Strategy Question - ECCO A/S - Global Value Chain Management
If you think you need information about this company and its operations not included in the case to formulate your Strategy question answers, you may make assumptions. State what assumptions you've made clearly at the start of the paper.
Information about the company after 2004 is not relevant to the strategy question and should not influence your analysis or recommendations. Build answers with information from the time of the case and what company executives then would have had at their disposal.
Part 1 - Systematically analyze ECCO A/S's resources and capabilities using an appropriate framework of your choice from Strategic Management (STMT-500). Draw from this analysis to describe the company's six most salient sources of competitive advantage (which can also include sources of competitive disadvantage and competitive parity as you deem relevant).
Your full analysis may be placed partially or wholly in an appendix if word count becomes an issue, but material in the appendix will not be marked.
Part 2 - Chief Operations Officer Mikael Thinghuus recalled one board member say at a management board meeting that "We are not going to exist in 20 years time if we cannot excite and cast a spell over our customers" (p. 11). Your analysis in Part 1 shows what ECCO A/S does best. State which of Porter's generic strategies best characterizes the company's current direction and briefly describe your choice.
State what generic strategy you think the company should use now, or if they should stick with their current strategy. Prepare a persuasive summary of the reasons for your choice, using information from your Part 1 analysis. Discuss cost and differentiation in your response, regardless of your choice of strategy. Finally, describe two new specific actions they can take to advance the generic strategy you recommended for them.
Finance Question - ECCO A/S - Global Value Chain Management
Part 1 - The case provides limited financial information for ECCO A/S and their competitors.
I. Analyze ECCO A/S's performance for 1999-2004, especially in light of their desire to grow and expand internationally. Strong analysis will go beyond textbook descriptions, often connecting relationships between different areas of analysis: for example, relationships between liquidity and solvency or different parts of the income statement. Possible reasons for the financial results should also be part of your analysis.
II. Perform a brief analytical comparison with ECCO A/S's primary competitors.
III. What recommendations would you make to guide future growth and profits?
Part 2 - The Balanced Scorecard has been called a strategic performance measurement system. Considering the current ECCO A/S strategy, prepare a Balanced Scorecard and a Strategy Map for the company. The Balanced Scorecard must identify objectives and measures that relate to critical success factors from the case information. You should identify at least two objectives for each Balanced Scorecard perspective. You should also provide two performance measures for each objective. The Strategy Map must show specific cause-and-effect relationships among the objectives. How would the Balanced Scorecard likely change if ECCO A/S were to adopt more of a focus on branding and marketing, similar to their competitors?
Part 3 - The management accounting portion of the FMAC-503 course addressed several tools that can be used to add value to an organization and aid in the management decision-making process. These include:
- Activity-based costing
- Measuring/managing customer relationships and profitability
- Quality management
- Kaizen costing
- Benchmarking
- Target costing
- Theory of constraints
- Life-cycle costing
Identify the three management tools that you feel could have the greatest impact on ECCO A/S's future performance. Briefly describe how the company would benefit from the use of each management tool you select. Be specific in your description.
Operations Question - ECCO A/S - Global Value Chain Management
The answers to Parts 1 and 2 require diagrams and the provision of assumptions. There is no need to draw the diagrams electronically if you do not want to. It is acceptable to draw them by hand and paste a picture of the hand-drawn diagram.
Any appropriate format is acceptable for your answers to Parts 3 and 4.
Part 1 - Draw a process map to show the operational stages needed for full scale shoe production at ECCO A/S. Note any assumptions you have made.
Part 2 - Conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis for in-house shoe production and for outsourced production. Compare and contrast the two SWOT analyses. Again, note any assumptions you have made.
Part 3 - Imagine you have been asked you to use the Case Method you used in Operations Management (OPMT-505) to look at whether ECCO A/S should retain its integrated manufacturing strategy or outsource portions of the value chain. Identify five objectives (key result areas) against which you would be able to evaluate any recommendations you made.
