...Introduction Founded in 1906, Li & Fung is a Hong Kong based global supply chain management group that supplies high-volume and time-sensitive consumer goods to some of the world’s leading retailers and brands (Lam, 2013). Fundamentally, the company is an international supply chain manager operating primarily in three core business areas - trading, logistics and distribution. At present, their main source of income are derived from garments and apparels, followed by non-apparel products such as ‘toys, home furnishings, sporting goods, footwear, and health and beauty products’ (Li & Fung website, 2013). Once considered as a steady blue-chip company with high dividend yield and solid earnings, Li & Fung was among one of the best performers in the Hang Seng Index (HSI) from 2007 to 2011 (Kwok, 2013). But sadly, their shares have fallen over 30% to date and is currently the second-worst performing HSI stock in 2013 (Li, 2013). With doubts over the future and the effectiveness of the company, analysts and shareholders are demanding for some new changes from the management team. Hence, the purpose of this report seeks to examine the current issues that are related within their corporate strategy. In addition, we will present a number of recommendations or changes in view of steering the company back into the right direction. 2. Key Issues 2.1. Reliance on US market and devaluation of foreign currencies From 2007 to 2011, over 90% turnover of Li & Fung is coming from US and Europe...
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...Li & Fung (A) : Internet Issues What has been the historic strengths of Li and Fung? * Old company that has 100 years of experience and history, the company is well settled and is one of the leaders in the export trading. This also gives the company a really good brand image. Really good growth as a Trading Company * 69 % sales USA and 27 % sales in Europe * The company has Famous retailers such as American Eagle, Gymboree, the Limited * Global sourcing network quite important * The company has a really strong leadership. The fact that Li & Fung was and is still, in a way, a family business make the leader strongly committed to the success of the firm. Plus both of the current directors are really well publicly traded * Both of the Brothers educated at Harvard Business School * Victor completed his Ph.D and Taught at Harvard for 4 years * 1972 He returned to Hong Kong to modernize the company management * Really good global sourcing network, based in Hong Kong which is a hub concerning the export trading, the company also has offices all over the world that increase the reactivity and efficiency of the company. * Teams of product specialist in 90 separate, individual companies more focused on the needs of specific customers * Decentralized corporate structure for a better adaptability and rapid reaction to seasonal fashion shifts. * Committed staff * Meritocracy with the compensation...
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...Marketing Strategy Part A: (1) Key Social-Cultural trends in Hong Kong over the past decade. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. It is densely populated with an advanced capitalist system. Key events having cultural and social effects include the handover to China, SARS and the emergence of China as an economic power. The CIA lists Hong Kong as having one of the slowest growing populations in the world, ranked 155 with a growth rate of 0.504% per annum. It has one of the highest life expectancies ( 81.86 years, ranked 6), has very low birth rates ( 7224 births/ thousand – ranked 224) and low infant mortality rates. The ratio of men to women has changed over the past decade. In 1999 49.4% of the population was male but this figure had decreased to 47.7% by 2009 ( The Census and Statistics Department ). As a practical matter, these trends stand to complicate the prospect of maintaining rapid economic growth- perhaps severely ( Eberstadt 2007 ). Economically, Hong Kong is still a major financial centre and a leading gateway into China. However, Hong Kong’s economic interaction with the Chinese mainland has grown deeper and broader over the last 10 years, increasing the city’s economic connections with China ( Martin 2007 ). Current economic and trade dynamics have raised concerns that Hong Kong’s relationship with China will shift in the long run from one of synergy to full intergration, possibly undermining the HKSAR’s “high degree of autonomy”...
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... Management Focus: Hewlett Packard in Singapore OUTSOURCING PRODUCTION: MAKE-OR-BUY DECISIONS The Advantages of Make The Advantages of Buy Trade-offs Strategic Alliances with Suppliers MANAGING A GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN The Role of Just-in-Time Inventory The Role of Information Technology and the Internet SUMMARY CRITICAL THINKING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS CLOSING CASE: Li & Fung Learning Objectives 1. Explain why production and logistics decisions are of central importance to many multinational businesses. 2. Explain how country differences, production technology and product features all affect the choice of where to locate production activities. 3. Discuss how the role of foreign subsidiaries in production can be enhanced over time as they accumulate knowledge. 4. Identify the factors that influence a firm’s decision of whether to source supplies from within the company, or from foreign suppliers. 5. Articulate what is required to efficiently coordinate a globally dispersed production system. Chapter Summary This chapter explores the issues associated with global operations management. At the outset, the author defines the terms operations, production, and material management, and then goes on to discuss the importance of total quality management (TQM) and ISO 9000. Particular emphasis is placed on the topics of where international firms should locate their manufacturing operations...
