...ECCO A/S – GLOBAL VALUE CHAIN MANAGEMENT | | Report submitted by:Abhas Mangal (GAPR11IT038) | | Contents Executive Summary 3 Company’s Profile 4 PORTER’S FIVE FORCES STRATEGIC ANALYSIS 5 Outcomes of Porter’s Five Forces 5 SWOT ANALYSIS 6 Evaluation of Alternatives 6 Recommended Strategy 7 Executive Summary ECCO, a global manufacturer and a supplier of shoe products, wants to expand into the Chinese market to increase its export to major markets and also increase product sales among Chinese consumers. But many Chinese manufacturers imitated the product design and features of ECCO increasing the intense competition for the company in the Chinese market. Also, ECCO for years has a sole focus on increasing the quality of the shoes manufactured by using its sophisticated in-house “direct injection” technology. But the company cannot only thrive on its quality unless the company’s efforts to ensure quality are not communicated to the consumers. Thus, the company focused less on marketing operations that is evident from its low marketing budgets as compared to its competitors. Also, the most of the products manufactured in four production facilities outside Denmark were distributed through its distribution centre in Tonder, Denmark where only six to nine percent of total production was actually sold. Thus, ECCO became inefficient to fulfil the replenishment orders that had to be delivered within a few days notice. Thus, the main challenge for ECCO is to...
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...Exploring efficiency and effectiveness in the supply chain A conceptual analysis Benedikte Borgström Jönköping International Business School P.O. Box 1026, SE- 551 11 Jönköping Sweden bobe@jibs.hj.se Abstract Firms struggle for efficiency and effectiveness. Strategies involving collaboration between actors and integration of activity chains are reliant of factors that firms do not have direct ownership and control over. This has implications for strategizing, setting the goals and measuring performance. Efficiency and effectiveness are often used to describe performance. From a resource dependence perspective efficiency is defined as an internal standard of performance and effectiveness as an external standard of fit to various demands (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978). In supply chains efficiency improvements are e.g. Just-in Time production while effectiveness is achieved through customer orientation and innovation. The conceptualization of efficiency and effectiveness has its roots in system theory. Definition of the system is difficult for a quasi-organization as a supply chain that has blurred structural boundaries. Defining the system as processes of activities implies that the meaning of and the relation between efficiency and effectiveness might change as well. This is a conceptual paper with a purpose to describe and analyze efficiency and effectiveness as constructs based upon activity systems. The analysis of efficiency and effectiveness involves the meaning, the...
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...The Value Chain Analysis – Support activities and Value Chain System The Value Chain System The firm's value chain links to the value chains of upstream suppliers and downstream buyers. The result is a larger stream of activities known as the value system. The development of a competitive advantage depends not only on the firm-specific value chain, but also on the value system of which the firm is a part. A firm's value chain is part of a larger system that includes the value chains of upstream suppliers and downstream channels and customers. Porter calls this series of value chains the value system, shown conceptually below: The Value System ... | > | Supplier Value Chain | > | Firm Value Chain | > | Channel Value Chain | > | Buyer Value Chain | Linkages exist not only in a firm's value chain, but also between value chains. While a firm exhibiting a high degree of vertical integration is poised to better coordinate upstream and downstream activities, a firm having a lesser degree of vertical integration nonetheless can forge agreements with suppliers and channel partners to achieve better coordination. For example, an auto manufacturer may have its suppliers set up facilities in close proximity in order to minimize transport costs and reduce parts inventories. Clearly, a firm's success in developing and sustaining a competitive advantage depends not only on its own value chain, but on its ability to manage the value system of which it is a...
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...components of strategy analysis: firms goals and values, resources and capabilities, structure and management systems and industry environment - Measurement of profitability, Profit most useful measure of firm performance (maximization of profit) - Tools of Financial analysis - Shareholders and stakeholders - Value: - Commerce is creating value - Firm have to know what profit is and how to measure it - Economic profit more reliable measure as accounting profit - Measure of e.p. is EVA, economic value added - Firm must maximize the future net cash flow to maximize its value and mimimize cost of capital - C.f. forecasts are very difficult,estimate future c.f. need make assumption - Important for value maximization is the consistency Real options theory - Two types: growth and flexibility options - Strategic alliances and joint ventures, investment in core products Putting performance analysis into practice - Need to asses current situation - Identify current strategy - Identify sources of unsatisfactory performance - Balanced scorecards -> balancing financial and strategic goals Profits and purpose - Companies that are more focused on making profit are often unsuccessful at achieving their goals - “Profits are important for existence of a company but not the reason for its existence” - Important is to have a dream, to have a joy of creating things - To have a vision for the future and a core ideology (values and principles) are both important for a powerful...
