Questions On The Team Monkey Total Market Share

“When the simulation began, we felt confident in our team’s vision, goals, and strategic plan. After the first rollover, we quickly became aware that the success of a company relies heavily on the dynamics of the market. The strategic decisions of competitors weigh heavily on the overall direction of a company. Our original plan quickly became obsolete in the tumultuous bike industry, and we were forced to re-evaluate our competitive positioning. To this end, we learned

Conduct a 5-year scenario planning analysis for Scharffen Berger and use this to recommend what strategic activities Harris should prioritize.  Provide a 1-page appendix that depicts your scenario

On average, subscribers purchased 19.9 CDs annually, mostly through Sonik’s website. Annual subscriber retention rate was 90 percent. Sonik accumulated CDs from various suppliers and fulfilled its own orders. Annual fixed costs of fulfillment were $400,000; shipments averaged 3.7 CDs per package. Annual marketing expenses were $230,000; Sonik spent 90 percent on acquiring new subscribers and 5 percent on subscriber retention. Sonik’s cost of capital was 12 percent. It was considering three growth options: a. Continue the Niche Strategy: Sonik believed it could acquire 20,000-30,000 new customers per annum for the next several years without major new investment. Sonik also believed that spending $0.5 million per annum would increase customer retention to 95 percent. b. Mass-Market Strategy: Abandon the subscription model, add many other music genres, and build a mass-market brand.

The team’s unique reasoning behind the choice of strategy that we executed throughout the simulation played a significant role and set the tone toward the effort and attitude that each team member maintained during the process. The strategy of the broad differentiator was the teams choice, because we thought that it would be the most difficult to accomplish, would take the most time, and provide us all with a well rounded learning experience because we would be able to learn how to be successful in both the low and high tech segment with our products instead of just one of the segments. With our previous knowledge about running a business we all were in agreement that if we could sacrifice and work harder to participate in both segments it would lead to some great competitive advantages. As mentioned by Lui, (2013), “the only competitive global business strategies would be based on differentiation by unique specialization in terms of quality, product, service technology, or cost leadership” (p.2824). The great execution of the strategy by our team enabled us to find success and gain different competitive advantages with each of our sensors, in turn accomplishing our goal of meeting the needs and expectations of both the low and high tech segment.

I believe that the fundamentals and criteria of my strategic approach were pointing in the right direction. I assumed that the high growth potential market was for

I believe that this simulation was a great tool in helping us as MBA candidates to see just how companies succeed and/or fail to achieve their growth targets in revenue and profitability. However, an organization heightens the probability of achieving profitable growth whenever it has a clear expansion strategy and a strong execution infrastructure. One without the other impairs the probability of success. I conclude that there are two main reasons for such: 1) inadequate consideration of opportunities within the core business, adjacent to the core business or within new customer sub-segments; 2) an organizational infrastructure that cannot support successful execution.

Since quarter one was the first quarter of this simulation, I was unaware of how difficult it was going to be to make all the different decisions. Firstly, I had to choose a Company name. Because I was selling computers, I thought that the name “Dev-Tech” was a perfect fit being that this simulation was about development and technology. Next, I had to choose a target segment. I knew going into this simulation that it would be better to invest in the more expensive goods as it would benefit me in the end. The segment that didn’t care about price was Mercedes, so that is the segment that I made my first priority.

In terms of Porter’s analysis, cost-leadership and product differentiation strategies were implemented by the team during the simulation, which resulted in the maximum profit of 278.59 million dollars.

The strategy I chose for the simulation is “Niche Cost Leader." First, with the key focus being value, this strategy will challenge me to keep costs at a minimum and force me to streamline overall costs to produce a valuable commodity that, in turn, will generate financial success that can be shared with internal and external stakeholders. Second, as the success of this strategy primarily relies on the existing product line being prosperous, I will be able to practice and hone my forecasting skills based on one product. Though I eventually will produce more than one product, most of the simulation will be conducting under making the primary product as successful as it can be, and reliable forecasts are

Initially, our firm’s business position was at a healthy position. In the beginning of the simulation, our overall market share for the automobile industry was 28.2%; the highest in the market. We realized that our primary strength from product contribution came from our economy car Alec with 63.5% market share for economy cars, and from our utility car, awesome with a 48.5% market share for its vehicle class. Thus, it was evident what we needed to do; maintain high market share of our leading cars while conforming our least profitable vehicle class sustainably to coordinate to customer demand.

The company ended in the last place, and we know that there are areas of opportunities. In spite of this, out of the five performance areas, our weighted average scores were above the investor expected standards for Y2015. On the other hand, we never meet the image rating score of 70, and our EPS fell

The Markstrat world has a population of 250 million people. Through Year 4, the Sonite market consisted of 1.67 million people with an expected growth rate of 53% over the next five years. In order to meet the needs of consumers in the larger growing segments, Company U has developed two products in the Sonite market: SUSI and SULI. SUSI is the lower quality offering, marketed towards Singles and Others who are the most price-sensitive. Others and Singles are projected to have the highest growth rates over the next five years, at 98% and 86% respectively. This is Company U’s target market for SUSI and sales are forecasted to almost double in each segment through Year 10 (Table 1 and Chart 1). SULI is the high quality electronic offering, distributed primarily to Professionals and High Earners who are driven by performance and convenience. Market Share for both Professionals and another market segment, Buffs, are expected to decline through Year 10. The Vodite market currently consists of approximately 200,000 people with an expected growth of 200% through Year 10. The Followers segment of the Vodite market is projected to have the largest growth over the next five years at over 3300%. Company U introduced a Vodite, VUGO, in Year 5 to initially target the Early Adopters segment in turn creating a strong foundation to penetrate the Followers segment through Year 10 with predicted long term sales growth of 17%.

As I get further and further along in this simulation, I have noticed that I am beginning to understand what it takes as a marketing manager in order to be successful. Careful considerations must be made to be sure that the right decisions benefit both Minnesota Micromotors, Inc., and our customers. Our success comes from our customers’ success and loyalty that they have with this company. In finding ways to incorporate the important factors that matter most to our customers is what will bring in new customers and keep our existing ones around for the long hall.

Yoda manages two Sonite brands – Moon and Mojo. Initially, Moon is positioned as a mid-range offering and Mojo is positioned as a low-end offering. None of them are leading in any of the segments in year 0. Firm T has three brands that cover the entire market and is the market leader as of year 0. Firm R is a small player and has only one brand that competes in the low-end range. Each brand competes to capture customer segments by aligning their product and marketing

3. Using the data provided by the simulation model presented in the case and your personal assessment, what capital structure would you recommend to Diageo?