...SITUATION AND CENTRAL ISSUES. This case has a generally positive slant in that there it does not describe many weaknesses and problems present in many others with which students would be familiar. Toys R Us (TRU) has followed a path of international expansion from the US via more than 13 countries, starting from Canada in 1984 and entering Japan in 1991. By any standard this is a rapid expansion of markets. This case illustrates several elements of developing market strategies that have been central to TRU's observed success in these markets. First, TRU has developed a strong competitive advantage in its home market that is based on fulfilling 95% of consumers' needs relating to children. This has been based around large retail space and counteracting the cyclical nature of toy retailing which traditionally peaks around the gift giving period during Christmas. Second, they have succeeded in transferring their retail concept from the US to its newer markets by modification of the product mix to suit local tastes. Third, they captured international marketing experience by recruiting executives with international experience such as Mr. Joseph Baczko who has been able to adapt the strategy and use a non-standard approach to market entry. His approach has adapted their successful entry strategy to fit the needs of the country environment. The following analysis will commence with an analysis of the company and its business and ...
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...one of the world’s most forested countries with a wide variety of forest types. These forests are rich in biodiversity and unsurprisingly are an important livelihood source for a great number of people. Somewhere between 6 million and 30 million Indonesians are estimated to be directly dependent on forests (Sunderlin et al. 2000). As Indonesia is a developing country, the government is highly dependent on the forestry sector, as well as forestry-related sectors such as agriculture, estate crops, mining and logging. Consequently, during Indonesia’s history, its forests have been continually exploited, meaning deforestation and forest degradation have been inevitable. This paper will emphasize on deforestation caused by various world famous toy manufacturers, such as Mattel, Disney, Hasbro and Lego. The usage of MTH (Mixed Tropical Hardwood) in their packaging means rainforest clearance in Indonesia, since MTH is only pulped at commercial scales in Indonesia, mainly by APP (Asia Pulp & Paper). Not only deforestation is caused, but this deforestation is also pushing critically endangered wildlife like Sumatran tigers toward extinction and making climate change worse. The Producer: APP APP or Asia Pulp & Paper is one of the largest pulp and paper companies in the world. APP has its roots since the 1970s, and with the founder’s close relation to Indonesia’s former president Soeharto, APP’s access to be the pioneer in Indonesia’s pulping industry was very promising. Now...
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...MATTEL TOYS RECALL CASE STUDY Product recall: On August 14, 2007, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in cooperation with Mattel announced five different recalls of Mattel's toys. On September 4, Mattel announced three more recalls. Some were due to the use of lead paint, while others were due to small magnets coming loose. On August 2, 2007, Mattel's Fisher-‐Price subsidiary recalled almost one million Chinese-‐made toys, including the famous cartoon brands amongst kids:Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street toys, because of potential hazards from parts of the toys which were colored using lead-‐based paint that may have exceeded the US Federal limit of 600 parts per million. Q1. What should the country do to polish its image? -‐First, the central government must ensure that manufacturing quality standards and health and safety laws are tightened and enforced nationwide. Western multinationals...
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...Risks at Toy Central Corporation Christine E. Earley and Fred Phillips INTRODUCTION [pic]s a senior in a professional services firm, you have been assigned to plan the financial statement audit of a private company named Toy Central Corporation (TCC). In addition, the partner on the engagement has asked you to identify business risks that could adversely affect TCC’s sustained profitability, so that they can be brought to the attention of the company’s board of directors. These tasks will require you to draw on your knowledge of supply chain management, marketing, internal controls, audit assertions, and financial accounting. COMPANY BACKGROUND Toy Central Corporation (TCC) designs, manufactures, and markets a variety of toys, which are sold primarily to large national retailers like Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, Kmart, and Target. TCC is a small company compared to competitors Mattel and Hasbro; nevertheless, TCC’s managers believe its toys are among the best in the world. Unlike the larger toy makers, which bring thousands of toys to market each year but experience success with only a fraction of them, TCC has enjoyed success with a small portfolio of brands and products, representing three categories: (1) soft toys, consisting primarily of its Cuddle Monsters stuffed animals; (2) hard toys, including metal-cast and plastic-cast toys like Fast Racers cars and Acto action figures; and (3) digital toys, consisting of video game software under development. Like most toy makers...