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...1. Design and Emergence Approach of Strategic Management Strategic management is the process of designing an organization vision, mission and goals. It develops set of actions for formulating the strategy. Some arguments exist in corporate that ’how strategy is made’ either through design or emergence approach. According to emergence approach, strategy emerges through the initiative taken by the manager for enhancing the performance of firm. Here, the strategy is formed without any long term plan. The manager just frames it, to meet out the day to day operations of the firm. For instance, Sam Walter, the founder of Wal-Mart, established his store in 1962. His competitor opened the store in urban areas, to get huge profit. But for a change, Sam Walton opened his store in rural area, which brings him success, as he got customers 50 miles away from the stores. Here, he does not apply any strategic plan. Strategy came out through his response to the problem. Emergent approach of framing strategy is common in earlier days, and it become quite successful too. But according to design approach, strategy is intentionally formed by the organization to achieve the goals. For instance, consider an organization is going to expand the business globally. For this, a well planned strategy should be devised to meet out the requirements of various countries. Once the strategy is devised, it should be implemented by keeping in mind about the mission and vision of the organization. Mostly top...
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...rain_c02_034-069hr.qxd 28-09-2009 13:18 Page 34 CHAPTER 2 1. Describe the components of computer-based information systems. 2. Describe the various types of information systems by breadth of support. 3. Identify the major information systems that support each organizational level. 4. Describe strategic information systems (SISs) and explain their advantages. 5. Describe Porter’s competitive forces model and his value chain model and explain how IT helps companies improve their competitive positions. 6. Describe five strategies that companies can use to achieve competitive advantage in their industries. 7. Describe how information resources are managed and discuss the roles of the information systems department and the end users. Information Systems: Concepts and Management LEARNING OBJECTIVES rain_c02_034-069hr.qxd 28-09-2009 13:18 Page 35 WEB RESOURCES Student Web site www.wiley.com/college/rainer • Web quizzes • Lecture slides in PowerPoint • Author podcasts • Interactive Case: Ruby’s Club assignments WileyPLUS • All of the above and... • E-book • Manager Videos • Vocabulary flash cards • Pre- and post-lecture quizzes • Microsoft Office 2007 lab manual and projects • How-to animations for Microsoft Office • Additional cases CHAPTER OUTLINE 2.1 Types of Information Systems 2.2 Competitive Advantage and Strategic Information Systems 2.3 Why Are Information Systems Important to Organizations and Society? 2.4 Managing Information Resources ...
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...TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 2 Global Impacts of the Credit Crunch 3 IBM – International Business Machines 4 Table 1: IBM’s Financial Performance History 2000-2009. Source: IBM Annual Report 2009 5 Table 2: Earnings per share 2006 to 2010 projection. Source: IBM Annual Report 2009. 6 How the Credit Crunch Impacted IBM’s Operations 7 Global Integration 7 Changing Business Scope 7 Revenue 8 Human Resource Management Impacts 8 Price Instability 8 Exchange Rate Fluctuation 8 Interest Rate Fluctuations 8 Debt 9 Notable Impacts 9 IBM’s Operational Strategy 10 Strategic Response 10 HRM Strategy 10 Value Chain Strategy – Developing a Business of Values 11 Table 3: IBM Value Chain. Source – ibm.com/services 12 International Strategy 13 Institutional Strategy 13 Recommendations for Future Growth 14 Delivering Value to Customers 14 Human Resource Capital 15 Research and Development 16 References 17 Bibliography 18 Introduction The ‘Credit Crunch’ emerged in 2007 with the first effects being felt by the U.S. Mortgage industry. The term ‘credit crunch’ came was used to describe the collapse of the subprime mortgage industry that resulted in a freeze in lending by financial institutions. With non-payment of loans, huge debt and no capital gains, financial institutions began to go under. Investment banks, financial services and real estate market felt immediate impacts. Trillions of U.S. dollars were lost, huge government bailouts...
