...A Case Analysis of Calyx and Corolla This analysis focuses on the case study of Calyx & Corolla, a mail order flower company. Calyx & Corolla is a relatively new company that utilizes a different distribution channel than conventional companies for fresh flowers. Calyx & Corolla mails flowers direct from the growers to the customers via Federal Express and eliminates the middleman (Appendix A). This permits Calyx & Corolla to provide fresher, longer-lasting flowers to consumers. The management of Calyx & Corolla is contemplating a change in their long-term business strategy as they examine their ability to compete with more traditional outlets such as retail flower shops and wire services like FTD. Ruth Owades, the founder of Calyx & Corolla, has hired Marketing Consultants (MarCo) to assess the strengths and weaknesses of her business and make recommendations on how her company can fully develop their mail order concept. Background: Calyx & Corolla is a small mail order flower company that was founded in 1988 by Ruth Owades. Ms. Owades secured $2 million in capital from approximately 18 different investors in order to launch the company. By 1991, Calyx & Corolla exceeded $10 million in annual sales and Owades and her associates were reassessing the firm's long-term growth strategy (Wylie and Salmon, 1991). Up to this point, Calyx & Corolla was primarily a mail order company, but management is now considering expanding their market and is...
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...Calyx and Corolla Case Report Introduction Calyx & Corolla was a new entrant into the $8 billion flower industry in the United States in 1991. Through the use of overnight air freight (Fed Ex), information technology, an 800 number, and a catalog, Calyx & Corolla was able to bypass three layers of distribution and provide fresh flowers directly from growers to consumers. As a result of their efficient distribution system, Calyx and Corolla changed the way flowers were distributed to consumers. Strengths and Weaknesses I. Strengths A. Good niche and mission. Calyx and Corolla filled a consumer need. Consumers wanted very fresh and long lasting flowers and the company delivered it. Efficient distribution was the key to flower industry and the company was able to shorten delivery to customers by bypassing the middle distribution layers, and provide much faster deliveries than traditional FTD deliveries. For example, Calyx and Corolla delivered roses from growers to consumers within 1-2 days of purchase order compared with one to two weeks for other FTD retailers and florists. B. Sales growing at a faster rate than cost of goods sold. Projected FY4 and FY5 also had projected sales growing faster than cost of goods sold. See graph for details (Derived from Exhibit 1). Growth rate 1988-1989 to 1989-1990 Growth rate 1989-1990 to 1990-1991 Growth rate FY3 to FY4 Growth rate FY4 to FY5 Sales 4.31 1.55 .49 .61 Cost of goods sold 4.14 1.52 .42 .58 C. Good creative...
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...Calyx & Corolla: Case Analysis Calyx & Corolla is a newly founded venture in the fresh flowers selling business. With two and a half years’ experiences and practices, it has consummated over 150,000 transactions, yielding revenues in excess of $10 million and successfully pioneered the concept of selling fresh flowers by mail. However, the managers of the company, Fran Wilson and Ann Lee, are reassessing the firm’s long-term growth strategy. Although the business achieved a huge success in such a short time, it is hard for the business to grow and generate more revenues when facing with growing challenges. Hence, the management is thinking of a more aggressive growth strategy to stimulate the business and increase the sales. In order to conclude a better strategy, an analysis of the industry would be necessary to help understand the company’s current situation. In 1990, retail flower and plant sales were almost a $9 billion business in the United States. Most of these flowers are planted domestically while several types of flowers, including carnations, roses and a variety of other flowers, are imported from other parts of the world. Although there are some large sellers in the industry, major sellers are still small, family-operated companies. Usually, growers sell their flowers to distributors. And then distributors sent flowers to different wholesalers and wholesalers then sent flowers to florists. This whole process will add a 500% to 700% markup to the final selling...
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...Introduction Bob Stetzel, Vice President of Information Technology (IT) at Vermont Teddy Bear (VTB), walked a tranquil path from his car to his Shelburne, Vermont office early one morning in mid-February 2010. The landscape outside his office, and the White Mountains beyond, were blanketed in a coating of fresh snow. Just a few days before, the scene was not tranquil at all; a small army of nearly 2000 temporary employees had descended on the company’s multi-building campus to help process and pack gifts ordered by tens of thousands of customers for delivery to their sweethearts for Valentine’s Day. Bob and his seven person IT organization had worked feverishly behind the scenes, ensuring that the company’s information systems could handle the surge in orders for pajamas, custom teddy bears, flowers and other gifts, placed via telephone, mail-order, and the Web. There were a few tense moments when the system - comprising a mix of homegrown and packaged applications from a variety of vendors, and knit together with middleware - occasionally ‘paused’ when its capacity was strained. Fortunately, his team - veterans of past Valentine’s Day ‘peak experiences’ - helped patch things together and ensured that nearly all orders were processed and delivered on time. Recognizing that customer retention was an important goal, Stetzel was relieved that most customers were happy with the service they received during the Valentine’s rush. Stetzel had been hired in November 2009 - just in...
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...Calyx and Corolla: Case Study Write-up Prepared by: Group 3 Brendon Jordan Krystal Juren Matt Leslie Andreas Rudin University of Florida Gainesville Executive Summary Tivo’s new consumer electronics product has the potential to revolutionalize media consumption habits and the structure of the television industry. The key challenges include: i) how to improve the value of the product in terms of the benefit to cost ratio and ii) how to increase awareness of the brand as well as the many different product attributes. We recommend that i) TiVo improve the value of the product by unbundling it in terms of the various benefits provided and then bundling the individual components with other complementary products. ii) So as to increase the awareness of the different TiVo products and the brand, we propose to segment the market in terms of the specific customer profile whose needs are aligned to the particular benefit provided by the product. Accordingly, we arrive at a communication plan for the different TiVo products that target different customer segments through a mix of advertising, promotion, distribution and branding strategies. In the following section, we analyze the situation that Tivo is faced with and follow it up with the logical sequence that helped us arrive at the above recommendations. Company Analysis Calyx and Corolla is a new company in the fresh flowers market. They have pioneered the concept...
