Premium Essay

Clearwater

In: Business and Management

Submitted By lgkeane
Words 1644
Pages 7
To: Clearwater Management Committee

From: Vice President, Controller

Subject: New Information System

Introduction

Clearwater is a manufacturer of small household appliances. Over the last 50 years, the company has established a well-respected brand name. However, the rise of retailers such as Home Depot, Canadian Tire, Kmart, and Zellers has substantially changed their position in the marketplace. As a result, retailers now expect manufacturers to provide high quality products at a very low price. Consequently, with more choices this reduces the demand of Clearwater’s product and sales. Accordingly, the senior management team with endorsement from the Board of Directors has created a new strategy with changes that 1) Protect our brands 2)Customize 3) Innovate constantly 4) Organize around the category retailer 5) Invest in technology and 6) Reduce costs or cut the fat.

The report will begin with an examination of the prominent issues that are currently facing Clearwater. This will be followed by an analysis of the implications associated with those issues. After the analysis, recommendations, that will help to monitor and enhance the current strategy and the cost of quality report, will be provided.

Problems/Issues

Currently, there are three critical issues that could hurt Clearwater’s ability to successfully supply to the category retailers. The first issue is that there is no MIS in place to monitor the new strategy, as we need feedback and something to measure of financial and non-financial performance. The Cost of Quality Report needs to be revised as management needs a better cost analysis COQ report as important items are missing and the data is solely based on the experience of the vice president of production and a production scheduling engineer. The final issue is the lack of delegation of

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