...Bringing a unique idea from concept to product, producing those products and brining them to market, selling them to customers, and making a profit is part of the life cycle of many new businesses. It is at that time that many business owners look to where their businesses can improve, what can be streamlined, and how to better meet the needs of current customers. Further than that is the analysis of how to reach out to new customers, markets, and increase the demand for their products. As the online marketplace expands and more and more consumers look to the virtual marketplace for products, services, and payment options, the opportunity to maximize exposure and business potential expands. Many businesses have an endless opportunity to expand to new markets, adapt the products they produce to expand market share, and modify their marketing plan to reach additional geographical customer niches. In a more defined area of the marketplace, businesses that provide a service to a specific geographical area have different challenges and perceived 2 payoffs to use the online market place to effectively expand the business. An electrical utility, for example, is not able to expand its customer base merely by increasing viability by expanding online to communicate to potential new customers the competitive pricing, reliable service, and products available to those who receive service from their utility. It is increasingly vital for businesses with similar fixed markets to maximize...
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...mkt 3000 | Starbucks | Delivering Customer Satisfaction Case Analysis | | Nathan Hood | 9/30/2013 | 1. What explains the Starbucks success story? The success Starbucks saw in the early 1990’s is a result of Howard Schultz’s vision for the company. Schultz’s goal was not primarily about the coffee itself; it was about creating an experience around drinking coffee in a Starbucks store. He wanted to create a “third-place” for those whose lives were centered on home and work. In creating this experience, Schultz focused much of his attention and resources on customer satisfaction, which lead to Starbucks’ quick success. There were a few key elements of the Starbuck’s value proposition that led to its success; coffee quality, customer service, and atmosphere. In the early 1990’s part of Starbucks’ strategy was to serve what it felt was the “highest-quality coffee in the world.” To do this they controlled the three major parts of the supply-chain; purchasing beans, roasting, and distribution. This enabled the company to keep full control of quality of its products and services. The next part of their strategy was to provide the highest standard of customer service. Starbucks partners (the term used to refer to employees), upon being hired, underwent training in the areas of “hard-” and “soft skills.” “Soft skills” are skills that allow partners to connect with the customer, by establishing eye contact, smiling and remembering their names if they were regulars....
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...Only one proposal will be submitted. The proposals are: Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion and Design Your Own Doll. A systematic process will be used to determine which proposal to recommend. Criteria Include: 1. Comparison of the business cases 2. NPV analysis 3. IRR and payback period analysis 4. Analysis of additional information 5. Recommendation Comparison of the Business Cases Most Compelling Business Case Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion is the the most compelling opportunity. This initial recommendation is based solely on a qualitative comparison of the cases and the financial exhibits provided by the brand managers. A SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, & Threat) analysis was used to aid the decision process. See Tables 1 & 2 for SWOT analysis. Benefits of the Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion: * Success of the original line of business * Utilization of the businesses existing strengths * Long term ability for the product to stay up to date and drive business Concerns for the Design Your Own Doll: * High risk associated with developing a proprietary software system * Complexity of manufacturing * High break-even sales volume Overview Business Case 1 – Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion The proposal for the Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion is to expand the line, based on the success and popularity of the existing product line, to include products for...
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...budgeting committee. Only one proposal will be submitted. The proposals are: Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion and Design Your Own Doll. A systematic process will be used to determine which proposal to recommend. Criteria Include: 1. Comparison of the business cases 2. NPV analysis 3. IRR and payback period analysis 4. Analysis of additional information 5. Recommendation Comparison of the Business Cases Most Compelling Business Case Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion is the the most compelling opportunity. This initial recommendation is based solely on a qualitative comparison of the cases and the financial exhibits provided by the brand managers. A SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, & Threat) analysis was used to aid the decision process. See Tables 1 & 2 for SWOT analysis. Benefits of the Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion: * Success of the original line of business * Utilization of the businesses existing strengths * Long term ability for the product to stay up to date and drive business Concerns for the Design Your Own Doll: * High risk associated with developing a proprietary software system * Complexity of manufacturing * High break-even sales volume Overview Business Case 1 – Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion The proposal for the Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion is to expand the line, based on the success and popularity of the existing product line, to include products for all four seasons. The...
