...The Problem: The problem surrounding Mattel Inc., one of the world’s largest toy companies, is their mismanagement of international subcontractors and vendors and the production of certain toys (the manufacturing process), as well as their inability to adapt their marketing strategy or product to the constantly changing “demographic and socioeconomic trends” (Ferrell, et. all 466). This is supported by Mattel’s legal battle with Carter Bryant and MGA, their forced recall of certain toys that were manufactured overseas, and the increasing rate at which traditional toys are becoming less appealing to today’s young audience. Essentially, Mattel’s mismanagement and oversight lead to violations in terms of ethical and social responsibilities and safety standards. Issues Relevant to the Problem: Mattel’s problem of mismanagement can be divided into several issues that need to be considered: legal issues, international supply chain issues, and an increase in technology-based toys. In regards to legal issues, Mattel has been involved in prolonged litigation with Carter Bryant and MGA over a breach of an employment contract and copyright infringement. Due to Mattel’s poor management of its overseas manufacturers, in which unauthorized subcontractors and third-party suppliers were hired and unsafe materials used, several toy products were recalled. Advances in technology and changes in socioeconomic and demographic trends have created marketing, privacy, and product development issues...
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...privately held company headquartered in Billund, Denmark. The vision of Lego Group is to “inspire children to explore and challenge their own creative potential”[1] Lego now ranks 4th in the world as a toy manufacturer. The Lego Group employs nearly 9,000 workers and its own product, Lego Brick can be found in over 130 countries. The financial performance of Lego declined drastically through the 1990’s and early 2000’s. In 2004, the company accumulated losses of DKK1.9 billion.[2] Therefore, Lego tried to implement some changes in order to cut the production cost and reverse the poor situation. In the last step of the process of restructuring Lego’s supply chain, the Group tried to close some of its’ own factories in Korea and Switzerland, upgrade the procurement process and outsource 80 percent of the production. Prior to outsourcing to Flextronics, production plants were located in high-cost countries including Denmark and Switzerland. Apart from the famous Brick, the company entered into other industries including computer games, clothing, licensed products and television. The product diversification was very large since they lost confidence in their core product. This catalyzed inefficiencies and confusion for customers. The result was a disastrous net loss and forced the company to find solutions to cut the cost and recapture the market share. In 2009, the Lego Group ended the outsourcing contract with Flextronics as they claimed that it would be more optimal for them to manage...
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...Marketing Management 6800 Section 004 The Problem: The problem surrounding Mattel Inc., one of the world’s largest toy companies, is their mismanagement of international subcontractors and vendors and the production of certain toys (the manufacturing process), as well as their inability to adapt their marketing strategy or product to the constantly changing “demographic and socioeconomic trends” (Ferrell, et. all 466). This is supported by Mattel’s legal battle with Carter Bryant and MGA, their forced recall of certain toys that were manufactured overseas, and the increasing rate at which traditional toys are becoming less appealing to today’s young audience. Essentially, Mattel’s mismanagement and oversight lead to violations in terms of ethical and social responsibilities and safety standards. Issues Relevant to the Problem: Mattel’s problem of mismanagement can be divided into several issues that need to be considered: legal issues, international supply chain issues, and an increase in technology-based toys. In regards to legal issues, Mattel has been involved in prolonged litigation with Carter Bryant and MGA over a breach of an employment contract and copyright infringement. Due to Mattel’s poor management of its overseas manufacturers, in which unauthorized subcontractors and third-party suppliers were hired and unsafe materials used, several toy products were recalled. Advances in technology and changes in socioeconomic and demographic trends have created marketing...
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...to forge partnerships with other corporate leaders. They are often able to expand their services internationally to gain more profits and extend their brand. Corporations, such as Toys“R”Us, Inc. have been able to benefit from acquisitions in ways that corporations, such as smaller businesses have not. Through the evaluation of the strategies that were utilized by Toys“R”Us, Inc. and its international business-level and corporate-level strategies, one can better understand strategies that smaller businesses like Bunnies by the Bay for example could develop to increase their profits through acquisitions and mergers, as well as business-level and corporate-level strategies they can develop to expand their services internationally. Toys“R”Us, Inc. Toys“R”Us, Inc. has enjoyed great success as one of the largest toy retailing chains in the world. Toys“R”Us, Inc. is the world’s leading dedicated toy and baby products retailer, offering a differentiated shopping experience through its family of brands. Merchandise is sold in 867 Toys“R”Us and Babies“R”Us stores in the United States and Puerto Rico, and in more than 725 international stores and over 240 licensed stores in 37 countries and jurisdictions. In addition, it exclusively operates the legendary FAO Schwarz® brand and sells extraordinary toys in the brand’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City. With its strong portfolio of e-commerce sites including Toysrus.com, Babiesrus.com,...
