced and successfully marketed in Australia, till Australia realized that it has its own natural content very high. Australia started contributing to the global personal care market by flaunting its natural ingredients. Being a place close to nature, the products, Australia started manufacturing and exporting are all organic based and hence, it caught momentum very fast. Organic products are no contains of chemical and harmful elements that spoils a skin or any personal sensitive area of a human body.
Today, Australia is a hub of organic and natural products. Australian hair care market had generated total revenue of $656 million in 2007, representing a CAGR of 2.3% for the period of 2003-2007. People only use organic, chemical free, natural products for all kind of baby and personal care starting from skin to hair. We have chosen our project on a hair care product which is equally famous in the Indian market and made of non-harmful chemicals and organics and that is Keo Karpin.
In this project, we would evaluate the possibility of an imported organic product being successful in the Australian market. The company is Weird Products' who are famous for unique innovations in the market of Australia. We would begin by doing a SWOT analysis to see what Keo Karpin has in it as uniqueness and major attributes to be chosen to import into Australia. We would do a market scan and understand the segmentation that the Australian market is already divided into. We would also look at the current market players who could be straight competitions to us and build up a positioning strategy, which would be different from them. Through a detailed marketing strategy report, including pricing, packaging, promotion etc, and a detailed critical analysis we would reach the conclusion whether Keo Karpin import into Australia would be a profitable for Weird Product or not really.
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| | Report on Managerial Leadership in IKEA | | | The definition of leadership has been changing with time. The several mutations that the very concept of leadership has gone under are proof of the emerging needs and competition of organisations. Leadership is no more just the task of decision making; it is an all encompassing field. These changes have given rise to newer terms and concepts. One of such terms and concepts is ‘managerial leadership’. Managerial leadership is the skill of maximizing opportunities not just for oneself, but for the organisation on the whole. Topping (2005) states that enabling your associates to work at their very best is the core of managerial leadership. Managerial leadership thus, transcends the individual and works at the level of the organisation. It is argued that managerial leadership works both at the individual and the organisational level. This is true to some extent only because ultimately, it is the organisation that is the target of managerial leadership. More and more organisations are adopting managerial leadership for this very reason. Managerial leadership helps in improving the efficiency of the whole organisation. Therefore, it has become quite popular.
Managerial leadership has various levels. It moves in a sort of hierarchy. Thus, there are managers or leaders or managerial leaders at different statures. There may be an administrative officers, then a middle manager and at the top an executive. All are responsible for managerial leadership; the nature and content of tasks of course varies at these levels. Therefore, managerial leadership requires training. It is also called ‘Managerial Leadership Development’. To maximize the opportunities for success for both the individual and the organization, the timing of leadership and managerial development training should be strategically considered. The training required for an individual to be successful should not focus on skills required for the individual’s current position, but rather on skills required to be successful at the next level position (Kotter, 1990). Often, managerial leadership development draws a distinction between leadership and management. This distinction is necessary for determining the appropriate training for all levels of leaders or managers. According to their tasks, Smith (2007) has drawn out four basic levels of leaders- first line supervisors, middle manager, administrator and executive. First line supervisors and executives are supposed to be most concerned with leadership as compared to middle managers and administrators, who are more focussed on management. At the same time it is pointed out that ‘developmental training’ is different from regular training. While routine training would merely provide skills necessary for the current situation, developmental training seeks to equip leaders with managerial skills that will help the overall organisation and also produce benefits for the future. This is in fact the very premise of managerial leadership development. Effective leadership not only enhances corporate performance, but it fosters employee motivation, job satisfaction, performance, and organizational commitment, while reducing absenteeism and turnover. Current thinking about leadership emphasizes that effective leadership spans a continuum ranging from managerial to transformational leadership.
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| | Report on Samsung Electronics case study | | | Samsung Electronics has grown from a small time company in 1987 to become the second largest profit making electronics company outside of the United States in 2003 under the leadership of Kun Hee Lee, Chairman of the Samsung Group (Siegel & Chang, 2006). Samsung Electronics, which is a part of Samsung Group has turned out to be its flagship company during the last 20 years. The company is world leader in memory chip production and sales. There are various factors that contributed to the market leadership. Some of them are sustained investment in cutting edge technology even in the face of market conditions that called for selling memory chips at prices lower than the cost of manufacturing to gain market leadership when the industry demands increased. When the memory market surged in the early 90s the vast investment in research & development and production facilities paid off since Samsung stood out as the sole company to meet the increased market demands. Samsung’s policy of delivering low cost but high quality memory chips with the use of cutting edge technology and committed workforce helped them to beat the monopoly of Japanese companies (Siegel & Chang, 2006). But of late Samsung is facing a similar situation Japanese companies faced a decade ago or so from Samsung, that new Chinese entrants are threatening the leadership of Samsung by manufacturing low cost memory chips. Samsung memory division is at cross roads on deciding as to whether to cede leadership in the low cost memory market to Chinese companies and concentrate on quality products manufactured through cutting edge technology or to partner with Chinese companies so as to hold on to the leadership. | | |
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| | Report on Strategies for managing in modern retail environment using the case study of BVS Stores | | | – “Strategies for managing in a modern retail environment: how to provide operational quality and value for the consumer whilst maximizing returns for investors through efficient organizational and supply chain processes.”