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...ensure the company pursues opportunities that align with our strategic business goals. The primary goal of portfolio management is to prioritize projects, allocate resources to projects, and identifying which projects to initiate, reprioritize, or terminate. A key focus is ensuring that the overall collection of projects creates the greatest possible value by supporting the objectives of the enterprise. In conjunction to the implementation of an analytic hierarchy process; the implementation of AHP and the use of weighted criteria provide the ability to not only weight benefits but also project risk. Fist, we establish a project selection criterion; * Contributes to expansion goal * Expansion of current services provided to current customers (new product lines) * Increase Revenue * Increase Customer Satisfaction * Reduce cost of operations * Reduce overhead and warehousing cost. Upon receipt of a proposed project all proposals will be measured against the project selection criteria by making the determination if the proposed project meets or exceed the requirements above. This is considered a type of funnel where projects that do not add value to the organization are moved out of the way. Upon the completion of the filtering process the prioritization and resource capacity determination begins. Once all projects have been prioritized all projects will have to pass the go/no go determination. All funded projects move on to be...
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...experience. (Access-based positioning) Strategies are divided: A. Production: produce high quality, variety products coffee source: high quality and sustainability. 2.Craftsmanship: unique producing process including roasting and brewing,using exclusive machines and coffee brewers. 3. Variety of productions:quality coffee,a variety of hand-crafted beverages,Tazo teas,Ethos water,pastries and, in some markets,a selection of sandwiches and salads. Attributes of measurements: Certification of coffee beans, sales, customer flow Substitute attributes: Certification of coffee beans—the testing results of the soil in coffee plantation every year to guarantee the organic planting method B. Service: ‘Starbucks Experience’ Key words: humanity, standardization, good customer experience 1.Connect with, laugh with, and uplift the lives of customers Starbucks Entertainment: film, music, books, which be purchased at stores or online app store Stores are decorated full of humanity: making customers feel the sense of belonging and enjoyment Attributes of measurements: customer satisfaction Substitute attributes: customer satisfaction—customers’ average time of stay, regular customers（VIPs） C. Operation: diversified operation Key words: retail duplication, word of mouth marketing (WOM), digital marketing, social marketing, regular chain and market expansion. Retail duplication: Starbucks adopts the relatively slow "narrowcasting model" (one-on-one) direct talks with customers, and employees of...
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...the $170 million expansion of manufacturing capacity. Although the project involves some risks and opportunity costs, our analysis suggests that the project has a very high positive NPV that more than outweighs any such concerns. In addition to increasing market share and reducing costs, the Goliath project will have a positive effect on employee morale and productivity. The remainder of this memo will present the arguments for/against expansion, as well as the associated business risks. I. Arguments Supporting Expansion * Based on our assumptions in the financial model, the Goliath project has an NPV= $105,060,315 even with a conservative weighted average cost of capital of 10%. * The sensitivity analysis tables in the financial model clearly show that the project has a positive NPV even when the assumptions are modified. * The project increases HPL’s market share and profits. * Additional capacity will reduce costs. * HPL can capitalize on the first mover’s advantage, as private label growth is too modest to support multiple producers. * The growth will substantially boost employee morale and will foster a strong relationship with the largest customer. * Prospect of rapid growth and value creation since this expansion will allow HPL to accommodate and attract additional customers in the future. * More opportunities to expand the private label industry, leading to more consumer awareness of generics, and hence more customer acceptance. II...
