Windvest Motorcycle Products Essays

Windvest Motorcycle Products Essays Windvest Motorcycle Products Essay Windvest Motorcycle Products Essay CASE 4: WindVest Motorcycle Products Down the Windy Road May 22, 2011 Case summary: WindVest is a small family business specialized in designing and manufacturing windshields for motorcycles. The company has experienced an annual growth of 10% and 1. 5 million Dollars of sales. In order to overcome the local competition WindVest would like to improve the company’s efficiency trough the restructuring of their supply chain and finding suppliers that are located around their headquarter located in Campbel in California. WinVest is encountering a lot of problems issues related to leadership and organization dysfunctioning which make the implementation of their new strategy a hard task. 1. How might the Dobers address the management issues they face relating to control and delegation? What steps should they take to deal with the issues of running a family business? We think that the Dobers have diverse managerial issues, such as non efficient business organization, absence of HR strategy, and bad repartition of responsibilities and duties. Doug is in charge of the manufacturing, marketing, and after sales. Consequently, Doug doesn’t have enough time and resources to do promotional marketing actions to increase his customer base. He couldn’t attend the annual Hampshire Biker Rally that draws 300Â  000 bikers a year. Doug also has a lack in negotiation skills especially when negotiating prices with his suppliers. Marilyn, Norm’s wife is responsible of accounting and does not want to delegate some of her duties to her daughter Tami. In order to deal with the issues of running a family business, the Dobers have to assess their needs in terms of Human Resources organization by unloading Doug from his many responsibilities by hiring or promoting a qualified WindVest employee to be the marketing manager. Also, we recommend creating a customer service position in order to deal with clients’ requests and complaints. On the other hand, Doug being the senior manager of the company, he is to ask his mother to gradually delegate her accounting responsibilities to her daughter Tami. 2. What areas of WinVest business plan are going to be the most important in the next two years? The goal of Doug after two years is to penetrate the European market. After establishing the new management organization and improving the leadership style, WindVest need to focus on three main areas in the business plan. The company needs to develop an operational plan by expanding their production line and optimizing the supply chain activity by looking for low price suppliers for the same product quality. The company will have to develop a marketing strategy through a study of the European market. Also WindVest has to enlarge its distribution channel through the use of Harley Davidson retailers’ network. 3. What recommendations can you make to improve marketing domestic strategy? WindVest has a good quality product used by the most prestigious bike brands which is Harley Davidson. Therefore, the product has a good customer base in the U. S. We advise Doug to cultivate an interactive and enthusiastic relationship with distributors like the one in Florida, by giving incentives such as discounts and free branded goodies. Also, the bikers gathering in the US is an opportunity to be ceased because of the huge number of bikers they attract (up to 1 million bikers annually). WindVest make one third of its sales through internet and phone. The company could make a convention with a call center to promote and sale their products by phone. 4. What challenges would you anticipate for WinVest as they enter the European market? What steps should the company take to enter this market? To anticipate the entering in the European market, WindVest company needs to conduct a market research and to assess how strong the opportunity is. The marketing research has to include the 3Ms meaning the Market size, the Market demand and the Margin analysis. Moreover they need also to study; ? Customer segmentation ? Pricing strategy ? Distribution channels (whole salers, retailers, bike manufacturers, etc) ? Make alliance with European partners ? How to adapt the product to the European climate needs. 5. Once you have decided on a strategy, brainstorm with others in your class to determine ways that WindVest can optimize the performance of its sales and distribution channels? In order to optimize the performance of the company sales and distribution channels, the company would have to: ? Develop distribution channels by doing alliances with distributors and dealers where the company is not well present and with high potential. ? Participate in the bike gathering events. ? Participate in the bike shows where there is more opportunity of increasing sales. ? Extend advertizing to other states radios where there is a high potential of growth.