1. Situational Analysis: Divine furniture manufacturing company has been selling a wide range of office furniture across Canada for over 31 years now. Their expertise is mainly in high-end desks and wall cabinets made with prime quality material and craftsmanship. Though the sales were low during the initial years, the introduction of the “CEO” line of desks and wall cabinets, led to a steady growth in sales over the last five years. With most of its sales spread across Ontario and Vancouver, Divine furniture manufacturing company has also been able to make large sales transactions with U.S.A. These sales were facilitated through a distributor for Divine in the States. However, working with the distributor did not turn out to be a pleasant
Despite CAH's competencies, its US distribution faces serious challenges. CAH's exclusive US distributor fails to actively promote the sales of Curtis Lift. In fact, the lift is but a minor product within the wholesaler's complete product line and accounts for only 20% of its total lift sales. Given that US market currently accounts for 60% of CAH's sales and holds growth potential in future, the current US distribution system may hurt CAH's growth. Another problem is CAH's high production cost. Its cost of sales accounts for approximately 72% of sales, which is at least 20% higher than that of dominant players. The relatively low contribution margin leaves the company little flexibility in competition.
The current economic downfall has forced many organizations to strategically restructure and downsize. Broadway Brokers is not immune to these economic challenges and has been faced with competition from discount brokers and Internet brokerage services. Broadway Brokers position of holding the largest market share has been jeopardized by their slow reaction to the shifting changes within the industry. Broadway Brokers staff possessed strong selling and interpersonal skills however lacked in their knowledge of the high tech skills that had been inundating the market. The organizations lack of adapting to new technology and their absorbent overhead was threatening their profitability. The organization was faced with the need to restructure, consolidate, and implement employee layoffs in order to remain competitive with the current financial climate. Rumors of impending office consolidations and staff layoffs had existed for some time. However, the CEO commentary in a Financial Times article confirmed such gossip. In fact, decisions had already been made by top management to enact a structural plan that would severely curtail offices, close offices, and reduce the level of employees across the organization. Top management was firmly fixed upon downsizing and consolidation and was now relying on its management staff to come up with a plan to implement a transition. A dozen of the company’s most respected managers – everyone from assistant vice presidents to managing directors were join together to devise a plan for change (Jick & Peiperl 2003).
Due to the good establishment of the business, it has huge market national. The company has therefore opened many retail shops and stores all over the country to ensure that their products are accessible to the customers. The entity provides a favorable environment, and many clients view the place as a fun shopping place to be. The retailer has targeted a big pool of customer because of the variety of products it sells. The stores products vary from kitchen goods, jewelry, and electronics clothes to hardware
Section 285 of the Patent Act authorizes district courts to award attorney’s fees to the winning parties in cases deemed “exceptional.” In Brooks Furniture Manufacturing Inc. v Dutailier International Inc. the Federal Circuit Court defined an “exceptional” case as one that either involves “material inappropriate conduct” cite or one that is both “objectively baseless” and “brought in subjective bad faith.” cite
The Home Depot began changing consumer’s perspectives about how they could care for and improve their homes, by creating a “do-it-yourself’ concept. According to the founders, the customer has a bill of rights at the Home Depot. The bill of rights entitles the customer to the right assortment, quantities and price (of tools and home improvement supplies) along with trained associates on the sales floor. Home Depot describes their business strategy as a three legged stool, which stands for customer service, product knowledge and availability and disciplined capital allocation. (Moskowitz,
Some quantities of the company’s products find their way to unapproved outlets or distribution channels. This gray market for Callaway’s products can undermine authorized retailers and foreign wholesale distributors who promote and support the company’s products and can negatively impact its image in the minds of its customers. On the other hand, stopping such sales could result in a potential decrease in sales to those customers who are selling Callaway products to unauthorized distributors and/or an increase in sales returns over historical levels.
According to the Case Management Society of America, case management is "a collaborative process of assessment, planning, facilitation, care coordination, evaluation, and advocacy for options and services to meet an individual's and family's comprehensive health needs through communication and available resources to promote quality, cost effective outcomes" (Case Management Society of America [CMSA], 2010). As a method, case management has moved to the forefront of social work practice. The social work profession, along with other fields of study, recognizes the difficulty of locating and accessing comprehensive services to meet needs. Therefore, case managers work with these
“Supply manager Joe Smith was considering the purchase of 1,000 desktop Personal Computers (PC’s) for his organization.
