...INTL 4400 – Assignment 1 2012-2013 LEGO Group: Building Strategy Professor: Kelly Lecouvie Celeste Chan, Richard Guo Table of Contents Executive Summary 1 Problem statement 2 ANALYSIS 2 External Analysis - Porter’s five FORCES: 2 Internal Analysis – Core Competency 4 Main Issues 4 ALTERNATIVES 5 Recommendation 7 Appendices 8 APPENDIX A – LEGO’s VALUE CHAIN 8 APPENDIX B – Core competencies & LEgo 9 APPENDIX C – FOUNDATION & DIRECTION OF LEGO 10 Problem statement LEGO as a company has withstood many years of changing business environment, and has grown from creating wooden toys to interchangeable blocks, and eventually becoming an international symbol of innovation. It is again facing a changing environment, with its patents expired, its rising number of competitors, and facing losses in court as well as loss of market share to its competitors. ANALYSIS External Analysis - Porter’s five FORCES: Bargaining power of suppliers: LEGO’s suppliers have low bargaining power. After Jorgen Vig Knudstorp took over as the director of strategic development, he was able to cut 80% of LEGO’s suppliers to improve efficiency. The technology needed to create LEGO’s bricks is not specialized, since the company has in house machines to create the blocks. From the above two points, it’s apparent that the bargaining power of suppliers is low, since their services are easily substitutable and disposable. Bargaining power of customers: The bargaining...
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...S w 9B12D002 Abstract for promotional use only. Full version available at www.iesep.com WAREHOUSING STRATEGY AT VOLKSWAGEN GROUP CANADA INC. (VGCA) Adam Bortolussi wrote this case under the supervision of P. Fraser Johnson solely to provide material for class discussion. The authors do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disguised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation prohibits any form of reproduction, storage or transmittal without its written permission. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation, c/o Richard Ivey School of Business, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 3K7; phone (519) 661-3208; fax (519) 661-3882; email cases@ivey.uwo.ca. Copyright © 2012, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation Version: 2012-11-15 It was Tuesday, January 18, 2011, and Kym Meisner, director of warehousing and logistics at Volkswagen Group Canada Inc. (VGCA), was reviewing a presentation by the sales and marketing team regarding the five-year growth plan for both the Volkswagen and Audi vehicle brands in Canada. In her 20 years working for VGCA, Kym had never seen such aggressive growth...
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...It was Tuesday, January 18, 2011, and Kym Meisner, di rector of warehousing and logistics at Volkswagen Group Canada Inc. (VGCA), was reviewing a presenta tion by the sales and marke ting team regarding the five-year growth plan for both the Volkswagen and Audi vehicle brands in Canada. In her 20 years working for VGCA, Kym had never seen such aggressive growth targets attributed to new car launches, product facelifts and expected incr eases in year-over-year vehicle sa les volume. She had already heard concerns from Dave Cook, the warehouse manager of VGCA’s parts distribu tion centre in Toronto, Ontario, regarding the limited space available in the warehouse. She wondered to herself how they could possibly make room for the inventory of additional new parts needed to supply the growing network of dealerships across the country. Kym had scheduled a meeting with Dave and the other members of the warehouse team the following afternoon to work on a plan for the distribution centre. She was particularly intere sted in the changes, if any, that would be needed to the size and layout of the warehouse to accommodate the company’s growth plans. Kym decided to do some quick analysis to prepare for the meeting on Wednesday. VOLKSWAGEN GROUP 1 The Volkswagen Group, headquarter ed in Wolfsburg, Germany, wa s one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturers and the largest carmaker in Europe. The company represented nine brands from...
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...Group Interaction Strategies One of the most important elements of success of an organization is communication. Communication allows people from every part of the globe to come together and work toward a common goal. Communication is essential to an organizations success and because of this, it is important to have various communication methods. People will respond to communication methods differently, what works on one person will not necessarily work on another. Management must have an understanding of the people within the organization, without this knowledge, the ability to communicate effectively will be hampered. Some of the things that must be taken into consideration concerning communication include different age groups, ethnicities, gender differences, non-native English speakers, people with disabilities and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) specifics, and expatriates. Management that has a working knowledge of how to communicate with these different groups will have a decided advantage. Different Age Groups Communication styles have changed through the generations. In years past, it was common for people to visit each other at their homes or to call on the telephone; later generations e-mailed one another, and still later generations text message or Facebook one another to keep in touch. If management knows what age groups are working within its organization helps to determine what type of communication strategies to use. For instance, instead of having...
