Campar Industries Inc Case Study and Variance Analysis Order Instructions: This case is about variance analysis.
Campar Industries Inc Case Study and Variance Analysis
The purpose of this case is to allow you to break down several different types of variance that might occur in a business, including:
•A margin variance caused by differences in price and volume
•A combination of volume, product mix, and margin variance.
•A materials mix variance
•A breakdown of variance effects on an income statement
Please note that simply reporting the numbers is not an adequate solution; you have to explain how these different types of variance affect the whole firm. In addition,
•You need to compare how the different divisions performed.
•You need to clearly state how the firm performed as a whole
Campar Industries Inc Case Study and Variance Analysis Sample Answer
Campar Industries, Inc. Case Study
Variance analysis is an important component of financial and managerial accounting since it involves investigating financial performance deviations from the standards in organizational budgets definitions. Variances in businesses are of different types and arise from varied sources, and variance analysis typically concerns isolating these varied causes of income and expenses variation from the budgeted standards over a stipulated period of financial accounting. For example, in this case study of Campar Industries, Inc. the variances are analyzed across its four different divisions such as Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta as follows:
Approach
This case study problem involves analysis of different types of variances whereby the Alpha division problem involves the analysis of the gross margin variances; Beta division problem involves the analysis of gross margin mix variance; Gamma division problem involves the application of the mix variance concept to raw materials; and finally Delta division problem involves a review of a variance analysis problem consisting of both the margin variance as well as production cost variances.
Alpha division
The unfavorable volume variance is more than overcome by the favorable unit margin (which is also commonly referred to as the selling price) variance. Hence, the analysis of this problem clearly shows the importance to calculate the margin variance instead of revenue variances.
Beta division
From the above analysis, it is evident that if Beta changed its program of marketing for the purpose of producing actual results, the move was not a good one. This is mainly because shifting towards a mix that is “richer” did not lead to generation of adequate additional margin to overcome the sales volumes that were unfavorable as well as unit margin impacts.
Gamma division
Delta division
Sales volume variance: $0. This can be determined by inspection because both actual and budgeted total volumes were 5,000 units.
Delta Division Statement of Budgeted and Actual Gross Margin
Budget
Actual
Revenues
$1,143,500
$1,135,000
Cost of goods sold @ standard
$821,200
$810,250
Gross margin @ standard
$322,300
$324,750
Production cost variances:
Materials usage
$16,200
Materials price
$6,480
Labor rate
$2,370
Overhead spending
$38,896
Overhead volume
$448
Total variances
$59,654
Gross margin, actual
$322,300
$265,096
There was an increase in the gross margin by $8,750 due to a $5 per unit higher margin of Product A; however, shifting product mix towards lower margin Product B led to the elimination of $6,300 of this gain. The production cost variances are self explanatory from the tables provided above with exception of the overhead volume variance which represents the amount of the standard overhead cost per unit that was predetermined and undercharged products for overhead, due to the fact that the overhead rate was determined on basis of a planned volume of 235,000 DLS, while the actual volume was relatively less at 233, 880 DLS.
Campar Industries Inc Case Study and Variance Analysis References
Chew, L., & Parkinson, A. (2013). Making Sense of Accounting for Business. Harlow: Pearson.
Nelson, M., Spiceland, J. D., Sepe, J. (2012). Intermediate Accounting, (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Publishers Inc.
Walgenbach, P. H., Dittrich, N. E., & Hanson, E. I. (2013). Financial Accounting. New York, NY: Harcourt Grace Javonovich, Inc.
1. identify a crisis the organization of Starbucks Organization for( SSP) has faced in the past,
2. a crisis that it is currently facing, or
3. a crisis that a competitor in that industry has faced that Starbucks organization may face in the future
4. Explanation of the crisis that you selected and a crisis management response recommendation.
5.Develop a strategy for improving organizational sustainability
5.Include an analysis of the ethical implications of that recommendation.
6.Be sure to integrate one or two new related and engaging questions that will extend the discussion about your post in constructive ways. Try to think of a question(s
Reference 3-4 reference APA strictly Adhered and.at least one scholarly peer-reviewed resource in your recommendation.
SAMPLE ANSWER
The organization Starbucks Organization is currently the leading house of coffee in the world. It is a company situated in the Washington DC, the USA that started in 1971. It has a lot of branches worldwide and hence operates a chain of organizations. It is an organization that works towards providing high-quality coffee beans and coffee equipment. It started as a small coffee dealing organization and kept on improving its activities to opening many branches around the world. Through its success, the Starbucks Organization is always viewed as a major icon in the business field. It is through its organizational structure and the principles of management employed by the management that makes its organization a major icon in the business.
Starbucks Organization operates a chain of agents around Europe and the American region. Managing of such a large organization requires proper management skills and a firm management to carry out its operations successfully. It is an important example that a current business that needs to identify its goals must employ. Since the organization keeps growing, Starbucks Organization needed to employ the current organization structure for it to be able to carry out process optimally and hence keep on providing quality goods and their services.
However through their significant success, Starbucks Organization has faced many issues that have led to the major setbacks in the organization. It is a reality that to get to success; there must be ups and downs. The strength of the organization comes from the major challenges that they faced in the recent past. For example, the company faced a major challenge in 2007. That was due to the rapid expanding of the Organization. It reached a point that the management of the organization decided to shift its focus from the local customers for the greener pastures away from their vicinity. The management decided to expand its territories to the UK, Japan, China, and Canada. This decision leads to the decline in the sales in the same year significantly.
This shifting of focus led to loosing of customer experience, as they had to spend much on advertising in those areas of their new ventures. The strategy to expand globally meant that the organization of the Starbucks Organization had to be put into consideration, and be altered where possible. In 2008, however, the CEO of the Starbucks Organization was changed, in an attempt to bring back the organization to its right path. When Howard Schultz resumed the position of a CEO, he worked towards bringing back Starbucks Organization to its proper functionality. He focused on changing the structure of organization of the company. One of the significant change that he made was to create regional divisions. This aimed to bringing back customer experience into focus. This, however, had long-term benefits that is realized later. He also improved the Starbucks teams working and their staff by exposing them to training. It worked out well, and thus the firm’s financial experience and the customer experience were improved.
Starbucks Organization, have employed proper crisis management policies through its operations. Crisis management is the process and the steps taken by a company or an organization to deal with the threats that are bound to weaken or destroy the company’s performance. Due to its operations over a large region, Starbucks had to develop a proper crisis management module to be ready to tackle any crisis that may have affected them in the past. Crisis management at Starbucks included the methods that were to respond to the perception of crisis or the current crisis and the ways of communication that they would address them.
There are many types of crisis, ranging from natural to the developed human crisis (HAVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL, 2014). As for Starbucks, they have been faced with confrontation crisis in the past. It is where individuals, a group of individuals, or competing business rivals tries to fight a company’s development. These confronting groups always try to satisfy their needs and demands by fighting their enemy. These groups will do anything for their needs and demands to be considered by the public, or the governing authorities. There are several types of confronting by these rivals to the Starbucks Organization for example; sit-ins, disobedience of police, rioting, boycotts and other picketing traits, occupying buildings, blocked and even resisting (Bernstein and Bonafede (2011).
For example, one of the recent confrontations to the Starbucks Organization is boycotting of the Starbucks products and their stores. It is due to the claims that Starbucks have been selling their products to the Israeli military. Also, it was also claimed that the Starbucks Organization donated some part of their profit to the same Israeli military group. It led to a major controversy that even made the CEO, Mr. Howard to write a letter to the president to address the issue. However, this has been viewed to be spiked by the fact that the President of the Starbucks is Jewish.
Due to these threats to the company’s performance there is need to develop a proper management model that requires an understanding of the ways to handle a crisis in the case of their occurrence. This model requires proper skills to deal with the crisis. The skills could be, proper crisis management the crisis recoveries and even the mitigation of the crisis. There are three ways that can be used as proper models to ensure proper crisis management. These are;
Getting warned of the threats and the diagnosis of the threatening troubles they’re likely to face soon.
Choosing the proper about-turn strategies that will help evade the crisis.
Implementing the processes that may help monitor the crisis and the company’s focus away from the threats never to face them.