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...15.566 Information Technology Calyx and Corolla Case Questions Leslie Prince Rudolph 2/25/98 15.561A and 15.566 Example Case Writeup for Calyx and Corolla #1 – Value Added Chain The value-added chain for typical florists can be depicted as follows: Customers call in order growers distributors wholesalers florists consumers The distributors are typically located in the growing regions. The wholesalers are geographically dispersed. Most flowers are ordered directly from the florist and delivered to the recipient (consumer). Small family-operated companies dominate the entire chain. In many cases, industry participants have some role across the organizations (i.e. some wholesalers also grow some flowers). Mark-ups are substantial from one organization to the next, causing a resultant mark-up of almost 800% from the growers to the consumer. In contrast, the value-added chain using Calyx & Corolla’s approach can be depicted as follows: Calyx & Corolla send order info to growers Customers call in order growers Fed Ex consumers With the Calyx and Corolla approach, information travels from the customers to Calyx & Corolla, directly to the growers. The growers then package the flower orders in their final consumer packages. The flowers are transported by Fed Ex to the consumer. The Calyx & Corolla approach allows consumers to receive fresher flowers by as many as 710 days over the traditional approach. #2 – Strengths and Weaknesses ...
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...long represented the bland aggregation of strategies that individual business unit heads put forward.1 At others, it’s been the domain of a small coterie, perhaps led by a chief strategist who is protective of his or her domain—or the exclusive territory of a CEO. Rare is the company, though, where all members of the top team have well-developed strategic muscles. Some executives reach the C-suite because of functional expertise, while others, including 1 In a McKinsey Global Survey of more than 2,000 global executives, only one-third agreed that their corporate strategy approach represented “a distinct exercise that specifically addresses corporate-level strategy, portfolio composition issues.” For details, see “Creating more value with corporate strategy: McKinsey Global Survey results,” mckinseyquarterly.com, January 2011. 2 business unit heads and even some CEOs, are much stronger on execution than on strategic thinking. In some companies, that very issue has given rise...
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...IMPLEMENTATION Chapter Eleven The Strategy of International Business OBJECTIVES • To identify how managers develop strategy • To examine industry structure, firm strategy, and value creation • To profile the features and functions of the value chain framework • To assess how managers configure and coordinate a value chain • To explain global integration and local responsiveness • To profile the types of strategies firms use in international business Chapter Overview Chapter Eleven presents tools and concepts used in analyzing and formulating international business strategy. First, the relationship between industry structure and competition in global industries is examined. Next, value chain analysis is used to identify the internal capabilities of the firm that can be leveraged to create competitive advantage. Effective international strategy depends greatly on the proper configuration and management of a company’s global value chain. The sometimes conflicting demands of global integration versus local responsiveness are examined. Finally, a typology of strategic alternatives including multidomestic, international, global, and transnational strategies is presented. CHAPTER OUTLINE OPENING CASE: Value Creation in the Global Apparel Industry [See Fig 11.1 and Map 11.1.] Zara, a large clothing retailer headquartered in northwest Spain, has used an innovative strategy to power its global expansion. ...
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...Essay: Value chain analysis Value chain analysis (VCA) refers to the process whereby a firm determines the costs associated with organizational activities from purchasing raw material to manufacturing products to marketing those products. Further, according to Porter he stated that “a firm’s value chain and the way it performs individual activities are a reflection of its history, its strategy, its approach to implementing its strategy, and the underlying economics of the activities themselves.” There are two major types’ activities of a company’s value chain describe by Porter: primary activities and support activities. Primary activities are the transforming of inputs into outputs further to delivery and after-sales support. On the other hand, support activities support primary activities and other supporting activities that are undertaken to aid individuals and groups of these activities. The importance of using the VCA in strategic decision-making is to analyze, coordinate and optimize linkages between activities in the value chain, by focusing on the interdependence between these activities. VCA is a mechanism which facilitates the optimization and coordination of interdependent activities in the value chain, which may cross organizational boundaries and accounting information is an important constituent of value chain analysis. The main idea of the analysis is to break up the chain of activities which avoid basic raw materials to end-use customers into strategically...
