...Otis Elevator: Accelerating Business Transformation with IT At Harvard the only thing considered duller, safer, and less adventurous than working for a bank was working for some old-line can't-miss industrial firm like Otis Elevator, which only needed caretakers. —Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998), p. 31 At the northeast corner of 20th Street is the turreted red-brick Victorian Apartment house . . . the first cooperative apartment house in New York City. Peek into the luxurious lobby! The foyer is adorned with stained glass and Minton tiles, and the building is equipped with Otis hydraulic elevators installed in 1883, and among the oldest of their kind still in service. —Gerard R. Wolfe, New York: 15 Walking Tours (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), p. 261 In early 2004, Otis Elevator President An Bousbib (pronounced boozbe) finalized his presentation to United Technologies (UTC)—the parent company. The past 12 months had been a success for Otis, as highlighted in the 2003 Annual Report: Otis completed the second-largest acquisition in its history with the addition of Amtech Elevator Services. Amtech brings . . . a customer base spanning universities, hotels, hospitals, airports and convention centers throughout the United States. Overall, Otis revenues grew by more than $1 billion to $7.9 billion. Operating profit increased by more than $300 million to $1.38 billion, and operating profit margin grew by more than one point to 17.4%) Otis was the...
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...Business Context Elisha Graves Otis founded the company when he first founded the ‘Safety brake elevator’ in 1853. From then the company’s main focus was to design and manufacture the safety systems according to the customers need. The Otis Elevator Company became a subsidiary of United Technologies (UTC). It is one of the largest manufacturing industries in the world. It not only manufactures but also installs the equipment in the respective customer desired locations. It then continues its relationship with the customers by providing timely service facilities. It was soon recognized as a leader in service excellence among all the companies. The main competitors included multinational companies such as Hitachi, Kinetek, KONE, etc. Otis grew aggressively by acquiring elevator business in China. By 2004, the company had 1.5 million elevators and 100,000 escalators operating in the world. Its revenues increased by $6 billion. The company was a huge success. Initiatives taken to improvise 1. OTISLINE customer service center During any service emergency, the service panel was dispatched from the local offices that caused huge delay time and hence decreasing customer satisfaction. The OTISLINE customer service center was created to dispatch service mechanics on immediate requests. The main aim was to implement 24x7 concept. This initiative also allowed Otis to produce ‘excess’ callback reports for various levels of management. The managers had the information they needed...
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...place. However, before they were used for practical transportation, escalators were used more so as amusement. The first patent relating to an escalator like machine was granted in 1859 to Massachusetts resident, Jesse Reno for a steam driven unit. On March 15, 1892, Jesse Reno patented his moving stairs (or inclined elevator as he called it). In 1895, Jesse Reno created a new ride at Coney Island from his patented design, a moving stairway that elevated passengers on a twenty-five degree angle. The escalator as we know it was later redesigned by Charles Seeberger in 1897, who created the name 'escalator' from the word 'scala', which is Latin for steps and the word 'elevator', which had already been invented. Charles Seeberger, together with the Otis Elevator Company produced the first commercial escalator in 1899 in New York. The Seeberger-Otis wooden escalator won first prize at the Paris 1900 Exposition Universelle in France. Jesse Reno's Coney Island ride success briefly made Jesse Reno into "the" escalator designer and he founded the Reno Electric Stairways and Conveyors company in 1902.Charles Seeberger sold his patent rights for the escalator to the Otis...
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...might be the motivation for Otis to launch this project? Otis, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation, was the first elevator company to introduce microchip into the elevator mechanism. It incorporated the latest technology into its elevators, (indicating that Otis was investing in the technology as it saw some advantage out of it.) Otis installed its first computer IBM 1401 in 1965 to automate maintenance billing which was used for production control and accounting. It kept upgrading its information systems from time to time as and when new computer or technology was available. But this still was unorganized as each department had separate technological advances, i.e. in some departments like billing and production, the technology was advanced, but in departments like dispatching it was still lagging behind. This led to the inefficiency in dispatching. They introduced information technology in 1981 to check the feasibility of centralized customer service department. It used answering machines to turnaround on weekends and no prime time calls, which was inefficient. Hence Brad Robertson decided to start the OTISLINE project which would improve the visibility of the service business and help in better managing of the current operations. • • • • • • They used answering machines to turnaround on weekends and no prime time calls, which was inefficient. Remain the Market Leader: In order to remain at the market leader position, OTIS had to ensure a better product...