Retail is undergoing revolution and a mode to grow because of market expansion across the world and several factors are reasons for this immense revolution in consumer’s buying behaviour. Retailing has a country interest involved also, as it incorporates the interests of the farmers as well. High disposable income, knowledgeable and informed consumers, multiple channel of information, advanced information technology has given this market a huge push. Retailers have explored their ground realities and domestic markets and now as a part of expansion of horizon are expanding their margin of business. Retailing means sale of goods and services or even merchandising from a static location and a place where consumers get more variety. It may include some subordinated services as well for example home delivery etc. Here purchasers could be individuals or whole-sellers. They buy in large quantity to adopt a cost optimization technique and then sells in portions but their biggest challenge remains storage and supply chain and of-course procurement cost that cannot be access to selling cost, which is largely the case. For retailers distribution strategy has to be strengthened and careful approach. With the increasing consumer demand, per capita income, and increasing purchasing power of consumers, Retail format of shopping are seen to be gaining more and more momentum in almost all part of the world (ATKearney, 2006).
With this vision, Best Value Stores (BVS) want to expand their business, increase profitability and most importantly market share. The strategy that has to be adopted has to go in line with the supply chain and inventory management process in BVS stores. A highly technical and process oriented, strong operation on the shop floor would identify BVS the brand amongst many others and would be able to capture a large portion of the market share going forward.
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| | Report on Tata Motors and Internationalization Process | | | Amidst the ubiquitous presence of Globalization, Internationalization has become all pervasive and promising strategies for growth in the existing economies. International expansion, hence, has become an innate component for MNEs for sustained survival. Recent Analysis by international organizations such as UNCTAD, OECD etc exhibits that international expansion of big companies from emerging economies (commonly referred to as EMNEs rather than MNEs) is a new and dynamic feature of global landscape. And, Goldstein (2008), states that the Indian corporate sector has been an active participant in this “game.”
Tata Motors is one such name that comes central as one talk on successful national growth and international expansion. Tata group plays a central role in the Indian economy and is at the fore in the internationalization of the Indian companies.
Where this fast expanding business of Indian Companies into advance market has been made possible due to advantageous amended economic and foreign trade policies, Goldstein (2008) indicates the second reason as competitive edge driven by cost advantage, production efficiency, managers’ willingness to take on risk, and exposure of domestic companies and their management to Western and Japanese competitors. Henceforth, internationalization becomes prominent backend by competitive edge combined with lacerating government role providing political support to Indian companies and managing the economy and the rupee in a way that is conducive to outward FDI.
Established in 1945, Tata Motors Limited is India’s largest automobile company in India with international presence and further vying to invest in the countries which has not been explored yet but have potential for big business such as US, UK, European Countries, Africa, China etc. Existing for more than half the century, Tata Motors has well planned and experienced management strategies and powerful resources that makes an MNE ready to step down in any economy.
In this report we examine the internationalization and technology strategies of the Tata Motors. We argue the strategies in the light of existing internationalization process approach. By studying process of International expansion for MNEs discreetly we hope to draw its implication to Tata group.
We start by noting in the following section the need for moving away from traditional frameworks for accepting the process of internationalization in recent times. For this, a reflection has been made on the growing significance of diversification for successful internationalization strategies. Process of Internationalization has been covered in detail with respect to forms of internationalization, entry mode type etc. Secondly, this report tends to cover the TATA Motors. A brief history, SWOT Analysis, International process of Tata has been unveiled in the report to know more closely about TATA Motors. Another section identifies the two Hypothetical Markets – UK and China, where TATA Motors can lead their international expansion plans. We conclude this section by pointing out the major advantages and challenges offered by internationalization process in these regions. The final section i.e. Conclusion has been made by culminating the key features of Tata internationalization strategies in the wider context of globalization.
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| | Report on the Identification of IT opportunity and application of Business Problem to Future Group | | | Future Group, led by its founder and Group CEO, Mr. Kishore Biyani, is considered one of India’s leading business houses with multiple businesses spanning across the consumer space. Retail forms the core business activity of Future Group. Its flagship brand is Pantaloon Retail. The group operates over 11 million square feet of retail space in over 63 cities and towns and 65 rural locations across India. Future Group follows a multi-format retail strategy that captures almost entire consumption basket of Indian customers. On one hand in the lifystyle segment, the group operates Pantaloons, a fashion retail chain and Central, a chain of seamless malls, whereas on the other hand, in the value segment, it has Big Bazaar which is a hypermarket format that combines the look, touch and feel of Indian bazaars with the choice and convenience of modern retail.
