Foschini Competitive Advantage Case Study

Like REI, Cabela’s manages both consumer direct shipments and store replenishments in the same distribution centers. Cabela’s has three distribution centers as well as two returns processing centers. Each distribution and returns centers being 1 million square feet, can process an excess of 800,000 store, consumer and individual orders. Cabela’s only houses 30% of inventory in its distribution centers and the remaining 70% are stocked at its stores (Supply Chain Digest Home, 2008).

To improve network communications between stores, head offices. Combine all stock databases into a single system on head office server, so staff can view the amount of stock and access most recent up to date data. This would drastically improve the communications between the several stores. To achieve this, all the individual LANS (Local area Network) from the stores must be connected to create a Wide area network, thus this WAN can be accessed through Telecommunications lease lines across the internet. Though for PVMS this type of method is expensive, but will significantly benefit from this change.

Gemini Electronics has become a successful electronics company that looks to be growing on an upward slope. We can see where Gemini is booming, as well as where they are lacking, by analyzing their Ratios and Statement of Cash Flow. Liquidity measures a firm’s ability to meet its cash obligations; shown by calculating the Current Ratio and the Quick Ratio. Gemini’s liquidity has slightly increased from 2008 to 2009, but remains below the industry average. An acceptable Current Ratio should be around 2:1, which Gemini has exceeded in 2008 (2.52:1) and 2009 (2.56:1).

Capacity planning This is the process of knowing the production capacity an organization needs to meet the changing demands for the products. It helps to determine the quantity of the product needed by a firm to meet the demands of its customers. The capacity planning elements for Walmart are; facility, product and service, and human resource.

This reduced the company’s inventory costs by over 20% which improved delivery

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY   TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary 1 Introduction 3 Competitive Situation 4 Variable Costing 5 Existing Costing System 6 Diagram ABC 8 Activity Based Costing & Profitability 9 Conclusion 14 Bibliography 15   INTRODUCTION   COMPETITIVE SITUATION Firstly, here is a brief description of what Wilkerson Company specializes in. According to our case study and various online sources, Wilkerson manufactures and markets a complete line of compressed air treatment components and control products.

To do this it needs to have a competitive advantage over its its rivals. A competitive advantage is something a company does better than its rivals that gives it an advantage over its rival. Porter (1988) states that a firm performs many activities that can contribute to a firms relative cost position and create a basis for differentiation which can create a cost advantage that gives a firm a competitive advantage over its competitors. A company’s competitive advantage and competitive strategy are both interrelated. Competitive strategy is defined by Porter (1980) as a broad formula for how a business is going to compete, what its goals should be, and what policies will be needed to carry out those goals.

Marketing Management Project PROJECT OUTLINE: Choose one company which has a turnaround in the past and one company which failed in the past. Discuss each company’s marketing strategy and reasons for their success or failure. Marketing Strategy Failure: Gap Inc. How Gap turned into Crap! What went wrong?

One of the issues with Dreamliner was the late involvement of Boeing 's awareness of supplier related isuses. To improve in this area, Boeing uses the Supplier Performance Measurement Report to monitor and measure the eperfomrance of their supply base with focuses on " first-time quality and drive long-term, systemic improvements". THis system places focus on weather the suppliers have appropriate management systems and quality management systems in place, not just on-time dileverys and quality products. Supplier Quality Information System (SQIS) Communication of Quality Management System (QMS) tracks the audit findings are reported on a Supplier Evaluation Report (SER). BEST Boeing Enterprise Supplier Tool is a “summary” of a Boeing supplier’s performance for Product

Competitive advantage is when two or more firms compete within the same markets, one firm possess a competitive advantage over its rival when it earns (or has potential to earn) a persistently higher rate of profit. There are three types of competitive advantage. a) Cost leadership strategy occurs when a firm a delivers the same services as its rivals but at a lower price. b) The differentiation strategy occurs when a firm delivers greater services for the same price of its rivals. c) Focus strategy is a focused approach requires the firm to concentrate along one specific segment either a cost leadership or a specialization strategy.

International Business Machines (IBM)- 1) Introduction IBM (International business machines) corporation is one of the biggest multinational computer technologies and IT consulting company spread over 170 countries with 330,000 employees. It has its headquarters in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM started its business on June 16, 1911. It is the manufacturer of computer parts for hardware and software and, consulting services and hosting services. And also offers services in infrastructure.

Competitors – The industry that Nissan currently operates in provides lots of potential competitors for them as many automobile companies are developing electric cars which are something Nissan are very keen on focusing on. Nissan currently only run a small market share of the industry so many competitors are dominating the market such as Ford, Vauxhall etc. Nissans competitors have many strengths and weaknesses against Nissan. Some companies such as Ford focus heavily on fuel powered cars which means they will have an advantage against Nissans fuel powered range but Nissan will have an advantage over them with Nissans electric cars and the amount of research that has been put into it. Other companies such as Tesla whose main focus is electric cars are a fairly big competitor towards Nissan and the Nissan leaf range.

They are trust worthy to meet expected standard and lead times. This allows Unilever to achieve effective supply chain management with quality products • To provide Premium standard products • On time delivery – with suppliers

The four building blocks of competitive advantage can be used to help a company become more profitable and stay ahead of their competition. The four factors are superior efficiency, quality, innovation, customer responsiveness. All four building blocks are important to any company. However, I believe that customer responsiveness is the most important because having loyal and happy customers can make or break any company. The four building blocks can help companies grow and become the leader in their industry over their rivals.

Mr Price has a wide range of competitors such as H&M, Woolworths and Pick ‘n Pay. A competitive advantage describes how the business has benefits or strengths over its competitors in the market. By having this, the competitors don’t seem as a threat to the company. It’s used