...Commercial Division (LACD) in 2006. Specific emphasis is placed upon actions and measures Caterpillar should have taken for the proper re-development and implementation of customer support agreements (CSAs) and preventive maintenance contracts (PM CSAs). Also addressed are the processes Caterpillar needed while restructuring internal and external communication outlets. Furthermore, this analysis was conducted by utilizing the Gaps Model of Service Quality as a guide for compiling and discovering vital elements within Caterpillar’s LACD’s service delivery, as well as, its need for newly developed CSAs. 1. What else did they need to learn in Gap 1 about customer needs and expectations? The listening gap (gap 1) occurs when a company does not accurately perceive the expectations of its customers (Zeithaml, Bitner, & Gremler, 2013, p. 36). In 2006, Pepe Brousset, (Marketing and Operations Director of LACD at the time), proposed a plan to re-define its customer focus, as it had been inconsistent in terms of providing services and solutions (Zeithaml et al., 2013, p. 607). Due to Caterpillar lacking expertise in formulating and providing service solutions, a core team was developed for the purpose of analyzing each service gap, identifying vital issues, and developing strategic solutions. Although various issues were discovered from analyzing gap 1, Caterpillar could have benefited from understanding other points, which directly related to the needs and...
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...Caterpillar, Inc is a company known for its heavy machinery and mining equipment (Murphy, P., & Laczniak, E. (2012).). If you’ve spent any time around a construction site or just drove by one more likely than not you’re going to see a CAT piece of machinery. CAT is a global company who takes pride in managing their stakeholders, customers and employees. CAT has made a name for themselves not only for their high quality products but also for their high ethical standards and corporate responsibility (Murphy, P., & Laczniak, E. (2012).). Even though CAT has been known for their high ethical standards they have also dealt with some ethical issues over the years. CAT sells over 300 machines while also selling parts, turbines, engines and electronics. Caterpillar Inc. also owns CAT Financial, CAT logistics, Progress Rail, Solar Turbine and Asia Trak (Murphy, P., & Laczniak, E. (2012).). The awards CAT has won for their ethical relations include being listed in Ethisphere’s Worlds Most Ethical Companies under industrial manufacturing, ranked 27th in Fortune magazine’s “Worlds Most Admired Companies”, Scored 12 in Women Engineer Magazine’s “Top 50 Employers” (Murphy, P., & Laczniak, E. (2012).). Caterpillar ranks so high because of their strong goals and strategies. Caterpillar has identified its vision, mission and strategy to express commitment towards the environment, economy and workforce (Murphy, P., & Laczniak, E. (2012).). It’s a great move by CAT to show these standards and...
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...CASES IN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT SYLLABUS FIN 522 Professor James A. Gentry Cases In Financial Management 343M Wohlers Hall Spring Semester 2009 333-7995 2043 BIF j-gentry@uiuc.edu Office Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. on Mon. and Wed/. or by Appointment I. Teaching Objectives Financial decision making cases are used to… • Create a highly interactive learning environment; • Learn about the application of financial management and credit analysis concepts; • Discover what you do not know about the practice of financial management; • Show what you have learned; • Highlight the relationships between strategic goals and the creation of firm value; • Develop techniques for interpreting a firm’s financial data and strategic plans; • Enhance your critical thinking and problem solving skills; • Expand your understanding of financial theory and its application; • Improve your listening and cooperative learning skills. II. Learning Promises At the end of this course your will be able to… • Think like a financial manager; • Interpret a company’s financial health by evaluating the performance...
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...Question#01 Review Caterpillar’s process for early supplier involvement. What was critical to the success of the relationship? The relationship between a supplier and buyer can be a complex one. Each party wants to maximize its time, resources, and cash investment; these may be competing priorities that can strain the relationship. As per this case study it shows that M/s. Caterpillar was dissatisfied with its current supplier and they want to reduce their overhead cost through outsourcing. Therefore M/s. Caterpillar selects M/s. Delco Electronics and started working with the same. Selection of M/s. Delco Electronics by M/s. Caterpillar involves the following phases. Pre-qualification of supplier Performance evaluation Official visits to M/s. Delco’s HQ Visit to Engineering Facility Production capacity unit The critical thing to the supplier-buyer relationship is Trust, as its always difficult to start a business with new supplier. Evaluation should be done properly before selection. Have meetings, discussions, both partners have proper communication channel. Question#02 How important was the role of specific individuals involved in the discussion? What does this say about the importance of trust in managing buyer-supplier relationships in such an environment, and the role of individuals in the relationship? The role of specific individuals are very important during discussion because of having enormous responsibilities like monitoring and evaluation...
