The case study analysis the evolution of Hong Kong based Li & Fung Limited from a traditional trading company into a global consumer goods export trading giant and a manager of customers supply chains. It discusses in detail the company’s efforts to constantly evolve its business model in response to the changes in the external environment and the customer needs and preferences. The case study examines Li & Fung’s major strategies viz. Positioning itself as supply chain manager, integration of operational strategy with its organizational strategies, customer-centric organizational structure, technology and Internet initiatives, and globalization efforts, which contributed to the company’s emergence as one of the world’s leading consumer goods trading companies. Finally, the case explores the challenges facing Li & Fung and discusses its future prospects in the light of these challenges. The key focus of the case is on enabling to gain a comprehensive understanding of globalization - rationale, levels of globalization, managing global operations, globalization strategies and challenges. Li & Fung Limited is today one of the premier global consumer products export trading companies managing the supply chain for high-volume, time sensitive consumer goods, including garments, fashion accessories, toys, sporting goods, promotional merchandise, handicrafts, shoes, travel goods and household items. These goods are sourced through a network of offices in 40 countries for customers in the US, Europe and Asia. The company concentrates on the sourcing of soft goods (mainly clothing); it also sources hard goods such as handicrafts, home furnishings, shoes, sporting goods, and toys. Li & Fung has an extensive network of suppliers, particu... ... middle of paper ... ...rs. The Fung brothers are picky on the kind of Internet tools to be used in their business. Today, the company has a huge customer base in United States that includes some of the big names like the Coca-Cola Co., Disney, and Kohl’s department store chain. Although this case presents a powerful success story, Li & Fung’s web service StudioDirect that aimed at SMEs has a high potential for failure. Li & Fung has come a long way in using Internet to develop and maintain a stable relationship with its customers. References Lynda M. Applegate, Robert D. Austin, and F. Warren McFarlan. (2007). ‘Corporate Information Strategy and Management, McGrawHill’ 7th Edition,. pp. 1-20 http://www.lifung.com http://conversation.cgu.edu/is329/page/Li+and+Fung www.aect.cuhk.edu.hk/~ect7010/Materials/Lecture/Lec2-LiFung http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/case_books.htm
The growth of online business has grown enormously over the years. Cliptomania is a family operated and owned small e-business that primarily sells clip on earrings (Brown, DeHayes, Hoffer, Martin, & Perkins, 2012, p. 308). Cliptomania early developments were very modest, and as such the company experienced copious strategic dilemmas. An initial strategic dilemma that the company encountered when establishing and building their new e-business undertaking was to create a website for the business operations and essentially to have it fully operable. The owners, Jim and Candy elected to hire a vendor to host the website and additionally utilize the IT systems resources of the vendor to sustain their business. At the very beginning they exploited the offerings of the Yahoo Store. However, continuing down this avenue of using the services of the Yahoo Store inevitably became too costly. By using the services and business offerings of a vendor made it convenient and effortless for Jim and Candy to start their e-business store. Unfortunately the couple did not have much in the way of professional help, and so they had to create and put together the website by themselves. Additionally they also had to deal with establishing their online credibility as many customers preferred to call in their orders just to talk with a real person before being comfortable enough to place their orders via the webpage.
Works Cited The Allbusiness Web site provides answers and articles about corporations. http://www.allbusiness.com Retrieved May 22, 2011. Mallor, J., Barnes, A.J., Bowers, T., & Langvardt, A.W. (2010). The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
By cultivating positive relationship assets, like the partnership with Archetype Solutions Inc. (ASI), Land’s End clothing gained valuable access to technical IT skills and information repositories capable of rapidly processing and analyzing large quantities of custom clothing orders. The accumulation of large information repositories only strengthens the barrier to competitor entry as it takes significant amounts of time to accumulate all of the pertinent data associated with a custom tailored clothing venture. This data can include information on consumer sizing and preferences, supplier operations and processes, and even garment patterns and variations, all of which are component response lag drivers that contribute to the IT resources barrier. Although, this fruitful relationship alliance, leveraged by the IT skills of ASI, could nearly become proprietary information for Land’s End (Clemons and Row 1991). This could create an exploitable avenue for competitors looking to enter the custom tailored clothing market. Once the exclusivity of the Land’s End relationship with ASI is terminated, given the structure of ASI’s contracts, competitors could partner with ASI to gain access to their proprietary information regarding clothing patterns and specifics. Knowing this, Land’s End should prepare for and anticipate the coming competition of
Li & Fung is a global trading group sourcing and managing the supply chain for high volume, time sensitive consumer goods. The group is associated with strong brands such as The Limited, Gymboree, American Eagle, Warner Brothers, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Levi-Strauss. With the rise of the internet, and the thrive of the B2B intermediaries, this memo will discuss the Li & Fung's E-Commerce strategy and how to use internet to facilitate supply chain management.
