This Company seems to be a recently acquired establishment that is rapidly disintegrating as a result of poor business strategies, lack of leadership, poor marketing strategies and a poor work environment. The fact that it is a power tool manufacturing company complicates the situation even more given that it operates in the hardware manufacturing industry which is usually a cutthroat competitive industry. The purpose of this paper is to identify the major challenges faced by the company and explore the most effective alternatives of resolving these challenges.
In order to identify the range of challenges that hampers good business performance for the company, it is necessary to do a SWOT analysis. A SWOT Analysis is a form of a model that is used to analyze a company’s strengths versus weaknesses within a given market environment (Griffin and Pustay, 2005). It is the sort of assessment that is most ideal to apply in this case from both an internal and external perspective in order to locate the source of the corporation’s weaknesses. This can be attained by analyzing the organizational strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that can be utilized as a basis for short-term and long-term strategic plan; our focus in this part will only be the company’s threats and weaknesses.
Among the major weakness that can be identified is the lack of good marketing strategies, it is clear that the organization is not able to effectively capture a sizable market segment largely because of their inability to market their products. A case in point pertains to their cordless products which they are clearly struggling to sell despite the fact that they are the leading innovators of the technology.
But this is not the only reason; the company policy of using inferior parts to manufacture most of their products seems to be also a major reason that prevents effective market penetration since consumer do not wish to compromise quality.
Another major weakness has to do with lack of leadership and poor employee management that appears to have completely disintegrated. As a matter of fact, lack of leadership in organizations usually translates to employee de-motivation and job non-satisfaction, the result is poor work output which will be reflected in the company product lines. Besides, the job environment within the company is in general not conducive to effective work processes that are necessary for high quality work output. The company also lacks a workable business and corporate strategy, business level strategy is typically concerned with how a firm competes within a certain industry. It involves strategic plans regarding the preference of products and obtaining benefits over contestants. It also concerns strategic preparation regarding catering for the requirements of the clients and developing novel opportunities. The corporate strategy on the other hand is usually concerned with general work quality and capacity of a firm to meet shareholders prospects, none of these seem to exist for this company. In the external environment analysis, the company major threat is the counterfeiting cartel that propagates unfair business practices in the industry, which keeps imitating and hijacking the company innovation ideas of it cordless tools.
Now that we have been able to determine the Company major problems let us now explore solutions to these problems. Market penetration should be the priority objective of the Company; this is because the market is the key to company growth, both in the short term and in the long term.
To do this the company should perhaps consider increasing funds for this department, but first it is very important for the Company to shift towards production of high quality power tools which will give them an edge, besides it is what the customers prefers.
The Porters Five Model concept is especially most applicable to this situation, Michael Porter Five Model forces is a framework that was developed in 1979 to serve as a guideline for market analysis and development of strategic business objectives for organizations (VectorStudy.com, 2008). It is a process of determining the five forces that directly impacts on a firm performance in terms of general performance and customer service delivery based on a total of ten economic concepts. Basically Porters 5 forces are made up of two major groups of forces; horizontal forces and vertical forces.
Finally, the Company acquisition that seems to have just taken place can offer fresh business chances for the organization by facilitating it entry to new market segments through it new found affiliations. The Company should also opt to diversify its range of products or retain the existing line of products, whichever the case it should pursue to introduce products in the market that can effectively compete with other similar power tools.
References
Griffin, W. & Pustay M. (2005). International Business: A Managerial Perspective (4th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
VectorStudy.com. (2008). Porters Five Forces Analysis. Web.