Colgate pursues low cost strategy

Colgate pursues low cost strategy CP has a large and efficient distribution network. Its distribution channels are located all over Pakistan (Moore, E.R) It caters to a broad customer base. It has developed itself in almost all the categories which are associated with customers on the daily basis. Colgate pursues low cost strategy. Its plant is automated. Only one plant is used for the manufacturing of three different detergents like bonus, express, brite The whole process is repeated for each of the detergent. By automating the plant, CP is able to save a lot of cost. CP value delivery network does not have any delays in it which helps CP to save cost. CP targets all segment, it has products for the lower class, middle class and the upper class. Its pricing is done accordingly. It has cost leadership in the detergent and the surface care category CP forecasting is very accurate which helps them to reduce cost because if estimated are accurate then it helps the company to avail cost advantages CP is allowed to deviate only 5% from its forecast both upwards and downwards CP has concentrated more on process efficiencies CP has access to large capital that is required to make significant investment. CP never compromises on the development expenditure. It is always ready to improve its production processes. Being a low cost producer it helps CP to better compete to its rivals. Being the low cost producer it has helped CP to insulate themselves from powerful suppliers who nowadays demand increasing prices due to rising inflation. Being he low cost producer, it has also helped to attract powerful buyers whom CP sells directly like MAKRO, DMART, IMITAZ, AGHAS, and NAHEED etc (Moore, E.R). Economic Factor The overall economy of the country is showing a stable growth. Therefore this industry is also showing a growth of 10%. But the inflation is growing rapidly which is not a good sign for the new entrants. Change in the interest rate also affects the industry. Hence the new entrants are also threatened by the increasing interest rates. Economic factors do influence the bargaining power of buyers as inflation is the major factor that is affecting the consumers hard. Economic factors do not affect the availability of substitutes. But since inflation is growing, so it is hard for the poor people to switch to more modern products like washing powder, tooth paste. They would rather prefer oil to clean their clothes and use miswak to brush their teeth. Economic factors do have an affect on the bargaining power of suppliers as inflation is rising fast. Suppliers demand that they would provide the necessary raw material at a higher price. Exchange rate fluctuations also affect the cost of raw material. Economic factors do affect the rivalry among the competitors as all the players in the industry want to have cost leadership. The economic factors are favoring intense competition from the last five years. People have more money at their disposal. Also Pakistan is a consumption oriented society (Hiatt, Jeff.). Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM) STRATEGY 1 STRATEGY 2 Weights AS TAS AS TAS STRENGTHS Market leader in surface care with 90% market share 0.15 Good Leadership 0.06 Employee commitment 0.12 3 0.36 2 0.24 Cooling crystal patent 0.1 Accurate forecast with respect to demand 0.07 4 0.28 2 0.14 High EPS 0.08 3 0.24 2 0.16 Strong advertisement and promotional campaign 0.08 2 0.16 3 0.24 WEAKNESSES IT not used optimally 0.13 4 0.52 2 0.26 No ecommerce 0.1 3 0.3 2 0.26 No proper use of forward integration 0.05 2 0.1 3 0.15 They are not exporting their products to other countries 0.06 1 OPPORTUNITIES Exploring into new categories like shampoo, hand wash , body wash, shower gel 0.14 2 0.28 4 0.56 Rural population switching from miswak to toothpaste 0.06 Gap in tooth brush market 0.08 2 0.16 3 0.24 Implementation of ERP(SAP) 0.14 4 0.56 2 0.28 People becoming hygiene and beauty conscious 0.1 2 0.2 3 0.3 No layoffs 0.07 THREATS(T) Raw material and energy prices are increasing 0.12 3 0.36 2 0.24 Inflation in the country 0.07 3 0.21 2 0.14 Competitors re launching their products 0.1 2 0.2 3 0.3 Competitors increasing their marketing budgets 0.06 2 0.12 3 0.18 Unstable law and order conditions. 0.06 1 TOTAL 4.05 3.69 Rivalry among existing competitors Yes (+) No (-) The industry is growing rapidly. à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ The industry is not cyclical with intermittent overcapacity. à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ The fixed costs of the business are relatively low portion of total costs. à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ There are significant product differences and brand identities between the competitors. à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ The competitors are diversified rather than specialized. à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ It would not be hard to get out of this business because there are no specialized skills and facilities or long-term contract commitments