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...Supply Chain Management: CEO Decision on West Coast Expansion Yunior A. Espinal Colorado Tech University SCM 210 – Intro to Logistics / Supply Chain May 1, 2015 Supply Chain Management: CEO Decision on West Coast Expansion Section I: Introduction The main pro for having multiple distribution centers and shipping locations across the U.S. is to have the ability to meet customer demand at all major locations. Other pros include lowering the transportation and freight costs to diverse customer locations. Reducing the travel area when establishing multiple distribution centers and shipping locations lower transportation costs. The expectation is that multiple distribution centers will help to lower the time frame for customer servicing by meeting current customer demand. Effectively, linking demand with inventory (Fortna, n.d.). Intuitively, cons include the cost of land, buildings, labor, and equipment, for the development of multiple distribution centers and shipping locations. The rate of domestic sales for each region should increase faster than the rate of cost of operations for each regional distribution center. The benefit of having more than one international distribution center is to manage more effectively the distribution of international sales. Cons include the higher cost of labor (Blackerby, 2003). Cost of labor is reflective of the underlying exchange rate of the euro/USD or 1 euro = $1.50. The cons of an international shipping location instead shipping from the...
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...leather jackets. The store also provides a limited catalog of men and women shoes. Recently the company has entered the shoe industry designing field wherein the customer may choose from a selection of signature designs or it can create its own design with the assistance of the firm’s professional staff. It has been recommended that the company develops an online business presence by generating a well-designed website that will increase the firm’s visibility in the market as its strategy calls for the expansion of its products and services. The section below contains the new website’s structural site map and a design mock-up of its constituent pages. (see attachments). Project Scope and Estimated costs The new website for Silvio’s Custom Shoe Design & Restoration will be built using the Fortune3 platform. This turnkey solution provides hosting, and e-commerce capabilities such as an online store, shopping cart, and checkout. Silvio’s will subscribe to Fortune3 Gold plan based on a monthly fee. The company will retain the services of Gecko Media in the designing and the building of its website and to make ongoing changes once it is up and running. Fortune3 online store checkout module requires a third-party payment gateway provider, for which the company will utilize Authorize.Net services. For a monthly fee customers payments will be deposited by Authorize.Net to Silvio’s existing account at its bank. The company is also required to register and maintain its domain name...
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...518 28094 26 | For the Course of 2605691 Seminar in Marketing Management Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy Chulalongkorn University QUESTION 1 : Identify the primary issues in the case. Between 1997 and 2005 a series of crisis severely challenged the hotel industry and stake holders, especially in asia region, which never before have so many issues that causes a crisis that has lasted that long With majority of properties located in asia, Banyan tree was hit hard by the crisis causing poor profitability in 2005. Foreseeing the risk of focusing its core operation in one region, Mr.Ho, CEO of Banyan tree initiates the expansion plan of banyan tree to open new properties in new location in order to minimize the risks. The IPO was executed to increase the capital for this expansion. However, the key issue of this aggressive expansion in how banyan tree can maintain its respective qualities across the chain due to: * The limitation of manpower and infrastructure to consistently deliver banyan Tree’s experience * The danger of bran dilution in case of banyan tree expands into territories that may have a negative impact on the brand. Its very important that banyan tree ethos, culture and skill set do not disappear with the process of the growth. Tha ability to manage growth while at the same time prevents brand dilution is crucial when considering about doing a mega expansionary project. * The emergent of competition in niche markets also happened as banyan...
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...Superior Vending Expansion Proposal 1 REVISED Superior Vending Online Business Expansion Proposal Brian Dyck E-Commerce November 15, 2012 Superior Vending Expansion Proposal 2 Table of Contents A. ONLINE BUSINESS EXPANSION PROPOSAL ................................................................................. 3 A.1. A.2. A.3. A.4. A.5. A.6. A.7. A.8. A.9. B. VIABILITY OF SERVICE .................................................................................................................... 3 ONLINE COMPETITOR ASSESSMENT ................................................................................................ 5 ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGIES ................................................................................................. 10 SEARCH ENGINE CONSIDERATIONS & OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES .................................................. 13 SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION......................................................................................................... 14 ONLINE CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT ......................................................................... 15 E-COMMERCE SOLUTIONS............................................................................................................ 16 INTERNATIONAL CONSIDERATION .................................................................................................. 17 PROJECTED W EB DEVELOPMENT & MAINTENANCE COST.....................................................
