Assignment:
You are to apply any 2 Strategy concepts you learned from below chapter
and apply it to Specifically to your research for your on-going Final Paper.
You are to cite the page numbers and concepts and why you think they apply to your country's global business plan that you are focusing on for your paper including identifying any possible bariers or challenges. Please be specific in how it applies (350-500 words). Include Business plan -Burkina Faso's main export is 70% gold.
As mentioned before, assignments in this on-line course also involve interactions amongst the students in discussion boards each week where you are to read and respond to at least 2 of your classmate's posts which count as 10% of your grade for each assignment. This interaction is an important part of the course design which gives all of you the opportunity to see how all your classmates respond to the same assignment so you can learn from one another your opinions and civil divergent opinions are encouraged!Reply to both people about a paragraph each*
Reply One:
In the last module, I had discussed reasons in which I believe I will experience late-mover disadvantages. It discussed some key terms associated with creating value within your company. On page 363 it brings up the topic of value creation. Value creation is performing activities that increase the value of goods or services to consumers. In order to establish myself among an already budding market, I have decided to try to make my imports of cotton more appealing to the consumer. I will market it in a way to create value (i.e. value creation). In order to do such, I will make sure that my product is harvested sustainably. More and more companies see value in the eyes of consumers when it comes to sustainably sourcing their goods. Consumers in today's age are becoming more and more cognizant of where products are coming from and do pay a premium for those companies that take extra measures to ensure sustainable practice. For example, companies like Unilever are exceling due to their sustainably driven supply chain. In fact, Unilever was ranked number one in Gartner's supply chain index, with much credence to their sustainable practice. I will also allow my consumers to know that we are making every effort to financially empower those within the impoverished state Burkina Faso resides. Being that sourcing and importing cotton will be something new to me, over time I will certainly understand to term "experience curve". An experience curve is a systematic reduction in production costs that have been observed to occur over the life of the product. Essentially, in the beginning of my sourcing process, I will incur costs that will eventually be alleviated due to experience. The more you work at a process, the more apt you are to come up with processes that are more efficient and cost effective. One thing that will also benefit me will be universal needs. Universal needs arise when the tastes and preferences of consumers in different nations are similar if not identical. This is beneficial to me because cotton is a pretty common commodity in most nations.
Reply Two:
As I have stated in the previous discussion post, Burkina Faso's main export is 70% gold. Compared to cotton being only 13%. The partners associated with the export of gold are, Singapore, Ivory Coast, Switzerland, France, China, and Turkey. Gold is steadily increasing in demand and is considered as a universal need because, tastes and preferences in different nations are similar if not identical. So, everyone wants gold for just different reasons. The Gold World Council has a report based on the demand of gold overall during 2015 and it states that there was a 4% growth rate in demand even though in certain areas there were slight deficits. I have stated that the popular uses for gold are, jewelry, financial, technology, dentistry, medical, and aerospace. The report by GWC shows that during certain quarters within the year 2015, there was a decrease in demand in jewelry and technology but was overcome by the central bank and investments. So, a company looking to export gold would have to look at previous quarterly and yearly reports on global demand for gold and look towards which countries are demanding the most. In the fourth quarter of 2015, United States was tied with India with + 6%, East Asia with +5%, China with +3%, and the rest of the world below 0, in demand for gold. This is all depicted in GWC's reports and with the current connections Burkina Faso has with exporting gold, I can tell I won't gain that much profit by just sticking with them. United States is the only other place in the world that is having an increase in demand and we are not exporting to them. My plan is to is to use the localization strategy on USA, which is increasing profitability by customizing the firm's goods and services so that they provide a good match to tastes and preferences in different national markets. I need to know the latest usage update on gold in United States and find out what specific field is requiring gold the most. Once I find that out, I would rearrange the mining and export processes to fit with the country's demand. So far... the jewelry industry in the US is something to look out for potential growth per GWC.