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...The inclusion of a brief summary (‘Executive Summary’) is standard reporting practice and is meant to act as a guide to the contents of the report and to highlight major conclusions and recommendations. The Executive Summary derives its name from the practice of providing the executives of an organisation, that is, those responsible for making decisions and taking appropriate action, with a concise outline of the major points in a report to save them time. The detail can be pursued in more depth later by a complete reading of the report. The structure of the Executive Summary should follow the structure of the report and include brief statements on the following: definition of the problem aims and objectives methods/data sources key findings conclusions any recommendations for action. The Executive Summary should be brief and succinct, and may use point form to achieve this. As a rule-of-thumb, allow one page for every 5,000 words up to a maximum of five pages, and using headings in longer Executive Summaries. The inclusion of an Executive Summary is not a substitute for discussion/exposition in the full report. Example of an Executive Summary Problem context & Purpose of report Method Results Conclusions Recommendations Limitations This report provides an analysis and evaluation of the current and prospective profitability, liquidity and financial stability of Outdoor Equipment Ltd. Methods of analysis include trend, horizontal and vertical...
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...Jones: Introduction To Business: How Companies III. A Functional Approach to Business 12. Operations and Materials Management: © The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2007 Create Value for People Managing the Production and Flow of Goods and CHAPTER 12 Operations and Materials Management: Managing the Production and Flow of Goods and Services Learning Objectives After studying this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Describe the nature of the operations and materials management process and explain how it can create a competitive advantage for a company. 2. Identify the five main components of operations and materials management costs and the methods companies use to reduce them. 3. Differentiate between the three major kinds of operating systems companies use to produce goods and services. 4. Understand the way total quality management can significantly improve both quality and productivity. WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT Flour, eggs, sugar, baking powder, chocolate, and shortening don’t create much excitement when they are in the kitchen cupboard. They create a lot more excitement when someone transforms them into a cake. Whether it’s a cake, a computer, or a legal docu- ment, operations and materials management processes create value in a household or a company. A company’s operations require inputs such as raw materials or parts and the skilled people and equip- ment to transform them into useful products...
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...Otis Elevator: Accelerating Business Transformation with IT Otis was the largest manufacturer, installer, and servicer of elevators, escalators, and moving walkways in the world. Otis Elevator company has reformed itself as a service oriented company from an old line industrial company. This was possible due to the company’s focus on orders of magnitude improvements in logistics and service. It has integrated all the functions needed in perspective of customer and developed a single customer-centric business model. One Interesting fact is that 80% of the company’s revenue comes from outside the united states. This emphasizes that globalization played a significant role in terms of customer base, revenue. So, going forward the company should concentrate in expanding it’s operations all over the world, especially the emerging economies and attaining diversified customer database. One can easily infer form Otis transformation that Information Technology, Improvement in information flow and understanding market trend, customer needs plays a major role in changing the face of the company. Otis has restructured itself taking upon the fact that customer service, maintenance contributes more to the market along with the sales. OTISLINE Customer service center is one of the early IT applications in Otis which helped Otis dispatch group respond to customer in less than a sec. IT applications aids in improving visibility of business performance to management and...
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...joint venture between Otis Elevator Company, CITIC and TEC, and some changes I think may be necessary in the Joint Venture proposal. Exhibit A summarizes the current business overview of Otis and its competitors, which is important to understand the context of the JV and how will a JV in China would be helpful for Otis’s market position. I think this is a good time for Otis to enter the Chinese market. Otis entered China earlier in 1930, and left the country in 1951 due to political instability of the country. A quick timeline of China’s political evolution is highlighted in Exhibit B. The conditions persistent in the country in 1951 are very different from the present conditions in 1983. China has experienced immense growth in all sectors, and the construction industry is booming due to modernization efforts. Even after the death of Deng, I think his successors would encourage foreign investments because all these effort are producing good results in terms of GDP growth, exports, and technological know-how (Exhibits 3, 4 and 5 of the case) for China. In addition to all these, China-Schindler joint venture has proved very successful. This strengthening position of Schindler poses a threat to the market share of Otis. Other smaller players, such as Hitachi, are also entering into agreements with Chinese elevator companies. Also, the JV proposal is for Tianjin, the third largest Chinese city which is also emerging as a major exports hub. This gives Otis an excellent opportunity...