Proper steps should be developed so that Starbucks Organization never faces this confrontation setback again. An example of a proper strategy to be implemented by the Starbucks organization is to face the crisis head-on to avoid future threats. The management of Starbucks may set up ways to do this, by educating the public of the truth that lies within the company. The management, led by the company’s president, may decide to address the media. By doing this, the public will stop the misleading brought about by the other rival groups posting their claims to the media.
The ethical implications of this strategy are that the public will know the truth lying and hence the Starbucks Organization being loyal and open to their faithful customers. Rivals will always not find their strong reasons to fight the company since the Starbucks will be much open and hence a better way of stopping confrontation diplomatically (Schultz and Gordon2011). However, by doing this, the Starbucks Organization should be ready to more questions by the media regarding more inner issues of the company. The company should also be ready for either the positive or the negative reactions from their customers. It should also employ proper strategies to cope up the negative reactions from customers, if any so that to make the loyal to the company (Fronz, 2011).
To achieve all this, Starbucks should ensure to create an environment of trust from the customers by proper methods employed through the organization. The management should also be ready to reform the organization’s mindset and be sure to observe the vulnerable assets of the organizations. The management of the Starbucks should be courageous to tackle the crisis.
Upon conclusion, the Starbucks Organization should be ready to face future challenges that may come their way. It hence suggests that they should develop proper and functioning crisis management tactics. Since crisis cannot be evade, they should always be ready to face any arising situation (Marcu, 2012).
References.
Harvard Business School. (2014). Harvard business essentials: Crisis management.
Bernstein, J., & Bonafede, B. (2011). Manager’s guide to crisis management. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Schultz, H., & Gordon, J. (2011). Onward: How Starbucks fought for its life without losing its soul. West Sussex [England: Wiley & Sons.
Fronz, C. (2011). Strategic management in crisis communication: A multinational approach. Hamburg: Diplomica-Verl.
Marcu, A. R., Savarese, J. F., & Practising Law Institute. (2012). Crisis management & business recovery: Are you prepared?. New York: Practising Law Institute.
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Facts of the Dale and Mike Parak Case Dale and Mike Parak were twin brothers and best friends. They spent their entire lives looking out for each other’s interests.
Facts of the Dale and Mike Parak Case
While growing up, the two were
inseparable. They played sports together, double dated frequently, and attended the same university. They grew closer as they age, they got married at about
the same time, and eventually, both were divorced. After they retired from their jobs, they decided to live together to save money, and they still enjoyed
each other’s company.
When he was 70-years old, Mike was diagnosed with cancer. Doctors predicted he had about 6 months to live. The brothers, however, agreed that Mike should not
suffer. Mike and Dale wrote and signed a note stating that they decided to commit suicide. Dale broke 20 tranquilizers into Mike’s evening meal and watched
as he ate it. Yet when Dale checked on Mike one hour later, Mike was still alive. Dale panicked. He took a .38-caliber revolver from his desk and shot Mike,
killing him instantly. Dale then went into the kitchen and took a handful of tranquilizers. He did not die. He awoke the next morning as somebody pounded on
the front door. It was a neighbor who, seeing that Dale was dazed and confused, decided to call an ambulance and the police.
The responding police officer conducted an investigation, and Dale was arrested and charged with the murder of his brother, Mike. The prosecutor, although
noting it to be a difficult case, pursued the case because she thought no citizen had the right to decide when someone should die. Dale Parak pled guilty to
first-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to 5 years in a maximum-security prison. (Note: This was the lowest sentence that could be given to a defendant convicted of his crime.)
Do not include title page…thank you
I will attach the reading to the email
Here are the questions you need to answer for this case:
•Calculate the variable costs per thousand bottles for one-separation rounds, two-separation rounds, and two-separation ovals, assuming that all ovals are printed on the machine with the automatic feature for ovals.
•Do one set of calculations for the Albany area (scrap included) and another for New York–New Jersey (freight included, but not scrap).
•Only do one bottle size (the smallest) and assume the average order size is 10,000 bottles.
•Prepare a suggested price list for the Albany area. Consider only one-separation rounds and two-separation rounds or ovals, for only the smallest size bottle.
As a guide to completing this case you should consider the following questions:
•How did Mr. Lipman’s goal of a 30 percent margin (at capacity) affect your price recommendations?
•Which products should the company attempt to sell in New York–New Jersey? Explain.
SAMPLE ANSWER
Lipman Bottle Company Case Study
Summary
Lipman Bottle Company is located in Albany, New York and specializes in the distribution of bottles. The company operates in varied bottle sizes as well as printing, but printing is its main source of profits. The vive president of Lipman Bottle Company, Robert Lipman, aims to achieve a 30 (thirty) per cent revenue margin as well as expansion of their business in New York, New Jersey area. Hence, he requested for our services to carryout their costing information and product line review and provide suggestions on how they can increase company’s profitability as well as making a price list for their business which is located in the Albany area.
Analysis:
The calculations are carried out in order to find variable costs that the company incurs per thousand bottles distributed for several combinations. The Albany area’s variable costs, where scrap is included are summarized in Table 1 shown below. Also the New York, New Jersey area’s variable costs, where shipping costs with exception of freight costs are included is summarized in Table 2 shown below. In addition, data for 0-1 oz. and 1732 oz. bottle sizes are analyzed, as well as 5,000-9,999 and 100,000-249,999 order quantity ranges. Full details as well as calculations are presented in Exhibits #1 to 8, while the price list for the business which is located in the Albany area is presented in Exhibit #9 and calculations to determine the greatest profitability potential for New York, New Jersey area is presented in Exhibit #10.
Table 1: Variable costs for the Albany area
Table 2: Variable costs for the New York, New Jersey area
The goal of Mr. Lipman to attain 30 per cent revenue margin is illustrated in the calculations shown in Exhibit #9 presenting the break even, which implies that no loss or gain, the 30 per cent profit margin, and subsequently the calculation of price to enable the attainment of Mr. Lipman’s wanted margin of revenue. We subtracted the 30 per cent of obtained revenues; and the break even illustrated the remaining 70 per cent of the obtained revenues. As a result, we used the equation shown below:
Variable cost + Fixed cost/ Total machine-hours ($106,944/16,000 hrs) = Break even
Total price (Revenues) x (1-30 per cent) = Break even
Therefore, the prices that are suggested which were determined after calculations are presented in Exhibit #9. Through the price determination calculations, we found that the cost of 2 rounds separation was about two times more compared to cost 1 round separation. Through the price determination calculations it was also found that increases in bottle sizes was directly proportional to increases in cost (meaning bottle size increases were accompanied by cost increases) but order sizes were inversely proportional to cost (meaning the higher the size of an order the lower the cost).
In order to make a decision on the products that are likely to sell in the New York, New Jersey area, the first step involved looking at the shipping costs and the gross margin. To accomplish this, assumption that, Mr. Lipman was also interested in the extension of the 30 per cent margin on revenue into this business area was made. At first glance, a major difference was not noted as a result of the shipping costs difference between smaller bottles and bigger bottles since per truck load the difference was only $2.42. Subsequently, we also considered the number of truck loads that the company could be shipping alongside computation of the gross margin as shown in Exhibit #10. Through the calculations presented in Exhibit #10, we found that the bigger the 2 Round Separations and the bottle size resulted in the greatest potential for profitability for the New York, New Jersey area.
Exhibit #1
Exhibit #2
Exhibit #3
Exhibit #4
Exhibit #5
Exhibit #6
Exhibit #7
Exhibit #8
Exhibit #9
Exhibit #10
*Setup time / Median order size * 1,000
**Hours per 1,000 bottles + Run time / 1,000 bottles
***Total time / 1,000 bottles * Variable cost per machine hours (14.63)
References
Farris, P. W., Bendle, N. T., Pfeifer, P. E., & Reibstein, D. J. (2010). Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Garrison, R. H., Noreen, E. W., & Brewer, P. C. (2009). Managerial Accounting, (13th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
McEachern, W. (2012). Economics: A Contemporary Introduction. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Schwartz, R. (2010). Micro Markets: A Market Structure Approach to Microeconomic Analysis. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
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Read the Case Study below. Answer the following questions:
What are some of the planning strategies that Russ might have used that would possibly have positively affected the outcome of the strategic plan execution?