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... Management Focus: Hewlett Packard in Singapore OUTSOURCING PRODUCTION: MAKE-OR-BUY DECISIONS The Advantages of Make The Advantages of Buy Trade-offs Strategic Alliances with Suppliers MANAGING A GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN The Role of Just-in-Time Inventory The Role of Information Technology and the Internet SUMMARY CRITICAL THINKING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS CLOSING CASE: Li & Fung Learning Objectives 1. Explain why production and logistics decisions are of central importance to many multinational businesses. 2. Explain how country differences, production technology and product features all affect the choice of where to locate production activities. 3. Discuss how the role of foreign subsidiaries in production can be enhanced over time as they accumulate knowledge. 4. Identify the factors that influence a firm’s decision of whether to source supplies from within the company, or from foreign suppliers. 5. Articulate what is required to efficiently coordinate a globally dispersed production system. Chapter Summary This chapter explores the issues associated with global operations management. At the outset, the author defines the terms operations, production, and material management, and then goes on to discuss the importance of total quality management (TQM) and ISO 9000. Particular emphasis is placed on the topics of where international firms should locate their manufacturing operations...
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...Redesigning retail: Operating model imperatives for international retailers Deploying the right operating model can help international retailers drive profitable growth by balancing customer relevance and operational efficiency across diverse and dynamic markets. Today’s consumers are a formidable bunch. Armed with more information than ever thanks to technology, they shop anytime, anywhere and with anyone they choose. Moreover, choice, convenience and service mean just as much to them as price. Evolving customer demands are driving retailers to tailor their offerings, expand into new business segments and enhance customer touch points. At the same time, competition— always fierce in retail—is intensifying. Only the fittest or luckiest retailers have survived the global downturn, and investors are demanding ever better performance from them. Already-lean retailers are searching for new ways to achieve structural and operational efficiencies in a bid to outpace competitors. Furthermore, new players from other retail segments and industries are ramping up their retail presence. For example, big-name manufacturers including Apple, P&G and Nike are now bypassing traditional retailers and reaching consumers directly through multiple channels. Growing numbers of retailers are going international—and small wonder. Home markets are saturated, but markets near and far, particularly in emerging economies, still offer white space (see Figure 1). The world’s largest retailers are entering...
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...199. (See Exhibit 1) At present, Turkish Airlines appears to be one of the most extensive airline companies with 106 connected countries (the last was added in April 2014). It was also acclaimed as the best European company in the last four years consecutively at the Skytrax World Airline Awards, being the third most profitable carrier after Ryanair and Easyjet. The expansion continues: with the project of the third Istanbul’s international airport and the announcements of new destinations to countries like Mexico, Philippines and South Sudan. (See Exhibit 2) How a small Turkish state-owned company became so huge and successful? What are the main challenges it had to face and how did it tackle them? What are the main actual and future issues for a company that is expanding quickly and widely? We will try to give an answer to these questions in the paper: starting from an essential and short presentation of Turkish Airlines historical evolution, making a synthetic overview of its main strategies and analyzing the past and the future challenges in developing countries such as India. Turkish Airline historical steps towards internationalization. The “State Airlines Administration” has been established on the 20th of May 1933, under the supervision of the Ministry of National Defense in Turkey, with a fleet consisting of five planes. In 1936 the number of planes was increased to eight and the allocated budget was raised to 1 million TL. As time progressed, technological...
