Analysis Winkler A.G.'s Marketing and Manufacturing Strategies
Winkler A.G. is a manufacturer of packaging materials for the grocery chain stores, electronics, food processing industries, office products and house ware products. The company is headquartered is in Berlin and they have manufacturing plants in Hamburg and Stuttgart, Germany.
Manufacturing operations is broken down to 50% for 4 major customers and 50% for grocery chain and food products. Winkler has about 50% market share with an average of 25% contribution margin. Notably, Winkler leads in the fiber container used for packaging snack food products with a 52% market share
This case study analyzes Winkler's marketing and manufacturing strategies and how the two can be aligned for greater operational efficiencies.
Review of Winkler’s marketing initiatives
Winkler’s objectives are to increase their sales volume by 25% and to increase their total market share by 35% in the next 3 years, while maintaining contribution margins at 25%. To achieve these objectives and to retain their position as market leader in fiber container manufacturing business, they came up with 3 marketing initiatives – Just In Time (JIT), New product innovation and Competitive pricing.
i. Just In time (JIT) delivery program
• To provide better service to customers by cutting down on the delivery lead time to 1 to 1.5 days from order receipt.
• Hess represents critical and growing part of Winkler business and provides opportunity to outsource entire fiber container manufacturing.
Analysis
• The existing lead time at Hamburg plant varies from 1 day to 6 days and at Stuttgart plant from 5.8 to 6.4 days. Hess operating on JIT strategy at Hamburg plant mainly with lead tim...
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• Winkler should shift their focus on high volume customers as this segment of the business is expected to increase more than 200% in the next 3 years. This leads to better contribution margins, profitability of marketing strategy.
• Manufacturing should focus on transformation system and monitoring control to leverage the market demand and improve production efficiency. This can be achieved through effective capital investments and upgrading of their workers’ skill sets.
• There must be common order winners and qualifiers for both marketing and manufacturing strategies. Marketing and manufacturing strategies should be aligned and focused to achieve their corporate goals and objectives.
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