Discuss some things Marvelous Marvin could have done differently as CEO in order avoid the current situation?
What political factors created bias and clouded judgments in this situation?
Who’s to blame for the bad outcomes of this strategic plan?
If you were one of the OR Director’s direct reports/managers, what should your involvement in the organization’s strategy have been?
Guidelines:
Assignment should be a minimum of 5 pages, excluding the title page and reference page.
Utilize a minimum of 5 references, only 1 can be the text book.
Fully answer all questions above and follow proper APA guidelines.
Submit your assignment through the Turnitin link located in the “Assignment Dropbox”.
Assignments that have a Plagiarism Rate from Turnitin of higher than 30% will automatically receive a 0. I strongly recommend that you submit prior to due date so you can correct if your rate is higher than this.
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Last Chance Hospital – Case Study
Last Chance Hospital (LCH) is a 254-bed, community hospital located in a small, affluent suburb, just outside of San Diego, California. The hospital has historically been well-received by the local community, which demographically has a higher concentration of older age groups than most other local areas. The greater San Diego area is densely populated, and over twenty-five hospitals operate in the larger geographic area. Historically, LCH had always been financially sound, and had managed to remain independent as their local competitors joined
larger systems. But that was then, and this is now. About a year ago, Last Chance Hospital undertook a strategic planning process to encompass the next years. At the time, the hospital was doing okay financially, but was starting to dip into their cash reserves more often than the Board of Trustees liked; LCH was in need of an ideal strategy to bring them ahead of the market before things got out of hand.
As the strategic planner for LCH, Russ Newmarket reported indirectly to the CEO, Marvelous Marvin, but his immediate boss was Courtney Graveyard – and she had a lot on her plate. LCH did not have a chief nursing officer, and as COO, Graveyard was responsible for all of the nursing departments as well as surgical services, facilities, and information technology. A nurse by background, Graveyard spent the majority of her time trying to find different ways to recruit much-needed nursing staff. During the development of the strategic plan, Russ called together the usual group of senior executives, Board members and key physician leaders. He diligently developed the SWOT using their input and applying their assumptions. During his market research, Russ
became aware of some patient-centric trends emerging across the country, but he was also aware
that LCH had always strategically catered more to physicians due to the notion that physicians were the ones who ultimately referred patients to the hospital. Through the strategy development process, it became clear that senior management was stuck on this physician-centric mindset. Russ, ambitious and eager to make a name for himself, found and presented valid information that concurred with management’s mindset. At the end of the planning process, Marvelous Marvin felt confident that their solo, physician-focused strategy would give them a market lead–the plan was to attract more surgeons–and increase OR volumes. Graveyard was under intense pressure from Marvelous Marvin to make sure the operating rooms were as efficient as possible
to handle the planned increase in volume as OR efficiency would be a key recruitment issue for
surgeons. The LCH physician recruiter was under the gun as well. The remainder of the executive staff breathed a collective sigh of relief that their areas were not part of the strategic initiative. Russ suspected LCH needed more of a strategy than attracting new surgeons, but he convinced himself that senior management knew best. After the Board approved the strategic plan, Graveyard immediately met with her OR Director, and charged him with increasing the efficiency of the ORs. She then turned her focus back to her first love, nursing. The physician recruiter hit the ground running, developing an elaborate plan to increase surgeon recruitment. From all appearances, LCH was on a roll.
Over the next several months, the OR Director was able to reduce the OR’s operating budget by 13%, a result that made Marvelous Marvin very happy. At the same time, Graveyard made great strides in increasing LCH’s exposure to and status in the nursing community, and was able to decrease the nursing vacancies by over 6%. In a time of nursing shortages, the Board was impressed with Graveyard’s results. The physician recruiter was having only
moderate success at recruiting surgeons however, and her targeted volume projections were noticeably under budget. Marvelous Marvin approved her request to increase her staff, adding approximately $250,000 to her budget line. Overall patient volumes were steadily decreasing at what was becoming an alarming rate, and thus the financial picture for LCH was in critical condition. Marvelous Marvin couldn’t help but wonder aloud, “Why isn’t the LCH strategic
plan working?”
SAMPLE ANSWER
Case study: Last Chance Hospital
Strategic management in health care institution is crucial in determining long-term and short-term performance. In most cases, effective measures are the ones that bring in short-term success and sustain it in the long-term. However, there are situations where strategies may offer varied outcomes for both short-term and long-term. For instance, they could result in unfavorable short-term outcomes but end up being fruitful in the long-term. Likewise, strategies may at first appear to yield much, only for them to end up being faulty in the long-run. This paper considers the case of Last Chance Hospital (LCH). The hospital has been running a physician-centered system for long. In the earlier days, the hospital had secured a desirable position in the market. In a bid to increase the efficiency in operating rooms (OR), the hospital enhanced its physician-centered system. Contrary to the expectations of the hospital, the move did not attract as much surgeons, and to make it worse, it resulted in decreased number of customers.
Effective Planning on the Part of Russ
Russ stood an appropriate chance to direct planning strategies at LCH. There are some strategies that he could have employed so as to land the hospital to prosperity. First, he could have utilized his knowledge of the emerging patient-centered trends. On his part, Russ had made a mistake by assuming that the senior management was right before questioning their awareness of the recent trends. The strategic planner should have explored the trends further, collected sufficient evidence either approving or disapproving the approach, presented it to the board and advocated for its consideration. By so doing, Russ would have ensured that the organization deeply understood patient-centeredness. According to Rhodes, informing an entire organization about alternative strategies is a basic step for effective strategic planning (2010). Second, Russ should have advised fellow planners at LCH to make their plans flexible. Such an approach could have enabled the organization to shift timely and effectively so as to overcome the presenting challenges. Russ could also have advised the organization to consider equally the views of all parties rather than just those of a few leaders. This would have presented a better position for contrary views that could have possibly been accepted by the organization. Again, when conducting a SWOT analysis for the organization’s strategy, the planner should have adequately considered the impending threats. Russ knew that other hospitals were focusing their care on the patient. On the other hand, LCH was heading to the opposite directions. It was almost unquestionable that the threats that the hospital was to face would have been severe. Lastly, the planner should have used his position to protect the competitive advantage of the organization. Shifting too much to physician-centeredness was definitely a deviation from competitiveness, more so from the perspective of the patients.
Possible Effective Strategies that Marvin could have Applied
Hospital CEOs have the primary role to make strategies (Higginbotham & Church, 2012, p. 295). Marvin’s plans to have LCH stick to its physician-centeredness did not yield to his expectations. The executive made several mistakes in his projections. The greatest was an obsession with the institution’s cultural strategies. The obsession with the old ways blinded him so that he could not explore new approaches. The executive failed to notice the emerging trends of patient-centeredness. It is for this reason that he passionately advocated for the enhancement of physician-centeredness without any considerations for patient-centeredness. His obsession with old culture and ignorance about the new strategies placed him at the risk of making uninformed decisions. The other critical mistake that Marvin made was focusing on change rather than a sound plan. The executive purposed to institute change in the organization without necessarily fitting it to an efficient plan. For instance, Marvin pushed Graveyard to increase efficiency in the OR but did not necessarily establish how effective increasing the number of surgeons would have been in generating revenues for the institution. Considering that Marvin did not have efficient plans, it was not surprising that the organization did not manage to increase its surgeon staffing. Lastly, Marvin focused on short-term but did not address long-term problems. She addressed the problem of having many patients by thinking about increasing the number of surgeons. Definitely, sufficient surgery staffing meant facilitated service delivery to the institution’s large number of customers. However, centering too much on physicians at the expense of patients had certain long-term implications for the organization. First, the approach would barely be in the favor of patients, and therefore, it would have compromised their loyalty to the hospital. Again, the approach was contrary to that of neighboring hospitals. This meant that the institution competitors would have used the cons of the strategy in securing a larger market share. While advocating for the strategy, Marvin should have considered its impact on other competitors.
