preview

Strategic Planning - a Case Study Essay

Better Essays

Case study Introduction Clifton Industries Ltd. is a relatively small but independent company within the Berbeck Industries Group. Its purpose is to supply a range of products to aircraft manufacturers and its mission is to manufacture electromechanical products for NA and European markets and electronics products for NA market. As can be seen from the SWOT analysis in Appendix A, the company’s current core competencies are skilled labour and diverse manufacturing capabilities. Clifton’s main products are European electromechanical products (“old OE”) and spares and repairs, but due to predicted decline in future sales of these products, Clifton had begun producing electromechanical products (“new OE”) for the N-American market as well …show more content…

Clifton Industries has taken over three US aerospace companies and developed a set of only 8 “modular” designs in its attempt to break into the NA market. Contracts in NA are ten times the European equivalents with orders being multi-sourced and penalized for late deliveries. 2 MANF 9471 Case study Companies are motivated to expand globally in order to expand their markets within a limited product range, beyond that possible in their own national economies. The most common approach is to approach worldwide markets with standardized (or in this case modular) products. Such markets are most commonly created by consumers that prefer lower priced standardized products over higher priced, customized products. The five forces (for the NA electromechanical product): • • • Clifton has low bargaining power with suppliers as this is a new product which isn’t yet manufactured in mass numbers. Clifton has low bargaining power with its customers due to the nature of contracts. There is high rivalry between existing players, as there are already 4 large US based companies. This manufacturing process will initially operate as a small batch process due to the opening stage of the product life cycle. The frequency of repeat orders while maintaining flexibility to produce both modular and custom products respectively are what justify this process choice. If this product range is to survive in the NA market, the process will have to increase

Get Access