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...There are certain business leaders who make an impact on their companies and often on the world of business because of their philosophies, actions, and businesses they lead. For your paper, select a major business leader from the following names: 1) Steven Jobs, Apple Computer Co. 2) Oprah Winfrey, Harpo 3) Anita Roddick, The Body Shop 4) Vera Wang, Vera Wang Fashions 5) Alan Mulally, CEO Ford Motor Company or 6) Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Describe the business leader’s primary business or business’, highlighting how the leader got started and analyze the leaders three (3) major business challenges in establishing and/or running the company. According to (Ferguson, 2012) the name Vera Wang is synonymous with weddings and bridal wear. Her story began in 1989, when her impending marriage prompted her to search for a suitable gown. Not finding any gowns fitting the look and style she envisioned. She sketched her own design and hired a talented dressmaker to turn her design into reality. According to (Vera Wang, 2012) the year following her wedding, with some financial backing from her father Wang opened her own bridal boutique in the upscale Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue in New York City. Catering mostly to celebrities and socialites, the Vera Wang Bridal House initially offered couture gowns by the famed designers Guy Laroche, Arnold Scaasi, Carolina Herrera, and Christian Dior. Over the next few years, Wang honed her skills as a fashion designer and eventually launched a...
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...EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report will focus on the performance management at Vitality Health Enterprises, Inc, which is a cosmetics and beauty products oriented business. The business started off well with a fast expansion approach. As the company grows, performance management of its staff was necessary to reward top performers as a motivation factor, and also to identify poor performers so they could be trained further or relieved from their positions. The report will therefore highlight the problems associated with performance management and rewards appraisals at Vitality Health Enterprises Inc, such as failure to reward top performers accordingly, identify worst performers, and recommends solutions thereof. STATEMENT OF KEY PROBLEMS OR ISSUES Vitality Health Enterprises Inc was founded in 1987 in Ames, Iowa by an Fred Kikuchi who identified a market niche of health, wellness and beauty products in the Ames where he resided after he left Japan. The company at the beginning of its operations relied on importing re-branded beauty products from Japan until it established its manufacturing plant in the United States of America. As planned, the company grew rapidly and later acquired Herba Nutraceuticals to increase its market share and profitability. In 2007 the company reached 7,000 employees mark and therefore needed to implement an effective performance and rewarding system with the aim of retaining best performing staff of its workforce. The Performance Management Evaluation...
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...Research paper Supply chain management integration and implementation: a literature review Damien Power Department of Management, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review a sample of the literature relating to the integration and implementation of supply chain management practices from a strategic viewpoint. Design/methodology/approach – The literature is examined from three perspectives. First, supply chain integration covers issues relating to integration of core processes across organizational boundaries through improved communication, partnerships, alliances and cooperation. Second, strategy and planning examines supply chain management as a strategic matter for trading partners, along with factors relating to the amount of planning required. Third, implementation issues concern factors critical for successful implementation, as well as issues specific to inter and intraorganizational aspects of supply chain initiatives are contained in this sub-group Findings – An important emergent theme from the literature is the importance of taking a holistic view, and the systemic nature of interactions between the participants. At the same time, it is also apparent that this requirement to take such an holistic and systemic view of the supply chain acts as an impediment to more extensive implementation. The strategic nature of adopting a supply chain wide perspective, on the one hand provides significant potential...
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...Data, data everywhere Information has gone from scarce to superabundant. That brings huge new benefits, says Kenneth Cukier (interviewed here)—but also big headaches A special report on managing information Feb 25th 2010 WHEN the Sloan Digital Sky Survey started work in 2000, its telescope in New Mexico collected more data in its first few weeks than had been amassed in the entire history of astronomy. Now, a decade later, its archive contains a whopping 140 terabytes of information. A successor, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, due to come on stream in Chile in 2016, will acquire that quantity of data every five days. Such astronomical amounts of information can be found closer to Earth too. Wal-Mart, a retail giant, handles more than 1m customer transactions every hour, feeding databases estimated at more than 2.5 petabytes—the equivalent of 167 times the books in America’s Library of Congress. Facebook, a social-networking website, is home to 40 billion photos. And decoding the human genome involves analysing 3 billion base pairs—which took ten years the first time it was done, in 2003, but can now be achieved in one week. All these examples tell the same story: that the world contains an unimaginably vast amount of digital information which is getting ever vaster ever more rapidly. This makes it possible to do many things that previously could not be done: spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime and so on. Managed well, the data can be...