Political Factors that Influenced Decision-Making
The judgment developed at LCH concerning the strategy to adopt was impaired by political determinants. For instance, the influence of executives was too much and it was unbalanced with that of other stakeholders. The opinions of leaders counted more to decision-making than those of their juniors. An excellent illustration is the case of Marvin and Graveyard. Marvin was senior to Graveyard and he directed Graveyard to execute the plans of orienting service delivery to physicians. The interaction reveals that Graveyard’s opinions did not count as much as those of her senior. Another instance of political influence in the case is the position of Russ compared to that of the senior management. Though Russ had information about an alternative approach to service orientation, the weight of his opinion is compromised by the event that his seniors opted to stick to their old ways. Eventually, the strategic planner had to make a decision that impressed LCH senior staff by going by their opinion in undertaking his planning role. Al-Sawai noted that though leaders are expected to make strategic decisions for their firms, there is a need for them to do so upon considering the thoughts of their juniors (2013, p. 86).
The Blame
Different departments are charged with varied responsibilities in health care institutions (Al-Sawai, 2013, p. 85). In LCH, it could be argued that Russ and his department were charged with coming up with strategies for the hospital. However, there were other stakeholders playing within including Ms. Graveyard and her department. Russ was reporting to the hospital CEO through the COO. As such, the role of strategic planning was not placed on Russ solely, but Ms. Graveyard and Marvin counted more or less equally. On his part, Russ suggested a possible alternative that was the trend in running services in hospitals. However, the planner did not push enough to convince the management to buy his proposal. The case presents Marvin making uninformed decision, yet Russ had information concerning the patient-centeredness. It was upon Russ to gather sufficient evidence and advocate for patient-centeredness. In addition, the strategic planner should have informed the organization about the threats associated with their physician-centered approach. On her part, Ms. Graveyard was not proactive in determining the logic of implementing Marvin’s strategies. She should have evaluated the effectiveness of the approach in facilitating service delivery at the hospital as well as its possible impact on patients. Ms. Graveyard was heading service delivery and she should have been an advocate for the patients. Marvin is also to blame. As Farbrot noted, CEOs have the greatest impact on determining whether organizations would fail or not (2010). Marvin was too much obsessed with the old ways that he failed to appreciate the suggestions made by Russ. The CEO should have welcomed contradictory views and encourage their substantiation.
OR Director’s Direct Manager’s Involvement
Direct report employees are essential for efficiency of management in organizations. In the case scenario, direct report personnel to OR directors could have worked actively in helping managers implement their strategies. This would have involved giving instant feedback on adopted strategies and timely pointing out their shortcomings and strengths. This would have helped directors to learn the need to reconsider their strategies early enough and avoid heavy losses. The direct reports would also have facilitated interactions between managers by encouraging consultations. The move would have created high chances for the development of effective opinions. Direct reports would also have been involved in emphasizing the strengths of their directors. For instance, they could have pointed out strategies adopted by their managers that would most likely benefit their organization. In so doing, direct reports would have let their mangers know their strengths and how such strengths apply to specific tasks (Adkins, 2015). For the case of LCH, such strengths include advocating for patient centeredness.
Higginbotham, E. J., & Church, K. C. (2012). Strategic planning as a tool for achieving alignment in academic health centers. Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, 123, 292–303.
Please complete the following from the textbook:
•Case 13.6 Butler Lumber Company
This case has been selected to give you an opportunity to apply financial analysis to a firm. To do this you will use the firm’s published financial and select financial ratios to make a determination about the case. (Please look at the case questions for guidance on the types of questions you should be focusing on when doing your analysis.)
Please note that there is an attached spreadsheet that has much of the necessary financial information for this case.
Remember that these cases are not to be presented in a question and answer format. Use the case template as a guide on how to write your case solution.)
Finally, copying solutions from the Internet is plagiarism; doing so can result in a grade of zero, and may result in your flunking this course. Please do not copy solutions from others or from materials found on the Internet. Your instructors have access to tools that make it very likely they will find any instances of plagiarism.
SAMPLE ANSWER
Case 13-6 Butler Lumber Company
The firm is doing well in terms of growth because the numbers indicate that the firm has managed to gain growth in its sales. However, a firm’s performance should not be measured only on how its sales volumes are growing over the years. Other factors such as return on investment are also important. Return on investment, when calculated well and honestly, can help very useful in terms if explaining how well the firm is utilizing its investment (resources) (Jiambalvo, 2009). In the case of the Butler Lumber, this does not indicate an effective use of resources. Other metrics such as residual income indicate how well the firm is growing its portfolio from trading. This is the residual income after all the costs have been met (as well as stock dividends have been paid in the case of a public company) (Jackson, Sawyers, & Jenkins, 2007). For Butler Lumber, this is not the case because despite the fact that the firms is growing in terms of sales volumes, it has not been grow its portfolio. At the same time, its profitability is also not growing as the sales are growing. This is probably because of the ineffective use of leverages financing.
A look at the books of accounts for Butler Lumber indicates some problems within the firm. First, his cash flow is not ell managed because of two major issues.
Account payable set to 10 days
Mr. Butler seems to be so enthusiastic about using finical leveraging without at the same time understanding the economic concept of leveraging the fiancés. With regard to accounts payable, most businesses that offer credit give a minimum of 30 business or calendar days. Paying these debts any earlier than the provided data is losing out on the leveraging. It is even worse if the trade credits are offered at an interest rate which means that he will have to pay the interest rate even though the did not benefit from the credit. This may only be present if the interest rates were reduced if he days early. However, if the interest rates remain the same regardless of whether he pays early or not he should be able to take as much advantage of the dread it leveraging as possible. The main point of taking any type of leverage is to make sure that the business can make some money off the leverages financing before paying out. The profits from the leveraged financing should be more than the cost of the financing (Mowen, Hansen, & Heitger, 2015). However, in Butler’s case, this does not seem to be the case. Even worse, he does not seem to understand this principle.
Using loans to pay off trade credit
He also uses loans from the bank to pay off his credit notes, which means that he is having to pay interest twice but getting very little. As see in the balance sheet, the cost of credit is jut too high and this has been caused by the fact that the business sis using the wring method in leveraging. He seem to forget that leveraging comes with a cost and it is only when this cost is well met that the leveraging can work for the business. Using one loan to off set another loan is definitely not prudent.
Butler’s appetite for leveraging is also what is pushing him to wan to take the big loan of 465 hounded. This intention not take the big loan is not justified. The problems is that the banks will not care whether the loan will be of benefit to the firm, as long as they are satisfied that he has the capacity to repay the loan and the interest it is attracting, they will be more than happy to give the loan because that is profitable to them. However, this will not necessary mean that his business is going to benefit from the financial leveraging. At the same time, just because the business is in a position t repay the loan does not mean that it is benefiting from the loan. The expansion hat Butler intents to have is way too much for him to undertake in one step. First, to take such a loan would first require the business to do a due diligence to investigate if there is enough market in for the business to expand at that rate. Taking such a huge loan without any prospects of growth in the volume of sales will means that the loan will not be able to be used to benefit the business. Yet, regardless of whether the loan is able to help the business to expand its production and sales or not, the interest rates will still have to be paid and this will mean that it is possible that the firm will be paying an interest for a loan that it did not benefit from. It is necessary to note that the bank is doing a due diligence to determine whether Butler or his business is able to repay the loan and the interest. The bank is not doing a due diligence to determine if the business will benefit from the loan. It is for the firm to do its own due diligence. In order to determine how much loan it needs in order to benefit from the loan.
Butler should continue with his expansion shame but should be very careful in the way he approaches in expanding a business is one thing that can lead to problems if the market is not ready for a fast paced expansion. In this regard, what the firm can do is to make sure that it has investigated the market. At the end, what will determine how successful the expansion bid is the readiness of the market (Weygandt, Kimmel, & Kieso, 2009). In this regard, the firm should look at how much room for expansion there is in the market and then know how much loan is needed for this expansion. This will help the firm to be able to take a loan that will help it have a prudent way of financial leveraging instead of taking a huge loan that will not be effectively utilized. The firm should not take the entire loan of 465 thousand dollars but should only take a loan of lesser amount. Instead of concentrating on taking a big loan, what the firm should look for is better terms of the loan such as lower interest rates, and flexible repayment schedule. Because the loan is being used for expanding the business, it would be necessary to make sure that the repayment of the loan is flexible and that the bank accepts to give a grace period in case the expansion bid does not succeed as soon as the expansion plan is implemented.
