Gap Analysis: Kuiper Leda Regardless of how successful a business is, if supplies do not keep up with demands that business will have a difficult time to make profits without the needed sales. The reverse is also true when the supplies grossly exceed demands as the excess inventory would result in tied up money that could be used for other projects or business plans. Therefore, the art of making the most of the inventory is to have the products available when and where they are needed. Situation Analysis Kuiper Leda (KL), operated out of the Republic of Novamia, is a manufacturer of electronic components, especially in the production of the Electronic Control Units (ECUs) and the sensors for the automotive industry (University of Phoenix, 2009). For the past six months, KL has introduced the new product line of producing the Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFIDs) (University of Phoenix, 2009).
Inefficient transportation can also result in higher inventories to offset delays and raise costs, and, causes delayed delivery to customers. 10-3. Answer depends on the businesses selected. 10-4. Answer depends on the example the student selects.
Wal-Mart has found that once formed, changing negative perceptions is often difficult and the effort involves considerable amount of resources with questionable outcomes. It will show that being a good 'Corporate Citizen' and creating positive stakeholder perception is a better strategic approach for Wal-Mart’s continuing success and help them to keep their core customer base: low income households. The main intent of this paper is to answer questions based on the following document; Maich, S. (2004). Wal-Mart's Mid-Life Crisis. Maclean's, 117(34), 45.
We will also look at bureaucracy issues that large firms suffer which are due to the non-performing managers and workers or the divisions, for e.g. a tools department of a large automotive firm may decide to buy from market due to the non competitive performance of there own tools division. Firm’s decision to buy from market is sometimes limited when the firm is exploited because of incomplete contracts, Oliver Williamson in his book The Economic Institution of Capitalism concluded that transactions cost include the time and expense of negotiating, writing and enforcing contracts as well as far greater costs that arise when firms exploit incomplete contracts. Oil and Gas industry follows vertical integration in supply chain which arises because of Technological economies, meaning less input cost will be required to produce a given output in downstream process. Such pricing lowers reported input prices and raises the profit of downstream operation.
The stronger each of these forces is, the more established companies are limited in their ability to raise prices and earn greater profits. A strong competitive force is a threat because it depresses profits. A weak competi¬tive force is an opportunity because it allows the company to earn greater returns. Changes in the strength of the forces signal changes in the competitive landscape critical to ongoing strategy formulation. As the forces are discussed, the threat of entry, particular attention paid to the determinants of barriers to entry and expected retaliation.
This puts pressure on prices, costs, and the rate of investment necessary to compete in the industry. When the threat of new entrants is high, existing companies must hold down their prices or boost investment to deter new entrants. Something to be noted about this force is that it is not the physical entry of new competitors into the industry that drives profitability down, it is the threat of new entrants, which depends on the height of entry barriers that are present and on the reaction entrants can expect from incumbents. The major forces that lead to entry barriers are: supply-side economies of scale (deter entry by forcing entrants to either come into the industry on a large scale, which requires dislodging entrenched competitors, or to accept a cost disadvantage); demand-side benefits of scale (arise in industries where a
GM has had to reevaluate the company’s organizational structure for financial solvency, and to gain a foothold against strong competition expanding into the US and developing markets abroad. The Company’s Traditional Structure The old GM historically had a Vertical organizational structure. The rigid hierarchy may have contributed to some of the problems they faced as globalization increased competition. GM had many different companies centralized and all tied to the GM name. This created many redundancies in management, and this reflected in the products.
Curled Metal Inc. Executive Summary Situation Analysis and Main Problem - CMI is a well established company in the automotive market that is about to launch a new product. The new CMI’s cushion pads have tested very well in field tests conducted by the company and now its managers must decide how to penetrate this new market. The pads main competitor product are the aluminum pads, many companies manufacture them and some construction companies even do it themselves. There are no organized channels of selling and distributing the product and CMI must decide for themselves how to sell the product and at what price. EVC analysis (Appendix A) shows that the new pad’s EVC is ~$4,500 and CMI must now decide on how to price the new product as to distribute the value between themselves and the customers.
References 5 Appendix Executive Summary The basic purpose of this report is to discover and analyse the structure of the global automobile car manufacturing industry by categorizing environmental factors influences into 4 groups: economic, competitive, political and technological. Being based on the analysis and using Porter’s Five Forces Framework evaluate the attractiveness of this industry sector for competing in. And finally is to identify ‘critical success factors’ which the company should give particular attention as they define success or a company failure in the market, its competitive possibilities directly influencing its profitableness. Key findings of this report have shown that the automobile market is mature. The structure of global market is presented, mainly, by American, European and the Asian automobile markets.
1. Motivation and Feasibility This is a final year project in branding area which refers to a comparative analysis between branding of BMW Mini Cooper and Volkswagen Beetle. The reason to focus on these two sub brands of two famous international brands is that there are some obvious points of parities while there are also some points of differences between these two brands in the process of successful branding. To be more specific, in the first place, both of these two brands belong to large and old car companies. The two old car companies have great influence on the two brands and the whole car industry.