Case Study: Optical Distortion Incorporation

Many years ago, backyard chickens were commonplace throughout the United States of America – mainly for nutrition. During that time, backyard chickens were easy to take care of and a small number of them could feed a family with meat and eggs for a bargain. Years later, manufacturing food became the way of life and

First, the financial resource tightness is one of the biggest impediments for the implementation of the plan. ODI set a five-year goal of capturing 50% of the market. It requires a sufficient finance backup. ODI’s fixed cost is amount to $760,000 (See Table 3). The total liabilities and equity of ODI is $275,025(See Case Table A Balance Sheet). Therefore, ODI has a limited bargain power on material supply and it is vulnerable for an increase in supply cost. Because of the issue of limited financial, ODI might be going to charge higher price in the beginning. With little knowledge about the advantages and potential profitability in the new products, a higher price is very likely to impair the interests of the farmers who want to install lenses on their chicken. The marketing of new products would be restrained greatly. Furthermore, the farmers would not be easily convinced to replace the traditional debeaking method by buying the new lenses. The problem is that ODI lens is still at the beginning stage with a very limited

For example, 91 pounds of chicken is to be consumed by Americans in 2017 (The National Chicken Council 2012). Within the factory farming of Tysons foods Inc., a major international food industry dealing with a majority of chicken, are seen to be abusing and slaughtering birds irresponsibly. Their shelters dark and filled with thousands of birds, either dead or alive making it possible for the ones alive to pick up a disease. Then transported to the factories where they are not properly put to death by workers lacking in their ability to do the job correctly. On Food Inc. a farmer by the name of Carole Morison stood up against Perdue’s farming styles and showed her farm to filmers. As seen in the video chickens are dying by the workers abuse, antibiotics being fed to them, and diseases in the shelters (Food Inc. 2008)

1 Farmers may not totally understand the product value. They may not easily accept new product that they have never heard about.

The target market is generally the most lucrative choice from among different market segments – each segment being identifiable, measurable, sizable, reachable. For best results, include a fair amount of demographic information (income range, education level, family situation, etc.).

Chickens used for egg production typically live in one of many battery cages crammed into a long windowless shed. Ten or more of these hens are packed together in a cage that is about the size of a drawer in a filing cabinet. This causes frustration and fighting between the hens. To keep this from happening, farmers often cut or burn part of their beaks off without medicine to dull the pain. Hens who become sick are usually not given proper veterinary care and are left to die slowly and painfully. Some of the eggs laid by the hens are hatched by another industry to supply more chickens for egg production. Since the hatched male chicks cannot lay eggs, they are often killed by grinding or suffocation. When the hens grow old and stop producing as many eggs, many farmers will deny them proper nutrition to try and “shock” their bodies into laying eggs one last time. Then they are slaughtered and their bodies are used for food scraps.

Not only the reduction of the cannibalization, the lens also has the less trauma issue which improves chicken productivity, greater feeding efficiency, and better labor efficiency. Therefore, the expected value of the lenses to farmers should come from the diminution of costs which

Layers practically spent their youth to maturity confined in cages no bigger than their bodies. The cages are densely packed next and on top of one another. Laying hens are frequently starved to maximize their eggs production. The goal is to maximize production with amount of effort. The way I see it: It is like life in prison for those hens. They cannot move and even flap their wings. Living in overcrowded area, it is a natural tendency for the birds to peck at each other. To solve that problem, new born chicks will get part of their top beaks cut off without any painkillers. Many chicks experience pain and unable eat for days. When hens can no longer produce eggs, they are killed and sent elsewhere. Why would one kill those hens? Can we still use them for

Chickens have to endure suffering that no living thing should have to go through. The egg laying chickens have to be forced into tiny cages without enough room to stretch their wings. Up to 8 hens are crammed in to a cage that is the size of a folded newspaper, about

Every company and/or organization starts and operates to achieve a single major goal, which is normally included in the company’s mission statement. Setting a goal, however, does not translate into success on its own; it is only the fist step. Understanding market segmentation is the second most important aspect of doing business. “Sellers and advertisers want to be able to determine what the potential market is for their product or service, as well as the best ways to reach potential consumers” (Terrell, 2013). Once a goal is set, an organization first must decide if it wants to operate locally, regionally, nationally, and/or internationally, as the size of the geographic coverage has a large

Optical Distortion Inc. is a small new company, not yet in business, with a cash asset of $200,000 and a patent for an innovative new product (the only one) which is a contact lens designed to impair the eyesight of chickens. . These lenses are used instead of debeaking. Lensed chickens are more likely to survive. They also eat more efficiently than debeaked chickens. The key issue facing ODI is "How to market these lenses?". The analysis in this paper provides recommendations for ODI on their marketing and pricing strategy to launch this new product.

Contact lenses from ODI restrict the vision for the birds which completely changes their behavior. This method of reducing cannibalization is much more effective than debeaking and has huge economic benefits for the farmers. The benefits for ODI lens are:

This process helps a firm or organisation in focusing its marketing effort towards a specific segment or a group of segments. Depending on the product, organisational goals, the size of the firm and the marketing resources available a firm may target only one ‘niche’ segment or alternatively focus on several related segments. Another method can be to start with one segment and add more when business grows successfully. Large companies often target all market segments and try to serve them by offering a large variety of products to suit all their needs, wants and demands.

The first pillar, target market segment is essentially the discovery stage. The point of this stage is to determine whom the company is serving and to whose needs their product needs to be tailored. Some contributing factors in determining the target include demographics, psychographics, and other important characteristics. In the case of United Commercial Bank, their main target market is clear, the

Poultry plays very important role for mankind through food supply, income and employment generation, providing raw materials to some industries, facilitating research works etc. Family poultry makes up to 80 percent of poultry stocks in low-income food-deficit countries (Pym et al., 2006) where owners raise poultry in small numbers ranging from single birds up to a few hundred.