Big Bazaar would have 100 stores PAN India which entail the fastest ever organic expansion of a hypermarket. The first set of Big Bazaar stores opened in 2001 in Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
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| | Report suggesting the strategies to improve e-business operations of Accent Clothing | | | The world of e-business is expanding rapidly. Accent Clothing has also adopted this approach to keep in step with the modern times by working through its website www.accentclothing.com. The website endeavours to be consonant with the policies of its business- warm relationship with and convenience to its customers.
The website is designed to meet the requirements of a large number and varied groups of customers. It does so by segmenting the website according to the projected needs of the browsers. Also, Accent Clothing has set up a whole system to provide shopping facilities of transaction and delivery to its buyers.
There are a few flaws relating to the design of the website. They have been evaluated and recommendations made for the improvement of the site and consequently, of the e-business of Accent Clothing.
The Report for evaluating and suggesting measures for improvement of the website has been divided along three basic heads- Design, Content and Customer Interface. These are the three main things to look out for in a website. Under each head, three sections have been constructed- Importance and Guidelines (detailing the importance of each element and the guidelines generally prescribed for it), Evaluation of www.accentclothing.com (in comparison with the guidelines prescribed) and finally, the Recommendations.
These recommendations can help improve the e-business of Accent Clothing and make it a large and well established business on the internet.
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| | Report suggesting the strategies to improve e-business operations of SixT | | | Sixt is a car rental and leasing company which originated in Munich, Germany in 1912. Today, Sixt provides service to their consumers through their company website and 3,500 service stations worldwide (Sixt AG, 2009).
The company’s branding strategy is one of the factors that made Sixt successful. Differentiating from their competitors, Sixt established themselves as “the spirit of mobility,” which conveys a meaning of providing smooth service to their customers. Concentrating on the comfort and satisfaction of their consumers, the process of renting or leasing a car is fast, easy and convenient. The establishment of Sixt’s website supported this positioning. For customers, they can easily select and rent a car at the comforts of their home, office or anywhere.
Sixt’s core brand identities include:
• Provides top-quality services and cars at low prices
• Smooth, hassle-free mobility approach
• Innovative mobility service provider
• A positive image
• A service and customer-oriented range (customer-centred and tailor-made mobility solutions) (Sixt AG, 2009).
According to the company’s website, Sixt’s goal is to “operate as a global player on the world's fastest-growing future market of mobility,” which can further assist the improvement of their market position. By having an electronic base service provider equipped with a unique infrastructure to link services easily, the company has a special competitive advantage. (Sixt AG, 2009) Through the availability of Sixt’s website, customers can easily contact Sixt and avail their services. Furthermore, the company can provide a faster way of dealing with their customers’ needs and demands.
The company’s offline brand image, identity, value proposition and operations need to correspond consistently and provide continuity in their website to compete in the fast-paced marketplace (Rowley, 2004, p.136). Thus, brand building online is necessary and plays a significant role to communicate brand values and build a stronger relationship with its customers.
This report evaluates the online branding and operations of Sixt car rental and leasing company using related framework for branding and operations for websites. It aims to demonstrate the consistency of the offline and online branding and operations by analyzing the Sixt’s website. This report is divided into several parts which includes:
- Online Branding
- Online Operations
- Recommendations
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| | Research proposal on the topic ‘Generation Y and Management’ | | | Generation Y population is technologically advanced, well informed and the harbingers of the new global village, where borders have melted thanks mainly to multinational corporations. Generation Y employees increasingly seek work-life balance than their predecessors Generation X population. Bernard Salt (2008) opines that generation Y work-force in their 20s is more exposed to the global economy and job opportunities in the developed world than generation X work-force did in their 20s. The information technology boom in the late 80s and early 90s enabled the generation Y population in their teens have access to more information of events around the world. The acquired knowledge exceeded that of generation X population. High knowledge levels of generation Y population in business and other areas resulted in their supreme self confidence and self esteem and that they would have changed at least five jobs by the time they reach 28 (Catherine Holahan, 2005). The high knowledge levels, efficiency, independence, need for life apart from work make the management of generation Y population to adopt a different management strategy than that of generation X. | | |