References
Jackson, S., Sawyers, R., & Jenkins, G. (2007). Managerial Accounting: A Focus on Ethical Decision Making. New York City, NY: Cengage Learning.
Jiambalvo, C. (2009). Managerial Accounting. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Mowen, M., Hansen, D., & Heitger, D. (2015). Cornerstones of Managerial Accounting. London, UK: Cengage Learning.
Weygandt, J., . Kimmel, P., & Kieso, E. (2009). Managerial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision Making. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Campaign objectives and consumer insight of Lorna Jane yoga pants
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Since i did finish other parts of the project so far, so only thing the writer need to do is consumer insight and campaign objective.
I will send all the information in the files and just follow my concept and idea that i provided. Also, the requirement for those 2 parts. All of them including in my files.
SAMPLE ANSWER
Campaign objectives and consumer insight of Lorna Jane yoga pants
Campaign objectives
There are several objectives for the advertisement campaigns for the Lorna Jane wear yoga pants line. These targets include developing awareness about the Eunoia line of yoga pants among the people of Sydney as an independent line of clothing. The campaign is also aimed at reaching 30 percent of the target population, which is Sydney within three months of advertisement. The attainment of the objective should be timely and precise.
The campaigns should also increase improve the attitudes f the people of Sydney about the brand, from zero percent to 20 percent. This objective should be attained by use of the natural background and the desirable models to be featured in the campaign ads. The slogan should also be made clear in all advertisements it would be significant in popularising the brand and improving the attitude of viewers of the campaign ads.
The advertisements should also show the fashion sense of the yoga pants to the potential clients as a way of increasing the attitudes of people. The slogan of the line, which is fashionably well minded, peace & beauty, eco-sexy, the beauty of the mind, natural fashion, naturally wild should be able to help achieve this aim. Campaign ads should be able to connect all the aspects captured in the slogan statement. This would blend the fashion sense of the yoga pants, natural beauty of the customers, and the outgoing nature of the young adults of between 18 and 25 years of age.
The campaigns should also enlighten the customers about the various colours and types of yoga pants under the new brand name. All the different colours of the yoga pants that signify the various parts of the slogan would be featured in the ads, while worn by a beautiful model. The ads should create a sense of choice among the viewers (Park, H, Jeon, J, & Sullivan, P 2015)..
The campaigns should highlight the strengths of the new line of yoga pants. Views of the campaigns should be able to identify the uniqueness of the material that the new yoga pants will be made of. Viewers of the ads should be able to tell the advantages of the Eunoia brand over the other brands.
Consumer insight
The target clientele are women who are interested in maintaining their body fitness body fitness. This means that the clients would majorly be female youths between the age of 18 and 25 years old who are either fit and would like to remain that way or are unfit and would like to become fit and sexy. The brand would majorly be sold in Sydney where there is a hug population of youths. The youths in Sydney are also influenced by the pop culture which influences ladies to have a youthful look.
It is a positive thing that fitness is what drives motivation to perform yoga and therefore buy yoga pants. This is because with the popularity of pop culture in Sydney, more and more women are conscious of their looks and therefore generate a long term market for products to do with yoga. The brands have a variety of categories in terms of colors and sizes to ensure that all the potential clients can get a pair of yoga pants (Carroll, A 2009).
85 percent of participants of yoga in Sydney are women. It is more likely that investments in yoga outfit for women would be less risky than the investment in outfits for men. In the total number of people who participate in yoga in Australia, 56.6 percent attended practice one or two times every week. 24.1 percent attended practice more than three times per week while the rest were not consistent. From these statistics, it is clear that the consumers need a more durable material for the yoga pants. A line of yoga pants that would be of high quality may be need by consumers. Yoga sessions also take a considerable amount of time each day of practice.
In a typical day in Sydney, about 46 percent have to work for longer hours and therefore prefer to engage in yoga in their free time because of the lack of enough time to engage in other physical activity and the calming nature of yoga.
The target market for the Lorna Jane line of yoga wear is mostly the youths. This class of people is fashionable and needs a sense of freedom. Therefore, Eunoia line of yoga pants is expected be favorable and marketable to the target group due to the lines ability to capture al the aspects of youth fashion (Park, H, Jeon, J, & Sullivan, P 2015).
The consumers should buy the yoga pants from authorized dealers of the Lorna Jane brand and other countrywide stores and malls. The yoga pants will also be available in online stores for the busy people of Sydney to purchase from their offices and homes.
The media to be used to communicate with the potential clients would majorly be social media such as facebook. This is because of the popularity of the social network. Other media for advertisement would include television and magazines. Most of the people who attend yoga also have smartphones and other internet enabled gadgets such as PCs and tablets. It is therefore easier and cheaper for the line to be advertised through social media (LaPointe, P 2012).
The campaign ads should reach at least 30 percent of the population of Sydney city to achieve the objectives of the advertisement. This may be achieved by advertisements being done at least two times between seven and nine o’clock in the night. Facebook ads should be updated as frequent a hourly due to the high number of times youths log in to facebook (Smith, S 2013).
The key challenges of communicating with the target audience may be the high expense of TV ads in terms of costs per ad. Therefore, to reduce on the cost of TV ads, the ads would be short and precise.
Bibliography
‘Effect of an office worksite-based yoga program on heart rate variability: A randomized controlled trial’ 2011, BMC Public Health, 11, 1, pp. 578-582, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 October 2015.
LaPointe, P 2012, ‘Measuring Facebook’s Impact on Marketing’, Journal Of Advertising Research, 52, 3, pp. 286-287, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 October 2015.
Smith, S 2013, ‘Conceptualising and evaluating experiences with brands on Facebook’, International Journal Of Market Research, 55, 3, pp. 357-374, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 October 2015.
Park, H, Jeon, J, & Sullivan, P 2015, ‘How does visual merchandising in fashion retail stores affect consumers’ brand attitude and purchase intention?’, International Review Of Retail, Distribution & Consumer Research, 25, 1, pp. 87-104, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 October 2015.
Carroll, A 2009, ‘Brand communications in fashion categories using celebrity endorsement’, Journal Of Brand Management, 17, 2, pp. 146-158, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 October 2015.
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The case you will analyze is, “Case 30: Yahoo! Inc.: Marissa Mayer’s Challenge.” In preparation for your case analysis, read “Guide to Strategic Management Case Analysis” in the text, which provides valuable advice on how to analyze a business case.
Your paper needs to include at least two charts, graphs, or visual aids to support your points.
I can scan over to you the Guide to Strategic Management Case Analysis.
SAMPLE ANSWER
Marissa Mayer’s Challenge
Introduction
Plagued with adverse management challenges, failed business strategies and evident loss of industry dominance, Yahoo! Inc appointed Marissa Mayer to head the organization, in the hope that she would re-invent it to its former glory. Having worked as an executive at Yahoo greatest competitor Google, Mayer is expected to bring in her expertise to address the challenges at the organization. Mayer faced a significant number of challenges including the need to change Yahoo’s culture towards greater innovation, less bureaucracy and higher employee productivity; low financial performance in comparison with other players in the market; and the management of funds obtained from Yahoo’s sale of its share at Alibaba. Mayer was expected to steer the company towards a stable direction, having experienced a major leadership crisis leading to constant change of CEOs, especially within the last five years. This case study will address some of the challenges and problems that Mayer faces, with an objective of suggesting workable recommendation for Mayer and Yahoo.
Yahoo’s Background
The determination of two Stanford University students, Jerry Yang and David Filo, to find a means of tracking their favorite web pages on the internet marks the genesis of Yahoo Inc. In February 1994, Yang and Filo developed a list of websites and as the list got longer, they categorized them into subgroups for easier management. This was later followed by the development of the Yahoo! Website, which the pair came up with as a means to categorize their growing list and enable easy search of the websites. The search engine eventually gained popularity among friends and other students as a way of finding websites on the internet.
In the fall of 1994, the duo began considering the venture as a business opportunity, when the site eventually reached a millionth user hit. Having obtained venture capital to get the business going, Filo and Yang appointed Motorolla veteran, Tim Koogle to head the business as CEO. Yahoo recorded exceptional growth, providing the earliest World Wide Web online navigational guide; before using its platform to sell advertising space. In April 1996, the company went public and soon after expanded into Europe and Japan, forming Yahoo! Europe and Yahoo! Japan; which would ensure that the company offers its services to users worldwide.