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...how to increase awareness of the brand as well as the many different product attributes. We recommend that (i) TiVo improve the value of the product by unbundling it in terms of the various benefits provided and then bundling the individual components with other complementary products. (ii) So as to increase the awareness of the different TiVo products and the brand, we propose to segment the market in terms of the specific customer profile whose needs are aligned to the particular benefit provided by the product. Accordingly, we arrive at a communication plan for the different TiVo products that target different customer segments through a mix of advertising, promotion, distribution and branding strategies. In the following section, we analyze the situation that Tivo is faced with and follow it up with the logical sequence that helped us arrive at the above recommendations. Company Analysis Calyx and Corolla is a new company in the fresh flowers market. They have pioneered the concept of selling fresh flowers by mail. In its short lifetime, C&C has established strong relationships with many large growers, who cut flowers when ordered, thereby increasing the life of the buds tremendously over typical florist shops whose buds may already be a week old when purchased. They have also developed a strong relationship with Federal Express, who is their primary distributor. Federal Express has a well-established brand name, known for speedy, on-time, and reliable delivery...
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...NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY J.L. KELLOGG GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT Marketing 430-62 Alice M. Tybout Winter Quarter 2000 Phone: 847.491.2723 Office: Leverone 468 e-mail: amtybout@nwu.edu COURSE OVERVIEW Course Objectives This is a survey course and, as such, is designed to provide students with an overview of marketing concepts and tools. While effort has been devoted to finding teaching materials that represent a variety of industries and employ a variety of media, the primary goal is to help provide you with concepts and tools that will be broadly applicable. More specifically, the course has two primary objectives: To develop your marketing decision-making skills. You should leave the course with a well-developed ability to: - analyze the marketing and business environment in which an organization is operating and identify the primary marketing problems facing the firm, - prioritize these problems and select the key issue to be addressed, - develop compelling and creative strategies for solving these problems, and - make tactical decisions that will achieve the strategy that you have selected and, thereby, solve the problems you have identified. To provide you with a set of concepts and tools that can support your decision-making. Fundamental concepts of marketing (such as marketing disciplines, segmentation, targeting, and positioning, customer satisfaction, perceived...
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...This case deals with the ethical dilemma that Tobacco manufactures face when selling tobacco products in third world countries. First, there is the ethical dilemma of business versus health. The opening and development of the tobacco business in Third World countries like China, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Africa, is considered against the health consequences of tobacco use which according to an Oxford University epidemiologist, has estimated to cost 3 million lives annually rising to 10 million by 2050 without effective tobacco control program A second ethical dilemma is employment versus impoverishment, where the opportunities for work in the tobacco industry are considered against a background of malnutrition. This is a problem that is certainly worth consideration, but with those who have the power to change things reaping huge profits, I am not sure if anything will be done. 1. Use the model in Exhibit 1 as a guide and assess the ethical and social responsibility implications of the situation described Exhibit 1 is a decision tree. A model for incorporating ethical and social responsibility issues into multinational business decisions. The decisions are decided by the users’ responses to a number of relevant questions regarding the matter at hand. The first question the model asks is whether the decision efficiently optimizes the common good or benefits of the business firm, society, the economy, and the individual. From the tobacco business standpoint, the answer...
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...11.1 Logistics In both vertical and horizontal marketing systems, systematised information contributes to the efficient flow of goods and services from the point-of-origin to the point-of-consumption. This process of regulation begins with customer service and extends to the procurement, handling, and processing of resources aimed at delivering customer satisfaction. All ways in which resources are procured, handled, and processed fall within a set of activities known as logistics. Logistics is a process of systematising information to facilitate the efficient and cost-effective flows of goods and services to produce customer satisfaction. Each member in the supply chain must be involved in logistics activities. Logistics flows may begin with the supplier/manufacturer relationship, but efficient logistics activities are needed throughout the marketing channel. Relationship marketing epitomises the interac-tive process necessary to achieve customer satisfaction by maintaining a participative exchange of information with all of a firm’s channel partners. In addition, develop-ments in electronic retailing are now aimed at making this whole process more effective and efficient. The Council of Logistics Management defines logistics management as: ‘The process of planning, implementing and controlling the efficient, cost-effective flow and storage of raw materials, in-process inventory, finished goods, and related information from point-of-origin to point-of-consumption for...
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...Corporate Responsibility From a business perspective, working under government contracts can be a very lucrative proposition. In general, a stream of orders keep coming in, revenue increases and the company grows in the aggregate. The obvious downfalls to working in this manner is both higher quality expected as well as the extensive research and documentation required for government contracts. If a part fails to perform correctly it can cause minor glitches as well as problems that can carry serious repercussions, such as in the National Semiconductor case. When both the culpable component and company are found, the question arises of how extensive these repercussions should be. Is the company as an entity liable or do you look into individual employees within that company? From an ethical perspective one would have to look at the mitigating factors of both the employees and their superiors along with the role of others in the failure of these components. Next you would have to analyze the final ruling from a corporate perspective and then we must examine the macro issue of corporate responsibility in order to attempt to find a resolution for cases like these. The first mitigating factor involved in the National Semiconductor case is the uncertainty, on the part of the employees, on the duties that they were assigned. It is plausible that during the testing procedure, an employee couldnt distinguish which parts they were to test under government standards and commercial standards...
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