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...Case Study 3 1 - In 1980s, having a strong dollar was not in favor of Caterpillar’s revenue but it was benefit to them regarding their costs. As we can see, Caterpillar has decided to expend its foreign manufacturing bases in order to be able to still face the dollar but in other currencies. The thing that has changed is that by 2008, Caterpillar had an important part of its structure, 102 out of 237 facilities based out of the United States in countries like Brazil, China or India. The price they used to pay for inputs fell, the cost of process declined, and this even though the currencies were weak face to the dollar, but Caterpillar was still “winning”. So with all that, we can see that this globalization stately adopted has helped Caterpillar to reduce the impact of fluctuations in the value of the dollar. 2 - Globalization was used by Caterpillar as a “real hedge” strategy in order to face the fluctuation of the dollar. Caterpillar was still the major exporter, even with a big part of its facilities based outside of the United States. This has helped him to reduce its exposure to foreign exchange risk. The downside of this approach would be that the revenues gained in the other countries would suffer when changed to dollar. 3 - Transaction exposure is the extent to which fluctuations in foreign exchange values affect the income from individual transactions. Translation exposure is the impact of currency exchange rate on the reported financial statements of a company...
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...International Industrial Economics (2012-2013) Case study PPT presentation Date of seminar January 18 , h. 11.00 January 18 , h. 11.20 January 18th, h.11.40 January 18 , h.12.20 January 18 , h.12.40 January 18th, h.13.00 January 18 , h.13.20 January 24th, h.11.00 January 24 , h. 11.20 January 24 , h. 11.40 January 24 , h.12.20 January 24th, h.12.40 January 24 , h.13.00 January 24 , h.13.20 January 25th, h.11.00 January 25 , h.11.20 January 25th, h.11.40 January 25 , h.12.20 January 25th, h.12.40 January 25 , h.13.00 January 25 , h.13.20 th th th th th th th th th th th th th th Name SALICE Valentina MARRONE Emanuela SPAMPINATO Giulia REITANO Boris D’ARRIGO Roberto ARDITA Giuseppe CARIOLA Elena FILIPPELLO Gloria FILOCAMO Andrea ALI’ Andrea RIZZO Emanuele ARENA Annamaria AIELLO Sebastiano SPORTARO Prospero CONTI Maria Cristina LUISI Paola FAILLA Stefania ALAIMO Massimo Maria AYARI Neila CALVAGNA Giorgia CRUCITTI Alessia Case study Cola Wars continue: Coke and Pepsi in 2006 Google Inc. Nucor at Crossroad Caterpillar Tractor Co Komatsu Ltd. Crown Cork and Seal Apple Inc. in 2010 Cola Wars continue: Coke and Pepsi in 2006 Google Inc. Nucor at Crossroad Caterpillar Tractor Co Komatsu Ltd. Crown Cork and Seal Apple Inc. in 2010 Cola Wars continue: Coke and Pepsi in 2006 Google Inc. Nucor at Crossroad Caterpillar Tractor Co Komatsu Ltd. Crown Cork and Seal Apple Inc. in 2010 Seminar guidelines 1. Each student has 20 minutes for presentation. You are required to provide a Powerpoint...
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...MODERN MANAGEMENT SUBJECT : MARKETING MANAGEMENT II Caterpillar Case Study Submitted By: Rishikesh Dubey Mohammad Saqlain Nikhil Jain Adhish Mohanty Siddhant Jain Ankush Gupta Dated: 25/2/2013 * Case Brief: Company Cost to mfg and Market New Bulldozer (a) =$30,000 Perceived worth of customers (5 years) =$100,000 Therefore,(b) Added value = b-a = $70,000. * Pricing options: This Added Value of $70,000 can be shared by the customer and Manufacturing one of the Three ways: * They can share equally between the Caterpillar and the Buyers ($35,000 for both). Then Price = $30000 + $ 35000 = $65,000. * Manufacturer feels their hand in creating the value is more than Perceived Wealth. So they command a high share ($50,000 for Caterpillar & $20,000 for Buyers). Then Price = $30000 + $50000 = $80,000. * Caterpillar thinks Customers Contribution in perceived wealth creation is bigger. So pass the customers a major chunk and they take a smaller piece of the cake ($50,000 for Buyers & $20,000 for Caterpillar). Then Price= $50,000. * CASE SITUATIONS: 1) First Situation: When Technology is Low and Komatsu is expected to Copy the Product within 1 Week after launch. And, Komatsu’s Cost to Make & Market is $20,000. Minimum Selling Price that can be offered by Caterpillar = $30,000. But within 1 week Komatsu will launch...