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...Jonathan Guzman, Raji Kaleh, Amy Lee, Riane Sanchez Business & Society Final Draft October 21, 2014 Case Study 5: Mattel & Consumer Protection In 2007, Mattel, a global leader in the design, manufacture, and marketing of toys, issued a voluntary recall of 1.5 million Chinese-made toys. A majority of as a result of such carelessness, children’s health and safety were at great risk due to poor toy design, such as loose magnets, and substituting lead free paint for a fatal amount of lead paint on Mattel’s toys to cut corners and save money. As consumers we are naive to believe that boards of directors and higher management in manufacturing companies are highly concerned with our safety. In reality, Mattel has a serious lack of crisis management as well as failing to meet proper safety procedures violating consumers right to safety. As a result millions of children are in harm’s way and are susceptible to life-altering health risks. Having a lack of regulation on imported toys has resulted in high levels of lead paint and loose magnets. Government regulation or a lack of government regulation has also caused many companies aside from Mattel to cut corners and look more at the bottom line as opposed to the safety of consumers. According to Lawrence and Weber, stakeholder theory “argues that corporations serve a broad public purpose; to create value for society”. It can be assumed Mattel was acting unethically with regards to producing unsafe products for their consumers;...
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...Case Study Designing Safety in the Toy Industry Company Radio Flyer Industry Toys Radio Flyer’s classic red wagon has become a cultural icon since its inception more than 90 years ago – creating a legacy of toys that continues to spark the imagination. Millions of children have played with Radio Flyer wagons all over the world, praised for their beauty, simplicity and standards of safety that encourage adventure, discovery and the wonders of childhood. Region North America and China Intertek Solutions Design Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment “We have partnered with Intertek throughout our product development cycle to be certain we design safe products that go beyond regulations. Intertek’s integrity, fast and friendly service and global outreach helped us to ensure that our products are manufactured to the highest industry standards.” - Shenwei Zhu, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer for Radio Flyer For further information on Intertek’s Quality and Safety solutions visit: www.intertek.com Imagining Safer Play With the family in mind from toy design to the very heart of Radio Flyer’s dedicated staff, Radio Flyer emerged as a leader in safety long before 2007’s wave of recalls and regulatory changes. Anticipating the heightened awareness for product safety globally, Radio Flyer needed to ensure that any manufacturing challenges and safety precautions in its wagon designs would be addressed before hindering its speed-to-market ...
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...RE: Lead Elements in “True Heroes” Police Action Figure A. Lead Contamination – Problem and Solutions Upon recent inspection of the “True Heroes” line of action figures, our quality assurance team detected lead elements in the whistle of the police action figure. According to their testing, the lead content is above that which has been identified as a legally acceptable limit for children age 7 and under in the U.S. We are in the process of fulfilling a 6 unit order set to ship out this week to schools in South America. It has been estimated that the cost to reproduce the product and repack the product will be close to $100,000. After studying the situation and the facts, I have come up with three possible solutions to the issue at hand. The first possible solution is to ship this batch of products out as is to our South American clients. While the lead content of the products doesn't meet the acceptable levels for U.S. children, the products destination has different quality standards which the product does meet. We can also reduce costs and limit our liability by labeling the package as “Not Intended for Children under 7 Years of Age.” While a cost effective option, one major issue with this approach is that the company will still maintain a certain level of liability should the product sicken a child who comes into contact with the whistle portion of the toy. Because we are a U.S. based company, it is possible charges could be filed against the company in the U.S. by...