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| | Review of the Literature ‘Factors Influencing the Degree of International Pricing Strategy Standardization of Multinational Corporations’ by Theodosius, Marios and Katsikeas, Constantine S. | | | International trade refers to exchange of products and services across different nations. When a product is manufactured in a country, pricing of the product is done taking into account various factors like price of raw materials, manufacturing costs, freight and handling costs, distributor and dealer costs etc. Most importantly pricing of the product or service is based on demography like the region the product is sold, GDP of the country and hence consumers’ buying power. Developing a pricing strategy is increasingly becoming difficult task for marketing managers (Industrial Marketing Management, 2005). It is common to find price differences for similar products in a store in an area which is predominantly habituated by lower socio economical class people and in an up market store. Pricing of the same product can also vary between states in a country where tax structure is different across states. If such a variation in price can be seen within a country it is logical that prices vary among nations depending on so many factors like the country’s economy, cost of living etc. The pricing strategy is more difficult in nations with emerging markets (Mary Anne Raymond, Tanner Jr., John F,& Kim Jonghoon, 2001). The question arises for a multinational corporation as to whether the prices should be standardized across home and the host nations or the prices need to be customized as per the economics of the host nations. Firms often are faced with the dilemma of whether to adapt to the host nation’s unique demands or standardization of the price(Lars Perner, 2009). Theodosiou et al. 2001 discuss the nature of international business and factors that determine price in the host nations of a multinational corporation and the need for standardization of prices across home and host nations in their award winning journal article ‘Factors Influencing the Degree of International Pricing Strategy Standardization of Multinational Corporations’. The authors first discuss in their article traditional schools of thought on international pricing like standardization school of thought that advocates the need for standardization of prices across borders, adaptation school of thought, which advocates the need for prices to be adapted to the host nations’ socio economic conditions and the middle path or contingency school of though that advocates a mix of both standardization and contingency. The authors then try to identify the factors that have major influence on international pricing strategy formulation. The article is mostly descriptive in nature and it requires future quantitative research to prove the hypotheses presented in the article. | | |
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| | Review of the Magellan Sutera Resort Malaysia | | | With the growing economic condition of nations at a macro and micro level, tourism has become one of the most cash oriented industry which is not only lucrative but at the same time, connects many services together to push any economy or society to grow cumulatively. The entire world in itself grips mankind for a concept like tourism and some places treasures their unique characteristics to lead the show. Asia has been one of the leading places for tourism, both from uniqueness in characteristics, variety, and cost as well.
Our focus in this report is Malaysia, which is considered one of the most exciting and promising tourist destinations. Being one of the most prominent destinations in Southeast Asia, near the equator, tropical climate of Malaysia attracts tourists from across the world. We have picked up one of the most renowned five star resorts of Malaysia, Magellan Sutera and have done a complete evaluation of the prospective growth of the tourism industry in Malaysia and a view from the tourist’s perspective.
We obtained the complete overview of the five star resorts Magellan Sutera, we evaluated and did a comparative study of the available target market vis-à-vis potential target market for Magellan Sutera. We have done a macro analysis of the environment, society, culture, economic condition of Malaysia and how well the business strategy of Magellan Sutera fits into these blocks. We have done a SWOT analysis of the business model and tried attempting to recommend the further business strategy for Magellan Sutera.
Making a resort, registering it for a five star category is not very difficult for any real estate businessmen but the challenge always remains how to capture maximum market share percentage, customer satisfaction and long term retention, brand equity spread and customer brand recall is important. Therefore, our review reports stresses on the fact as to how aligned is the current business strategy of Magellan Sutera Resort, and what all changes could be done to strengthen the market share further, how could Magellan Sutera Resort could attract more tourist and capture the maximum volume of outbound tourism across the world.
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| | Review of the paper “Business case Océ - Reverse logistic network re-design for copiers” | | | The importance of reverse logistics can be realized in many dimensions. It is fast becoming a preferred business practice among various organizations in order to achieve competitive advantages. Defining the term ‘reverse logistics’ in simple words indicates that the process involves flow of goods in the opposite direction to the traditional flow of the supply chain, that is, from producer to consumer, back to a point of recovery or disposal. Its most significant concern is recovery, which can be described as reselling a product, or a series of processes leading to re-manufacturing or recycling. Reverse logistic system is an integral part of Product Recovery Management (PRM), an emerging management field that includes management of “…all used and discarded products, components and materials for which a manufacturing company is legally, contractually, or otherwise responsible”, quotes Krikke et al in their paper. Recovery and disposal are the notable options in a recovery strategy.
