Rubbermaid: The Little Tikes Company

In 1982 Barbara Bradley Baekgaard and Patricia Miller, Vera Bradley’s co-CEOs, saw an opportunity for vibrant and trendy luggage, and started Vera Bradley. The company grew quickly in the 2000s as their products were viewed as unique and allowed consumers to express their style. In order to be competitive in the market as the number of rivals in the industry grew; Vera Bradley had to turn its attention to its key success factors (Appendix E). The company also had to see which factors would create a sustainable competitive advantage (Appendix G). These factors, including multi-channel distribution, brand image, and product variety, contributed to the overall worth of the company, which in turn boosted its reputation. Vera Bradley had been having troubles in the recent years. Its current strategy was proving to be ineffective (Appendix J). Its growth had come to a halt, and revenues slipped by 15%. The compound annual growth rate for Vera Bradley between 2013-2014 was negative, which showed that the company was having some strategic issues (Appendix F). Compared to its competition, Vera Bradley was ranked lower than all rivals in the market (Appendix H). As the industry grew larger and more rivals emerged, Vera Bradley had to make changes to their strategy. The

By 1895, Sears’s mail order business was gaining market acceptance and the Sears catalog expanded to 532 items consisting of ‘soup to nuts’ products for their customers (Sears Archive, 2012), supporting the theory that early innovators do not have a restriction on what they bring to market (Innovation Zen, 2006). Sears’s core competencies are innovation, selling, advertising, and merchandising (Sears Archive, 2012).

Siam Cement’s offer to purchase an initial order of 200 units at $9,000 per unit, would lead to a net profit of $200,000. While this immediate cash influx may seem advantageous in the short term, it will not offset yearly operational expenses of $250,000 (See Exhibit 1). Additionally, accepting Siam Cement’s offer would position Rubbertech as an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). This decision could impede potential growth that would far exceed the offer that is currently on the table. If Rubbertech does not accept Siam Cement’s offer, they can seize a part of

By the 1970s, owning a wide range of home appliances was deemed essential for daily living.

The company that I have chosen for this assignment and project is Lowe 's Companies, Inc. Lowes strongly focuses on the mission statement “helping the customers to improve their homes”. The company started in 1921 as a small store in North Carolina. Great success and high demand of Lowe’s products led to an increase in the number of stores. By 1955, there were five more functional stores. Rapid growth took place around 1960s. Carl Buchan was one of the founders of Lowe’s, who died in year 1960. Exactly a year later in 1961, the company went public. This was the time when Lowe’s was given its name. Initially it was called North Wilkesboro Hardware Company. By 1979, Lowe’s established more than 50 stores in the United

The Phases of Industry When you take a moment to ponder, how many companies can you think of have survived for over a century? Very few have managed to stay in business for ten, twenty, or even fifty years. Most importantly, how many have made a significant difference. The Clorox Company has earned customers respect and trust since 1913. Clorox is best-known for its namesake bleach, but there is a significant chance you’ve to have a lot more than just one Clorox product in your house.

Newell's corporate strategy was mainly focused on high volume and low cost product to large mass retailer. The goal of the company was to increase its sales and profitability by offering a complete and complementary range of products and reliable service to the mass retail stores. Newell's initial focus was on home and hardware products which later on expended to other markets. The company strategy was to grow and expand its product line through acquisitions, rather than internal growth. Before 1998 Newell acquired different companies in the basic home and hardware products industry and started diversifying into unrelated field such as children products, widow covering, writing instruments and others. The company was also looking to

• • • • • • • Name – Coleco Industries Time – the end of 1980s Industry – toys Market - USA Market share – the fifth-largest manufacturer in the USA Head quarter - West HartFord, Connecticut Production line – Cabbage Patch Kids

By acquiring Calphalon, not only did Newell add an upper-end product to their cookware divisions, but they also gained extensive knowledge in the pull strategy sales process that had proven to be successful. This process was a source of competitive advantage for Calphalon and could be extremely useful to Newell and their goal to continue adding higher-end products to each of their divisions. The acquisition of Rubbermaid brings even greater challenges to Newell Company as it is by far their largest acquisition yet. Despite Newell’s continued success in acquiring and restructuring companies, investors clearly lack confidence in their ability to manage such a large turnaround, as news of the agreement resulted in an 11% decrease in stock price.

By end of 90’s the company was dominant in many of the categories it competed in. The challenge was found in whether it can continue its dominance in it’s new, expanding product ranges and could maintain its dominance and synergy in its all categories on low and high price offering in hardware, home furnishings, office and house ware, while maintaining its management and corporate structures.

After acquiring, Newell would get the service level of each business to their standards as fast as possible to make sure that these businesses do not damage its reputation. Thus association of brand name to Newell highly enhanced the individual companies inside Newell’s portfolio to be of good service and fast distribution. Other than these factors, the acquisition of different companies might bring in different skills and synergies to complementing goods such as production knowledge and complementary assets. Companies that produce complementary products are able to know what exactly to produce that would suit their customers, while companies producing differentiated products of the same category would be able to learn from each other to produce better products for each customer segment. Companies of similar nature are also consolidated and the plants upgraded to increase manufacturing efficiency which will benefit these companies in the cost aspect.

Grant Nauta AHP Case Study Because American Home Products (AHP) currently operates with virtually no debt, their financial risk is very small. This shifts the burden heavily towards business risk. A porter’s five forces analysis is appropriate to determine the exact levels of business risk for American Home Products. First, the threat of substitutes is a risk that AHP cannot afford to ignore. Because they spend very little on Research and Development, and have to rely on their marketing to catch up to competitors, they always seem to be a step behind their competitors. In the industries that AHP operates, switching costs are very low and consumers based on anything from price to overall sentiment. Also, if a competitor markets a product

Most of the home products are essential for having a good life style. For example, there is no substitute for: a sheet, a pillow, a blanket, a desk, lamp etc., and the same store will offer

the early 1990s, the company made a series of small, “tuck-in” acquisitions. It targeted companies

The Clorox Company’s acquisition of Burt’s Bees in 2007 allowed the company to expand into a natural product business platform which fit into their Centennial Strategy. This product line though was marketed as a stand-alone product and was not associated with the Clorox brand name. Based on Exhibit 9 of the market study, the market share that Burt’s Bees held was 7.9% which was only 2.3% shares away from the market leader Aveda. Even though this product line was ranked #4 in the natural personal care brands, it only accounted for 4% of Clorox’s total sales. As pointed out with Brita, sales soften in this category during times of recession.