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...Toy World, Inc. is a company that manufactures plastic toys for children. It creates toys of many different areas including toy cars, trucks, construction equipment, rockets, spaceships, animals, rockets, etc. The company as a whole has been doing quite well since it opened in 1990 and has experience profitability since early 1993. Although they have been doing satisfactory, there is always room for improvement. They are currently pondering the idea of switching their scheduling production from seasonal to a more level production. It is believed that by switching it will save the company substantial amount of funds and help reserve its factory equipment. Also, they are and need to find a solution to the current loan agreement they have with their bank to coincide with this new plan. Adopting a policy of level monthly production was the idea of Toy World Inc.’s Production manager, Mr. Hoffman. He has stated multiple issues with the current production schedule and exclaimed projected ideas & results with the new level policy. Current problems arising from the seasonal production schedule include overtime premiums reducing profits, seasonal expansion and contraction of the work force resulted in recruiting difficulties and high training/quality costs, machinery was idle for months at a time and subjected to heavy use, frequent set up changes in the machinery, confusion in scheduling runs, and frequent setup changes that resulted in inefficiencies in assembly and packaging...
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...Solution to Toy World, Inc. Case 32A Toy World, Inc. Cash Budgeting Copyright ( 1996 by the Dryden Press. All rights reserved. CASE INFORMATION PURPOSE This case analyzes a straightforward cash budgeting problem. It is designed to illustrate the mechanics of a cash budget and the way cash budgets are used. Discussion questions focus on the rationale behind the use of cash budgets as well as on their inherent problems. The case also raises the issues of the target cash balance, the optimal size of the credit line, the investment of excess cash, and production scheduling for a seasonal business. TIME REQUIRED Without using the model, 3-4 hours of student preparation should be adequate for most students, with possibly another hour or so to write up the case if it must be handed in. Use of the spreadsheet model can greatly reduce preparation time, especially if the completed model or the easy macro version is given to students. COMPLEXITY A relatively simple, but with a fair amount of number crunching for students not using the spreadsheet model. However, a number of related issues can be discussed, so students can put in a significant amount of time on the case. Still, they can get the gist of it without too much trouble. WAYS WE HAVE USED THE CASE We have used this case in two very different ways. First, with both introductory and not very-well-prepared second course students, we ask them to read the case and to become generally...
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...Solution to Toy World, Inc. Case 32A Toy World, Inc. Cash Budgeting Copyright ( 1996 by the Dryden Press. All rights reserved. CASE INFORMATION PURPOSE This case analyzes a straightforward cash budgeting problem. It is designed to illustrate the mechanics of a cash budget and the way cash budgets are used. Discussion questions focus on the rationale behind the use of cash budgets as well as on their inherent problems. The case also raises the issues of the target cash balance, the optimal size of the credit line, the investment of excess cash, and production scheduling for a seasonal business. TIME REQUIRED Without using the model, 3-4 hours of student preparation should be adequate for most students, with possibly another hour or so to write up the case if it must be handed in. Use of the spreadsheet model can greatly reduce preparation time, especially if the completed model or the easy macro version is given to students. COMPLEXITY A relatively simple, but with a fair amount of number crunching for students not using the spreadsheet model. However, a number of related issues can be discussed, so students can put in a significant amount of time on the case. Still, they can get the gist of it without too much trouble. WAYS WE HAVE USED THE CASE We have used this case in two very different ways. First, with both introductory and not very-well-prepared second course students, we ask them to read the case and to become generally...
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...online-to-offline commerce market), Amazon and eBay’s main competitors are each other. And to understand their large strategic moves (e.g. large acquisitions like GSI and Zappos), it is important to understand their fundamentally opposing strategic outlooks: eBay wants commerce to be more decentralized (around its GSI/Magento partners and eBay marketplaces sellers) and Amazon wants it to be more centralized (around itself). First, some background. During the dot-com boom, many largest offline brands debated how to best move their businesses online. Some tried to build their own websites from scratch. Others partnered with commerce technology providers. Toys ‘R’ Us took a novel approach and signed a “strategic alliance” to outsource all of their e-commerce operations to Amazon. Over the next few years this relationship soured – apparently Toys ‘R’ Us felt Amazon was competing too directly with them and successfully sued to end the relationship. The end of the...