With the adoption of reverse logistic systems becoming a common practice among organizations, the design of a reverse logistic network is an important requirement for supply chains. Large-scale companies are now concerned with the optimization of the location and the capacity of their facilities, and good product flows. Krikke et al summarizes the paper with the following issues,
A brief introduction of reverse logistic system and current issues in recovery strategies
In-depth literature review on the use of location-allocation models in reverse logistics
Development of a reverse logistic network design for manufacturing industry, with special reference to copier manufacturing case study
Krikke et al argue that the reverse logistic network design can be considered relevant in organizations as it has the following advantages,
Choice of optimization criteria including cost minimization
Process installation in one location results in further cost minimization
Improved internal logistics due to strong interactions between forward and reverse processes
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| | Review of the paper “Changing Channels: The Impact of the Internet on the Distribution Strategy” | | | The emergence of new technologies has created a revolutionary phase for economy and market forces in different industries. Due to the globalization of businesses, companies have started adopting the concept of supply chain integration to stay ahead in competition. Information technology and in particular, the Internet presents many opportunities for companies to improve their production, communication and distribution channels. In the context of distribution channels, the Internet has totally transformed the channel structure. As Pitt, Berthon and Berthon discuss in their paper, the Internet has brought a remarkable makeover to the existing structure of how distribution channels work. In the beginning of the paper, they provide a brief introduction of distribution channels and their essential purposes,
To support economies of scope
To routinize transactions
To search for information essential to both producer and consumer
Further, the paper provides a substantial account on the significant changes brought by the Internet and World Wide Web to the distribution channel structure. The paper summarizes the following points,
Brief background of the traditional distribution channels including conventional intermediaries
New technological changes in the distribution structure revolutionized by the Internet and World Wide Web
Detailed discussion of the changes brought by the Internet-enabled distribution strategy along with its long-term effects
Pitt, Berthon and Berthon suggest that an Internet Distribution Matrix model can be developed in order to identify which traditional channels will undergo required transformation or die out and where new channels will emerge. The objective of the matrix model is to bring more efficiency to the functioning of distribution channels by existing firms and entrepreneurs. Besides, the matrix model enables companies to stay ahead of competitors while changing the rules of the marketplace.
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| | Review of the paper “Postponed manufacturing - a case study in the food supply chain” | | | The concept of postponed manufacturing has been considered, of late, as an innovative supply chain arrangement in a number of industries. The importance of postponed manufacturing lies in its applications contributing significantly to the integral supply chain improvement. Starting with a brief understanding of the term ‘postponement’, it refers to delayed decision-making about a product. The primary motivation for the postponement is a strategic decision by supply chains - to gain better information about customer demand by delaying product customization. In other words, “postponement enables forecasters to make better predictions about the end product demand.” (Rietze 2006)
As van Hoek discusses the use of postponement strategies with a case study of wine producers in his paper, he talks about the relevance of operating characteristics in the costs or benefits of postponed manufacturing at length while aiming to develop a decision model based on those characteristics. van Hoek’s paper elaborates the issue with a detailed literature review along with special reference to food industry. The final speculations of his examination of postponed manufacturing can be summarized as following,
Postponed manufacturing demonstrates four types of operational characteristics, which can be distinguished and categorized - a) product differentiation, b) process characteristics, c) technological characteristics and d) market characteristics.
In postponed manufacturing system, operational costs savings can be likely to result from postponed volume and value increase, which also influence transportation and inventory carrying costs.
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| | Review of the paper “The relocation of a hybrid manufacturing/distribution facility from supply chain perspectives - a case study” | | | Relocation is considered as one of the most strategic business decisions by organizations, which decide to stay competitive in supply chain management. Whether it is manufacturing, warehouse or distribution facility, location decisions can help companies in various ways,
Access emerging markets
Take part in skill-based competition
Achieve operating cost advantages
Enhance strategic corporate relationships with partners
In order to develop an effective location selection strategy, it is important to have an in-depth understanding of the company’s requirements. Min and Melachrinoudis deliver an analytical assessment on the issue of relocation of manufacturing facilities of supply chains in their paper. They address the manufacturing location problems at the beginning of the paper,
“The problem of locating manufacturing (or warehousing) facilities is concerned with the determination of the optimal number, size, and geographic configuration of those facilities in such a way as to minimize the total cost associated with supply chain operations, while satisfying customer demand requirements.”
In other words, a relocation strategy is developed with the consideration of number, size and location facilities. Its primary objective is to minimize the total operational costs as well as to efficiently meet the consumer needs. Besides, relocation decision requires a complete assessment of the current and imminent situations, market changes, and the advantages and disadvantages of the corporate decision to relocate. In this context, decision-aid tools such as analytic hierarchy process (AHP) can be really effective in order to understand and solve relocation problems. Min and Melachrinoudis summarize their paper with the following points being addressed,
A detailed overview of the relocation scenario in supply chain management including problems, situations and changes in the market
Discussion of location factors affecting relocation decisions of companies. The paper subdivides the location factors under six broad categories
Explanation of relocation decision by developing analytic hierarchy process or AHP model design, and its applications along with a case study
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| | Starbucks Case study | | | This case study is based on Starbucks and provides answer to the above 2 questions. | | |
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| | Strategic Analysis and Future recommendations for Far Horizon | | | The changing market conditions compel businesses either introduce new products or services or venture into newer areas of business. The market conditions such as per capita income, consumers’ buying power, economy of the nation influence the market strategies of organizations greatly. The essential goods market may not be influenced greatly from the market conditions. However, non-essential products and services such as entertainment, leisure, sports equipment rely greatly on positive market factors for their success in the business. Far Horizon had been doing well in the UK inshore yacht market. However, the current scenario of dwindling economy has made the company to rethink about their business strategies and expand its product base to sea going yachts. The business plan analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the company, micro and macro environmental factors of the marine industry in the UK, market conditions etc. The business plan also does a cost estimation and break even analysis for the proposed expansion plan of Far Horizon. The report then does a cash flow analysis and provides time based implementation plan for the project. | | |
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| | Strategic analysis of a contemporary business leader – William Henry Gates, Cofounder of Microsoft | | | William Henry Gates III is the Microsoft Cofounder, a famous philanthropist and also a renowned businessman. He laid the foundation of Microsoft and is better known as the architect of this successful company. It’s because of his dynamic leadership skills and management strategies, he has been able to establish the company in more than 85 countries with a maximum reach of 55, 000 employees, all over the world. In spite of several challenges and competitions thriving in the world market, Gates remains to be one of the richest men in the world, has used his leadership skills and visions to the best possible dimensions and has proved to be the greatest entrepreneur of the world. Lowe (1998) in his book “Bill Gates Speaks: Insight from the World’s greatest Entrepreneur” writes that his pioneering work in the field of computers has altered the lives of people who use it, forever. He also calls Gates as an innovator, full time genius and also a part time salesman.