In the primary activities, several measures are taken to control cost and create value. LV reduces cost by learning modern manufacturing method from auto makers and other industries. Although the Louis Vuitton’s production is still a labor-intensive process, increasing efficiency and productivity were achieved by reaching perfect balance between machines and labors. To adding the value of products, LV pays much attention on the improvement of quality. Since “made in France” is a guarantee of high quality, Louis Vuitton never builds factories out of France or outsources the production to a location with cheap labors. Although the labor price in France is extraordinarily high, the benefits such as customer loyalty and commercial reputation obtained by the company obviously outweigh the pay. Apart from that, test laboratories are established for quality checking. In the laboratories, bags are lifted and dropped again and again and jewelries are shaken strongly to make sure every customer get merchandizes of high quality. Since quality is a significant factor to measure a product in Japan, these strict quality control process satisfies Japanese customers. Customer service is another important factor in primary activities. According to the LV regulations, once a product i...
Keri E. Pearlson and Carol S. Saunders (2010). Strategic Management of Information Systems, 4th Edition. John Wiley & Sons, New York
BASF is one of the world's largest chemical companies. It was established in 1865 with the main product was coal tar based dyestuff. It has six main categories of products, which are oil and gas, chemicals, agricultural products, plastics and fibers, dyestuff and finishing products, and consumer products. The structure of the company is presented by three-dimensional matrix consisting of operating, regional and functional divisions. Since 1960, the company began to expand its operation at a global level through acquisition. In Southeast Asia, the company has over 30 companies in 16 countries through the region of which 12 have the production facility. Headquarter for the region is located in Singapore.
Over the last 30 years the world has seen drastic changes in the Chinese way of making business. Nowadays, China has opened its businesses to the rest of the world, especially America and Europe (Teagarden & Cai, 2009). As a result, their economy has increased and the evolution of the companies have changed to be from closed doors to be international and multinational (Teagarden & Cai, 2009). This essay will analyze, first of all, how some Chinese companies have had success abroad, looking at the strategy that they applied to expand and to improve their products. Furthermore, this essay will show examples of successful Chinese firms, such as Lenovo and TCL Group, and how they achieve it.
University of Phoenix. (2006). Course Syllabus. Retrieved September 26, 2006, from University of Phoenix, CIS/564.4 - Information Management in Business Web site, https://classroom.phoenix.edu/afm203/secure/view-thread.jspa?threadID=1176244
It is among the largest engineering companies in Malaysia with a growth rate of over 20% for four consecutive years and is among the best managed companies in Asia. It is among the most transparent and therefore leads on the issue of corporate governance. It enjoys incredible growth in sales shareholder and has a base of nearly 1 million. L & T is the core of a group of companies involved in building complexes, worksheets, offices and service outlets at different locations all over Malaysia and abroad. L & T has an incredible reputation for capabilities for executing engineering related projects. This has been enhanced by it long business history which date back in 1938 to present. It provides real and logical synergy in terms of executing turnkey projects for construction, engineering, supplying machinery and suppliers credit. Further, by the use of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles e.g. customer focused, reducing costs and wastage, and adding value at all stages for maximising customer satisfaction and emphasis on 'customer delight '. The company therefore delivers more value than expected by customer. It has ability to synthesise, incorporate and complement its diverse world-class engineering, manufacturing, procurement, construction and fabrication skills around turnkey projects and people. L & T has a world class vendor base and quality technological alliances, excellent IT
P&G’s purpose is to provide branded products and services of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the world’s consumers. P&G values their employees through leadership, ownership, integrity, passion for winning, and trust. P&G entices and recruits best people in the world, builds their organization by promoting and rewarding from within, and believes that their employees will always be the most important asset. P&G has many principles such as (1) showing respect to all individuals, (2) valuing differences, (3) inspiring and enabling employees to achieve high expectations, standards, and challenging goals, (4) valuing personal mastery, (5) believing that all individuals can and want to contribute to their fullest potential, (6)
(24) Stokes, Jr & Stewart, L., 1991, "Is Without Managers," Information Strategy the Executive's Journal, Fall.Proceedings.
Zeleny, M (ed.) 2000, The IEBM handbook of information technology in business, Thomson Learning, London.
Turning to the issues related to information handling, the definition of the information management should be mentioned. According to Hinton’s perspective (2006, p.57) the information management is “the conscious process of gathering information”. A brief overview of the presumable information sources in a high-technology company can help to outline the situation. T...
In conclusion, Charles and Keith is not just about trend but also making fashion affordable and accessible for most of the people. The success of the company benefited from the government’s policies and the stable economic growth of the country. However, the weaknesses and threats should not be neglected in order to obtain a bigger share in the market. The success of the business in its own country has increased and ensured its competitiveness in the international scene.