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...MGSC01 - MIDTERM CASE: ECCO A/S - Global Value Chain Management Analyze the problem Alternatives Decision Criteria Recommendation Good to have a contingency plan (backup plan) Key questions: - If I’m right so far, then what? What are the implications - What is the larger context? - What else do I know? Personal? - What alternatives do I have? - What am I missing? Goals: The plan was to build five closely connected factories over the next four years with a total capacity of five million pairs of shoes per year, serving both export needs and the Chinese market, which was expected to grow in the future. Produce the world’s most comfortable and modern footwear for work and leisure. Increase revenue to 8 billion and to 9 billion by 2013, selling 24 million pairs of shoes a year. Increase production capacity by 15% per year Product Market Focus: aim at becoming better at telling what we stand for. Value Proposition: Core Activities: produced 80% of its shoes in-house Vision – integrating the global value chain - To be the most wanted brand within innovation and comfort footwear. - Position can only be attained by constantly and courageously researching new paths, investing in employees, in core competencies of product development and production technology. 80% of the company’s leaders should come from inside ECCO. 2004 Sales Children 11% Ladies 47 Men 30 Sports 12 (outdoor, walking, running and...
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...losing ground as more styles, more colors, and better fit became more important to its customers. Market research showed that only 24% of women were completely satisfied with their jeans purchase, at $50 a pair they were becoming a tough sell. Levi’s responded by recognizing a need to be in closer touch with their customers. They began to open stores to sell directly to their customers (rather then trough another retailer). They also implemented new technology such as EDI to help their supply chain. Unfortunately the lag time for their products was still 8 months. Levi’s was a company that needed a way to strengthen their business. Using the value chain analysis Levi’s was a prime textbook case of a company that needed to improve its value chain in order to sustain a competitive advantage. The results of their value chain analysis are as follows: 1. Value: only 24% satisfaction rate. 2. Value stream: ROE average more then 38% lead to little improvement in their cumbersome value chain. 3. Continuous flow: 8 month lag time. 4. Pull: The customer initiated nothing, activity was driven by sales forecasts. 5. Perfection: A good ROE led management to miss opportunities in improvement. In addition, use a pull driven distribution strategy Levi’s lost big profits when retailers had to markdown their products in order to make them more appealing. Levi’s often made good on these markdowns to their retailers. Although the opening of Original Levi’s stores helped eliminate...
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...technology. IT is the use of computers to collect, store and retrieve data. Professor use a lot of examples to instruct the relationship between information technology and people. As we know, companies use information technology to increase their profits. The example of Bestbuy attracts me a lot. As we can see, people always go to Bestbuy to try the products and purchased the item on Amazon.com as Amazon offers a cheaper price than Bestbuy. Then we talk about the three applications of IT, they are supply chain management(SCM), customer relationship management(CRM) and enterprise resource planning(ERP). And the five forces(entrants, competitors, substitution, suppliers, buyers) are important for a company. We have also learned the generic strategy in the class, Companies should choose a strategy to be mainly use when they enter a new market. Also, we have learned the value system and value chain. Value system is the personal and cultural values used for ethical. For the value chain, we learned how to use support actions in different situation. In summary, I have a briefly understand of information technology after the class. The use of examples let me understood the notion clearly and specifically. II. Material related to the Case Netflix is an online subscription-based DVD rental company founded in 1997. After first class, I think the 5 forces analysis(entrants, competitors, substitution, suppliers, buyers) can be used to make the company becomes better. Since they have...
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...Dell Computer Corporation is one of the world’s largest computer systems organizations. They design, build and customize products and services to satisfy a range of customer requirements, from the server, storage and professional services needs of the largest global corporations, to those customers at home. Dell is a perfect example of how harnessing the power of the Internet can lead to total market dominance. Through the company’s direct sales model, Dell has managed to grow from a $6 million to a $23 billion dollar company in 15 years. This is largely due to their extension of the direct model with information technology and the World Wide Web. The Internet became a worldwide tool for reaching Dell’s customer base and gave the company the ability to directly do business with partners and customers all over the world, one at a time, at no additional overhead. This successful business model put much emphasis on the customers. From the beginning to the end of the transaction, Dell understood completely what the needs of the customers were and this ony led to a network of satisfied customers with the potential to do business again and again in the future. However, the direct-sales business model was merely a tool for Dell to do business. If the success of Dell was based solely on this model, Dell would have not been able to rise to the top of the competition in two decades despite being a late entrant. Many competitors of Dell duplicated the model and tried to do...
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