Taking into consideration the statement “Leaders create vision, the meaning within which others work and live. Managers, by contrast, act completely within a vision” by Adler Nancy from International Dimensions of Organisational Behaviour, it reflects that the vision of the leaders is different, nascent, innovative and also appealing. They take the road less travelled and have their own followers. Though, as managers, the individuals are much more into managing the entire process through which the ideas have been generated by the leaders and account to the fact that these ideas are followed through flawless execution. Gold (2006), in his book “Entrepreneurs notebook” reveals how challenging and very gratifying the entire journey of being a leader is. A leader needs to be convincing, confident and very principled, knowing the tricks in the trade.
A person who has the right sense of thought process, idea generation and can make people believe in him can actually manage to stay in this business field. There are millions of others who will take inspiration from him. On the other hand, the managers prove to be methodological and more flawless in terms of the management aspect of the entire vocation they are employed and involved into. Though, it does not, by any means, compare the mental or intellectual appeal of both of them. But the fact remains to be true, that its comparatively easier to be a manager, a profession which can be learnt with time and pace, rather than being a leader because it is in built and cannot be influenced by the external surrounding, until and unless the leadership trait is there in them, from birth For example, Bill Gates, declined the mandatory and customary trends which the mere graduates followed in Harvard but rather he gave more interest and time to polish his skills in programming and building his own empire, his own establishment, which could not be compared or defeated by any other. Geist (2000) in his book “Monopolies in America” States clearly the kind of enemies and empire building tactics which the prominent leaders from the time of Jay Gould to Bill Gates have used, for their own success and progress in the world of cut throat competition.
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| | Strategic assignment Goodlife fitness clubs & expanding them to the US market | | | This assignment throws light on Goodlife Fitness Clubs. It tells us about their various srategies, services, growth etc.It deals with the Canadian fitness industry . It discusses about the scope of Goodlife fitness Clubs in the US by understanding the recent trends in the US fitness industry. | | |
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| | Strategic assignment on expansion into the Telecom industry of India | | | This report provides the detailed picture of Indian telecommunication. It shows that growth taking place in Indian market is more than any other country, which is by 27%. Moreover FDI in Telecom between 1991 and 2004 nearly touched $ 2.31 billion. This, again, is expected to rise further in the next few years. Low penetration of cell phones as compared to its population tells that how much market is yet to be explored in this sector. Moreover with new product of third generation technology networks and handsets, allows people to see each other while taking and can send instant pictures. It will be valued by Indian as they have more emotions of staying in touch. In past Indian consumer has always shown a positive attitude towards the new technology. To give them new technology it is important have the good knowledge about the market, which can be gained by entering as joint venture. As Indian economy does not allow foreign companies to enter in the market with more than 74 percent of ownership. States that joint venture is the best entry mode. As it costs also less. Profit in the short can be forecasted so easily due to new technology and large market but to make profits in the long term it is important to consider the price and Indians are more price conscious, due to perfect competition. | | |
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| | Strategic assignment on Internet market in Australia | | | Broadband is becoming vital for both the economy and community of Australia. It is estimated that the Australian Internet access market will add over $100 billion to the Australian economy over the next five to ten years by organizations that will use broadband as a crucial element in their business models and distribution of services and as e-marketing and production tool. Australian Internet market is still lagging 2 years behind those in Europe and Asia. This further means that Australia is losing out on competitive advantage. While technology has already made essential as well as innovative improvements in the subcontinent, Australian people find it too expensive to afford broadband Internet in their households. | | |
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| | Strategic assignment on Nakheel Developer, Dubai | | | The recent economic slowdown, high rate of inflation and slowdown in consumer demand, has shaken many industries from both a product as well as service perspective. Infrastructure sector i.e. Real Estate has been a major of them, continuing with the flavour of Sub-prime etc. Hindrance came from dual direction, hit them, availability of land, increased land prices and affordability issue as far as the consumers are concerned. In addition to this, the input cost has also become high. We would try and probe in this issue further by comparing two large construction firms of Dubai market, which is considered the hub for real estate construction in the globe. We would try and see how have these two firms, market capitalization been effected or no, keeping in line with the global economic health. | | |