etc. à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ My customers would incur significant costs in switching to a competitor. à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ My product is complex and requires a detailed understanding on the part of my customer. à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ My competitors are all of approximately the same size as I am. à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ 7 LOW MEDIUM HIGH INTERPRETATION: Threat of competitors is high because the product is not unique as there are no product differences. Same products are available with all competitors like Unilever, Procter and Gamble, Shield, Oral B. Therefore rivalry is also increasing as demand in the economy has also increased for the last 5 to years. Majority of the competitors are MNCs which means that they have the necessary resource and skill (Hiatt, Jeff). Government Factors: Government regulations do have an affect on the rivalry among the competitors. Political factors: Political factors do not affect the rivalry among the competitors Economic factors Economic factors do affect the rivalry among the competitors as all the players in the industry want to have cost leadership. The economic factors are favoring intense competition from the last five years. People have more money at their disposal. Also Pakistan is a consumption oriented society (Hiatt, Jeff). Social trends Social trends have changed, buyer are more aware of their purchases. So the players in the industry are always trying hard to increase their market share (Hiatt, Jeff). Technological change Technology is helping the companies to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals. Also research and development plays an important role in this (Hiatt, Jeff). KEY SUCCESS ACTORS FOR COMPETIVE SUCCESS Low cost production efficiency. CP has plants installed that take only 30 minutes for the plant to shift from the production of one product to the other. High quality manufacturing of products with very few defects. A strong network of wholesale distributors. Gaining ample space on retailer shelves. (Examples Naheed, Aghas, Makro and other small shops.) Attractive packaging and styling. Good length of product lines. Attractive commercials and advertising. Good reputation in the industry along with favorable reputation with buyers. Market penetration Colgate can do market penetration by increasing its advertising, people always associate Colgate with tooth paste and have no awareness that it produces personal and surface care products as well. They should show their logo on all its products so that people know the producers and this will increase customer loyalty and also when people will come to know that Colgate is the producer then new customers will also buy the product (Hiatt, Jeff). They should also increase their promotion efforts by going to school and doing health awareness programs, also they should go to residential areas and make women aware of their surface care and fabric care products such as max, bonus and express etc Product development: Colgate can also do product development by introducing new features in their already existing brands. They can improve their tooth brush quality and features by introducing flexi tooth brushes for special oral care. Also they can introduce whitening features in their feature in their tooth paste; different colors of tooth paste can also be introduced to attract the kinds market. In their fabric care they can introduce in special features of protecting the color of the cloth while washing and also whitening enhancing surfs to give a good shine to while clothes (Hiatt, Jeff). develop systems to involve appropriate stakeholders in the introduction of change SIX THINGS REQUIRED TO EFFECTIVELY IMPLEMENTING A STRATEGY According to Porter, to implement a strategy effectively six things should be followed: Create a formal plan: Distributor Quantity Item Price Negotiation, Inventory Reporting, Stock Details, Payment Terms HR Module Inventory / Store Sales Module Sales Module Stock Details Quantity item Price negotiation, inventory reporting, ex stock details, payment terms Finance Module Credit terms, payment procedures, Stock in out effect Inflow outflow of raw materials Procurement Module Create a multifunctional team: To effectively implement ERP, Colgate must first hire an independent resource firm. Acquire licensing for SAP Implementation. Establish an independent IT unit for the monitoring of ERP. This department will coordinate with all the other departments (Robbins S, Mukerji). Communication of strategy: inside and outside: All employees in the company should be made aware of the new automated system. Each employee must be provided a minimal insight of SAP but those employees who have to work on SAP the most should ofcourse be provided with proper training course of SAP. These include: Factory Manager Manager accounts Warehouse Manager Distribution team Consumer insight department Outside the company the strategy to implement ERP should be communicated properly to all the local and foreign suppliers of Colgate