Business Strategy Case Study: Tartan Corporation
Management Accounting
Part A :
2-36: Strategic positioning:
Describe Tartan 's competitive strategy. On the basis of this competitive strategy, what recommendation would you make to task force?
As an industrial leader in home lighting system manufacturing, Tartan Corporation has been existing for more than 90 years, with its brands and products firmly holding the proprietary in the market, while competition and potential threats, on the contrary, are impelling Tartan Corp to strengthen itself strategically. Based on the charts given in the case material, products are well developed during different historical stages and distributed among various markets, yet sales volume of some products are declining while others increasing. Thus the overall competitive strategy of Tartan is maintaining the capacity to develop up-to-date home lighting facilities using advanced technological competence while sychronously focusing more on the products and services which gain more marginal benefits under the same circumstances of labour or mechanism facilities.
Generally speaking, the two mainstays as back up for the competitive strategy go into cost leadership and uniqueness. Being an everlasting issue for multinational manufacturers, cost saving could be executed in tight control, systematization of producing lines, intensive supervision of labour, process engineering skills, etc (Blocher, 2004). Thus cost leadership is more applicable in companies with full of trivial functional departments and procedures, however in Tartan, the main problem is to focus on uniqueness, i.e., products differentiation.
Products differentiation is widely adopted as a strategic method in multinational corporations to occupy different market segments. To comprehensively develop the properties and functions of new products that lead the research, specific teams, strong marketing with consumer insights investigation and internal managerial expertise are part of the constitutes (Day, 2004).
Part A :
2-36: Strategic positioning:
Describe Tartan 's competitive strategy. On the basis of this competitive strategy, what recommendation would you make to task force?
As an industrial leader in home lighting system manufacturing, Tartan Corporation has been existing for more than 90 years, with its brands and products firmly holding the proprietary in the market, while competition and potential threats, on the contrary, are impelling Tartan Corp to strengthen itself strategically. Based on the charts given in the case material, products are well developed during different historical stages and distributed among various markets, yet sales volume of some products are declining while others increasing. Thus the overall competitive strategy of Tartan is maintaining the capacity to develop up-to-date home lighting facilities using advanced technological competence while sychronously focusing more on the products and services which gain more marginal benefits under the same circumstances of labour or mechanism facilities.
Generally speaking, the two mainstays as back up for the competitive strategy go into cost leadership and uniqueness. Being an everlasting issue for multinational manufacturers, cost saving could be executed in tight control, systematization of producing lines, intensive supervision of labour, process engineering skills, etc (Blocher, 2004). Thus cost leadership is more applicable in companies with full of trivial functional departments and procedures, however in Tartan, the main problem is to focus on uniqueness, i.e., products differentiation.
Products differentiation is widely adopted as a strategic method in multinational corporations to occupy different market segments. To comprehensively develop the properties and functions of new products that lead the research, specific teams, strong marketing with consumer insights investigation and internal managerial expertise are part of the constitutes (Day, 2004).
References: Blocher, E., (2004), Cost Management: A Strategic Emphasis, 5th edition, World Bank Publications, pp39-40 Day, G Epetein, M. J, and Westbrook, Robert A, (2001), Linking Actions to Profits in Strategic Decision Making, MIT Sloan Management Review, pp39-43 Hitt, M Kaplan, R. S., (1996), The balanced scorecard: translating strategy into action, 2nd Harvard Business Press, pp47-48 Kaplan, R Neely, A. D., (1980), Business performance measurement: theory and practice, Cambridge University Press, pp63-150 Neely, A Porter, M. E., (1985), Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, Free Press, pp53-60 Williams, D