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...SIM 336 Strategic Management Individual Assignment Case Study – ‘The Comeback of Caterpillar, 1985-2001’ in De Wit & Meyer (2004:755-772) Addendum to the January 2013 Assessment to be noted by all Centre Tutors and Students submitting this assessment Following a review of the assessment by the External Examiner and Module Leader it has been agreed that the emphasis on Question 3 of this assessment should be shifted to allow students a greater opportunity to conduct further additional research of their own which can be used to supplement the material contained in the case study and module study pack. Therefore Question 3 (b) will be amended as below and students will be expected to demonstrate that they have undertaken further research of their own to should how Caterpillar has adapted to strategic change since 2001 and the publication of the case study. It was felt that given the extensive additional material which is available, students should be given the opportunity to demonstrate their personal research skills and enhance the case study material by incorporating their own reasoned views on the company. To reflect this slight shift in emphasis it has been agreed that the marks for the two elements should be switched to reflect the additional content in Question 3 (b). The mark elements will be Question 3 (a) – 10 marks and Question 3 (b) will be 20 marks. The question will be as follows: Question Three: a) What were the major revolutionary changes...
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...strategy transformed market, productive and financial performance. The aim of this paper is to assess the extent to which market maturity influenced the restructuring phase that Caterpillar underwent after it was nearly put out of business in the 1980s. It will be argued that surely market maturity played a central role in the company’s restructuring, as the increase of competition and the need for product innovation brought up the need to develop an effective action plan. However, it was also the over-managed organization of the company itself that contributed to this degenerating stage and that therefore drove the restructuring process. Indeed it will be argued that because Caterpillar had enjoyed reliable profits, internal organizational issues had been ignored and the lack of information about the external environment decreased, causing Caterpillar to grew out of touch with the realities of the market. Therefore as the global recession grew along with the runaway inflation that kicked in in the 1980s, Caterpillar’s flawed structure was not able to successfully respond to the external environment and the company became an easy target for competitors. This argument will be developed throughout this essay according to the following structure: initially the implications of market maturity for Caterpillar will be assessed within the framework of the Product Life Cycle (PLC) theory; secondly the limits of Caterpillar’s original structure will be discussed in order to gain an insight...
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...Introduction Caterpillar Inc., probably better known as “CAT” throughout the world, headquartered in Peoria, Illinois, is a world leader in the manufacture of construction and mining equipment to include diesel and natural gas engines. It also has a financial services branch, Caterpillar Financial Services, earning approximately 7% of Caterpillar’s revenue by providing financing to many of Caterpillar’s customers who purchase its construction and mining equipment (Caterpillar, Inc., 2012). Caterpillar, today, is an extremely profitable and successful corporation indicative of the results it reported in its most recent quarterly report. Its 2012 earnings per share of $2.54, a quarterly record, is a 67% increase over its 2011 second quarter reported earnings per share. Revenues, likewise, set a record at the staggering number of $17.374 billion easily trumping its 2011 second quarter revenues of $14.230 billion. High revenues translated to record profits of $1.699 billion, an eye opening increase over the last year’s quarterly profits of $1.015 billion, a 67% increase (Caterpillar, Inc., 2012). Caterpillar trades on the New York Stock Exchange and closed today at $86.62, about the middle of its 52 week trading range (Market, 2012). Caterpillar’s profit outlook for the remainder of 2012 is very optimistic. Its projects its sales and revenues to be between $68 and $70 billion earning a profit of $9.60/share vice Caterpillar’s earlier forecast of approximately the same...
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...objectives, organizations will have trouble coordinating activities and forecasting future events (Marler, 2013). Virtually every business has a goal or goals that they want to accomplish. Most start with mission statements that tell us why the organization exists and state goals on what they hope to achieve. One of the most comprehensive mission statements that review their goals in terms of leadership, quality and value, profits, ethics, and social responsibility is Caterpillar (King, Case, and Premo, 2010). Caterpillar Caterpillar will be the leader in providing the best value in machines, engines, and support services for customers dedicated to building the world’s infrastructure and developing and transporting its resources. We provide the best value to customers. Caterpillar people will increase shareholder value by aggressively pursuing growth and profit opportunities that leverage our engineering, manufacturing, distribution, information management and financial services expertise. We grow profitably. Caterpillar will provide its worldwide workforce with an environment that stimulates diversity, innovation, teamwork, continuous learning and improvement and rewards individual...