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...The Elias Group Strategy Paper Fin/370 Feburary 12,2014 Joseph Ori The Elias Group Strategy Paper The Elias Group is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to provide information, services and assistance to businesses who wish to go into contract with the U.S. Government. The Elias Group company was found by Ms. Elias; who had retired as the Deputy Administrator for the General Services Administration. Today the Elias Group has thirty-one full time staff and a network of over 100 specialized consultants that provide business owners with several of services such as: Preparing a firm to qualify for the GSA schedules, assisting in the appropriate response to a government request for either goods or services, assisting in providing an analysis of business operations and operating policies to assure appropriate regulatory compliance, assisting lobbying efforts for industry specific assistance and or legislation that we deem appropriate for the consumer, industry and government. On top of all these services the Elias Group also provides grants and professional research. Just like any other business the goal is to increase profit and expand. The Elias Group is considering in expanding but as good business managers they have to consider several of factors including the benefits and disadvantages of going public through an IOP, acquiring another organization or merging. Taking a company public through the Initial Public Offering (IPO) requires several of steps followed...
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...would enhance ability of jumping. Target group have few form which is: Demographic First, the Nike Air target on both male and female because if Nike Air only target on male that is not enough, Nike Air have to target on both male and female. Based on the advertisement, Nike Air is trying to target on age 15 – 24, especially focus on the student who is passion on basketball (Ukessays.com, 2014). Psychographic Moreover, nowadays the people who love sport also interested in sports fashion and willing to spend money to buy whether the price is expensive. Nike Air also target on the people who like to wear a comfortable shoes walk in the street, as it is a lightweight and targeted cushioning shoe. For example, some of the older people buy shoes depend on the quality of the shoes not only price and fashionable. Furthermore, Nike air not only target on sportsman and sportswoman, they also target on those who are not interested in exercise but they still willing to buy the product because they do care about their looks. For example, some consumer may be is a colorful people and Nike Air supply a lot color to satisfy them (Ukessays.com, 2014). Positioning Strategies In order to become the world’s leading designer, marketer and distributor of athletic footwear, and accessories, Nike followed many strategies. First, Nike has very effort at designing product and has a strategy carefully to confirm own positioning. The marketing strategies that are Nike had used to promotion product...
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...Section 1: Analyzing LEGO’s Business Environment 1.1 Two Major Trends in the General Environment Worth Considering 1.2.1 Technology Development in technology affects how businesses are run in all aspects. The toys industry is no exception. The leading trend that is relevant in this case is the increase in leisure time spent on digital games as opposed to physical toys. Children are playing computer games at a younger age, eroding the share of their playtime that was once dominated by toys. 1.2.2 Demographics In developed countries, aging population coupled with lowering birth rates are the primary driving forces for industry players going forward. I believe that this should provide implications on the future directions that LEGO should take. 1.2 External Environment – SWOT Analysis 1.3.3 Strengths and Opportunities The LEGO brand itself is entrenched deeply within the building toys industry. This strength is especially valuable to certain sub-industries under the broader toys industry such as infants’ toys and serious gaming. LEGO is also a trusted brand in education and with parents. LEGO can leverage on this strong brand name to perhaps explore opportunities in non-traditional markets such as the silver industry. LEGO, being an established brand that the older generations are familiar with, can expand into these industries. In addition, the trend towards more playtimes spent on computer games opens up the digital market for LEGO...
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...Task 1 The Warehouse Group Limited which is the largest retail group operating company in New Zealand which selling a wide range of grocery and non-grocery products at a discounted price to customers. It was founded by Stephen Tindall in 1982 and went on publicly in 1995, traded on the New Zealand Stock Exchange. The company currently operates under three different divisions that consist of The Warehouse New Zealand (Red Sheds), The Warehouse Stationary (Red Sheds) and Noel Leeming. Other than the retail locations, it also has two distribution centres to assist the daily operations in Wiri and Rolleston, New Zealand. In 2000, the Warehouse Group Limited exploited the Australian retail market. Due to the low market sale and underperforming, The Warehouse Group announced to sell the business and renamed as Sam’s Warehouse.The Warehouse Group follows its clearly corporate strategy and makes a good progress. To keep its Red Sheds core strong and develop their Blue Sheds as well as their Red Sheds, and leverage the group competencies and scale to lead the New Zealand’s retail group services company in the foreseeable future. (Wikipedia, 2014) Task 2 For the customers who are willing to purchase at Warehouse, their basic and minimum requirements of the performance are that standard quality of products. The Warehouse Limited required is to provide the quality source of purchasing in order to achieve their order qualifier. The corporation will be out of the market if they cannot...
