Duncan Industries Essay

Increase the frequency of purchases by your customers. No matter how poor your current product or service, you must have some customers or clients. One key strategic dimension that you should be thinking about is how to augment and reposition your product in order to sell more to this group.

• The company has the opportunity to grow in various markets and aquire new customers such as malls, hotels, offices, and motels not only in Canada but as well as the United States.

Parts Emporium, Inc. is a wholesale distributor of automobile parts formed by two disenchanted auto mechanics, Dan Block and Ed Spriggs. Originally located in Block’s garage, the firm showed slow but steady growth for 7 years before it relocated to an old, abandoned meat-packing warehouse on Chicago’s South Side. With increased space for inventory storage, the company was able to begin offering an expanded line of auto parts. Fifteen years later, Parts Emporium was the largest independent distributor of auto parts in the north central region.

The largest floor covering product is carpet and rugs followed by ceramic tile, vinyl, hardwood, stone, laminate and rubber floorings.

Due to the growing competition and diminishing market share, companies are opting for different strategies to achieve their survival objectives as well as growth. Companies are thus executing grand strategies to provide their businesses with a clear direction for its strategic actions. These strategies, therefore, aim at both short term and long term sustainability and growth, and they include innovation, market development, product development, and concentration.

The automotive component & Fabrication Plant, ACF, was the original plant site for Bridgeton Industries, a major supplier of components for the domestic automotive industry. All of the ACF’s production was sold to the Big-Three domestic automobile manufactures. Its main competitors were local suppliers and other Bridgeton plants. This company did very well but recently it became less effective when foreign competition and scarce, expensive gasoline caused domestic loss of market share. For boost its selling, it made four criteria, quality, customer service, technical capability, and competitive cost position to evaluate three classifications of products.

Opportunities: international market; co- operation with other bigger companies; launching of the new products; increasing tendency of the customer demand etc.

In the 1990’s Black and Decker had a great position in the market for their products to appeal to the Professional Industrial segment and the Consumer segment but when it came to the Professional Tradesmen segment they were lacking. Their 9% market share vs. Makita’s 50% market share in the tradesmen segment was incomparable. Makita clearly had a better product in the eyes of the Professional Tradesmen. In the Professional Segment most of the people who buy the products are people who need these tools to make a living such as carpenters, electricians, plumbers, roofers, and general remodelers. Black and

     Competition is an important driver of innovation and productivity growth. Looking at the domestic Canadian economy, perhaps one of the most significant barriers to a strong domestic economy is the lack of intense competition among domestic firms. There are many reasons for this. First of all, the size of the Canadian

Opportunities include huge market, no competition for at least three years, potential huge margin, good marketing strategy.

Bodie Industrial Supply, Inc is a full service distributor of top line, brand name, new and used certified machine tools, maintenance parts and related equipments for the construction, utility and farming markets. The demand for equipment is relatively cyclical, with Bodies having a slight increase in sales to farming markets in the summer. Bodie’s has seen a huge sales growth increase in 2003-2004 of 72% and 29% in 2004-2005. This is mostly due to an increase in net sales and keeping a constant level of costs of goods sold.

By involving ourselves more with the production and marketing processes of Bar Maisse, and starting a joint venture with the company, we would be able to gain a far larger share of the profits of the sales of our hoists, and a far greater influence over the market compared to what we would have through a licensing agreement. With our expertise in the field of hoist repair and production, and Bar Maisse's experience with the European market, we will likely be able to gain a larger market share together than either of us would be able to alone.

W. W. Grainger, Inc. is a leading supplier of maintenance, repair, and operating (MRO) products to businesses and institutions in the United States, Canada, and Mexico with an expanding presence in Japan, India, China and Panama. The company works with more than 3,000 suppliers and runs an extensive Website (http://www.grainger.com) where Grainger offers nearly 900,000 products. The products range from industrial adhesives used in manufacturing, to hand tools, janitorial supplies, lighting equipment, and power tools. When something is needed by one of their 1.8 million customers it is often needed quickly, so quick service and product

A.G. Lafley, CEO of P&G, explained this strategy through his book “The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation” (Crown Business, 2008) to explain how to make game-changing innovation drive growth on a consistent, well-paced basis. The critical factors include keeping a laser-sharp focus on the customer; establishing a disciplined, repeatable, and scalable innovation process; creating

1. Achieve an increase in the market share to 50% or above in the next 7 years