Scenario:
Your family built a successful water bottle company from scratch beginning in 1977 as Americans were embracing healthier lifestyles, especially the consumption of water. The company was modeled after Poland Springs, and was named Springfield Springs after their hometown. Members of your family have decided to retire, and they promoted you to CEO of Springfield Springs.
Since your tenure began, you have expanded the company's national profile (using the slogan, "There's a Springfield Springs near you!"), and you and your company were recently featured on a major network reality television show that offers venture capitalist money to expanding businesses. Your ideas for geographic expansion were generally well received, however, the funders raised numerous questions about unexplored product expansion opportunities in addition to geographic expansion. Specifically, they asked the following questions:
Is Springfield Springs interested in expanding its product line?
Has it considered adding different sizes of bottles or different types of bottles (such as a sports bottle)?
Has it considered offering a line of flavored spring water?
Has it considered expanding business to include stainless steel bottles that can be refilled with Springfield Springs water?
You have decided to expand internationally into Canada and Mexico, and as such you will need to secure a bank loan to cover expansion costs and overhead. You must also decide whether to expand your product lines, as suggested by the judges. Use your creativity and business savvy to articulate your expansion plan with what you have learned through the course assignments.
To consider your proposal, the banker will want to see a master budget, cost-volume-profit analysis, balanced scorecard, customer profitability analysis, and sales variance analysis. Your task for this final project is to prepare and present all the necessary documents so that you can secure the financing necessary to turn your expansion dreams into reality.
Write a paper of approximately 250-500 words that answers the following:
Identify three existing key customer constituents of Springfield Springs bottled water and perform a profitability analysis on each. (Feel free to be creative and explore the customers of your hypothetical company. Remember, Springfield Springs was originally based on Poland Springs.)
If the company does move forward with its international expansion, what types of new customer categories will be created? Will the new customer constituents resemble the existing ones? Perform a hypothetical customer profitability model analysis on the new customers. This analysis may be included in your final presentation.
If the company expands its product selection further, what types of new customer categories will be created? Will the new customer constituents resemble the existing ones? Perform a hypothetical customer profitability model analysis on the new customers. This analysis may be included in your final presentation.
Format your paper using West Writing Style Handbook guidelines.
Include a minimum of two sources, which may consist of readings from the University Library, your text, and other selections.