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...| Main Event Solutions | Memo To: CEO From: elementary division manager CC: Date: 9/1/2012 Re: Urgent Elementary Toy This memo is report about defective product being shipped. This memo also discusses how to handle the defective product and possibly saving Main Event Solution money without hurting customers. This memo also discusses the risk and reward for each situation. Decision Process When determine alternative choices for Main Event Solutions, I would use a decision making model. The first step would be to define the problem. Is this issue urgent or important to the company? The second step would be, gather all the information and understand the effects and causes. The third step would be, compare the pros and cons of each option. The fourth step would to choose the best option for the company. The final step explains your decision to the people involved and affected by this decision: I should follow up to ensure proper and effective implementation for this decision. Alternative choices I have used decision process to make a judgment regarding the defective whistle. The first choice would be to cancel the order and the shipment. The advantages of this choice would be, public image will be maintained, and prevent scandal. The disadvantage would be the company would lose money and have to remake the toys. This would help the company avoid legal cost. This would cost the company money, but it would save money in the long run, in case the school decided to sue...
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... Lead problem in a toy manufacturing company Our toy company has plans for shipping our elementary toy collection at the end of the week. One of our products has failed the quality control testing. The product that has failed was found to exceed the legal limits of lead that is set laid down by the federal government. The test found that the amount of lead was slightly beyond the U.S. lawfully acceptable boundaries for children aged 7 and below. According to Parboteeah and Cullen, (2013), Lead is a harmful substance that has several health problems. Some of the challenges caused by lead are neurological damage, hearing problems, delayed mental and physical development and learning disabilities when ingested by children. Young children are more vulnerable to the harmful effects caused by lead because they mouth and share many objects that they come across. The cost of replacing the toy (whistle) and conform to the guidelines laid by the government is projected to be $100,000. There are three possible alternatives that our company can embrace to address the whistle problem. The first option that the company can take to address the whistle problem is to ship the toys as planned after two weeks. The toys will be transported with the lead amount exceeding the amount that is dictated by the government of the United States. It is possible that the even if the toys are considered unsafe by the government of the United States...
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...Student Name: Shunde Tu Student ID: 000196745 Course: MGT 121( Financial Management II) Case Study on Toy World I. Situation Audit a) Plastic Toys Manufacturing Industry Overview i. Highly seasonal, with a majority of sale volume generated between Aug. and Nov. ii. Competitive landscape 1. Highly competitive, populated by a large number of companies 2. Fierce design and price competition, with short product lives and a relatively high rate of company failures 3. Low entry barrier resulted from low capital and technology requirements. 4. Influx of imported toys intensified competitive pressure on smaller firms. b) Company Overview The company studied in the case is Toy World, a manufacturer of plastic toys for children. More than 80% of the sale was generated between Aug to Nov. Toy World Inc.’s practice was to produce in response to customer orders. Therefore, the production was highly seasonal, and not more than 25%-30% of manufacturing capacity was used for the first seven months. c) Product Overview i. Produce a wide range of designs, colors and sizes for most of its product categories. ii. Dollar sales of a particular product had sometimes varied by 30%-35% from one year to the next. II. Problem Statement The company’s production had been scheduled to accommodate the seasonality of sales. The production manager proposed to adopt level production to reduce labor costs. The feasibility...
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...these websites are mentioned in the chapter? Which ones sound appealing to you? The Association for Operations Management’s (APICS) claim is to be “the global leader and premier source of the body of knowledge in operations management, including production, inventory, supply chain, materials management, purchasing, and logistics”. The target audience seems to be geared toward supply chain professionals. AIPICS is a supply chain focused organization that offers some guidance to students and professionals interested in a career in supply chain. There is also a focus on specific access such as logistics and purchasing. The Institute for Supply Management™ (ISM) is the largest supply management association in the world. Their mission is to lead the supply management profession through its standards of excellence, research, promotional activities, and education. The membership base includes more than 40,000 supply management professionals with a network of domestic and international affiliated associations.” The institute focuses more on promoting current professionals involved in purchasing or logistics. Another organization, ASQ is a global community of experts and is the leading authority on quality in all fields, organizations, and industries. This organization specifically focuses on the quality aspect of supply chain and provides education on production and quality, and barely acknowledges other professions. CSCMP’s drive...
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