Palmolive (Hagberg). Consistency over time: As Information Technology is progressing day by day, new changes in ERP are expected after certain time periods. Therefore it would become very important for Colgate to cope up with the changes in the software. For this purpose it would need to update it employees by providing training whenever any change takes place in SAP (Hagberg). Use proper measurements: Other measures, not just financial measures would be required to test whether the system is working properly. These measures include: Whether the system is accurately forecasting demand, sales, price changes Whether or not there are any deviations in the actual versus projected sales Effectiveness of the internal processes after the strategy implementation (Robbins S, Mukerji). Test the strategy: Ask employees and senior management in all departments whether they are satisfied with the new system of working. Talk to suppliers and distributors whether they want any more improvements in the new system of working (Hagberg). EIGHT PILLARS OF STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION Allocating resources: Colgate has to invest around 50mn for which they have to make a separate IT department in which 1 trained personnel have to be hired so that it can be implemented in an efficient way. building capable organizaion: After the implementation of SAP, a capable organization would be established. It would help the company to coordinate all activities. CP can then expand into new markets and would develop innovative products. Exercising strategic leadership: SAP implementation will require an annual strategic audit to check whether the desired objectives have been achieved or not. This means a visionary leadership is required. Leadership should be exercised strategically in such a way that it helps the company to maintain its competitive advantage. Tying rewards: Rewards in maintaining the best MIS, highest no of transactions, successful employee in training face should be given in terms of recognition, increased in salary and gift vouchers. Installing support system: It is important to maintain MIS with in different department so they can work in a best possible way Benchmarking: In Pakistan very few organizations has implemented SAP. PSO and National Foods are some of them. Since PSO has very successfully implemented SAP so Colgate benchmarks them. Strategic supportive policies: They have to make strategies in which maintaining an MIS should be mandatory. There should be digital culture. They should have a centralize data base through which all department are interlinked and any transaction can be tracked down by any department. Every department should have access to only relevant information. Shaping corporate culture: Colgate should implement paperless. Digital culture where the records must be maintained through MIS and not manually .even communication should be done electronically. KEY DRIVING FORCES Industry growth: Now most of the people have knowledge about the different products and its advantages. The intense competition in industry and high demand enables the new entrants to compete in this market (Hagberg). Product innovation: Innovation in product, as Colgate has just introduced Max fresh in which the coolant crystals are present which none of the competitors has adopted yet. There is also room in innovation in washing detergents (Hagberg). Changing societal concerns, attitudes and lifestyle: Since social issues are really effecting the use of product just like the use of Miswak which is the Islamic mode of cleaning the teeth (Hagberg). Use of E-commerce and Internet: Usage of online ordering and maintaining the stock level through e-commerce can be driving force in the industry. By using that they can provide products to customer which is value addition for them (Hagberg). This report is purely based on the finding from the Colgate expert and the secondary data analysis, and the reason for writing the whole report is to find the obstacle / hindrance a business men face and how the organization can minimize it through implementing the different strategies and analysis. The whole report research draws attention to  the fact that any problem can be eliminate if proper investigation and consideration can be observed the success is easy to get, Pakistan market is mature market and the competition is tough here because most of the customer is price conscious and act like butterflies, so targeting this kind of customer is quite difficult, but on the other hand it can be managed if the you can understand the market effectively and efficiently (Robbins S, Mukerji). Hiatt, Jeff. The definition and history of change management. http://www.change-management.com/tutorial-definition-history.htm. Filicetti, John (August 20, 2007). Project Management Dictionary Moore, E.R., (accessed 1 April, 2001), Creating Organizational Cultures: An Ethnographic Study, Eastern Academy of Management Virtual Proceedings, Moore, E.R., (accessed 1 April, 2001), Creating Organizational Cultures: An Ethnographic Study, Eastern Academy of Management