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...into the Indian elevator market at the request of the VRA, the corporate committee of Schindler which included Alfred Schindler (CEO), Luc Bonnard (Vice Chairman), and Alfred Spoerri (CFO). To begin Silvio Napoli, a young MBA from France, a third-country national, was fully responsible for the Indian expansion, and he had to get operations up and running and profitable in for years. His challenges included staffing and implementing a business plan he developed. Napoli’s plan two basic premises 1) to sell standardized elevators in India, and 2) outsource manufacturing and logistics in India. Napoli’s plan had success earlier in his career in 1995 with the Swatch Project that bested industry standard 20- to 30- week cycles by 50% with this same approach. Other challenges faced by Napoli included pressure in family his family life as a result of poor planning and no employee assistance program to get his family acclimated to Indian culture. That poor work-life balance distracted Napoli to the point where he could focus on neither his work, nor personal life. After 8 months he had not installed one unit and had orders that were contrary to the standardization strategy his entire business plan was based on. Government activities that affected Schindler’s activities such as raising transfer taxes and import duties also presented Napoli with unplanned production cost. Analysis Strategy, mode of entry Entrance strategies used by Schindler in the Indian elevator industry which...
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...Silvio Napoli At Schindler India Management Essay Published: 23, March 2015 Schindler, a Swiss elevator company, had decided to develop and grow its international market share by planting a fully owned subsidiary in India. Its primary goals were to achieve 50 orders in its first year and break even after four years of trading. It also planned to win 20% of the market share inside of 5 years. Silvio Napoli, had been carefully selected as he was the author of the business plan which had documented this take-off. The mindset was that Silvio could replicate his winning Swatch strategy in a rising market that had strong growth prospects. The two key elements of his business plan strategy was (a) the introduction of a line of standardised and non-customised S001 and S003 elevators and (b) the local supply of materials and components. It had been eight months since he took up office and there hadn't been a single sale. Things had gone pear - shaped frustrating Silvio as they had hindered his attainment of the targets set for him. Firstly, selling non-standard elevators in India was myopic where customised elevators were critical to new entrant strategies. Secondly, his strategic expansion highlighted cost reduction instead of focusing on product customisation. Thirdly, communication problems and lack of vital support beleaguered the new low-cost subsidiary from its parent company. Finally, it appears personnel were not "listening". Read more:...
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...Assignment Report Group F2 OTISLINE Group Members Shirsho Biswas (0344/48) Shridhar Jaiswal (0347/48) Shubhkarman Singh Sidhu (0350/48) Q1. What might be the motivation for Otis to launch this project? Ans. The elevator service business alone was $2 billion, which was almost twice that of product sales. Also it was a more stable market than the product sales market. It was essential that this part of the business ran as effectively and efficiently as possible. Customer call-back responsiveness was the main factor on which this business depended. Earlier, when they used commercial answering services to attend non-primetime calls, the quality of service varied greatly since the answering services did not have the same motivation as the company to provide a fast response to the customer. NAO had earlier calculated that reducing call-backs for each installed elevator, by one a year, the company would save $5million annually. By launching OTISLINE, OTIS expected to improve the responsiveness and quality of their call-back service significantly, and thus saving a significant amount of money and increasing their share of the highly profitable elevator service business. Q2. How was value created in the product? Ans. OTISLINE created strong value for the company. It provided a real competitive advantage to OTIS with its ability to collapse both distance and time, providing in faster responses to customers and better maintenance procedures. The marketing services improved in terms of:...