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...Communication and Collaboration Strategies for Group Work When working with a group, it is important to utilize strategies that will allow one to communicate effectively with individuals who have different learning styles and personality types. Different personality types do have individual learning styles, so how one communicates with each person will differ. A person who has a verbal/linguistic learning style communicates through language, i.e. listening, reading, writing and speaking. I would communicate with this type of person through presentations, emails, text messaging, and talking on the phone. Someone who learns in this way excels when he/she is actively participating in group discussions. An interpersonal learning style is based on self-awareness, independence and time spent alone. A person who learns in this way would benefit from face-to-face communication, satisfying there need to interact with others. Some people benefit by communicating through faxes and emails. They have a need for independence and learn best on their own. This is evident of someone with and intrapersonal learning style. I would communicate with a person with this learning style through email, faxes, and letters. Since this person would learn more effectively alone, it might be easier for him/her to process information this way. There are also many different personality types to consider when interacting with a group. For example, a thinker is very analytical, thinking outside the box and...
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...Goals Goals are important to the success of a group. Goals are a major factor in motivation. Goals must provide task direction and help to achieve desired results. Goals should give a team something to reach for and align with the team’s mission and strategy. Goals must be specific and challenging and not general or unrealistic to accomplish. Our team realized the importance of goals in the beginning and that is why we were able to achieve every goal that was set in the initial meeting. The following were our goals that we set for the group: 1. Be prompt for all calls-each team member usually arrived 10-15 minutes early for every call that was scheduled. 2. Respect for each other’s time by communicating to the team leader if unable to participate in the calls-each member of the team made every call that was scheduled. 3. Everyone was expected to participate in the calls-every member of the team actively participated in the calls providing feedback when needed. E2. Motivation Strategies Motivating a team can be more challenging than motivating one person because each person within the team has different personalities, values, beliefs and goals. If a team can capitalize on each team member’s positive traits that they bring to the group, it will enable the team to be motivated and achieve more. Every team needs some form of motivation to accomplish its goals. Our team effectively established motivation strategies right from the start in the first meeting and...
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...| Bachelor of Business (Incorporating Graduate Diploma in Business & Graduate Certificate in Business)Strategic Management467943Semester One 2013 | TABLE OF CONTENTS Item | Description | Page | 1 | Welcome to Paper Overview Paper Level & PointsHours TaughtDelivery ModeIndependent Study | 3 | 2 | Teaching Team & Contact Details | 3 | 3 | Paper Information 3.1 Pre-requisite Requirements 3.2 Paper Aim3.3 Learning Outcomes 3.4 Content | 34 | 4 | AUTonline Programme Organisation | 4 | 5 | TextsRequired TextsRecommended Texts | 4 | 6 | Weekly Programme | 4 | 7 | Assessment InformationBusiness Assessment & Study HandbookExtensions and other Special Consideration Applications (SCAs) Assessment StructureExam Timetable Location Pass RequirementsAssessment DetailsPeer Assessment FormMarking guides | 55556777-111213-15 | 1 Welcome to Strategic Management of the Bachelor of Business, Graduate Diploma in Business, Graduate Certificate in Business and BBus Conjoint Programmes. You are expected to read the contents of this study guide, also available on AUTonline under “All My Courses”. This paper runs for 14 weeks (12 in class and 2 reading/exam weeks), and has one 1.5 hour lecture per week and one 1.5 hour workshop. Students will be required to supplement each hour of class with 3-4 hours of their own work. This is a level 7 paper, worth 15 points. 2 Teaching Team and Contact Details Teaching Team | Phone | ...