Virtual Proceedings, , R. Ph.D. Heifetz, D.Ph., 2000 (accessed 4 April, 2001), Corporate Hagberg Culture/Organisational Culture: UnderJerryding and Assessment, Robbins S, Mukerji D (1994). Managing organisations. Prentice Hall of Australia, McPhersons Printing Group, Australia. Sergiovanni, T.J. (1984) Educational Leadership, Leadership and excellence in schooling, Volume 41, Number 5, United States of America, page 4-13 Kent State University 2000 (accessed 28th March, 2001), Kent State University Cultural Self-Study Internal Communication of Change By Dagmar Recklies Circling the Pyramid Building Lasting Commitment to Change  Ã‚   (pdf-file) by Edmond Mellina What Makes a Good Change Agent? by Dagmar Recklies The Role of the Change Master From Change Agent to Change Master By Ruth Tearle Managing Change Definition and Phases in Change Processes by Oliver Recklies Problems in Managing Change by Oliver Recklies AuditNet.org provides a downloadable PDF of change management best practices. Fred Nickols wrote Change Management 101: A Primer. SearchCRM.com provides resources on handling change management following a CRM upgrade. Neglecting your change control process can kill an IT disaster recovery plan.

Case Study: Shutterfly

Its as easy as a snap shot. Shutterfly has made great marketing decisions through-out the years. No matter the year they were always moving ahead of the technology of their time. With not many digital cameras flouting around and internet at slow dial-up connections, Shutterfly were allowing the upload of â€Å"digital images to order prints from a web-based company. † This was new to people even with rabbit speed broadband. Always looking forward, Shutterfly now have become a â€Å"major force in the online photo-printing industry. † Shutterfly has put considerable effort into keeping quality in focus. Investing in certain business aids, the photo processing company has created a name for themselves and improved service quality. To showcase their quality they â€Å"invested in special printing equipment† so they could control the â€Å"clear, crisp and colorful† picture quality instead of relaying on orders from an outside photo processing firm that may not perform to Shutterfly’s standard. This maintained Shutterfly’s quality as reliable with very little to no variation of quality. The new special printing equipment also included â€Å"photo enhancement functions† to provide customers with helpful photo improvements, like red-eye effect, to ensure their satisfaction. Furthermore, they distinguished themselves from other photo companies by giving costumers the option to upload and store their photos on Shutterfly’s website. They even â€Å"promised never to delete any photos† which provideds great customer contact and is highly valued by their costumer base. In all, Shutterfly has managed the challenges of heterogeneity very well and have created a reliable, quality photo processing company. Going through ups and downs throughout the years, Shutterfly has used marketing to draw customers to their product. Early on, they encouraged adoption through offering free photo printing. They gave away more than 80 percent of the prints in the first six months. Although after intense competition in 2003, Shutterfly needed to try something different. In 2005, CEO, Jeff Housenbold, launched â€Å"a next generation personal publishing platform† that would let costumers â€Å"take, use, and share photos† at their own home. But before the launch of this new platform they surveyed customers to gain better knowledge of customers needs and preferences. This platform provided customers with company search qualities where they could experience Shutterfly prior to purchase. In addition the company â€Å"negotiated to license well known characters† such as Clifford and SpongeBob Squarepants for â€Å"personalized photo greeting cards, photo albums, and other products. † To introduce these new offerings Shutterfly used â€Å"print ads in various parenting magazines and woman’s magazines and commercials on the Home Shopping Network. † Shutterfly has shown their dedication to customers satisfaction by adding supplemental features as well as symbolic and experiential benefits to their offerings. The CEO notes that â€Å"people have an intrinsic desire for social expression† and that prints are a great way to tell a story, however, he believes in telling the story through other ways. Widening their product mix, Shutterfly has provided T-shirts, jewelry boxes and tote bags that help satisfy that desire for social expression. â€Å"You will see a lot more of that† says a senior vice president. Additionally, licensing well-known Nickelodeon characters on greeting cards provides excellent symbolic benefits of playfulness and even fulfills peoples creativity. In other words, â€Å"it tells a story. They even offer online interaction so that customers can share their stories quick and hassle free. Through considerable effort and strong customer contact, Shutterfly has provided offerings and major benefits to those offerings. Their are multiple reasons why Shutterfly would license