Known as one the largest global home-furnishing retailers, IKEA currently has over 139,000 employees located in 53 countries and generates roughly 39.3 billion US dollars in annual sales (IKEA, 2014). Ingvar Kamprad began selling different types of items and founded the company in Agunnaryd, Sweden in 1943. Kamprad found that his greatest entrepreneurial opportunity was in furniture. Many households at that time were changing from receiving furniture that was handed down to desiring new, inexpensive, and stylish furniture. Kamprad was able to find a business opportunity to change the current social situation since a lot of the furniture was priced high at the time. He wanted to be able to offer his customers a wide selection of functional and well-designed furniture at a price many could afford (Bartlet & Nanda, 1996). Kamprad had a better understanding of what the customer desired and how to go about meeting those desires at prices that were lower than other furniture companies, in turn creating a competitive environment (De Kluyver & Pearce, 2011).
Happy Chips, Inc. is faced with a serious problem, with only one mass merchandise customer called “Buy 4 Less” being unhappy with the company’s operating performance. Buy 4 Less had several problems cited, including frequent stock outs, poor customer service responsiveness, and high prices for the products being supplied. Buy 4 Less came up with solutions they think seem fit to fix the problems they found with Happy Chips, Inc. and if Happy Chips, Inc. wishes to remain a supplier to their company, they will have to incorporate these changes. The problem, however, with this scenario, is that employees of Happy Chip, Inc. are not happy with the demands Buy 4 Less has bestowed upon them, which include providing direct store delivery four times a week instead of three, installing an automated order inquiry system to increase customer service responsiveness, and decreasing product prices by 5%. Even though the easiest thing for Happy Chips, Inc. to do is to agree to the changes Buy 4 Less wants them to do, Wendell Worthmann, the manager of logistics cost analysis, doesn’t agree to the changes right away.
The purpose of this essay is analyze the case of IKEA, which has involved in the HR management. Meanwhile, choose two topics to identify the IKEA current situation, including training and development and cross-cultural management. From those two points, give some forward suggestions on the IKEA HR management practice.
Ferguson and Son Manufacturing has numerous issues with their current budgetary control system. The inefficiencies of their system reduce the company’s effectiveness. First, Tom the manager of the machine shop has know idea what the accounting report will show in the meetings. He doesn’t know if the report will be good or bad. If Tom has know clue as to what is going on he has know way to gauge if he is on track to meet the budget goals. He doesn’t know where the exact inefficiencies are or how to adjust them. Tom needs to know exactly what the owner and managers are looking for so he can make any necessary adjustments. Second, the system that is being used is based solely on cutting costs. Emory believed the goal of the company was a quality product but the management’s goal seems to be cost cutting. The owner of the company promoted Tom because of the quality of his work as a machinist, which means quality was a major goal of the company at one time. The owners son, Robert Ferguson, primary focus seems to be cutting costs and is not considering the quality of the work. The current system is only rewarding reductions in cost, which will result in managers not focusing on the quality of work. Sub par work will undoubtedly be detrimental to Ferguson. If Robert only focuses on cutting costs customer satisfaction will decrease. Employees should not be confused about the goals of the company. The third issue is the shop machinery. They lost a day’s work due to the hydraulic machine breaking down. Defective machinery can lead to defective products, lost man-hours, and lost resources. The defective machinery will lead to an increase in product costs. Fourth, the current system is not taking into account that labor is stopping larg...
The 3 percent decline in sales causing a 21 percent decline in profits can be attributed to the identification of the accounting concept of operating leverage. Operating leverage is what business managers apply to boost small changes in revenue into sizable changes in profitability. Fixed cost is the force managers use to attain disproportionate changes between revenue and profitability. Therefore, when all costs are fixed every sales dollar contributes one dollar toward the potential profitability of a project. Once sales dollars cover fixed costs, each additional sales dollar represents pure profit. A small change in sales volume can significantly affect profitability (Edmonds, Tsay, & Olds, 2011). So, therefore, if sales volume increases,
In textile business, the type of machinery used; directly imported or through agents/distributors etc; / is used machinery also procured – if yes from where?
Our furniture store has enjoyed tremendous success as a cash and carry business, but in order for us to expand our market share and increase our revenue; we have decided to create an outside sales force to capture the local business market for office furniture. This sales force will focus on meeting the need of our business community for all-inclusive office furniture packages from lay-out design to product delivery. After researching the market condition in Ocala, we have determined that although there are many companies selling furniture, there are very few local businesses that are offering complete office furniture packages that include design consultation and delivery. Ocala and the surrounding area of fifty miles, is home to over 340,000 people and close to 13,000 businesses according to (http://ocalacep.com). Among those companies are such names as Lockheed Martin, Ocala Regional Health System, University of Florida, and AT&T just to name a few. These companies, which employ thousands of people, have their own individual needs for a fully furnished office space. Through our partnerships with our many great suppliers and with the help of a dedicated sales team, we believe we can capture a dominant market share and expand to other markets with the help of the increased profits of this newest endeavor. The next several pages will detail our hiring and training process for the new sales staff, our sales process and prospecting plans, our tracking and compensation plan, and finally our focus on customer service. We need to hire three competent and dedicated individuals to staff our sales team.