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...ourselves we are declaring our gender identity, or performing our sex. Most people consider themselves to be either male (masculine) or female (feminine). To be masculine is to be considered tough, rigid, emotionless, aggressive, independent, and competitive. To be feminine is to be considered dependent, passive, nurturing, emotional, and weak. Usually we think of this performance as natural and biological, but it’s not. There are many aspects in which these gender roles are shaped and then placed on children at a very young age. We can take toys for example. In general the toy options for girls versus that of boys pushes the idea of taking on a certain gender role. Girl’s toys are mostly indoor toys and would be considered passive. The vomiting color of pink which is most, if not all, of the color scheme associated with girls, is displaying the idea of femininity that society wants females to associate themselves with. Furthermore, these toys are trying to influence girls to do more domestic stuff such as cleaning, cooking, and to be nurturing. Also, training them and giving them the idea of traditional values that society expects them to be when they grow up. For example, baby dolls give your...
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...3.1.1 Products 6 3.1.2 Distribution 6 3.1.3 Organisation 7 3.1.4 Promotion 7 3.2 External Factors 8 3.2.1 Competitors 8 3.2.2 Demand for Toys 8 3.2.3 Product Quality 9 3.2.4 Educational Toys and Games 9 3.2.5 Electronic Toys 9 3.2.6 Increased ecological consciousness 10 3.3 SWOT 10 3.3.1 Strengths: 10 3.3.2 Weaknesses: 10 3.3.3 Opportunities: 11 3.3.4 Threats: 11 3.3.5 Sub Conclusion 11 4 Marketing Strategy 13 4.1 Scope/Mission 13 4.2 Objectives 13 4.3 Segmentation/Target Group 13 4.3.1 Personality 14 4.3.2 Lifestyle 14 4.4 Positioning 15 5 Marketing Mix 16 5.1 Product 16 5.2 Place 16 5.3 Price 17 5.3.1 Pricing Strategy 17 5.4 Promotion 18 5.5 Physical 19 5.6 People 19 5.7 Processes 19 6 Action Plan 20 6.1 Short Term Plan (12 – 18 months plan) 20 6.2 Long Term Plan (3 – 5 year plan) 20 6.3 Marketing Action Plan 21 7 Budget 25 8 Conclusion 27 9 List Of References 28 10 Appendicies 29 Problem Statement 1.1 Introduction Den Gamle Skole was founded by Laura B. Ricks in 1992; she did not think that the Danish toy market was offering toys of a sufficient quality. She started out only buying toys for her own children but realised that there was a market for British toys in Denmark. Today it is a business with an annual turnover of close to DKK 8 million. 2 Main Problem Should Den Gamle Skole open one or more concept stores within...
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...CASE STUDY Network Management Brought Into Play at Hamleys Organization: Hamleys Solution: WhatsUp Gold Results: Resolve intermittent performance problems; deliver quality service to business users Hamleys, one of the world’s best known toy retailers, has been providing services to global customers for more than 250 years – surviving two world wars and endless business transitions and transformations. Hamleys’ London flagship store is considered one of the city’s major tourist attractions and is the world’s largest toy store, covering 54,000 square feet over seven floors. The chain also has other outlets in the UK and worldwide. When Sunny Sandhu, IT Infrastructure & Support Manager, joined Hamleys in 2008, he discovered that Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold had been previously purchased but wasn’t being used. As an experienced IT manager, Sunny knew that it was essential to have a robust network management solution in place. “An IT team can’t afford to be reactive,” comments Sunny. “We must have a proactive monitoring tool in order to be responsive, know what is going on all the time and where the point of failure is - whether it’s an outage or whether a server, PBX switch, or a call switch is down.” An Easy-to-Use, One Console Monitoring Tool When Sunny started to use WhatsUp Gold, he was surprised at the ease-of-use and the scalability of the product. Comments Sunny, “I was able to easily configure the scalability pollers, design our own maps, and differentiate...