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| | Strategic assignment on Outsourcing industry in India | | | This paper is written to analyze the potential problems in India’s outsourcing industry and to recommend strategies to overcome those problems. The paper starts with a brief overview of the outsourcing industry and factor that were responsible for making India a market leader in this industry. A strategic analysis has been made to identify the problems that are currently been faced by the Indian outsourcing firms and problems that may arise in future. It has been identified that the emergence of China in this industry is a major threat for these firms. An attempt has been made to analyze the factors that are making China a serious competitor for India. After analyzing the problem from different perspectives, the strategy of collaborating with China’s outsourcing firms has been recommended for India’s outsourcing industry. The potential benefits that may derive from such collaboration have been closely looked at. An attempt has also been made to analyze the potential problems and the challenges that these firms may face in collaborating with each other. In the end the conclusion has been drawn over viewing the whole scenario and stressing the importance of such an alliance for both India and China. | | |
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| | Strategic assignment on Supermarket industry in Australia with focus on Woolworths | | | The Australian supermarket industry is in its mature stage of its life cycle with high rivalry among the two major players in the market; Woolworths and Coles. Since establishment in 1924, Woolworths has grown to be the market leader with over 40% of the market. The following report strategically analyses the supermarket industry, Woolworths operating environment, its strategies implemented and provide recommendations for its future sustainability. Considering porter’s five forces analysis, the overall industry attractiveness can be considered low in terms of new entrants and established firms. Changes in technology, regulations and consumer demographics have been the main driving forces in the industry affecting competitiveness of firms. Low cost structure, technology, store locations and customer service have been critical for the success of firms in this industry. Been the market leader has been the major strength of Woolworths enabling it to achieve economies of scale. However a major threat facing the company is the growing presence of international competitors in the market. Low cost structure and brand equity can be regarded as core competencies of Woolworths. Furthermore Woolworths has focused heavily on supply chain management for the efficient management of its value chain and its low cost structure and brand equity has facilitated sustainability. Woolworths two major corporate strategies have been strategic acquisitions and unrelated diversification, and focuses on cost leadership and differentiation in terms of customers in store experience as its business level strategy. While Woolworths is considering expanding to New Zealand and India through acquisitions and joint ventures as part of its corporate strategy, organizational re-structuring, control systems, change management and a strong corporate culture have enabled Woolworths to implement strategies successfully. | | |
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| | Strategic case study on Target | | | Current success is attributable to many aspects of Target, most of which stem from its strong reputation as a place to buy a wide variety of quality, fashionable goods at discount prices. Target has garnered this reputation by building a strong rapport with its customers and through its partnerships with other respectable groups. As well, Target’s continued desire to help communities has helped build and strengthen relations with its clientele. A weak point for Target is its position in the market. One major reason for this weakness lies in the overall structure of the company. Frankly, it is currently not capable of reaching out to certain customers (specifically suburban and rural) simply because of its size. This being said, Target is in a great position because it is big enough to chip away at Wal-Mart’s market share and compete strongly with other members of the various industries Target is a part of (Kroger, Safeway, etc.). Opportunities for Target to grow are many. For example, delving more into the retail food industry, investing more into on-site gas stations, increasing its prominence in bridal registry and to open up more partnerships with other companies are all ways for Target to grow. All of the potentials have to bear in mind the overall objective of bringing more customers into the store and having those customers come back often. The frequent customer is relatively rare at Target, especially when compared to Wal-Mart and this needs to change. | | |
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| | Strategic management assignment on Commonwealth Bank of Australia | | | In the present scenario of the downturn of the economy, or in other words, the ‘bullish economy’ has posed a host of questions encompassing almost all fields of financial institutions as well as personal lives. When President Obama made a promise of ‘change’, all eyes were set on the financial stability he could create in these slow times. Global economy deterioration has spanned the world into its grip of financial crisis, unemployment and bankruptcy. And the banking sector has been a major hit worldwide with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Henceforth, it is significant to examine, in the light of this economic slowdown, the effect it has on business organisations/setups particularly on banking.
Banking has been worst affected by this phenomenon; therefore, a study of ‘Strategic analysis’ is not only important, but also quite interesting. Challenges to Banks are appearing in terms of restructuring of finances, interest rates and employment reduction, employee retention and employee wellbeing. However, it should be noted that all is not lost; in the current economic crisis, opportunities for Banking System can also be traced as cost management and elimination of redundancies.