By 2001, Yahoo was employing 3,000 people, making over $717 million in annual revenues and owned 24 global properties. Appointed in 2001, the new CEO Terry Semel led Yahoo into new ventures and the company consequently gained revenues from music, photo sharing, blogging and posting. Over the years, Yahoo continued to develop new products in line with market needs and competition. Yahoo mostly generated revenue from advertising space, listing fees and transaction fees. Major products included Yahoo! Homepage, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo! Answers, Yahoo! Travel; all which are updated with content to ensure traffic to the website. Management of Yahoo’s global business is done geographically and consists of three segments including the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). To increase its reach, Yahoo had sites in forty five languages across sixty countries.
Problem statement
As Merissa Mayer enters Yahoo as the CEO, she is faced with various issues, which she must address to prove her ability to revolutionize yahoo. To begin with, Mayer comes into a company which has been managed by numerous CEOs and the biggest challenge remains giving a new and stable direction from the company. As the fourth CEO in 2012 alone, Mayer is faced with the challenge of establishing which direction Yahoo should take, having been steered to different directions by the various CEOs (Tsukayama, 2012). There are high expectations that Mayer will turn the company around, given her expertise and pressure is therefore on her to deliver.
Yahoo faced stiff competition from new entrants, with Google proving to be the biggest threat. Combined with low economic times, Yahoo’s performance deteriorated and company even laid off some employees in 2008 and 2010. The company struggled with management crisis over the years, constantly changing the management in a bid to revive the company. Jerry Yang would later replace Semel as CEO in 2007 and later pave way for Carol Bartz, who was then followed by Tim Morse and Scott Thompson in quick succession. Yahoo’s competiveness failed to improve despite the various strategies adopted by the various CEOs. It also faced a significant amount of internal politics and investor unrest that caused constant ripples in the organization’s operations. Microsoft made several attempts to acquire Yahoo but their bids were considered undervalued.
The financial performance of Yahoo has been declining over the years and while the company performed exceptionally well during its initial years, the share price has slowed down considerably over the years. This can be attributed to high levels of competition as well as lack of innovation in strategy, causing the firm to lose to competitors including Google and Microsoft.
The graph below indicates the stock price trend during the tenures of various CEOs in Yahoo’s history.
Essentially, Marissa Mayer is faced with various challenges including the following:
Enhance efficiency at the organization and change the corporate culture in order to promote performance
Deal with the high level of competition in the industry
Deal with redundant policies, processes and bureaucracy
Guide the organization into forming an identity; either work focus on being a technology firm or a media firm
Establish the best manner to invest the proceeds from selling half of its investment at Alibaba
Promote growth by targeting new markets
Alternative solutions
Marissa could begin by working on the organization’s culture to eliminate the redundant policies, processes and bureaucracy that threaten innovation and creativity. Beltrán-Martín and Roca-Puig (2013, p. 646) notes that employees are more likely to be flexible and innovative where they are given an open environment to work in and where their capabilities are not limited by bureaucracies. Mayer should encourage direct interaction with employees and ensure that each creative suggestion can be accommodated. In addition, she must instill a working culture that enables employees to be creative and proactive in their work in order to ensure that the company keeps up with other companies such as Google which fosters a creative culture Lowe (2009, p. 9). A change in culture would certainly face resistance as employees adjust to the new policies, hence the need to introduce change gradually.
Yahoo needs to focus on one strategy and excel on it as opposed to taking on a variety of products and having average or poor results. As much as diversification spreads risk for the company however, specialization is also considered effective because it allows the management to focus all its energies into enhancing success of the chosen product. Yahoo for example could focus on search and thus work towards marketing itself as a niche solution when it comes to search. The company could also focus on being a media company, and follow this strategy to excel in this field. While this strategy is effective in promoting a focused organization, it is apparent that the internet business is highly competitive and specialization may limit the organization’s earnings (Chickowski, 2008, p. 12-13). Furthermore, Yahoo already possesses skills and expertise in a wide array of internet solutions and it would be inappropriate to let go of all the investment they have made. In this regard, the solution would be to select a few number of businesses that are performing well and concentrate on these to bring more revenue to the company.
Mayer should leverage on the growing mobile platform to reach more users through Yahoo. Statistics indicate that more users than ever are accessing the internet through their mobile devices and this is expected to grow Fulgoni (2015, p. 116). This is indicated in the graph below.
Source: eMarketer, Dec 2014
The best solution would be to create content that correlates with what mobile users search for online. While this solution promises better user reach, it is important for Yahoo to realize that that every other internet-based organization is eyeing this strategy as a means to promote business, hence the need to be very innovative in their approach Chickowski, 2008, p. 13).
Mayer should use her strengths at search, acquired from Google to promote Yahoo’s performance in this sector. Mayer headed the Google’s search business for a significant number of years and therefore possesses the right skills of knowing what users want to see on the internet. She should then guide the organization into adopting the right skills to promote content development and thus increase traffic to Yahoo. This would not only increase the amount of advertising revenue but it would eventually lead to an improvement in the company’s share price. This approach like the any other means that the organization must face competitors, through coming up with innovative strategies to create a niche.
Mayer needs to increase the quality of the workforce in order to realize better organizational performance. It is clear that the industry has become highly competitive and the productivity of workers at Yahoo is questionable as indicated in the in the case study. This also includes providing extensive training for staff and research to ensure that the company possesses knowledge on the most current trends. In order for this alternative to work, Marissa must be willing to sacrifice some of the inefficient hiring policies as well as ineffective workers. This may create unrest within the company if now well executed.
Proposed Solution and Recommendations
The above suggested solutions present highly valid strategies that Mayer could adopt in creating a more productive Yahoo. The most suitable solutions based on the discussion above would be to change the organization’s culture, encourage innovation and productivity among employees and focus on mobile technology as an avenue to gain a niche in the online market.
As Mayer undertakes a change in Yahoo’s culture, promoting an innovative culture for employees should be a major priority. By allowing employees to be creative, eliminating irrelevant policies that limit innovation and maintaining an open door policy, Mayer could soon transform Yahoo through the employees’ potential (Tampu, 2015, p. 45). In an online study conducted by Ideacomb in 2012, it was established that talent management to a significant extent determines the innovation level in any industry. The report further established that most employees were not comfortable with the idea of the CEO being the only one responsible for innovation and would therefore desire to participate. Based on the responses obtained from the survey, employees are motivated to be more productive and innovative when they are recognized by the management and when they are given an opportunity to participate in the innovation process. The graph below is an indication that allowing employees to be innovative is a source of motivation.
In order to promote productivity, Mayer should go ahead with her plan to review all new hires to establish their potential and ensure that they will deliver quality work for the organization. In addition, she should ensure that the level of commitment among employees in the company is increased considerably within the organization. To achieve this, employees can be put under performance programs, aimed at assessing their contribution to the performance. Through this program, Yahoo will ensure that only the productive employees are maintained while inefficient ones are eliminated.
The mobile user platform promises great potential for Yahoo and Mayer should consider this as the next business for the organization. This involves identifying the content that mobile users are interested in, and thus work towards tailor-making the internet experience to suit mobile users. Through creating new applications and focusing on social media as a medium for reaching mobile users, Yahoo could transform into a media company that will derive significant gains from the mobile user population. Social media is a particularly fertile ground in reaching mobile users and Yahoo could create content that targets users of popular social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr, Foursquare, LinkedIn and its photo sharing social media platform Flickr and among others. The traffic created could then be used to sell advertising space, thus earning the company its former glory.
Simmo’s Ice Cream is a company based in Australia established in the year 1992. It mainly deals with ice cream and related products. This report aims at establishing a good marketing plan. Therefore, the paper analyses the company fundamentals using SWOT analysis. On the same note, the paper analyzes the competitive advantage and market positioning of Simmo’s Ice-Cream Company. This report mainly concentrates on how the company can invest in product promotion with an aim of achieving competitive advantage over competitors and other key players in the market. If successfully implemented, this report would greatly assist for the future expansion plans of the company.
