Allentown Business Case Problems due to Internal Factors - Organization Structure – In general terms, the organizational structure of the Electronic Products Division of Allentown follows the same structure of the other divisions. Under the General Manager there is a controller, a product development manager, a manufacturing manager (with three plants treated as three different profit centers), a sales manager and a marketing manager. The last two may be the major difference regarding the general structure of the company, since sales and marketing are usually combined in one single department. The breakdown in two departments has been made by the general manager, reasoning that the sales division should be concerned about short-term actions, while the marketing one should take care of pricing policies and strategic plan. However, this vision generates an overlapping problem between the marketing department and the product development department. The marketing department, among other duties, is responsible for the identification of new opportunities and also to assure the development of new products. Unless these activities are extremely well coordinated with the product development department, there will be misalignment in the strategy of the EPD. Ultimately, this misalignment will affect a third department, i.e. the manufacturing department, since it is directly involved in the product development process. The organizational design, especially the particularity mentioned above, is generating a considerable amount of tension. There is a constant exchange of accusations between the two departments; marketing is critical to the product development department’s responsiveness, its time-to-market and its priorities. The counter-part was in the form of heavy critics regarding the understanding of the product development process. The constant tension only increased the rivalry and the distance between the two departments, while both should have been working as close as possible. There is no surprise that this kind of internal dispute is taking place at EDP. The composition of both departments is a good example of the problem that the separation is causing, since the profile of the employees is considerably different. The marketing department is mainly a spin-off of the sales department; most of its employees are sales people and are more used to understand the market instead of product development process itself. As a vicious cycle, this leads to a lower level of trust, less interaction and higher distance among them. Communication and Trust - Allentown’s EDP department faces a slow down in its sales and profit margins not only due to external factors, but also internal.
‘The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis often forms the bedrock of any product planning process. It provides a simple yet effective framework for analysing both internal resources and external trends and competitors’ (Pender, L, 1999: 179)
There is also no form of standardized training throughout the organization. Employee morale and employee relations are lower than should be expected, due to miscommunication and lack of an established strategy. There is an absence of consistency in various ways regarding branding and identity as well. No two stores appear to be alike, names vary and locations are unpredictable. Customers also complain that the menus are inconsistent. It is also evident that reliable communication is lacking. For example, GC3 has customer comment cards, but, as the case study explained, GC3 management is not sure if they are being reviewed or taken into consideration. More so, GC3 remains unclear if they are considered one company, or three separate companies. GC3’s product portfolio is becoming stagnant, and there is an apparent need to refresh the menu and align it with their competitors. Profits are falling behind, and there is nothing in place to enable GC3 to understand what products and what stores need to be evaluated. Lastly, GC3 management is becoming disgruntled. This aggravation is evident within the Pittsburgh locations. Due to this insubordinate behavior, corporate culture in the Columbus locations has started to
MILLERSBURG — A Millersburg area man who admitted to being in possession of a loaded gun while driving drunk was ordered Wednesday to serve 10 days in jail.
The next step is the growth stage. In this stage product growth is monitored and big investments are made. Maturity stage the growth of the outputs is significant. For the company to ensure product survival in the market and gain a competitive advantage over competitors it has to incorporate product differentiation. The final stage involves product decline stage. In this juncture product sale goes down and the product identification
The second issue arising is their inability to have a standardize form of collecting and presenting data. One example is that both the Vice President of Marketing and the Director of Advanced Systems, collect and utilize the similar data for marketing purposes. Because both managers are collecting data for the relatively same purpose, there redundancy and a...
Over the last decade, product marketing and ways through which communication takes place between manufacturers and consumers has changed tremendously (Belch & Belch 2004). Due to the technological revolutions and the rise of innovations such as the mobile phones and the internet, control over information has shifted apparently from the manufacturer's hands to the hands of consumers (Belch & Belch 2004). The market environment has also changed due to globalization of marketing strategies, loss of confidence in media advertising, increased reliance on targeted communication methods, and media fragmentation and so on (Belch & Belch 2004).
The management of a manufacturing company may receive a large order from a client. There may also be a situation where the Marketing department is positive in making a decision to enter into new market(s). It may also be possible that the organisation may have decided to exploit the potential of exporting products to market(s) overseas.
A marketer doesn’t just have a plan. Marketers now open up to a wider strategic plan and it’s based on steps that balance out what the market is offering consumers. These marketers must analyze their production with these steps, then make a portfolio of the growth and even their down falls therefore this keeps these marketers to continuously innovate and create even a greater amount of value for their customers. Marketing management functions are discussed along with the marketing mix and strategy.
Pepsi's hope is to usher in a new era, and to give them a clear-cut advantage over their rival, Coca-Cola. By following closely the six steps of the new-product development process, the company could expect such benefits as: improved teamwork, less re-working, earlier detection of likely failure, and higher success rates. Rix, Peter, 2001, Marketing, A Practical Approach. Stage One: Generating New Product Ideas. The first step for Pepsi Cola to undertake is to generate ideas for the new product.
The R&D department has an important role in a product’s life cycle. This department enables an organization to participate in the following options: new product research and development, redesigning existing products, quality checks and finally innovation, which is the most expensive R&D investments. Prior to developing a new product, organization often put together a research group in charge of conducting a thorough research on the proposed product. The research group is responsible for providing information on the production costs, timeframe as well as product specifications that may attract the market. Lastly the research group is responsible for evaluating the market’s need of the product, prior to production.
emerging or new market. It can originate from new technology or new market opportunities (Eliashberg, J., Lilien, G. L., & Rao, V. R. 1997). Literature defines product development as exploiting an untapped market opportunity and turning it into a value product for customer satisfaction. Development and introduction of a new product requires extensive research on understanding customer needs, market structure, emerging trends and analysing the internal & external competitive market environments. To evaluate customer satisfaction previous researches provide strong relationship between customer satisfaction and product quality, product features and value for money. ***
The Rich Picture shows human activities and work processes through use of simple diagramming. From this diagram we can extract the faults of the current system, and aim to improve it. The diagram can relate to current conflicts between the marketing and sales team as they interact with each other to develop marketing strategies.
Arrow Electronics is a distributor of electronic parts, including semiconductors and passive components. It was founded in 1935 and has reached number one position among electronics distributors by 1992. Arrow’s North American operations were headquartered in Melville, N.Y. Sales and marketing functions were divided among five operating groups. This case study focuses on the largest of Arrow’s groups, Arrow/Schweber (A/S).
With the rise of the economy, consumers have become more and more knowledgeable on selecting their favourable product as a result the organization cannot focus on what it sells but on the side focus on what the customer wants to buy.
Samsung’s product development includes all three approaches. Samsung invested in a Customer-centered new-product development. The new-product development focuses on finding new ways to solve customer problems and create more customers satisfying experiences. The “new management” is a top to...