Introduction:
Baldwin is one of the best companies in this industry that has the highest ROA, ROE, and ROS; and it also has the highest cumulative profit around 250 million dollars and around 70 million profit (Appendix A). Baldwin picked Differentiator with Product Lifecycle Focus as their development strategy, which “concentrates on the High End, Traditional and Low End segments with high standard of quality”(Capstone).
Why choose Differentiator with Product Lifecycle Focus Strategy?
Analysis on background
Baldwin is a high technology company, which products’ life cycles are always short, we can also observe that the expectation of price and demand has an inverse relationship that price will drop and demand will increase year by year; which means company need invest on automation and capacity to balance their profit (Capstone). Therefore, based on long-term vision investment on R&D, Marketing, Production and etc., Baldwin decided to focus on few products because Baldwin can reduce the cost on investment and maximize the profits with these few products.
Analysis on the market Segment
Based on the market segment analysis, Baldwin decided to focus on the Traditional and Low End segments. Based on the whole industry data, Traditional Segment has around 30% of potential customers; Low End Segment has around 40% of potential customers (Appendix B). As a result, Baldwin found out that the Traditional Segment and Low End segment are the most important segments that have more than 50% potential customers in this market. Therefore, Baldwin decided to focus on these two segments because high potential customers mean high sales in this market; high sales means high profit for company.
Analysis on Contribution Margin
Based on contribution margin, the difference between the sales price and variable cost, Baldwin decided to focus on High End segment (Capstone). Customers are always diverse; therefore, they made five different products for their different customer segments with different contribution margin. Baker, Traditional Segment, is around 29%; Bead, Low End Segment, is around 27%; Bid, High End Segment, is around 33%; Bold, Performance Segment, is around 23%; Buddy, Size Segment, is around 20% (Appendix B). Therefore, Baldwin decided to focus on High End Segment because it has a high contribution margin that can bring the high profit for company.
Processes to develop Product Lifecycle Focus Strategy
Summary
From the entire industry financial statistics report, Baldwin did an excellent job to get the highest profit around 70 million and around 450 million sales with Product Lifecycle Focus Strategy. Based on the efficiency investment on R&D, Marketing, and Production, Baldwin took around 40% market share in entire market shares (Appendix C).
R&D
R&D is one of the most important factors for products, adjusting the performance and size to satisfy different segments of customers’ different demand; which can affect the sales for products (Capstone). Therefore, Baldwin invested around 10% profit per round for R&D. Baldwin has its own R&D strategy, setting their Traditional, Low End and High End segments as the high standard products and Size and Performance segments as the median high level products in the market. It has a constant change on performance and size for different segments products; therefore Baldwin set up 0.4 index higher than the current Ideal Spot Standard in Performance and Size for Traditional Segment; sets up 0.3 index higher than the current Ideal Spot Standard in Performance and Size for Low End Segment; adjusting index to set up 0.5 index higher than the current Ideal Spot Standard in Performance and Size Performance for High End Segment; keeps a range between 0.5 to 1 index lower than current Ideal Spot Standard in Performance and a range between 0.35 to 0.7 index in Size for Performance Segment; keeps a range between 0.35 to 0.7 index lower than current Ideal Spot Standard in Performance and a range between 0.5 to 0.1 index in Size. Therefore, this strategy makes their products’ more competitive and took the highest market shares in all segments and highest market shares bring the highest sales and profit for Baldwin (Appendix C).
Marketing
For Marketing, Awareness and Accessibility are the most essential factors, which can be consider as “Before” and “After” the sale (Capstone). Baldwin find the best balance investment point that is around 38 million for awareness and 42 million for Accessibility in order to reach enough customers and avoid customers to forget their products (Appendix E). These constant investments keep awareness’s above 45% for Traditional, Low End, and High End Segments and above 33% for Performance and Size Segments. For Accessibility, it reaches above 50% for Traditional, Low End and High End Segments and above 30% for Performance and Size Segments (Appendix E). Therefore, these amounts of money keep all segments as a median high level compare to competitors, which efficiency affect the sales and profit for all segments with limited capacity (Appendix E).
Production
Baldwin is more focus on long-term investment. Production includes capacity and Automation Ratio that is important factors can decrease the variable and material cost and increases Contribution Margin. Baldwin invests more than 50% profit on Automation Ratio and Capacity each round. In round 7, Baldwin has the highest Automation Ratio for Traditional, Low End, and High End Segments and highest capacity for Performance and Size segments (Appendix F). These made Baldwin has the highest contribution margin for Traditional, Low End, and High End Segments with the highest sales for Performance and Size segments, in order to maximize the profit (Appendix F).
Adjusted Strategy with Competitive Factors
For Baldwin, they adjusted their strategy a little bit, based on the analysis of competitor, they invest more on traditional and Low End Segment in the beginning, and then going to catch up the High End Segment later because of the scared money. As well, when they have enough money they also invest on Performance and Size segments’ capacity to maximize their profit and resources.
