MANUTAN INTERNATIONAL MAIL ORDER EUROPEAN SUCCESS

Manutan International S.A. is a specialist mail-order business providing industrial and office equipment and supplies to the business-to-business, collective, and public sectors. Based in France, Manutan has built up a pan-European network of 24 subsidiaries in 20 countries, from Portugal to Russia and from Sweden to Italy. Manutan also has a strong online presence with 18 e-commerce websites and a workforce of around 1,500 staff. Manutans more than 200 catalogues feature over 200,000 items and serve more than 600,000 customers throughout Europe.

While mail-order houses had been in operation in France for many years, they have tended to focus primarily on the consumer market. In 1966, however, Andre Guichard, joined by son Jean-Pierre, set up a company dedicated to providing mail-order services to the business sector. The companys major innovation was in its choice of goods, that of industrial equipment, especially materials handling equipment.

Manutan quickly recognized the potential of entering other European markets. The companys first choice was the United Kingdom, where, as in France in the 1960s, the market for mail-order materials handling, lifting, and storage equipment was more or less non-existent. Manutans success in the United Kingdom led it to quickly move into a large number of new foreign markets after 1974.

Manutan focused on its mail-order operations until the early 2000s. In 2001, however, the company expanded and established a presence on the Internet, launching its first e-commerce-enabled website. That site later provided the platform for the rollout of 18 websites targeting each of the companys markets. By 2005, the company had posted more than 1 million in sales through its e-commerce sites.

During the recent global financial crisis, Manutan made a strategic decision not to cut its market- ing and commercial investments. On the contrary, Manutan maintained its promotional expenditure, and refocused part of its staff on direct selling, thereby increasing the multi-channel contact with their customers. This strategic insight seems to have paid off: the company recorded revenues of 563 million during the 2010 financial year, an increase of 15.2% over the previous year.

DISCUSSION

Q. Suppose Manutan supplies pulleys that are speci fied to be 50 millimetres in diameter. A large batch of pulleys is sold in week 1 and another is sold in week 5. Quality control people want to determine whether there is a difference in the variance of the diameters of the two batches. Assume that a sample of six pulleys from the week 1 batch results in the following diameter measurements (in mm): 51, 50, 48, 50, 49, 51. Assume that a sample of seven pul- leys from the week 5 batch results in the following diameter measurements (in mm): 50, 48, 48, 51, 52, 50, 52. Conduct a test to determine whether the variance in diameters differs between these two populations. Why would the quality control people be interested in such a test? What results from this test would you report to them? What about the means of these two batches? Analyse these data in terms of the means and report on the results. Assume that pulley diameters are normally distributed in the population.