Introduction
Simmo’s Ice Cream is a company that specializes in the manufacture of various brands of ice cream. The company has made considerable profits through low production costs, providing quality products and by hiring employees that provide excellent customer service. They have created a new type of various flavors given the increasing market competition from several other companies dealing in the same line of business. It deals with various flavors that include dairy free, lactose-free vegan flavor and latest being Yahava coffee flavor. All this is mainly aimed at achieving customer satisfaction. As a matter of fact, there is increasingly changes in the customer taste and preferences and, therefore, need to meet the customer need and satisfaction.
Simmo’s Ice Cream enjoys a variety of a good customer base ranging from tourists, couples and families on holidays and also corporate partners. The ice cream company based in Dunsborough, Western Australia, has a long establishment history. Having been established in 1992, it has undergone considerable expansion process with their expansive market base. It has a large labor base with their employees going on recess during winter. The Simmo’s Ice Cream is mainly made from the locally available raw materials from scratch with the materials sourced from the surrounding areas of Dunsborough, Western Australia.
Strengths
· High investment on innovation
· Marketing through the internet
· Expert team of managers
· Equity in flavors and brand
· Efficient distribution and supply routes
· Good reputation from the public
Weakness
· Few customers and small market
· Few products and brands
· Low production during winter
Opportunities
· Foreign markets increase
· Innovation and new product development
· Sales and marketing through the internet
· New classes of flavors development
Threats
· Competition from other Ice Cream manufacturers
· Poor economic growth
· Changes in foreign markets and government policies
· Changing foreign exchange rates
· Price wars with other manufacturers
Competitive advantage and positioning and marketing objectives
Simmo’s Ice Cream competitive advantage arises in that it is one of the leading ice cream sellers in Australia. It enjoys a sweet and a long history having been established a little bit longer hence it has won more of the consumer markets. The product already has gained adequate market perception and is, therefore, easy to evaluate on the customer satisfaction basing on previous reports on performances of the brand (Hollensen, 2015).
Customer Feedback is also highly valued and, therefore, gaining a competitive advantage. The differentiation of the product branding is mainly unique and of its own. The unique taste and flavors make it fit for all consumers due to varied consumer tastes and preferences. The affordability and use of locally produced raw materials make it more viable and very tasteful. Most customers would wish to purchase it for the purposes of trying this unique product.
Its planned marketing strategy mainly aims at digitalizing their operations. This is mainly through the use of social platforms for marketing and also employing a technical team to assist in new brand developments and flavors.
Marketing objectives
First, Simmo’s Ice Cream’s major objective is to outshine other competitors in the market for example Unilever of Britain. Also, it aims at increasing its market through facultative and intense advertisements. This will help in increasing the market penetration and obtaining more feedback from the customers.
Target market
The main target markets for Simmo’s Ice Cream products include but not limited to; tourists, both local and international, families who are out on holidays and also foreign markets not exploited. Low and medium class earners are the ideal target market given that the products are pocket-friendly. The young population is also the target market given that they would prefer to eat these ice creams as a hobby and during their time out. This target market can be easily reached through a chain of various selling points. Also, it ought to be distributed through key retailers.
When packaging and branding of the product, it is good for the manufacturer to use or have more appealing and consumer friendly packages that are affordable (West et al., 2015). Distinctive packaging helps eliminate doubts of similar packages by customers. Packaging using tetra packs also helps improve the shelf life of the Simmo’s Ice Cream products. Marketing mix is also a key aspect of product strategy. This marketing mix is achieved through differentiation in the product, distribution chain, the pricing and also promotion strategies.
Product design
Simmo’s Ice Cream should design the product in a way that reduces production cost. The product should, therefore, economical. The design should be more appealing given that the customers mainly look at the prices, their appearances and also in terms of prestige depending on their class. The technical team should ensure the right flavors are achieved.
Pricing strategy
Pricing based on time is a key strategy given that demand varies with time. For example, the price can be reduced during winter due to the low demand. Similarly, prices can be a little bit hiked on holidays given the demand. Also, prices can be based on the value and flavor of the product. Simmo’s Ice Cream can also apply their role of price leadership in the Australian market by setting up the prices that are to be adopted by other players in the market. Since they utilize price leadership strategy, the company should set prices that ensure there is a higher contribution margin so as to maximize profits and gather for all costs used in the production, distribution, marketing and branding of the product.
Simmo’s should also utilize decoy pricing strategy. That is Simmo’s can offer at least 3 products and give one product for free. This strategy can encourage clients to purchase more products so as to have a similar product as a discount. The company can also set prices of other products to be higher than the others as a strategy of promoting sales of the lower priced products that has adopted decoy pricing.
The company can also set lower prices when introducing new products. This strategy can be adopted so as to make a product familiar and encourage clients to purchase the product and build customer relationship. However, this strategy should be utilized only for a short period in the marketing cycle.
Place strategy
Simmo’s Ice Cream should locate their shops at strategic points that are easily accessible to customers. At the same time, the cost of the distribution channels should be economical. They can also choose to do marketing through the internet to enable an online placing of orders. Evaluation of competitors’ strategies is also a key factor. The management should also evaluate the ability of continuous supply of raw materials, and ensure that the product is adequately supplied within all markets in time. This trend helps reduce shortages in some markets. Also required is an effective invoicing system, supply management and control of stock.
Promotion strategy
Promotion is a critical path in the marketing strategy. Simmo’s Ice Cream should engage in intensive advertisement through it unique branding. Advertising is important as it makes products to be familiar in the market. On the same note, promotion promotes goodwill and build image as well as educate and inform the public about the available products in the market. Also, it should aim at persuading the customers into purchasing their products. This goal can also be achieved through giving out of offers and discounts. Successful advertising can be through the print media, social platforms, window display and use billboards and cartoons. Competitive selling is also a key principle here. Competitive selling plays a critical role when it comes to prospecting and quantifying the product depending on the set prices.
On the same note, Simmo’s should engage in extensive sales promotion. That is they should provide incentives to promote their products and obtain a competitive edge in the market. The company should organize seminars and workshops that can be used to sensitize the customers about Simmo’s products. The company should also exhibit their products in business exhibitions that are organized across the country. These exhibitions are important in showing the products strengths and encouraging customers to purchase the organization products.
Finally, when the organization has expanded, the company should use event sponsorship strategy to promote sales and build customer relationship. The company can consider sponsoring popular events such as football games, charity runs and other events that are dear to the people in the market. This strategy often helps to improve corporate image and encourage customer loyalty and thus organization sustainability in the long run.
Poster
Conclusion
On conclusion, an effective marketing strategy will help the company to expand reasonably. The future expansion plans greatly depend on the company’s ability to put in strategies that will help it achieve market leadership. The products of this company enjoy a large market in Australia and recently foreign markets.
The strategies put in place will help it achieve profitability at the same time giving back to the society through employment and purchasing materials locally (Baker, 2014). Through the application of the SWOT analysis, the company can put in place strategies to outgrow the increasingly changing business environment.
Bibliography
Hollensen, S. (2015). Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson Education.
West, D., Ford, J., & Ibrahim, E. (2015). Strategic marketing: creating competitive advantage. Oxford University Press.
Baker, M. J. (2014). Marketing strategy and management. Palgrave Macmillan.
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This week you will be completing work on your Final Project for this module. The purpose of the Final Project is to apply the concepts and techniques of the module to the analysis of real-world situations or problems. Students are expected to use diverse sources of information, which must include the University library resources, and to carry out an original analysis rather than summarise or rehash existing work. Students are encouraged to use situations and data from their own experience where possible.
For this project, you will research a well-known multinational company or a multinational organisation that you know well and propose an appropriate reward and pay strategy that you believe would best motivate employees to meet the overall organisational strategy and objectives.
Your task for Week 8 is to complete and hand in your Final Project Report. It should include the following requirements:
1. An assessment of the organisation in terms of its organisational strategy, objectives, mission and values.
2. An analysis of the environment in which the organisation operates with regards to industry, business life cycle, etc.
3. An evaluation of the organisation’s current reward and pay strategies: for meeting its overall organisational strategy and for maintaining competitive advantage in the face of new challenges and changing conditions.
4. A reasoned and evidence-based conclusion about the level of success achieved by the organisation in motivating employees to reach organisational objectives and propose a reward and pay strategy that may better serve this purpose.
