Operations Management

The 3 concentration strategies we will consider are as follows – Market Penetration Market Development Product Development Market Penetration – when firms try to grab a bigger market share with existing product or service, that concentration strategy is known as market penetration. McDonald's introduced a dollar menu, and when customers order dollar menu items they tend to order more. In 2018, McDonald's witnessed great growth in sales with its $4 menu items and another low-cost offering (Duggan,2018).  With the introduction of these menu items McDonald's gained market share, so this was a great market penetration strategy. Microsoft offers an office suite, which is great for all enterprise usage, this is a good market penetration strategy. Because these products are great for all types of users. Market Development – when a firm takes the existing product or service and takes it to a new market, where they were not present before, that is called market development....

Compsis was facing headwinds in 2004. Their revenue dropped from $4.2 million to $3.3 million. While the implemented Electronic toll collection system successfully in Australia with the partnership with an American firm Philips. But their venture in India did not see success due to cost constraints. While Compass gets the majority of their business from Brazil, but they do not want to rely on only Brazil and want to expand. They are looking for opportunities in other Latin American countries, Other emerging markets such as India, Pakistan and of course the biggest market for electronic toll collection that is the USA. But entering into the US market is not that easy for Compsis. While the US market was matured and growing, it was dominated by firms such as MarkIV, TransCore, Raytheon, SIRIT, ACS State, VES Systems, CASETA Technologies, ETC Inc. The customer base in the USA is mainly Quasi-governmental bodies. While the US market has 64 toll agencies in 26 states, the ETC sales proces...

Any the matured firm, that operates in a developed market, a firm like McDonald's, usually seeks opportunities outside the USA or in general the domestic market. As the business is cash flow positive and growth is slow and competition is high, it might be wise to seek opportunities outside of the domestic market. While these large firms go international the rewards are different for different firms. For example, when firms like KFC or McDonalds go international, they really benefit from new customers, cheap labors. Especially firms moving into populous countries like China and India, where the middle-class population is increasing will get access to a huge customer base. When Firms like Microsoft, Facebook, Google goes international they benefit from cheap labor. These firms can set up a development center or data center wherever English speaking and technically skilled people are available. The products they sell are standard, and sold globally, regardless of where it is de...

The salt industry has witnessed an increase in salt demand due to demand in deicing. As the length of the highways grew and the speed of travel increased, the amount of salt required also increased. The chemical industry needs a substantial amount to salt too. By the year 2000, 29 firms were operating 66 salt-producing establishments in the USA. Establishing a new salt-producing facility would be highly expensive, so the firms often focused on upgrading existing firms (Henderson, Streman, Nanda,2009).. While salt usage has increased, the chloride component in salt is toxic for human and animals. The chloride gets mixed with rainwater and then soil and killed plants. And finally, pollutes rivers and other water bodies. While salt usage is regulated in Canada, there is a possibility that it gets regulated in the USA too, to control freshwater ecosystem pollution. But salt does not really have a ready substitute. The industry can expand into the preservative industry and salt c...

The main competitive moves we see are as following Being a first-mover – In any industry the leaders become the first mover by introducing something brand new. Like Apple introduced iPad, tablet computer was a new concept. Even the smartphone with no keyboard and a big screen was something new to the market. A lot of research and development goes behind being the first to introduce something for the first time in the market. And the rate of failure is high. The first example comes to my mind is Segway. The company wanted to introduce an alternative to urban commuters, but the product never took off. Disruptive Innovation – When Apple introduced iPads personal computers and laptop market got disrupted. Netflix disrupted CD/DVD rental industry. DVD rental industry was serving its customers well. And they had a lot of area scoop of improvement. Netflix saw the opportunity, understood the frustration of customers and the people who were not being served by the DHD rental industr...

A municipal airport is considering letting larger planes land at its facilities which will bring added tourism. It will cause more noise and pollution. In this case the internal stakeholders would be the municipality, owners of the airline those who will use the airport, employees of that airline, employees of the airport. External stakeholders would be the tourists/customers of those airlines. People living in that municipal area, government as they will collect tax and overall responsible for regulations, society at large, local businesses included. Shareholders of those airlines. There are few points to consider before we decide that the municipal airport should be open to larger planes. The noise and the pollution as the planes will take off and land and the pollution would be from planes and the tourists might litter the area too. So, the two committees we would need should represent the airlines' industry, who would use the airport and in the second committee, we wou...

