International Management
Group Report
Ace Hardware Store Entering Bahrain Market
Contents Executive Summary 4 1.0 Introduction 5 2.0 Industry Business Description 6 3.0 Company description 6 3.1 Type of business 6 3.2 Legal Structure 8 3.3 History 8 3.3.1 Mission 8 3.3.2 Goals & Objectives 9 3.4 Company Structure 10 4.0 Ace Product analysis: 10 4.1 Customer profile/demand analysis: 13 4.2 Competitive situation: 14 5.0 Environmental factors 16 5.1 Host Country Business Climate: 16 5.2 SWOT ANALYSIS: 17 5.3 Government constraints in Bahrain 20 5.4 PEST ANALYSIS 21 6.0 Business Strategies 24 6.1 Product /service positioning 24 6.2 Pricing strategy 25 6.3 Distribution and logistics 27
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3.1 Type of business
Retail Sales
ACE’s 4,600 stores in all 50 states and more than 60 countries generate annual retail sales of approximately $12 billion (Ace Hardware Corporation, 2012). Dubai, Shanghai, Canada etc. Applying a Teradata warehouse permitted 2,500 Ace Hardware retail stores to transmit daily a point of sale (POS) transaction detail. According to (Murphy, 2007), “Teradata is the world leader in data warehousing solutions with a proven track record in retail, as we discovered when we sought vendor references. That experience, including customer relationship management, category management and business intelligence, made Teradata the right choice for Ace Hardware.” Basically, Ace relies on active warehouse data from Teradata, which has delivered a single repository for retail and wholesale sales, purchasing, customer information, financial data and inventory to essentially support large varied workloads.
Wholesale
In addition to its 14 retail support centres in the United States and freight forwarding operations on the West Coast and East Coast, ACE features three international distribution centres in Dubai, Shanghai and Panama. The international distribution centres provide: 1. Easier access to core stock of leading brand products and certified ACE products through their global supply warehouse 2. Online ordering systems 3. In-market fully operational support offices.
3 Improved lead time: The business process will be able to able to respond quickly with fewer delays. It also ensures timely availability of the product in the market.
Established and maintained more suppliers that would provide more options and huge discounts in large orders
Minimize risks due to uncertain demand. L.L. Bean would be able to manage ordering process and quantities based on actual demand and adjust more effectively.
4. Emphasizing the product quality The durability of the company could last long. It gives the company to have a durability image to the customers. Customers would likely be satisfied and the company could
Home Depot is also known for its high productivity. The company likes to maximize the efficiency of the space it uses. International Home Depot stores in 2014 averaged $297 earned per square foot. Lowe’s international stores only averaged $280 per square foot (Trefis Team, 2015). The growth of Home Depot’s e-commerce sales is another testament for its productivity. Home Depot’s had online sales of 500 million in 2009. E-commerce sales have grown to over 5 billion (Birkner, 2017). In 2007, the company’s store were in charge of stocking and replenishing inventory. The staff spent as much as 60% of their time working with inventory instead of working with customers. To solve this problem the company created algorithms that autonomously kept track of the inventory for the management (Bond, 2017). The company also created 18 rapid deployment centers from 2007 to 2015. These centers move products between stores in a more efficient rate utilizing a for just-in-time replenishment model. Lowes also has rapid deployment centers, but has only built 15 in the same amount of time. The high productivity of Home Depot is one of the reasons it continues to outperform its competition.
for style and functionality product. Over 150 independent retail stores has been owned with the
As the company continues to evolve, it still stays true to its attractive qualities that have earned millions of loyal customers around the world. They have a commitment to quality. By only carrying 4000 stocked units in the warehouse, compared to 30,000 at your local super market, it can carefully choose its products. This insightful selection is based on quality, price, brand and features. Therefore, having the ability to offer the ultimate best value to its members.
1. Faster delivery times due to decrease in lead time causing an increase in reliability
Since Wal-Mart is a mass market retailer, its primary source of value that it adds to the company is derived from its supply chain. Wal-Mart has suppliers located all over the world and it purchases goods from a wide range of different types of vendors. Many of the company's primary vendors are directly connected to Wal-Mart's IT systems through what is referred to as an electronic data interchange (EDI). An EDI can instantaneous transmit data between Wal-Mart and their vendors. Such information can consist of order information, stock supplies, demand forecasting and many other key supply chain metrics. The advantages of such a system are clear as they can greatly assist creating efficiencies in the supply chain. However, not all suppliers have developed sufficient IT technologies to participate in an EDI program with Wal-Mart. Another option for greater coordination between parties in the supply chain is web-based supplier integration. Although the web-based systems are not quite as sophisticated as an EDI, they are more accessible for many of the smaller suppliers and they have shown to improve long-term coordination, cooperation, and commitment.
The advantages of a centralized warehouse is higher service levels and lower inventory holding costs due to aggregating customer demand and pooling risk. That is, if customer demand is high in one region and lower in another, there will be no need to hold excess inventory in a regional warehouse; the variation in demand will balance out and reduce the requirements for excess inventory. Additionally, the fixed costs of maintaining one central warehouse/distribution center will be lower than five regional warehouses.
The TSCC model also encouraged O&M to want to get other hospitals in Seattle to use it. Stefanic believed that hospitals standardizing their orders would decrease O&M’s on-hand inventory SKUs, thus creating cost saving opportunities for the hospitals. However, O&M’s move towards fewer SKUs has proven a daunting task in the healthcare industry.
Proximity to raw materials gives benefits on distribution channel which is already organized by formers. This also gives an added advantage in reducing transportation costs
The move to the state-of-the-art facility will result in the organization being more efficient and will as well result in quicker pull of inventory and quicker shipment. Furthermore, stock will be handled more efficiently with less errors resulting in higher profits for the organization.
„h It results in quicker delivery time due to the faster distribution cycle of products being shipped directly from the wholesalers.