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Scenario:

The T&F Company sells CAD/CAM software applications to architectural and engineering firms in the United States through value-added resellers. The company has loyal customers, and is growing steadily. Recently, the growth rate has dropped. The Sales and Marketing Director believes if they don't adapt their business model into today's networked economy, their competitive edge will become weaker. T&F's goals are to increase the revenue growth rate and get into the international market. The CEO leads the steering committee, which is formed by T&F's department heads. You are the Director of the Technical Support Department. The company website consists of a company overview and listing of contact phone numbers.

In this year's meeting on strategy, the steering committee completed a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). These are their findings:

Strengths

Loyal customers
Strong reseller network
Good products
Focused management/staff
Competitive product prices

Weaknesses

Has not utilized Internet technology
T&F not well-known among prospective customers
Drop in growth rate
Profit margin is too small (company needs to reduce costs)

Opportunities

To create a web site to serve customers and promote the company
To enter the international market
To establish online sales as a new distribution channel

Threats

Other larger and more well-known competitors may enter T&F's targeted market segment
Economic slowdown could reduce demand
Competitors have utilized Internet to enhance customer relationships
You see this SWOT as justification for developing and implementing an e-business strategy, but you know that the rest of the group is not as far along as you. Over the course of the next month or so, you will need to take the group's understanding of business strategy and business models, and help them integrate e-business. You also need to convey a sense of urgency, as one of the features of e-business is compression of time: research, production, and change.

Details: Before you raise the issue of e-commerce, you need to think through the impact on the company as a whole. If T&F utilizes an e-commerce application to do direct sales, how will the company be impacted internally and externally? Should T&F implement changes to internal processes before their website launches? Why or why not?

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Solution Summary

This solution gives an excellent strategic analysis of T&F Company

Solution Preview

If T&F decides to use an e-commerce application to do direct sales, there will be a strong internal and external impact on T&F Company. The internal impact will be that the internal structure of T&F Company will have to change. There will be an internal assessment of skills and abilities and the existing workers will be classified. For the setting up of the website and marketing T&F Company products successfully, teams have to be developed that have the ability to design, launch, update, and maintain a website. The teams must have persons with the ability to market CAD/CAM software over the internet. The talent and the ability that is not available at T&F Company has to be recruited and the organization has to made more performance oriented. The entire company needs to restructured, the organization made more horizontal and responsive the changes in the market for CAD/CAM software.

There is another change that T&F Company needs to bring about internally. It must reduce its costs to become profitable and competitive. For this there is a need to improve the productivity of workers, work teams and the company as a whole. Training for productivity improvement needs to be carried on individual level to increase individual productivity and on a team level to improve team productivity. Training can only be imparted after the restructuring of the company has taken place.

There will be an external change in the image of T&F Company as it ...

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  • BSc , University of Calcutta
  • MBA, Eastern Institute for Integrated Learning in Management
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