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...Groups, Teams, and Conflict Fred Lombardo MTG/311 May 31, 2015 John Clair Groups, Teams, and Conflict University of Phoenix Material Team Strategy Plan 1. Complete the following table to address the creation of teams at Riordan Manufacturing. Strategy | Strengths | Weaknesses | During forming stage members roles are defined | By defining roles everyone is aware of each other’s roles are and exactly what their part is, and what is expected of them. | Some members may not like their roles and act out in dysfunctional behavior, or power struggles may form | While in the storming stage strategy’s to resolve conflicts are employed | The hierarchy of the group can begin to demonstrate leadership qualities | Avoidance of power struggles and not willing to use conflict resolution just yet. | Norming stage open lines of communication | Cohesiveness develops due to camaraderie and group identity. | Gossip starts in group from disgruntled members | performing stage plan for team goals | Group energy guides Team to achieve goals. | Disgruntled members can corrupt group energy while slowing production down. | Adjourning stage team is rewarded for reaching team goals. | Wrapping up, group member’s celebration festivities of completing goals. Members esteem at a high. | Disgruntled member create negative results if allowed to participate in festivities | 2. Identify the team formation strategy that is most suitable for Riordan Manufacturing, and provide...
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...interaction with text, and improves through explicit teaching of specific cognitive strategies. More specifically, the rationale for explicitly teaching comprehension skills is that comprehension can be improved by teaching students to reason strategically when they encounter barriers to understanding what they are reading (National Reading Panel, 2000). The NRP reviewed over four hundred studies on text comprehension and found that there are seven instructional strategies that appear to have a solid scientific basis for students to increase comprehension. The first strategy is Comprehension Monitoring which involves students reading text with an aggressive awareness of when they do and don’t understand something. The second strategy is Cooperative Learning, which involves students working on clearly defined reading tasks in small groups or as partners. The third strategy is the Use of Graphic Organizers or Story Maps. This helps display concepts and interrelationships among concepts in text through the use of diagrams. The fourth strategy is Question Answering, which involves students answering questions posed by the teacher, and includes immediate teacher feedback. The fifth strategy is to Generate Questions. This involves teaching students to ask their own questions prior to reading by scanning the text and then having students read the text to answer their questions. The sixth strategy is...
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...Assignment 1: The Lego Group 1. Explain how the development of strategy at the LEGO Group reflect the key characteristics of strategic management outlined in section 1.2 and in the model in Figure 1.4 First of all, in order to explain the strategic management, the strategy model needs to be taken into account (Figure 1.4). It encompasses three key sections, namely the strategic position, the strategic choices and strategy into action. When talking about the strategic position, four questions have to be asked. Examining the opportunities and threats of the Lego Group's environment led to finding out that the company takes advantage of being a family-owned business which entails clear responsibilities. Furthermore, the Lego Group made use of the constantly growing brand name which gave them the opportunity to enter new markets globally. Additionally, the company undertook immense investments which paid off after a while, as the group tried to keep up the pace technologically and took the chance to offer the most innovative products. However, while experiencing massive competition, the company also had to cope with the rapidly changing environment which ultimately resulted in huge deficits and drawbacks. Threats, such as the oil crisis also contributed to worsening the financial situation of the company. The organisation's strengths can be summed up by mentioning an effective leadership style, acting as a risk taking entity, actively looking for new concepts, continuously...
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...that the majority of students were to some extent familiarized with the reading strategies. We set expectations for the formal observation during the literacy bundle. We discussed the learning activities and small group instruction planned for the visit. On December 4th, I walked into your class to conduct the formal observation. Your class was sitting on the meeting area as you explained to them, “Today we are going to combine the two strategies. One is to observe the picture with owl’s eyes. The second is to make the beginning sound of the word by looking at the first letter.” Using the owl puppet you modeled how to observe the pictures in the story and tackling the tricky word. Grandma made a /dr/ and stopped. You modeled how to match the beginning sound of the /dr/ with the pictures for the page. You looked at the picture and began using the hat, machine… until you verify that dress beginning sounds is /dr/. In several occasions, the students were engaged in practicing the strategies and articulating how they were able to read the word with their partners. Students were able to use their native language to participate in the class discussion. After you confirmed that the majority of the students grasped the two reading strategies, you set them up for the learning activities. You explicitly established the structure and expectations for the students to work in their groups during independent reading. Your students went back to their tables and used...
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