Nickelodeon characters for personalized photo products. One reason is that the well-known characters create a popular product line that customers can utilize to share their â€Å"stories. † It gives the customers a networking platform to start from and it is playful and fun. Also it provides wider options for customized photos. For example, if a customer wanted to provide a frame on the picture then they could use one of these characters to do so. Lastly and most crucially, these characters are geared more towards children and as a photo company many of the processed photos tend to be memories of peoples children or past childhood. Providing these Nickelodeon characters is a great way to draw in customers and maybe even make a larger profit. They have sold 400 million prints, storing at least 1 billion images for its customers and have increased sales by a impressive 670 percent in the â€Å"last five years to nearly $100 million. It is without question that Shutterfly is closely associated with quality and responsive service. They have maintained a excellent customer retention rate and are still expanding to this very day. Through ups and downs and hard competition they enable people to convey the strong emotion in their photos with ease. People want â€Å"to capture and share their experiences, to relive special moments, to communicate their memories,† and Shutterfly provides the best service to do so; the best service to tell a story.

Marriage Is Private Affair

Marriage is private affair 1. Nnaemeka sees the marriage as an affair as her wife does not belong to his husband’s race and some of her actions contradicts with their race religion and his father will surely disapprove the marriage. Nene believed the marriage was not an affair as she believe marriage is a happy thing and parents will be happy about their child’s marriage. 2. Religion is everything during the time the story happens. It’s not only a belief, it represents good and evil of a person’s character : if a person follow the religion, he’s a good man.People become superstitious in religion and their free wills were robbed from them. 3. The tribesmen allowed only marriage within their tribesmen because they thought their tribes were strong and allowing other tribes to marry their tribesmen will make their bloodline impure and thus imperfect. One trumps the other means believing one better than all the others. In here, the tribes believed their bloodline was the strongest and therefore forbid other tribes to mix into their bloodline. Marriage is private affair 1.Nnaemeka sees the marriage as an affair as her wife does not belong to his husband’s race and some of her actions contradicts with their race religion and his father will surely disapprove the marriage. Nene believed the marriage was not an affair as she believe marriage is a happy thing and parents will be happy about their child’s marriage. 2. Religion is everything during the time the story happens. It’s not only a belief, it represents good and evil of a person’s character : if a person follow the religion, he’s a good man.People become superstitious in religion and their free wills were robbed from them. 3. The tribesmen allowed only marriage within their tribesmen because they thought their tribes were strong and allowing other tribes to marry their tribesmen will make their bloodline impure and thus imperfect. One trumps th e other means believing one better than all the others. In here, the tribes believed their bloodline was the strongest and therefore forbid other tribes to mix into their bloodline.

Gender Is Socially Constructed By Society - 861 Words

When they say that gender is socially constructed, it is related to the notion that gender is created and influenced by society. Feminine and masculine norms are constructed by what society defines as appropriate for both males and females. These characteristics then, create gender roles and gender stereotypes in which society places both females and males into and accountable for fulfilling. An example of this, is how society perceives females to be more delicate and more suited for caregiving orientated careers and males to be more intelligent and suitable for careers dealing with mathematics or in politics. By instilling those types of stigmas, society is creating a barrier between both genders, where what is expected from one gender is then utilized to define norms for the other gender. One’s gender is also defined by society based on sex. Both males and females are viewed differently based on biological differences, where one’s genetic make-up, chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs are utilized by society as a sorting mechanism that determines whether an individual is deemed to be either a male or female. In the Kimmel and Aronson book, Kimmel it goes into further detail where he states that, â€Å"Our biological sex provides the raw material for our development...but biological sex varies little and yet the cultural definitions of gender vary enormously,† (Kimmel, 2014, pg. 3). 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