SUN Microsystems Case Analysis
Sun Microsystems had an extremely tough decision to make in regards to
its procurement strategy. They had to decide if they were going to
take on an “E-sourcing” or “dynamic bidding” auction-type strategy
with making purchases from their suppliers. Taking on this type of
procurement strategy would benefit Sun with cost-savings on
procurements, but may jeopardize their supplier relationships and
quality of inputs for Sun products.
After reviewing the enclosed financial data for Sun from 1996-1999, it
is apparent that some trends are consistent. Sun’s cost of goods sold
has consistently been around half of their revenue for prior fiscal
years, resulting in an approximate gross margin of 50%. With this in
mind, Sun had to put together a team to try and reduce this amount.
Sonia Syngal was the leader of the team to investigate E-sourcing
strategies to reduce the $9 Billion spent annually by Sun on
procurement.
The idea of reverse-auctioning appears to be a great strategy for
Sun....
Any time the company is looking into software project, there are areas associated with risk such as cost, time and relationship with suppliers. However, for Harley-Davidson, “collocation of suppliers with production facilities and their integration into company’s development process was the essential part of long-term relationship development”. Through a continued focus on collaboration and strong supplier relationships, the company could position itself to achieve strategic objectives and deliver cost and quality improvement over the long-term. Since, at that time company had no centralized system in place to handle relationship with suppliers and consequently, most of company’s time was spent on supplier management activities. For example, reviewing inventory, expediting and data entry. Furthermore, each supplier had different information systems for “Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO), Original Equipment (OE), Parts and Accessories (P&A), and General Merchandising (GM) purchasing activities”. The systems, already provided by supplier, had to be further modified to meet individual need at each location, such as “the OE system at Harley-Davidson’s York, Pennsylvania site was different from the OE system in Kansas City”. However, due to long-standing tradition of gradual change implementation and focus on quality, quick transitions were unwelcome and did not come easy for the company. The size of the project determined how much risk was involved in terms of cost, time, and supplier relationships. The idea of switching to global purchasing system was seen as a threat not only in supplies and production flow interruption, but also in damaged dealer/customer relationships and lost sales. Furthermore, failure of the sy...
Behind every product manufactured there are parts, fasteners, gloves, welds, holes that are drilled, and maybe a headache or two. These are all products that are sold and manufactured by the companies W.W. Grainger and Fastenal Company. Both of these companies are in the top ten in revenue for the industrial supply industry and I just so happen to work at one of them, that being Fastenal Co.
Sun Microsystems saw tremendous growth in net income between 1999 and 2000 leading up to a sharp decline between 2000 and 2001. The income statements show increased revenues in 2001, contradicting the data above. Further analysis provides an explanation for the deceleration of income growth in spite of increased revenue. The ratios of several expenses to net revenues were taken for 2000 and 2001.
Custom Chip, Inc case describes the situation of a company where lack of coordination and cooperation among different departments is hindering them to achieve their common or ultimate goal as a single business entity. Applications engineering, product engineering and manufacturing are all inclined towards achieving their individual objectives and timelines rather than collaborating and synergizing their efforts in order to attain a common goal of effective production with improved cost reduction. Few of the primary reasons are insufficient and unorganized company policies for coordination and cooperation, poor networking with in the organization especially on management level, lack of communication and influence among managers and VPs, insufficient human resource, and measuring a department's effectiveness solely on its performance based on individual objectives, rather than checking its effects on over all company's performance.
Samsung’s cost advantage is clearly visible from the comparison of costs (and their elements) that were borne by the company and its competitors in 2003 (Tab. 3): Samsung’s overall cost was 24 per cent lower than the weighted average cost of the other four producers; two most significant elements of the cost structure, i.e. raw materials and labour, were 36 and 27 per cent lower respectively. When expressed by means of a relation of average selling price to costs (“productivity” of cost elements), the differences are even more visible (comp. Tab. 4 ): overall superiority of Samsung over its competitors exceeded 51 per cent!
Valve Corporation is an entertainment software and technology company. It is a very successful business that develops video games and is based in Bellevue, Washington. Valve came to be in 1996, when Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington left Microsoft and founded Valve. Organisational Culture is a problem that has risen through the ‘no manager’ policy. With people from diverse places and who share different beliefs, organisational culture is very serious. The concept of organisational culture emerged in the early 1980s as a topic of major concern to administrators and researchers in higher education (Ramachandran & Chong & Ismail, 2011). It is a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs, which governs how people behave in the organisations. These shared values have a strong influence on the people in the organisation and dictate how they dress, act, and perform their jobs (Study.com, n.d.). Employee Stress & Productivity and Diversity in the Workplace are two elements that have derived from Organisational Culture. This report will be addressing the two issues and how to solve the issues at hand.
In such situations, the buying industry often faces a high pressure on margins from their suppliers. The relationship to powerful suppliers can potentially reduce strategic options for the organization.
In 2007, Circuit City, an electronics retailer who took pride in providing excellent customer service, fired 3,400 employees nationwide (Seitel, 2011, p.217). The company needed to reduce expenses and decided the termination of loyal employees was the only option. The workers were laid-off simply because they were “being 'overpaid”” (Seitel, 2011, p.217). However, according to Seitel (2011) they were paid the average hourly wage of a retail sales associate (p.217). Circuit City’s poor communication with employees proved detrimental and led to the company filing for bankruptcy protection the following year (Seitel, 2011, p.218).
The suppliers bargaining power is generally strong because of the big monopolies and the high importance of purchasing components and operating system, therefore it decreases the profitability of the market players.
For many years, IBM succeeded in holding a very good market position. In fact, the company achieved a very high market share and huge profits. However, this situation did not last forever. In 1990, IBM experienced its first quarterly loss of $2billion due to some unexpected accounting charges. However, revenues increased from $62.7 billion in the previous year to $96 billion. In 1991, the c...
This report is for individual or institutional investors who want to diversify their portfolio by investing in sportswear retail industry. Given the positive announcement of its high profit, it is suggested that JD sports Fashion Plc is undervalued and a final justification will be made in this report. The report will provide in-depth analysis of JD sports Plc. that includes the following content:
Before we start, we would like to briefly introduce the definitions of Supply Chain and Supply Chain Management (SCM).
Since mid-90, technology changed procedures for evaluating supplier’s relationships. Before technology, Suppliers relationships used to be an isolated activity disconnected from others companies’ activities highly influenced by conflict of interest. But when technology started to provide accurate data, companies begin the focus on inventory management activities increasing the importance of procurements departments’ evaluation as a way to reduce supply chain cost. With data, procurement can evaluate suppliers and their benefits for the company. In today business environment, the company dilemma is evaluating if the supply chain should be vertical, full outsourced of mix, considering industry maturity impact and price competition (Chopra & Meindl, 2007; Slack & Lewis, 2011).
(2014) deduced that procurement performance can be assessed by focusing ondelivery,flexibility, quality, cost and technology. Optimal performance attainment is dependent onhow current suppliers`relationships aremanaged so asto ensure constant availability of needed quality supplies at the organization. This will ensure that sourced materials are indeed procured at the right costand atthe right time. Procurement performancestrives toenable improvements in the procurement process at the organizationso as to improve on qualitydelivery of firm products and servicesatleast possible time and
This case study analysis is on Samsung Electronics Company (SEC) and how it has climbed up the ranks in the past decade via calculated marketing strategies, extensive market research and analysis, and a risky bet on how the market will evolve. Samsung’s principle outlook took time and education from within and thereafter the general market.