China’s Aviation sector witnessed rapid growth with its middle class. The civil aviation authority in China expects the air passenger to go by 15% through 2020. Chinese Airlines industry is regulated, and they cannot reduce price as much as they want, but to win over customers, the Airlines adopted strategies like discounted tour packages. Lucky Air has near monopoly in Yunnan province where passengers are projected to grow from 21 million to 24 million. In a regulated environment, Lucky Air had paid their fuel bill upfront and the fuel charge was higher in the Yunnan region. And there was no way to hedge fuel price, hence the airlines were vulnerable to a fuel price hike. In China, most cities have only one airport. Wherever they have 2, the landing fee is the same in both the places. In the case of Airplane leasing, the capacity expansion is capped at 35% per year. And the airlines have to go through one central body, smaller airlines have less priority to get new aircraft, some...

I have been working in IT services industry for last 12 years. We work in teams where everyone has specific roles and responsibilities. I have had some experience long time back, where I had project manager, supervisor, team lead. And the problem for team member happened when these people give different directions in a crisis.   In my experience, for our project we did not really have proper plan to execute a project and client was providing directions. While we were junior analysts, the leads were interpreting the clients asks differently. And they were giving us directions as per their understandings which were not same. It caused us lot of rework and end of the day we got a dissatisfied client as their requirements were not being met and they felt misunderstood/ un heard, I would imagine that must had been frustrating. I was not a team lead but just an analyst, being a team member, I had to do what I was being told. So, the quality of work or deliverable was not good an...

Majority of the successful businesses follow mainly four generic strategies. Cost leadership is mainly companies serving price-conscious customers. A good example in the USA would be McDonald's, Walmart, Dollar Tree. When you think about McDonald's, you can think about their drive-throughs, or the questionable meats, either way there one can find a quick bit for a $1. The same thing with Dollar Store, everything is $1 and that is a great attraction for price-sensitive customers. Differentiation is another strategy that works. Think about Zappos, which does not offer many discounts, but due to their quality and service they can charge a premium to their customers. Likewise, when we think about Whole Foods Market, this grocery chain attracts a health-conscious crowd who mainly follow some sort of diet. Whole Foods Market has all organic foods and diet-specific grocery. Because of that, people following those special diets are often regular to the Whole Foods Market, despite...

Challenges of the organization – Restoration Affiliates is a collection of remodeling and restoration individuals and businesses.   To beat the national competitions, dozens of restoration businesses came together to provide an alternative. To serve a large client, the resources required could be supplied by big businesses. So, RA was formed to serve such large clients where any numbers of resources and equipment would be required. But such an attempt had failed in the past due to over promise and under deliver. And due to lack of trust among stakeholders. RA does not know how to establish a protocol to make sure that each member is contributing equally. If in one location multiple service providers are providing restoration services, how to split works between them so no one feels deprived. How to incentivize referral? And the final question was how big they got to be to compete against the big restoration businesses.    RA has rudimentary technology. In their l...

SWOT stands for Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and threat analysis. I have completed my Bachelors of Technology in the year 2007 and I have been working in IT services sector ever since. My experience is my strength, along with my “can do” attitude and optimistic outlook. I have always worked in customer-facing projects as a part of a team. So, understanding customer needs, communication and team playing are important qualities one need to succeed. Stating during the recession I learned early in my life the importance of being lean and agile, clients appreciate what saves them time and money, identifying those areas is a great skillset to have any time. Lately, my weakness is not being able to allocate enough time for my work and for my studies. I was managing my work and studies just fine. But, 2 weeks back I came to India to visit my parents. Ever since because of the change of situation, I am noticing that I am finding it difficult to concentrate and finish my tasks. But, I h...

 What is a strategic resource? A strategic resource is an asset that is valuable, rare, difficult to imitate, and nonsubstitutable(Barney, 1991). Valuable resources help an organization to capitalize on opportunities and defend against threats. For example, South West Airlines is profitable almost every year because of the staff and the culture they have that puts employees first. So, the employees give their best and as a result of the airlines profitable. While in recent past during 2001 and 2008 the airlines' industry hit an air pocket in the USA. Gary Kelly the CEO or South West Said: “How can you say you care about your employees if you allow your company to become unprofitable?” In South West’s culture strikes, layoffs are rare as a result employee morale is up and that reflects in customer service. Job satisfaction plays a critical role. Kelly’s other formula is “Take care of employees, employees will take care of customers, customers will take care of the company and its...