BBS013-1 Assessment 2, Sem2

Case Study company - Original Creations(same case study used in Assessment 1)

Mary Shelley, the founder of Original Creations is disappointed. Her company, has just withdrawn from its latest venture after three unsuccessful months of trying to market a new product.

The company markets a range of original 'lifestyle' products using a direct mail brochure and the Internet. Products marketed include a rainwear range for dogs and cats, an automatic air freshener for bathrooms and 'make-your-own' birthday card kits. In its outdoor collection it markets a range of garden lights in the shape of garden flowers and outdoor clothes dryers. It has over one hundred individual personal items including hair clippers, blood pressure monitors, and exfoliate scrubs.

The company designs the product but does not manufacture their own products. These are made by other companies who either already make a similar product or have the product capability to make what the company asks them to make. Usually the company sends them a rough idea of the product and then the evaluate the prototypes. Once the company is satisfied with the product, they negotiate a contract based on price, volume, quality and delivery time. Original Creations uses a wide variety of manufactures both in the UK and abroad. Many of their foreign manufactures are based in China, and the communication with these companies are often difficult because of the language barrier, communication issues and cultural differences. The manufacturer sends their products in batches to the warehouse, where only spot checks are made to check the quality. The warehouse then packs the products and sends them off to the customers.

The company is always looking for new product ideas as the essence of keeping sales moving is novelty and interest. The product just withdrawn after three months in the brochure, and slightly longer on the website, was an extended toenail clipper whereby a person could clip their toenails without having to bend down. Not all products succeed, but Mary's problem is that this is the tenth recent new product failure and she is worried that the company is losing direction.

The reason the company decided to withdraw the extended toenail clipper has a couple reasons. Firstly, sales are for lower than expected. Boxes of the toenail clipper are stacking up in the warehouse, not being sold and are taking up valuable space in the warehouse. Secondly, a large number of the clipper are being returned by the customers, who are complaining of the quality and its usefulness being less than expected. Some customers also complain that some goods are damaged when they arrive. Sales are too low to justify the cost of manufacturing and the returns are too high to justify a continuation of the product.

New products ideas come from an in-house team consisting of Mary Shelley, two of her directors Frank Smith and Jeff Stein, responsible for Operations and Project Management respectively. Operations is mainly involved in packing up the products, labelling and posting. The Project management division is responsible for special projects across the company and get involved in all areas where improvements are needed. They can be in operations, logistics, facilities management, sourcing of the products and other materials, transportation, etc.

Mary and her two directors are from technical backgrounds. Mary employs other managers. The HR manager runs a small group with mainly young and relatively inexperienced HR staff; the logistics and warehouse manager runs a group of mainly temporary staff recruited via employment agencies; the media manager is responsible for putting the brochure together every 3 months, and has recently set-up the website; a buyer manager handles the contracts with the companies who manufactures the products that are sold on by Original Creations; and the finance manager looks after finance and the general administration.

A small customer services team handles customer issues such as product enquires, payments, warranty, non-delivery and product complains.

The company employs a total of 40/50 people:

- In Operations 15

- In HR 5

- In logistics and warehouse 10

- The media team 3

- The buyers 2

- Finance and general admin 6

- Customer services : 2

The company only sells in the UK at the moment. Brochures are sent out to existing customers as well households who are identified through periodically analysing databases, purchased from marketing companies, on 'lifestyle' of customers. The website is maintained well, however there has been little investment in digital marketing.

Product idea generation is purely in-house and does not use focus groups. Idea generation sessions takes place on the last Friday of every month and usually results in about ten new ideas being put forward and discussed. As the major shareholder of the company Mary Shelley, takes it upon herself to select which, if any of the ideas should be taken further with a view to include them in the product portfolio. She uses her own judgement in this screening process as she feels that the growth of the company is down to her 'feel' for the market.

Once a product idea is selected, Mary and her team find someone who can make the product and it is then incorporated in the brochures and on the website. She believes that the best test of a product is whether it sells or not and for this reason no market research is conducted before its inclusion in the product portfolio. Once the product is launched, a small sample of customers are contacted randomly and asked to complete a questionnaire regarding their views on this product and other company products.

Mary has called for a management meeting including the directors and managers.

Mary is seriously concerned about recent product failures and is wondering if a different and perhaps more systematic approach to developing new products might be appropriate. She is asking her staff to put a project team together and advise her what the company might be doing wrong and how it might improve its new products development activities.

Part 1

Your Individual Report should take the form of a consultancy report aimed at the management of Original Creations addressing how this company can better develop new products and better assess and forecast their market potential. The report should cover the various departments of the company Original Creations and what role they can play in developing new products and improving the sales performance of newly released products.

It is important your report should NOT be generic but applied to the Case Study. Your recommendation should be based on the articles in the Knowledge Base, on academic literature, theories, frameworks and concepts discussed during the sessions.

Your report needs to clear focused on the case study company given (Original creations) and not on a generic company. It should reflect the material covered in the sessions up to week 10 and use of the 'Knowledge Base'. There should be clear evidence of reading about the topic beyond the areas discussed in class and include both academic sources to support your use of key models and concepts as well as credible non-academic sources to support your discussion and evaluation of recommendations to address the issues facing the Case Study company. You must reference your sources both in-text and in a Reference List using the Harvard-UoB style (please see referencing resources on the LRWeb for further guidance if needed).

Suggested Structure and Additional Guidance:

Executive summary: Describe the key points from the report, including the most important findings and recommendations.

Introduction: Explain the purpose of your report and lay-out the structure of the rest of your report.

Reasons: Discuss and explore the specific business reasons for this consultancy report related to the business case.

Key Issues present at ORIGINAL CREATIONS: Highlight the key issues that are present at ORIGINAL CREATIONS as related to the need to develop better products and forecast their demand. Do not simply re-state the key issues as raised in the previous assignment and/or Case Study but discuss them in the wider context of the challenges faced by this organisation.

Recommendations: Give justified and supported recommendations for how ORIGINAL CREATIONS should make adjustments or changes to their organisation to better develop new products and better assess and forecast their market potential. These recommendations should address some or all of the key issues that you have identified in the Case Study and should be supported by credible sources, including sources from the academic literature and articles, some of which have been pre-selected in the 'Knowledge Base'.

Conclusion: This section should draw together the main points from your Report, no new information should be included in the conclusion.

Reference List: A properly formatted Reference List is required alongside in-text citations.

Demonstrate the following knowledge and understanding:

Recognise, understand and discuss the interaction between functional elements and understand the key drivers of operational management and understand the use of analysis, data and information in operational performance of Original Creations organisation.

Reference List: A properly formatted Reference List is required alongside in-text citations.