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...Silvio Napoli at Schindler India WHAT IS A KEY ISSUE IN THIS CASE? Silvio Napoli, a Harvard MBA graduate was hired by Schindler Elevator Company where he introduced a business plan that supports the company's goal to grow its international market share by acquiring a fully owned subsidiary in India. The primary goals were to achieve 50 orders in the first year, then break even after 4 years of operations. It was also planned that 20 percent off the market share will be gained one the inside of 5 years. Because Napoli had constructed the plan, and he has had success in the past with his award winning Swatch strategy in a rising market that had growth prospects. It was the mindset among his bosses that he would be the best candidate for the job. The two key elements of his business plan strategy are as follows: 1.) The introduction of a line of standardized and non-customizable S001 & S00 3 elevators. 2.) The local supply of materials and companies. It had been 8 months since Napoli took up office and there hasn't been a single sale. Things had gone wrong. The strategic implementation of the business plan was not as easy as anticipated and the lack of infrastructure and support from the European plants is causing the implementation the much harder. HOW SHOULD HE DEAL WITH THE CHALLENGES HE IS FACING OVER TRANSFER PRICES AND LIMITED TECHNICAL COOPERATION FROM THE EUROPEAN PLANTS? The transfer pricing and the lack of technical cooperation from the European...
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...a Swiss-based company that designs and produces elevators and escalators. Silvio Napoli, who is Schindler Holdings’ head of corporate planning manager in Switzerland has been relocated to New Delhi and has been promoted to vice president. Napoli obtained his new position by creating a business plan that strived for “core standardized products,” which meant that the production of elevators in India would be simple and of minimal design. Napoli thought the plan of producing standardized elevators would be a great idea and create a competitive advantage over other companies that made customized elevators. This plan in actual fact turned out to be a failure due to certain factors. Due to high import costs, many foreign elevator companies were forced to manufacture locally. Since Napoli knew about this situation, he decided to do things a different way. To keep costs low, Napoli would have elevator parts outsourced by local suppliers in Europe. However, when Napoli looked over the transfer prices he noticed that they were 30 percent above the costs he had originally calculated. When he contacted the company to complain, it turned out that a new transfer system had been created, so raising costs were necessary. Also, while communicating to one of his leading managers in India, Napoli had discovered that the company had accepted an order for an expensive glass customized elevator, instead of the original standard elevator. The chief business problem of the Napoli case...
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...The European elevator company was established in early 1900 and had its headquarters based out in Helsinki and Brussels. The European elevator company was a respected company in the elevators and escalators industry and had been operating in this industry from its inception. The European elevator company amongst the 3 largest elevator company in terms of its revenue and market-share. The European elevator company revenue was primarily from two sources – one sale of new equipment (~38%) and services (~62%). The global elevator industry had been under consolidation phase. There were three market segments in the industry at that point in time, the small size elevators, medium rise elevators and high rise elevators. With construction industry looking at a slump, there is a fall expected in the demand for elevators. Most of the industry demand (~75%) is from the small size segment. With falling demand, the competition was becoming aggressive but was not able to make profits on their revenue (both Otis and Schindler posted losses). In order to weather this storm, The European elevator company R&D had developed “Breakthrough”, a product with many superior value propositions. “Breakthrough” was launched in Netherlands, France and UK to begin with. And the strategy employed was articles in journals and face to face meetings. However, the sales of “Breakthrough” units did not pick up as expected and entry into Germany was imperative. Germany was the largest elevator market and was dominated...
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...Summary of the case Otis Elevator was founded by Elisha Graves Otis, the inventor of the safety-brake elevator, in 1853. The main business of Otis was to design, manufacture, install and provide service for elevators and relevant products such as moving walkways and escalators. The market was very competitive in the elevator industry, and Otis investigated that customer cancelled maintenance agreements due to dissatisfaction for service quality rather than product quality. In order to increase its market share and become the well-known leader in service excellence among all companies worldwide, the goal of Otis was to differentiate itself from other companies through logistics and service. Otis’s objectives were 1. To improve innovation, quality, cost and speed during the continuous transformation process and; 2. To move Otis core business from product and service management to customer solution management, and in the end to logistics and information management. Using a single finance and manufacturing system enabled Otis to add value to its entire supply chain. Below, two main transformation waves shown the progress of changes from the manufacturing company toward a total solution company to customers by Otis. Firstly, Otis introduced OTISLINE and REM, which facilitated the company to increase the efficiency of customer service and customer satisfaction. OTISLINE was a 24 hour customer service center, which produced excess callback reports to improve product...
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