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At the moment, Castle’s Family Restaurant operates in the restaurant business in North California. The company considers options to enhance its marketing performance. In this regard, the introduction of the cost-efficient strategy opens wide opportunities for the company to reach its strategic goal and to enhance its marketing performance. The cost-efficiency implies the efficient use of available funds and finding options for saving costs without the negative impact of saved costs on the quality of products and services delivered by the company to its customers. In this regard, each employee and manager of the company should consider possibilities that can help the company to save costs and to increase the effectiveness of the…
A1. Viability of Product or Service: Earlier this summer, one of my good friends and colleague partnered up with a couple of enterprising individuals and started a U-Swirl and Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory franchise. This fast food restaurant, located in Issaquah, WA, being a franchise, has the backing and support of the parent entities of “U-Swirl Frozen Yogurt” and the gourmet chocolatier “Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory”. In keeping with the U-Swirl Frozen Yogurt Issaquah (2013) marketing tagline: “Worth the Weight” this fast food restaurant offer it’s guests up to 12 flavors of low fat and non-fat frozen yogurt at any time…
Today’s firms operate within various environments that economists refer to as market structures. These market structures forge each firm’s operational foundation, which essentially lays the groundwork to facilitate competitive marketing strategies. The factors that bolster a firm’s marketing tactics are vital is sustaining profitability as well as solidifying longevity within a particular industry. To comprehend these factors effectively, this paper will analyze Kudler Fine Foods through the eyes of a consultant and (a) evaluate Kudler’s strategic plan, (b) identify the Kudler’s market structure, and (c) assess how the market…
Glaser Health Products of Ranier Falls, Georgia needs assistance in evaluating and classifying costs in order to implement an activity-based costing system. As stated in the case, these costs will be used for planning and control decisions rather than inventory valuation. The activity-based costing system will provide better allocation of Glaser’s overhead costs rather than a system to look at the cost drivers or the activities that their overhead costs comprise. Glaser’s general structure of an activity-based costing model should consist of cost objects, activities, consumption of resources, and cost.…
The business firm discussed in this report deals with general merchandise and operates in the retail industry. It specializes with the sale of general consumer merchandise including food products such as dairy foods, baked goods, meat and poultry, seafood and garden outputs; clothing and textile output, electronic merchandise and it also operates an optical center among other business operations. The market structure of this business is monopolistic. The external business environment is composed of several retailers who pose as competitors to the organization in the market (Stackelberg, 2010). Similarly, the market entry for general merchandise retailers is relatively. Due to the size of the organization, the company has a substantial control over the pricing scheme of its output; it has the capacity to shift the cost of goods either to its suppliers or end customers. This power is one that smaller retailers in the industry do not have. The organization differentiates its output through product testing tactics which makes the business clients to perceive brands as new and with improved value through redesigning packages and graphics; while in essence it may have been the same.…
3) Through economies of scope, dominant concentrate producers were able to efficiently introduce brand extensions by minimizing costs per unit manufactured. These successful brand extensions resulted in reduced shelf space for new soft drink entrants.…
You will apply important microeconomics concepts toward the competitive strategies of the Kudler Fine Food Virtual Organization that affect its long-term profitability. You will evaluate the differences between market structures and review the organization’s strategic plan, marketing overview, market surveys, and other material to evaluate the organization’s competitiveness in the marketplace, including its customers’ views. In the process, you will identify the market structure that you believe best applies to this organization, and assess how the market structure positively and negatively affects the firm’s long-term profitability.…