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...vs01@txstate.edu COURSE DESCRIPTION This course is directly concerned with the management issues surrounding information and telecommunications systems. It presents the ingredients of management knowledge necessary for success in the management of information technology. This course views information technology from the perspective of managers at several levels--from the CEO to the first line manager. It provides frameworks and management principles that current or aspiring managers can employ to cope with the challenges inherent in the implementation of rapidly advancing technology. The course presents fundamental knowledge essential to managing an information technology successfully within a larger organization. It considers strategic and operational issues, the significance of rapidly advancing technology, and human and organizational issues related to technology introduction and use. The course describes management systems and models of successful behavior that capitalize on opportunities and avoid the numerous potential pitfalls. LEARNING METHODOLOGY The learning methodology used in this course consists of lectures, class discussion, case analysis and discussion, homework, term paper, and exam(s). PRE-REQUISITES Graduate standing. COURSE OBJECTIVES The goal of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the issues and...
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...Managing Information Systems Managing Information Systems – Ch. 3 Information Systems, Organizations, and Strategy Systems Organizations and Strategy 1 Learning Objectives • Features of organizations that managers must understand in order to build and use information systems successfully • Using Porter ’s competitive forces model to develop competitive Porter competitive forces model to develop competitive strategies using information systems • Leveraging the value chain and value web models to identify opportunities for strategic information system applications opportunities for strategic information system applications • The role of information systems in creating synergies, core competencies, and network-based strategies to achieve competitive advantage • The challenges posed by strategic information systems and management solutions 2 EBay Fine-Tunes Its Strategy • Problem: Losing market share to other online retailers, ultracompetitive and constantly changing marketplace • Solutions: Acquire other businesses and adjust its business Acquire other businesses and adjust its business model to maintain online dominance • Purchase of PayPal, deal with Buy.com allowed eBay to grow and diversify its business di it • Demonstrates IT’s role in the development of eBay’s organization as it expands and makes acquisitions • Illustrates the challenges of maintaining a competitive advantage in a fast-moving, constantly-changing marketplace 3 Organizations...
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...Analysemethoden und Anwendungsbereiche Seraina Mohr & Dorothea Schaffner Kurzzusammenfassung: Das Kommunikationsverhalten von Konsumentinnen und Konsumenten hat sich mit der Möglichkeit im Internet, Informationen einfach zu publizie-ren und sich dabei unabhängig von Institutionen und klassischen Medien auszutauschen, radikal verändert. Diese Informationen bieten ein bislang noch weitgehend unausgeschöpftes Potential für die Erkenntnisgewin-nung in Unternehmen. Vor diesem Hintergrund geht der Beitrag den Fra-gen nach, wie Unternehmen diese Konversationen im Web 2.0 für die Entwicklung von neuen Produktideen nutzen oder auch initiieren können und welche Vorteile dies gegenüber klassischen Marktforschungsinstru-menten bringt. 1. Einleitung Mit der Verbreitung von Web 2.0 Anwendungen, sogenannter Social Software, hat sich das Kommunikationsverhalten von Konsumentinnen und Konsumenten radikal verändert. Die Möglichkeiten, im Internet einfach Informationen zu publizieren und sich dabei unabhängig von Institutionen und klassischen Medien auszutauschen, hat eine kreative Revolution ausgelöst. Über Social Software findet ein zunehmend interaktiver Austausch zwischen der Kundschaft und Unternehmen statt. Konsumentinnen und Konsumenten publizieren im Kommunikationsraum Internet ihre Meinungen und Erfahrungen, nehmen Bewertungen vor und diskutieren über Produkte, Trends und Entwicklungen. Diese nutzergenerierten Inhalte bieten ein bislang noch weitgehend unausgeschöpftes...
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...brick-and-mortar sector will be replaced by the online stores. This research intends to first help Wanda department stores to identify the influences of online stores. Then, based on the successful development experience of British department stores industry, the feasibility of creating own-brand to help Wanda department stores to reduce the influences of online stores will be analyzed. This research finds three influences of online stores to Wanda department stores which is the objective one. First is the elicitation of homogenous issues of Wanda department stores. Second one is the low consumer switching cost to shop online. Third come to the high utilitarian value of online stores. From the findings of objective two, it is possible for Wanda department stores to create their own-brands, and own-brand product can reduce those three online influences identified in objective one. Wanda department stores can differentiate themselves and get ride of homogenous issues with the existence of competitive own-brand products. Besides, if Wanda department stores establish own-brands, Wanda department stores can provide greater financial switching cost since they control the price and products, and greater relational switching cost because they can control front-line sellers and take measures to reduce the turnover rate of those sellers which would in turn create better relationship with consumers. In addition, after creating own-brands, Wanda department stores can...
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