CASE STUDY

Ummul Haqq company has been in the business of producing branded plates for hotels, restaurants and guest houses in Kumasi for the past 20 years. It currently finds that the level of competition it is facing necessitates a massive overhaul of its operations to be more responsive at the least possible cost. An analysis of the trend in its demand over the past two decades indicate that demand for the company's plates increased gradually over the years to unprecedented levels due to the quality of the plates, professionalism of its staff and the increase in the demand for hotel, restaurant and guest house services due to the increase in population in Kumasi over the period. From all indications, business was going to even increase more in the future since it was apparent that the central nature of Kumasi and the booming local economy will continue to attract more migrants to it. Fortunately or unfortunately, the tribal unrest in the north and other parts of the country continue to cause people to migrate towards Kumasi.

Hajia Humaira Abdul Samed, the proprietor and general manager of the company saw the situation as both a threat to the survival of the company and a great opportunity to be in business for a very long time since such developments had been found in other jurisdictions to attract not only a lot of other businesses but also visitors and temporary workers. She began to contemplate about whether to put up another building to accommodate the likely increase in demand for their plates or to wait and use overtime and temporary workers as and when it became necessary. She decided that it was better to be prepared than to be taken by surprise as unanticipated increases in demand that the company is not able to meet could hurt the reputation the company has built over the years. She organized a management meeting to decide what to do. After a lengthy discussion with the top managers, she decided to invest the contingency funds the company had set aside into a new building and a new set of equipment as advance preparation towards the anticipated increase in the demand for the plates.

For the next two years, business boomed as more and more people came to Kumasi for various reasons and patronized restaurant and hotel services. The plates of the company continued to be the most preferred. Profits quadrupled, the workforce increased beyond two hundred from five when the company started operations, and the company began to enjoy economies of scale. Before long however, two other companies; Morgan Plates (MP) and Neat Services (NS) started providing the same kinds of plates that Hajia's company was providing. This did not dent the demand for the plates of Hajia's company but nonetheless, the presence of these two companies provided an alternative to the plates of Hajia's company and Hajia began to worry.

He organized a series of meetings first with the three managers (operations, procurement, and finance), then with the twenty supervisors, and finally the other two hundred and eighty workers to solicit their opinions on how to stay on top of the competition so that theirs remains the plate of choice among restaurants, guest houses and hotels.

Morgan Plates (MP) and Neat Services (NS) provided very good plates but found that they could not compete with Hajia's company because of the level of sophistication that the company had acquired over the years. The proprietors of MP and NS met and decided to approach Hajia to help them continue to stay in business. The first meeting between the three proprietors was cordial and friendly but that was all there was to it. The proprietors of MP and NS proposed that they wanted Hajia to engage them as partners so that they could remain in business. Hajia was thinking about the proposal and decided to invite her managers to discuss the proposal from the two proprietors.