Blue Ridge Manufacturing produces and sells towels for the U.S. ‘sports towel’ market. A ‘sports towel’ is a towel that has the promotion of an event or a logo printed on it. Their most popular use is distribution in connection with major sporting events such as the Super Bowl or the U.S. Open. The firm designs, knits, prints and embroiders towels in three sizes: regular (18”x18”), hand (12”x20”) and mid-range (15”x24”). Occasionally, customers order towels in another size, referred to as ‘special’. Blue Ridge Manufacturing serves three types of customers: large (national chains), small (single store operations) and medium sized customers (small chains, large single stores, licensing agents). Recently Blue Ridge introduced an activity based costing (ABC) system to determine product costs. The system is fairly complicated and the management is confident of the accuracy of the manufacturing cost figures for each product line. The question of Blue Ridges’ management is to advise them on the potential of using strategic cost analysis in assessing the profitability of their customers’ accounts. Potential behavioural implications on the marketing and selling personnel arising from using ABC in costing distribution, marketing and customer support functions should also be discussed.…
During the process of creating a virtual corporation, the management of Super Bakery, Inc. identified significant variations in costs to serve customers in different areas of the country (Kimmel, Weygandt, & Kieso, 2009). In an effort to better control costs, management evaluated their traditional costing methods and found them to be inaccurate because costs were divided evenly over the entire customer base. To further complicate matters, as the company began to outsource multiple functions to other companies in their “virtual corporation”, they had no means to assess the specific costs associated with each step in the manufacturing and sales processes. As a result, Super Bakery implemented an activity based costing system whereby each activity related to the production and delivery of the finished product to the customer could be…
Discussion Board One asks the student to select a recognized company and a Contemporary Management Technique from Cost management: A Strategic Emphasis by Blocher, Stout, Juras, and Cokins (2013). The student is instructed to draw a parallel between the chosen company and technique, and elaborately describe how the technique would effectively aid in maximizing the company’s success. To complete this assignment, Johnathan Bradley describes the Ford Motor Company and activity-based costing. He describes the Ford Motor Company as a dominant company within the automotive manufacturing industry, and uses research performed by Eggers and Bangert (1998) to define activity-based costing as a tool that measures costs based on segmented activities. Jonathan effectively uses the study to capture the advantages of activity-based costing, and gainfully applies these findings to Ford Motor Company. He illustrates how the use of activity-based costing would support the company’s critical success factors by increasing quality levels and improving cycle time. Additionally, Jonathan explains how the utilization of this Contemporary Management Technique would aid Ford Motor Company in effectively dividing costs based on activity, which would allow the company to ensure maximum efficiency throughout all activities.…
3) The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., Chapter 9: Activity-Based Costing, csus.edu, 2011, pdf. Retrieved 18 December 2012 from http://www.csus.edu/indiv/p/pforsichh/documents/ACCY121FinalExamInstrManualchs9_11_13_16_Appendix.pdf…
Revising a time-driven activity-based cost system, adding products Refer to the Madison Dairy ice cream plant example described in this chapter.…
Private label offered better margins to the retailer, which contributed to a willingness of grocers to promote private labels enthusiastically.…
Owens & Minor is a distributor of surgical and medical supplies to hospitals and other health care facilities. Due to changing demand from customers, the company is facing increased operating costs, which has resulted in lower profit margins and even losses. In 1993, O&M recorded an $18 million profit, which was reduced to a loss of $11 million in 1995. The entire industry is experiencing similar difficulties. In an effort to resume profitability, O&M is evaluating alternatives to “cost-plus pricing”. Cost-plus pricing does not reflect the true cost of the services provided by O&M. Customers are demanding more of O&M while expecting the price structure to stay the same. The new method of pricing, called Activity-Based Costing (ABC) and Activity-Based Pricing (ABP) will increase efficiency in the supply chain and reduce overhead expenses. Furthermore, it will allow O&M to identify that certain services and customers are unprofitable and tie additional fees to additional services.…
A recent data shows that 40 % of Hardee’s business has to do with serving a breakfast menu (Petroff). This shows that this company can still be successful in their own unique way without necessarily following the standard rule of focusing on lunch and dinner products. Hardee’s product is considered to be very customer-driven as proven through some of the products that the company has successfully developed. Customers in one particular region might demand Hardee’s famous B-hole menu, while the other customers in other places might demand something else. As a result the creative team came up with a regional product that satisfies the customers within the specific region (Petroff). One important thing to understand here is that the…