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...FINAL REPORT OF “SHOPPING PATTERNS OF THE PEOPLE INSIDE THE GIFTS SHOPS AND HOME DÉCOR SHOPS – A COMPARITIVE ANALYSIS (September 4, 2010) In partial fulfillment of the requirements of the course "Retail Marketing" of MBA (Full Time) CARD AND GIFT: For the past decade or so the gift and card industry has been growing at a rapid rate and gaining market share. At the whim of discretionary spending, gift shops and card stores rely on low-margin, high-volume sales and are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with supermarkets and online retailers. The key to survival is consolidation and vertical integration which is seeing the number of companies decline while store numbers edge up. The cards and gift shops fall into the impulse purchase category. The product mix includes: cards, collectible gifts, gift wrap, holiday and seasonal decoration, novelties, party supplies, souveniers, etc. Gift shops come as both standalone stores as well as part of supermarkets. In India these stores are franchisees, chain retailers, as well as independent retailers. The customer base is spread over a wide demography, but the main consumers are young. Some of the main players in this category are: Archies: [pic] Archies was founded in 1979 as a mail order poster shop, and introduced its first line of greeting cards in 1980. The company procured its first ever foreign license from Walt Disney, USA in 1984 and offered its customers some of the best loved Disney characters...
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...Case study Toys “R” Us JAPAN Case study Toys “R” Us JAPAN TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 3. Japan Background and facts: 4. Background: 4 Facts: 5 Toys “R” Us Background 7. The Beginning: 7 Market Expansion 8 More ways to shop Toys “R” Us 8 Evolving business 9 Toys “R” Us in Japan 9 Case analysis: 10 Attractive factors of Japan toy market: 10 Barriers to Entry: 10 Success Factors for Toy's "R" Us-Japan 11 TRU Strategy 13 Our opinion: 14 Recommendations: 15 Conclusion: 16 References:: 16 Introduction: Toys R Us is the large distributor in the US and it is one of the more successful foreign retailers in Japan after overcome hard barriers. This successful is a result of right decision-making and strategy in overseas expansion by global retailer’s and gradual changes after entry into foreign markets. Also the strategy in respect of standardization adaption before and after entry has great effect in this successful. Coming lines, shows some factors that attract TRU to join venture in Japan. Then, we will discuss group of barriers that TRU had overcome, and how it’s overcome these barriers. In the end, we will evaluate Toys “R” Us in Japan market. Japan Background and facts: Background: Government: Parliamentary with constitutional monarchy Prime Minister: Shinzō Abe (elected Dec 2012) Capital: Tokyo Population: 127,368,088 Population Growth Rate: -0.077% (2012 est.), World Rank: 198th Birth Rate: 8.39 births/1,000 population...
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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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...Chapter 03 - Markets, Organizations, And The Role Of Knowledge CHAPTER 3 MARKETS, ORGANIZATIONS, AND THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter answers three primary questions: How do market systems work? What are the relative advantages of market systems compared to central planning in large economies? Why do we observe so much economic activity conducted within firms in market economies? In addition to covering the basic principles of exchange and supply-and-demand analysis, the chapter introduces two concepts that are critical to the subsequent development in the book: specific knowledge and contracting costs. The chapter also makes the important point that individuals have incentives to choose value-maximizing organizational arrangements. An appendix presents the basics of present value analysis and the valuation of common stock. It also discusses the concept of stock market efficiency. This appendix provides useful background material (for example, when instructors want to discuss the stock market reactions to events). CHAPTER OUTLINE GOALS OF ECONOMIC SYSTEMS PROPERTY RIGHTS AND EXCHANGE IN A MARKET ECONOMY Dimensions of Property Rights Managerial Application: Patent for Priceline.com Managerial Application: Property Rights Insecurity in Columbia Gains from Trade Managerial Application: While Animosity between the Governments of Venezuela and the U. S. Grow, So Does Trade Managerial Application: Strategic Business Planning—Ignoring Economics of Trade Academic...