This exploratory research has segmented Commonwealth Bank- one of the largest Australian bank to review the scope of banking system at large in the globalised economies. It has been divided into four parts. First part will dig in the competencies of bank. Second part will identify the strategic capabilities of the company whereas third part will validate the soundness of those capabilities in respect to strategic positioning of the bank. The fourth and final part will zero in on the proposed plan of strategy that bank could adopt to excel more followed by a brief conclusion.
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| | Strategic management implementation assignment on SAGE Products Inc | | | This assignment answers the question “It is often noted that implementation is the most difficult aspect of strategic management. With reference to your organisation, how might this be the case?” Sage Inc has been chosen for the purpose of this assignment.
Sage Products is a medium sized healthcare manufacturing company. Its brand line reads- ‘Simple Interventions. Extraordinary Outcomes.’ Sage's core belief is prevention—that evidence-based interventions will lead to improved outcomes. Their healthcare facilities help to improve clinical outcomes by reducing the risk of hospital-acquired infection and skin breakdown. Sage Products develop new concepts and products that address the challenges of the ever-changing healthcare industry (www.sageproducts.com). Strategic management has become an essential for every organisation. Sage Products is also in need of strategic management especially so because with time, the number of healthcare companies have increased. Moreover, with globalisation, many multinational companies providing healthcare services have emerged, thus giving tough competition to Sage products. Thus, a strategic management programme was devised for Sage Products taking into account its SWOT analysis. The strengths of Sage Products include low price for good service and a good reputation. There are certain areas where the organisation is lacking. It is a medium sized company and therefore, its personnel and management staff is limited. In short, the managerial system at Sage Products is quite poor. Hence, the need for strategic management as Sage Products is accentuated. The strategic management programme for Sage Products focuses on its long and short term goals. Product differentiation strategy, better quality services and expansion of customer base are the three basic aims of the strategic management overhauling of Sage Products. The strategic management programme will seek to fulfil these aims through various channels. These will include training of the staff, improvisation of management capabilities of the organisation etc.
As has already been discussed, transformational change in an organisation always encounters resistance. The next sections will discuss the process of implementation of strategic management plan at Sage Products and the problems and issues that may be encountered in it.
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| | Strategic marketing plan on Green eggs company | | | The purpose of this Strategic Marketing Plan is to assess both the internal organisational capabilities, as well as external environmental factors that are likely to impact on the Greens free range egg business currently, and in the future. Green Eggs’ marketing problem is essentially the ability to sell value-added eggs profitably. They also want to be able to provide a product offering that is unique, differentiated, and superior in the market, thus providing a competitive advantage for their business. Their problem at present is that their brand is relatively unknown in the market, and they don’t have a wide-spread distribution network in place to grow their business. | | |
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| | Strategic marketing plan on St. Johns Ambulance | | | The purpose of this Strategic marketing plan is to assess both the internal organizational capabilities, as well as the external environmental factors that are likely to impact on St Johns Ambulance (Victoria) kit sales currently and in the future. SJAV’s marketing problem is to sell more kits in a very competitive marketplace and maintain profitability. They also want to differentiate their product, use the SJAA brand equity and launch the innovative product range with a sustainable competitive advantage. Their distribution network has been inefficient in the past and there is a need to fine-tune these distribution channels | | |
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| | Strategic procurement plan on a fictitious organization | | | The establishment and administration of procurement processes and practices for all goods and services purchased by Starline Tech World is handled by its Strategic Procurement Branch. The strategic procurement plan of Starline Tech World contains the following sections:
1. Procurement plan: It includes objectives to be achieved, how to meet them, monitor and report them, and finally how these achievements will be measured.
2. Procurement profile: It shows how much the company spends in different supply sectors in terms of value and risk.
3. Spend analysis: It identifies the high value purchases the organization is planning to undertake over the next five years.
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| | The DAG Group case study | | |
This paper analyses the DAG Group case study and answers the following questions –
1) Would you rate Val & Chris as an “A” team? Why or why not?
2) Describe the opportunity in one sentence (as defined in the case).
3) Evaluate this opportunity using relevant screening techniques such as PEST, Porters 5 Forces, SWOT etc.
4) Based on the evaluation should Val & Chris start the business? Why?
5) Would you invest in this business? Why?
6) Is there a better opportunity? If YES - what is it? If NO – what should Val & Chris do next?
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| | Tiffany case study | | | This research proposal discusses the fine jewellery sector within the luxury goods industry, focusing on Tiffany & Co.’s (“Tiffany”) position among its high-class competitors and fine jewellery consumers. The paper begins with an overview of the luxury goods industry and current trends within the specific sector of fine jewellery. The document progresses by describing the corporate structure of Tiffany, specifically the company’s products, financial situation, store operations and plans for expansion, key publics, brand image, and marketing strategies. The proposal includes an in-depth analysis of Tiffany & Co.’s position among luxury goods consumers, with the primary question of how Tiffany will maintain its elite image and leading position within the jewellery market while attempting to expand its consumer base | | |
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