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...IL, 60643 Phone: 312.555.5555 Fax: 312.555.5551 thurmanconsult@gmail.com www.thurmanconsulting.com Resellers such as sells representatives have firsthand knowledge of what their buyers look for and can make suggestions that drive key product changes that meet customers’ needs real time. Resellers can help quickly customize products and understand price points and product restrictions. Competitors have already penetrated the market and Chocoberry already has an excellent source of information on niche products that can be expanded based on their successes and failures. The competition can be used as a resource that provides insider knowledge on what products are growing and how consumers utilize them. Technology companies have traditionally led with using unique methods to solicit consumer feedback. The food industry has in most recent years utilized the same methods to help grow their brands and reduce cost. Crowdsourcing, is a method of utilizing the public to solicit ideas and feedback on concepts. From design to product feedback this method is cost effective and has the ability to reach traditional and nontraditional customers. Each method should be considered at certain phases of the expansion. Initially utilizing consumers would be our first recommendation to ensure the proper implementation of proper process and procedures. Consumer feedback will always be the most valuable. It will be direct and honest and address their concerns head on. The challenge can...
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...time training employees. Schultz believed that employee happiness was paramount to the success of the company. To that end Starbucks offered medical insurance to all its employees even with the majority being part-time. These initiatives created a sense of ownership amongst the employees and this positivity trickled down to the customers. In the process of developing a coffee culture Schultz realized that the customer experience was as important as the end product. Roasting and grinding the beans in the store, creating coffee made to order, all of this created a kind of spectacle and consumers responded very favourably. To better reflect the European coffee bars on which it was modeled, each Starbucks location was designed to make customers stay and consume their beverage on site. Comfy seating arranged in a living room type setting, smooth ambient music, everything in the layout of the stores was not left to chance and was designed to magnify the Starbucks experience. In those early days Starbucks was a very lean organisation with a very limited product offering. Schultz by his own admission was trying to create coffee connoisseurs out of every customer that walked into the stores. This high degree of control,...
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...Final Exam Questions Course 62.601 (Customers and Markets) Fall 2014 / Professor Tao (Tony) Gao Question 1: I recommend CDT to introduce accessories for music, movies and video game fans as a new category of products. These accessories include posters, clothes, cups, and so on. These accessories related to a specific movie or famous star, for instance, a T-shirt with a theme of Star Wars. As CDT is a store for music lover and movie lover, this new category can attract these customers’ attention when they looking for their entertainment products. Based on the customer survey, 56% of customers are between 18 and 36 years old, these young customers more like to purchase the accessories for collecting. The accessories for music and video are a new trend that more and more famous singers and movie companies like to release some accessories about their music and movies to earn more money. It provides a new way for CDT to compete with these mass merchandise stores. These merchandise stores are only sell CDs and movies, they do not sell these accessories. In addition, these accessories are high profit products. If CDT introduces this new category, it will bring high profits to CDT. It is a good category for CDT’s long-term business. The digital downloading and piracy significantly affect the sales for CDT’s traditional business. However, the new category will not affected by digital downloading and piracy, so it may be a good way for CDT to focus on it. Question 2: 1. Introducing...
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...many players * Emerging threat from substitutes like social networking sites * Direct competition launched by biggest competitor ‘Match’ through its ‘Chemistry’ offering eHarmony’s key valuable resource is its vast bank of customer data that it uses to match customers based on its proprietary algorithm, and its brand/reputation * Data bank is rare and inimitable for competitors or new market entrants, making it a critical resource leading to competitive advantage * “Match for life” reputation as a result of rigorous registration process attracting customers interested in long-term relationships eHarmony offers a higher value to its customers in comparison to its competitors in terms of specialization of service offered, efficiency and quality of matches and the detailed screening process Going forward, eHarmony should focus on expanding service offerings (offering services for parenting, weddings, etc.) and explore geographic expansion to other English speaking Western countries * Expansion would be re-enforcing with eHarmony’s critical resources like its intensive R&D capabilities, customer loyalty and reputation eHarmony’s Strategy eHarmony Strategy The Business Model Who eHarmony provides services to US based individuals actively engaged in the search of long term relationships. These individuals have to be heterosexual, single, and not have divorced more than 3 times. What The company provides an online highly customised matching service...
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