Problem and Developing Plan for Future
Although Baldwin did excellent performance, it still has its own problem that is stock out issue. Baldwin has 80% stock out with five segments (Appendix C). In the future, Baldwin will invest more on investment and inventory in order to increase their sales and profit by eliminating stock out. As well, Baldwin will also invest more on TQM, Human Resources that help to reduce the Cost of Good, Admin Cost, R&D Time Reduction, and Demand Increase.
Conclusion
Baldwin is an outstanding company with Differentiator with Product Lifecycle Strategy. In the beginning of first five rounds, Baldwin finished the fundamental investment for production, and then they are more focused on reduces sales, and profit. In the future, Baldwin will be more focus on the stock out issue they met now in order to increase the sales and maximize profit.
Memorandum
To: Professor Leslie Mateer
From: Jingdi Liu
Subject: Analysis of Resumes and Cover Letters
Date: October 3, 2011
The purpose of this memo is to describe the position I decided to apply for at Amway and to explain the factors I considered when writing my resumes and cover letters. The memo is divided into three sections: Audience Analysis, Job Descriptions, and Rhetorical Analysis. The Audience Analysis section covers information on the institutions offering the position and on the audience’s view of points. The Job Descriptions section analyzes the tasks and requirements for the positions that I am applying to. The Rhetorical Analysis section will explain the reasoning for adapting the materials based on the rhetorical context and purpose of the application.
Audience Analysis
Amway
Amway is a $10+ billion pioneer in the direct-selling industry, offering million people an opportunity to become entrepreneurs in more than 100 countries and territories. Amway is global brand that offer 450+ products that are primarily focused on nutrition, beauty and home. All customers have the chance to be sellers and make profit for themselves; they also have the opportunity to add value and be valued. Amway believed “all people should have a chance to reach their greatest potential.”
Since I am applying to a position in the supply chain department, the person reading the application will be a recruiting officer from the Human Resources Department at the Amway. Specifically, the department has a recruiting team that handles the application process, which responsible to cutoffs for the candidates like a related working experience and background with supply chain. The application process is very structured and involves several rounds of interviews made by supply chain supervisor and associates in the supply chain department.
Job Description
Amway, Supply Chain Planner
The Supply Chain Planner will work with a talented team of four, whose roles support virtual inventory transactions in the Americas Region by allocating finished goods to maintain inventory and service levels to customers. This team is responsible to make the high efficiency supply plan for the company to cut the cost and maximize the profit. This work will also work with Idea to Market (ITM) teams to forecast the inventory for pre-build plans, provide oversight/support during launch, and assist with post launch reviews with the Global Supply Chain Planning Team.
The position I am looking for at Amway is supply chain planner. The main purpose for the job is to work in a group and manage inventory levels; collaborate with affiliates and cross functional partners to meet customer demands with a rational service level; monitor the shipping schedule and deliver the products to customers on time; reduce the cost and maximize the profit for Amway.
The supply chain planner required high technical, analysis, communication sill, and strong critical thinking abilities. The applicants also need to deeply understand the supply chain business process and the affect for company; and also need to have significant ability to make the production plan for Amway’s finished products with quantitative analysis. The supply chain planner also need to find the problem in Amway’s supply chain and improve the problem in order to reduce the cost and maximize the profit for Amway.
Rhetorical Analysis
The position I am applying for required high background knowledge with supply chain and leadership experience. In this section, I will explain my considerations and my thought how to match myself with this specific position Supply Chain Planner at Amway.
In the cover letter for Amway I focused on education background, leadership experience, and work experience providing credibility about my strong technical abilities and knowledge for supply chain management. In the first paragraph, I also started with standard first paragraphs that mention my interest in applying for the position.
In the second paragraph, I prove I had enough technical ability to do this job because of my education background. Since students from all majors apply to the position, I believe that I can stand out because I am from Penn State that is the no.1 ranked undergraduate school for supply chain. I also talked about the technical skills I learned from college related with supply chain that can help me be qualified candidates for this position. To be more specific, I talked about the efficiency in production line, forecast for fulfill demand on time, strategic plan for procurement, risk analysis and how to solve the problem in real life case. As well, I also wrote the leadership experience for my management Salvation Army fundraise project before talk about my group work experience in order to prove my strong leadership skill.
After talking about my college experience, in the third paragraph I introduce my internships. In this part of the paragraph, my purpose is to demonstrate my diversity, since I have experience working outside the US. As well, my purpose is to prove my analysis skill, planning and problem-solving skills in the real life. My goal is to tell them on the skills I acquired through the summer, and match them with the job requirement in order to convince the recruiting officer that I am a qualified candidate who can do well in this position. The last paragraph is a typical conclusion with my contact information and a formal thank you note.
For my resume, I included my education and then my relevant work experience. My reasoning was that recruiting officers are interested in knowing an applicant’s experience, background and the type of knowledge they learned from college. I also included the internship I did. After listing my experience, I added a section of leadership that shows my academic project experience in school. At the bottom of my resume I added some of my skills to give the recruiter an idea of my personality.
