Case Study: Shipper Manufacturing Company



Case Study: Shipper Manufacturing Company

Introduction

The case study is about the shipper manufacturing company, whose executives decided to revise the manufacturing and related strategies, in order to improve their business efficiency and competitive advantage (Schroeder, et.al). The company started its operations by producing weather satellites, but later on the company became famous for manufacturing more products and diversified into three major divisions. The general manager of the company Wallace intends to shift the products gradually, so that the business could become customer focused. With the increasing number of products and operations, the company witnessed to face the problems in alignment of the operational and business processes, such as miscommunication between the staff of the company and the customers, and problems of manual record keeping.

The paper describes some of the issues faced by the company, from the perspective of lack of strategic linkage between the business and operational processes of the company. We propose that the company should utilize the modern information and communication technologies, in order to improve the integration between the operation and business strategies. We also discuss that how the proposed strategy would benefit the company.

Proposal for Efficient Objectives

Over the past few years, it has become essential for the companies to align their business and operations effectively. In absence of the alignment in strategies, the companies fail to maintain their position in the competitive business world. This section proposes the ways using which, the Shipper Manufacturing Company would be able maintain their different position and market leadership.

Analysis of the case study clearly depicts the fact that the company needs to strengthen their marketing process, in order to achieve a better market position. The best approach to become customer focused from the customer perspective is to develop the marketing strategies in way that makes the customers attract and loyal toward the company. For developing efficient marketing strategies, the company would have to engage in extensive market research. It is necessary for the policy makers of the company to determine and analyze the needs and expectations of the customers. Once the information about customer' needs are collected, then comes the need of incorporating the customers requirements into the product or services. The executives may also need to incorporate the modern information and communication technologies to collect information on what the other companies or the competitors are providing to the customers. Currently, the company often faces the problems of miscommunication between the employees and the customers. Also, the company has been facing the degradation in its performance, as the customers continue to complaint about the long cycle time of the company's operations.

The strategic decision making process is the most important for the firm, as it has a long term impact on the firm (Kim S.K, et.al, 2004). The impact of strategic decisions spreads across multiple functional areas including production, accounting, distribution and sales departments. Thus, for making these critical decisions, the executives at Shipper manufacturing need the knowledge about all the departments and over all status ...