Summary * Burt’s Bees is a company that was founded in 1984 by Roxanne Quimby and Burt Shavitz in central Maine and produces beeswax-based natural skin care products and handmade crafts. * Burt’s Bees started with an investment of four hundred dollars when Quimby met Shavitz, a beekeeper in Maine and an ex-photographer for Life and New York magazines * Quimby’s entrepreneurial lessons were learned at a very young age from her Harvard educated father. * Quimby started visiting all the local fairs so she could sell their products. * The first year sales were $ 81000 which seemed an unattainable amount to Quimby. * Burt’s Bee’s first big break came in 1989 at a wholesale show in Springfield, Massachusetts when one of their new creations, a teddy bear candle, was noticed by an up-scale Manhattan boutique store.
Based on the case study, Coe’s has opened at least 1,000 stores and their strengths are showed in many situations. For the example is at the early paragraph where Aubrey the store manager of Coe’s in South Tuscan tell the CEO that they already have over 100 customers even though just open less than a month. Its shows that Coe’s company is already well-known in local market. Besides that, have good staff also one of the strengths of the company. It can be seen how Aubrey fostered immediate trust with their customers and from the conversation Stan with Carmen at Circle K about she get everything furniture from Coe’s services.. Coe does also have strength in systems of service.
Executive Summary Roxanne Quimby, the founder of Burt’s Bees, made the strategic decision to move company operations from Maine to North Carolina. Although a highly successful organization with $3 million in revenue in 1993, Quimby felt that the firm had outgrown their location in Maine. Strategic advantages for the move included lower production costs, better employment tax rates, ability to attract skilled and talented workers, and optimization of their distribution capabilities. However, with these goals and changes in mind, Quimby soon had second thoughts when she realized that the company would undergo a significant transformation in identity, culture and strategy. Based on the given situation, she concluded that her only options were as follows: move back to Maine, stay in North Carolina or sell the company.
In the early period after she graduated from Stanford University, she got a precious job among more than 60 people as the editor in Tandem, she was not so influential at that time. But she had great chance to get in touch with senior leader who help her in her later career. One of her quality we should study is, when we are not as influential as we can be noticed by most people, we must try our best to do our daily work. Only in that way can we have opportunity to get a promotion. Providence does not let down a man who does his best, she established T/Maker with her brother successfully and T/Maker quickly occupied the market.
Through a combination of low-key marketing, consumer education and social activism, The Body Shop rewrote the rulebook for the $16 billion global cosmetics business and made Roddick one of the richest women in England. Customers wanted to sell the products, and in 1984 the company went public and spread
Inuit was founded in 1983 by Scott Cook (Former Procter & Gamble employee) and Tom Proulx (Stanford University Programmer), that develops and sells financial and tax solution software for consumers and small to medium sized businesses. The company has always thrived to revolutionise people’s lives by solving their important business and financial management problems. Quicken was its product that was launched in 1984 and struggled the first year, but due to positive reviews in trade journals and print campaign strategies, Intuit got its first break and by 1988 Quicken was the best selling finance product on the market. Early 1990’s saw Intuit growing due to success of Quicken, QuickBooks and Turbotax. These products made some significant contribution in small businesses.
In his words she was “…absolutely captivating…very articulate, obviously quite bright, and most important, very enthusiastic about assisting with the start-up of a new venture…he was determined that, somehow, Cathy Brannen would be his first employee” (Cousins, 1992, p. 2). Mr. Finley decided that to make the position attractive to Ms. Brannen, he would offer her a slightly below market salary augmented with a two percent sales override. Mr. Finley’s company was successful and grew to seventeen employees over the first seven years. After seven years it was brought to Mr. Finley’s attention how much Ms. Brannen was being paid for her services that prior year, $127, 614.21. Some key aspects of the case will be described later but we will mention one key quote here to complete the introduction to this case.
Milton Hershey successfully integrated the business with the community and the relationship was one of mutual beneficence. The current leadership was mainly concerned about money and not leadership. Not to say that money is not an important factor, but the special relationship between the survival of the town and Hershey Foods required strong consideration. The Attorney General had it right in declaring that HTC needed to make changes. Still, selling Hershey foods was not the answer.
There were no specific persons involved in the change to either operate in the roles of navigator, coach, interpreter, caretaker or nurturer. The only dominate change image represented or operating was that of the director. No plans were put into place to foster change, and encouragement and/or incentives to change were not presented to the workers at Perrier in a manner that encouraged involvement and inclusions in the change process. Nestles’ purchase of Perrier appeared profit driven. Although Nestle’ is the world’s largest food company, management at Nestle’ felt that they could purchase Perrier’ and gain an advantage over its competition in the bottled water market.
Herman Miller is an office-furniture maker in Michigan and has long been celebrated as a model of superb employee relations and it stood at the forefront with modern environmentally friendly policies such as: The company organised “silver parachutes” for employees who lost their jobs in an economic downturn so that they received big cheques Herman Miller limited top execs salaries to 20 times that of the line worker (it was not uncommon to find top execs earning 100 times that of a line worker) Employees were organised into work teams and every six months both workers and employees would evaluate each other They ensured career development prospects for employees by scrapping nepotism in the company – the owner’s family was not even allowed to work in the company in any capacity. Management kept a paternalistic relationship with employees – they practiced a participative management style by involving them in management processes. The advantages of a participative management structure are: People tend to be more cooperative and enthusiastic when they have some involvement in the planning Better decisions are usually more common when different experiences and points of view are raised Employee development is maximised The disadvantages are: Consultation takes time and many decisions are too minor to warrant that sort of time commitment or a decision has to be made quickly and there is no time for commitment No benefit is likely for new or untrained employees The best managers use participative techniques whenever they can, especially when the decision affects the employees – but they choose their opportunities carefully In 1995 Herman Miller was a $1billion company, but sale were only $800million in 1989 so the growth was very slow – profits slid from $40m in the 80s to $4.5m in 1995. In 1992 it recorded a net loss of $3.5m – its first loss