Naturally, a reference list of sources will be appended to the final analysis.
Your analysis and discussion should have a theoretical foundation based in library research and should demonstrate an awareness of the effect of cultural values upon successfully managing a diverse workforce.
NOTE: The company that I want you to write about is Qatar Airways. And the propusle and the outline I sent them by email please read them before you start writing the project. Thank you very much
SAMPLE ANSWER
Qatar airways Final project
Qatar Airways is a company that has been in existence for more than two decades. During those two decades, the company was seen as the fastest growing airline internationally. The reason being that the airline serves over 140 destinations all over Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Furthermore, it has an employment base of almost 31000 people, of which 19000 directly work for the airline. The headquarters of the company are in Doha, located in the Qatar Airways Tower. In addition to the prosperity of the company, it is seen as a multinational company that has set the pace for other multinationals to follow.
Qatar Airways is a large organization that has multiple branches located all over the world. However, for an organization of dynamic size like this one to operate and function optimally. There has to be a proper organizational structure in place. Therefore, we take a look into the organizational structure of Qatar Airway. At the top, the most position of the structure is the CEO. The CEO is at the front line of making organizational decisions that will impact on the organization in some ways. To understand the work of the CEO, let’s refer to him or her as the Managing Director. So, what is the role of the Managing Director?
The managing director is the one who is in charge of all the management operations in the organization. He is the captain of the organization when referring to it as a ship. Therefore, all the managerial decisions made are made by him or on behalf of him. Hence, he or she is an important tool to the effective running of the organization. Below the managing director there happens to be the operations department, finance department and the fleet manager. The specific sections are defined simply by their names. Operations department in charge of all customer care and service issues. The finance department is mainly concerned with the funds of the organization while the fleet manager handles the managing the fleet of airplanes owned by the company. This includes operations such as servicing and maintenance of the airplanes owned by Qatar Airlines. Therefore, every employee is assigned to a specific section in the organizational structure according to their set of professional skills.
In consideration of the strategic goals of an organization, there are specific significant aspects that need to be looked at. In essence, one cannot afford to oversee the significance of a mission statement and a vision statement in an organization. Most organizations in the world have these statement even before they start operating. The importance of these statements gives a scope of how the company operates and the specific goals that are important to the operation of the company. The mission statement of Qatar Airways is, “excellence in everything we do”. Looking at the mission statement, it is very evident that the organization has very much interest in excellence in every aspect of their operation. Hence, the organization believes in working towards an end goal that would ensure that it excels in everything that it takes a business interest in. Therefore, the objectives of the organization are all aligned towards excellence in every aspect. Thus, the values of the organization can all have a basis of excellence, seeing that every aspect of the organization is somehow reflected on the mission statement.
Qatar Airways operate in a dynamic environment. Looking into the business interests of the organization, it is evident that the travel business is the mainstay of the organization. Furthermore, the organization has more interests in other business areas such as tourism and much more. For instance, the organization operates in all of the six inhabited continents. The geographical area in which the organization operates shows the level to which the organization has grown to become a multinational organization. The environment is therefore quite dynamic. This is evident from the many nations in which the airline has over 140 destinations that are available to their customers.
To enable the organization to function in an efficient and effective manner. The organizational structure must be shifted from time to time to allow dynamic business management in the diverse environment the business takes place. Therefore, the organization has put in place a system that ensures that the very many destinations it provides to its customers are available and well managed every time. To achieve this level of diverse management, there has to be a management model put in place to allow effective intercommunication between the various agencies of the airways that exist globally.
Communication is key to the function of all organizations. For this specific organization, there needs to be an effective communication scheme that allows the managers to effectively communicate certain aspects to their employees to ensure the swift manner of running things in such a dynamic organization. Therefore, the need to ensure that one such scheme is put in place and monitored from time to time is very crucial. In a business lifecycle that is as demanding as the one experienced by Qatar Airways, the manager needs to consider every important aspect of the organization’s function to properly operate business in the organization.
For instance, there is the current reward and pay strategy that is being implemented at Qatar Airways. The strategy has different sections that in overall make the whole strategy be of much significant to the organization in question. The different sections all have different ways in which the reward and pay strategy is implemented. The following are the different sections available in the current reward and pay strategy in use at Qatar Airways. These sections include compensation, benefits, affiliation, and work content and lastly career.
Compensation is all about paying the employees for the work well done. In essence, it is all about rewarding the employees for the effort they have put into improving the performance of the organization in its daily operations. Compensation is achieved through the following aspects, transparency of the pay process, basic salary, and regular incentives. Benefits are the other aspect that is of much consideration when implementing a reward and pay strategy (Aksakal et al., 2014). This aspect deals with solely health, retirement, time off, talent development and work/life balance. Affiliation, on the other hand, is concerned more with the social aspect of the organization. The affiliation aspect looks into specific details like the working relationships, the reputation of the organization, culture, and community citizenship. Work content and lastly career focus on the customer side and work aspect of an individual employee. Work content includes things like variety, autonomy, structure, feedback and challenges at work. While career involves things like training, employment security, personal growth, status and last promotion. All these aspect look into the specific areas that are covered overall by the reward and pay strategy implemented by an organization.
The current reward and pay strategy being used by Qatar Airways is a good one. Its benefits are both financial and non-financial. In the business world, it is said that the best reward should be a combination of many things. The organization, which is the Qatar Airways are keen to ensure that they do not leave out any aspect that will make the reward and pay strategy weak at any point. A reward strategy would be a good one if it went hand in hand with the strategic goals of the organization. The current reward and pay strategy at Qatar Airways encompasses a lot of objectives that outset the following.
Firstly, the significance of a reward strategy will depend on its impact on the individual and team performance of employees in the organization (De Gieter et al., 2015). The strategy currently in place at Qatar Airways proves to be significance in every aspect. In essence to employee performance. The strategy seems to drive individual and team performance on the side of improvement. This is evident from the ever growing numbers of customers that use the services offered by Qatar Airways. Leading to the high growth rate of the multinational company in a global perspective. Better employee performance eventually points to an improved overall organizational performance.
Secondly, Qatar Airways have been in near to perfect control of their resources. This only means one thing. That the current reward strategy is a sustainable one. A reward strategy should be one that would not cause any stress on the finances of the organization to the point that it affects the normal running of the organization. In this context, the current reward strategy is effective in a way that it does not put any stress on any financial aspect of the organization. If the opposite were true, then the reward strategy would have been inappropriate to use in the current state of the organizational and then it would have been wise to adopt a reward strategy that would amend the wrongs done by the current one.
Thirdly, there is the issue of assessing the effect of the strategy on the employees. The current effective reward and pay strategy at Qatar Airways would not have been as effective as it is if it was not fully integrated into the system. For the reward and pay strategy to achieve full integration into the system, it must not only support, but also compliment the organizational strategies. This means that the working of the reward and pay strategy would have to use the strategic goals of the organization to form the basis on which it would operate. This would ensure that the goals of the reward and pay strategy would go hand in hand with those of the organization.
However, there is a loophole that needs to be fixed in the reward and pay strategy. The non-financial aspect of the reward strategy seems to be weak than the financial aspect. Furthermore, in the current age of business and human relation matters. More and more employees are becoming more attracted to the non-financial aspect of reward and pay strategies (Perkins et al., 2011). Hence, there needs to be some change effected into strategy currently in place at the organization. To effectively tackle the challenge of the rising need for non-financial aspect of reward and pay strategy. The organization needs to identify the things that retain talented employees. This can be identified using employee forums. Employee forums would help in determining what drives performance and what encourages retention. Reviewing the policies to ensure fairness and equity is another wise move that the organization can make towards improving the non-financial aspect of reward and pay strategy.
In conclusion, the reward and pay strategy in use at Qatar Airways is an effective one. The effectiveness is evident from the integration with the organizational goals, improved employee performance both in teams and individually and lastly does not put any constraints on the finances of the organization. However, there is still room for improving the current reward and pay strategy. The key areas where such improvement would be considered needed is the non-financial aspects of the reward and pay strategy. In essence, in the current age of financial crisis that multinational organizations are undergoing. It is prudent that these organizations do not overlook the importance of putting in place a reward and pay system that would consider the financial situation that an organization finds itself in.
References
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