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...Caterpillar (CAT) Case Study Read the Caterpillar Case Study on Page 350 and answer the questions at the end on page 351. Update the information from externals sources.From your research explain how you see the Service Quality Model from the text (pg 373) being applied by Caterpillar. Give example(s) and references. Everywhere you see a construction site, a home being constructed or torn down, or new roads being paved for accesses to these construction sites, you will most likely some type of Caterpillar equipment there. Simply take a ride down Kamehameha or Farrington highways and you will see many different types of equipment form CAT including excavators, bulldozers, and even huge storage areas and generators. According to Yahoo Finance, CAT had income revenue of $55 million in 2014. Compared to 2013, had a little less in revenue, but looking at 2012, income revenue decreased about $10 million from $65 million (Yahoo Finance). During the recession of 2009, CAT along with everyone else in the world experienced a decrease in sales or income revenue. For example in 2008, sales for CAT were $51 billion, but dropped considerable to $32 billion in 2009 (Keller). What were some of the key steps that led to Caterpillar’s becoming the industry leader in earthmoving machinery? During the 1980s, CAT faced some major challenges that affected their company and almost led them to bankruptcy: The recession of the early 1980s and the lengthy strike from the United Auto Workers...
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...the changes that the company might implement are called corporate restructuring. Usually, corporate restructuring is used when a company’s original structure reached the point when it doesn’t generate the profit, and is no longer efficient. The main aim of a corporate restructuring is to raise company’s profitability and internal operations (Froud 2006). I decided to use Caterpillar example to analyse their need of corporate restructuring and its outcomes. Caterpillar Inc. is a $30 billion global company which is known as a manufacturer of large earth-moving equipment and large construction (Neilson & Pasternack 2005). Caterpillar survived from very difficult times in 1980s, mainly because its product reached maturity level, where customers were no longer interested in it and also the CEO of that company did not take into account very important factor – external environment. In 1980s a lot of companies lost their sales because global recession hit the economy and inflation rates grew very quickly. Therefore, Caterpillar’s structure couldn’t handle the pressure and had to be reorganised. Moreover, Caterpillar also survived from the big levels of competition from Japanese firm Komatsu, which was one of the factors of necessity to reorganise organisational structure. In this essay I am going to cover the maturity stage and cyclical mature of infrastructure spending, strategies that CEO implemented to restructure the organisation and how it affected market, productive and financial...
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...Seminar Application and Usage of Process and Capability Maturity Models in Practice 9th January 2011 Chapter 1 Lean Six Sigma Experience in Companies Narek Danoyan Contents 1.1 Lean Six Sigma in Xerox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Lean Six Sigma in Caterpillar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Lean Six Sigma in General Electric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 4 5 6 7 1 2 CHAPTER 1. LEAN SIX SIGMA EXPERIENCE IN COMPANIES Abstract: During the recent years the Lean Six Sigma improvement methodology has found its wide usage in different high-profit companies. Among such companies are General Electric, Raytheon, Caterpillar, ITT, Solectron, etc. The following article provides information on the Lean Six Sigma implemtations in three such companies, namely Xerox, Caterpillar and General Electric. 1.1 Lean Six Sigma in Xerox Xerox company profile Industry: document services, digital imaging, computer peripherals Number of employees: 133,200(2010) Total assets: US$ 24 billion Prior improvement methodologies used in Xerox and reasons for switching to LSS. Though the earlier approaches assisted Xerox in improving business processes, Xerox had some deficiencies and the results were limited in scope. In 2002 company decided to adopt the integration of Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing, which in a...
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...Caterpillar Supplier Selection Question#01 Review Caterpillar’s process for early supplier involvement. What was critical to the success of the relationship? The relationship between a supplier and buyer can be a complex one. Each party wants to maximize its time, resources, and cash investment; these may be competing priorities that can strain the relationship. As per this case study it shows that M/s. Caterpillar was dissatisfied with its current supplier and they want to reduce their overhead cost through outsourcing. Therefore M/s. Caterpillar selects M/s. Delco Electronics and started working with the same. Selection of M/s. Delco Electronics by M/s. Caterpillar involves the following phases. Pre-qualification of supplier Performance evaluation Official visits to M/s. Delco’s HQ Visit to Engineering Facility Production capacity unit The critical thing to the supplier-buyer relationship is Trust, as its always difficult to start a business with new supplier. Evaluation should be done properly before selection. Have meetings, discussions, both partners have proper communication channel. Question#02 How important was the role of specific individuals involved in the discussion? What does this say about the importance of trust in managing buyer-supplier relationships in such an environment, and the role of individuals in the relationship? The role of specific individuals are very important during discussion because of having enormous responsibilities...
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