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...INDIVIDUAL CASE STUDY PRESENTATION ON MATTEL This is an ‘open-book’ presentation that is designed to assess your ability to apply the essential theories, principles and techniques of supply chain and operations management to a realistic business situation. The questions will draw on material from the other modules in the MSc Supply Chain Management programme. You will be expected to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of relevant theoretical principles, concepts and techniques; to apply these appropriately to the particular situation described in the case study and; above all, to make sound decisions. You will not gain marks by presenting a general essay on the topic. Please note that all work should be your own. Copying or plagiarism will not be tolerated and could result in no marks being awarded. If quotes or short extracts are used they should be attributed or the source of the information identified. Play Fair The core values of Mattel, the world’s largest, branded toy manufacturer, appeared on its company website, and on its literature, under the heading ‘Play Fair’: “Act with unwavering integrity on all occasions. Treat each other with respect and dignity. Trust each other to make the right decisions. Be accountable for all that passes in front of us.” In 2007 these values would be put to the test as never before, when it was discovered that substantial numbers of Mattel branded toys had been contaminated with lead paint with global signature...
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...realize that there are positive ways to advertise to specific genders for purchasing products. By using these gender specific advertisements, companies can sell products more efficiently. Advertising to children at an early age can play a significant role in shaping the expected role for him/her in today’s society. There are many examples that can clearly outline gender stereotyping. In many instances someone might not catch it because it is so normal in today’s culture. Monica Brasted is a psychologist and observed her child when the two of them went to McDonalds one day. Monica’s little girl was upset because she didn’t get the toy she wanted. “When I asked her what was wrong she asked why the woman had given her a care bear when she wanted a transformer” (Brasted). This then brought up the question, why is a transformer toy considered a boy toy? The conclusion was gender stereotypes. According to Brasted, there is a deeper meaning behind this advertising technique and that plays a part in “gender roles.” Children are frequently exposed to many commercials when watching their favorite TV shows. “Girls are presented in traditional roles such as playing house and cooking....
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...Case Study: China Revalues the Yuan and Moves to a Managed Float Regime, July 2005 Since early 1997, the Chinese government had pegged its currency, the yuan (or renminbi), to the U.S. dollar at a rate of Yuan8.28/$. The Chinese government had maintained this peg even through the difficult Asian currency crisis later in that year, when many emerging Asian countries were forced to abandon their pegs. China argued for years that a fixed and stable currency was critical for the development and growth of its economy. Pegging its currency would remove currency risk (regarding the U.S. dollar) and could encourage the development of both Chinese exports and foreign direct investment into the country. The success of the Chinese economy during the pegged period was indeed remarkable, growing in real GDP terms at over 10% per year. As China’s external trade grew, especially its surplus with the United States, increasing pressure was applied to the Chinese government, especially from Washington, to revalue the currency. The U.S. argued that its increasing trade deficit with China was the result of a significantly overvalued yuan. China argued that it was the result of their competitive cost position. While China continued to resist Washington’s calls for revaluation, they did acknowledge that maintaining the peg at 8.28 was becoming very costly in terms of buying U.S. dollars that were flowing into the country from trade and investment. In addition, speculative flows into...
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...1.a. How are the tradeoffs between in-house production and outsourcing? In Mattel´s case the tradeoffs between in-house production and outsourcing are: Advantages of Outsourcing (= Disadvantages of In –house production) | Disadvantages of Outsourcing (= Advantages of In –house production) | 1. Low wages and strategic location of the supplier will translate into low prices. Mattel can receive benefits of having as its supplier a company that is located in a country were the wages are low, as this lower production costs will be translated into the final price of the product.In 1988 based on the McKinsey´s study, Mattel created its Vendors Operation Asia (VOA) that consisted of “about 35 suppliers who offered not only low labor costs but also skills and expertise in building relationships with local Chinese government officials and cutting through the Chinese government bureaucracy (…) in 1997, VOA´s manufacturing activities accounted for about 25% of Mattel´s revenues”.Also, if the supplier company is located in an industry cluster like the toy manufacturing industry in Guangdong, where the physical proximity of suppliers and buyers, the possibility to have inventories Just-in-time, easy finding of trained labor force, among others, will help to reduce costs of production of the outside vendors.Mattel had a special strategy to locate its manufacturing plants, as it owned and operated 10 worldwide, 5 located in China, and the other were in Indonesia, Malasya, Thailand and Mexico...
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