Part 4 - Suggest three analytical tools or techniques associated with operations management that could be used to undertake the investigation set out in Part 3. (Process mapping and SWOT are not acceptable suggestions because they have already been used within this question.) For each technique state why you have selected it and what you would expect it to deliver. Do note you are not required to actually undertake analysis using these tools or techniques.
Managerial Economics & Quantitative Analysis Question - ECCO A/S - Global Value Chain Management
In the closing sentences of the case, Mikael Thinghuus is pondering several alternatives to present to the ECCO A/S management group for moving the company forward. He has identified three possible areas for developing new processes including: a new production process, an updated marketing program, and an alternative distribution process. A group of analysts were asked to review the revenue and costs impacts of each project. They came up with estimates of profitability along with the probabilities of each occurring. The results are outlined in the accompanying spreadsheet. It is expected that the capital costs for implementing the three projects would be €50 million for the production project, €35 million for the marketing program, and €22 million for the distribution project. Using what you have learned in MEQA-501, prioritize this group of three projects and recommend to Mikael which of the project(s) should be implemented.
Part 1 - Only a conceptual outline is expected in each question of Part 1.
I. Given the estimated profits and probability values for the three projects are accurate, describe the approach you would use to determine the priority order of the three projects. How does the initial capital cost influence your recommendation about the priority order of the projects? How would you determine which of the projects should be implemented by the management group?
II. Are there other factors beyond those in the case that you believe would be useful to know prior to making a decision on which project(s) would be better in the long run?
Part 2 - Use the information in the Excel spreadsheet below to conduct this part of the analysis. This data set is only applicable to this section of the Comprehensive Exam.
I. Given the estimated profit levels and associated probabilities in the three projects described in the data set, determine the expected profit for each. Continue the analysis for determining the prioritization of the projects using the approach you described earlier. Please be thorough in your analysis, recognizing the alternative levels of investment required, the appropriate risk factors that should be considered, and other related factors. Show your work. (40%)
II. Provide an appropriate narrative of your results, including an explanation of why you believe which one or more of the projects is likely to support the long term viability of ECCO A/S and its future in the market.
Answer Format & Instructions
I. Students must write a 1,000-word answer for each question. Place the word count either at the beginning or at the end of your answer.
II. Usually each question is broken into parts, often with sub-questions within each part. Percentages in brackets will indicate the mark distribution among the parts and sub-questions. You may want to use these percentages as a guide on how to apportion the 1,000-word limit over the parts of the question.
III. Answer each question in a separate MS Word (.docx) document with the answers to each part and sub-question clearly identified and separated within that document (by using headings and subheadings that address each part of the question). A cover sheet, table of contents, and an executive summary are not required for the exam.
IV. Specific instructions on how to prepare your answer may be provided with the question(s); please read these carefully. The following general instructions will apply unless expressly stated otherwise in the specific instructions provided with a question:
V. Responses must be based on information available from the case study. Reasonable assumptions may be made where necessary, based on an understanding of the general economy in the timeline the case portrays. Any assumptions made must be clearly stated.
VI. Be explicit and original in your response. Under no circumstances should you "cut and paste" from any other response.
VII. Use tables and point form where appropriate, but use a narrative style rather than point form alone for areas requiring elaboration and for answers requiring discussion and explanation.
VIII. Appendices and footnotes are to be used for non-essential information, not critical content of your answers.
IX. Do not use attachments, links, or embedded objects.
X. Any quoted or paraphrased material must be referenced in APA format. Please note the following instructions:
XI. It is not sufficient to cite author X or other MBA course texts or articles without involving them in proper, in-depth, case-specific analysis.
XII. If you wish to use references external to your MBA courses to support your responses, please feel free to do so, but you are required to provide a full reference.
XIII. A Reference list must be provided, but a bibliography (i.e., sources reviewed but not specifically used in answers) is not needed.
XIV. Save your answers for each question in separate MS Word documents.
Attachment:- Assignment Files.rar