Cherry Tree Learning Materials
Cherry Tree Learning Materials
This case study is about the Cherry Tree Learning Materials Company, this company was a successful manufacturer of sixty different special education toys and games. Special education deals with the education of children with various physical, mental or emotional disabilities. There sales has been growing by 7 – 8 percent annually due to sales of the toys and games they produce. The organization manufactured a line of new toys designed to assist in the development of children’s with five types of problems, specifically dealing with motor skills, visual motor skills, auditory skills, phonology skills, structural and verbal syntax skills. One of the products that sold well and received much favorable comments from teachers and parents was the balance disc. This toy protected children; they could sit, stand or kneel on the surface. An edging protected their hands and fingers. This toy assisted in several ways, it taught equilibrium, it helped with body alignment, and coordinated mental and muscular activity, also developing the child’s body image concept. With many of these types of products selling for a decent price, could the company sell in any other markets? That was the questions for the executives at the company; they were interested in whether they could successfully offer their line of toys and games to children who had no difficulties. Essentially could they expand outside the special education market? Lawrence Teilman who was an executive their stated that he opposed such a change of a basic strategy because he taught Cherry Tree had done little to serve the special education market through parents of children who needed the products. The rational he came up with was schools might buy one or two units per classroom, promoting this item to parents for home use might result in the sale of eight or ten additional units per classroom of special education children. No one in the company perceived this idea of being a problem,
This case study is about the Cherry Tree Learning Materials Company, this company was a successful manufacturer of sixty different special education toys and games. Special education deals with the education of children with various physical, mental or emotional disabilities. There sales has been growing by 7 – 8 percent annually due to sales of the toys and games they produce. The organization manufactured a line of new toys designed to assist in the development of children’s with five types of problems, specifically dealing with motor skills, visual motor skills, auditory skills, phonology skills, structural and verbal syntax skills. One of the products that sold well and received much favorable comments from teachers and parents was the balance disc. This toy protected children; they could sit, stand or kneel on the surface. An edging protected their hands and fingers. This toy assisted in several ways, it taught equilibrium, it helped with body alignment, and coordinated mental and muscular activity, also developing the child’s body image concept. With many of these types of products selling for a decent price, could the company sell in any other markets? That was the questions for the executives at the company; they were interested in whether they could successfully offer their line of toys and games to children who had no difficulties. Essentially could they expand outside the special education market? Lawrence Teilman who was an executive their stated that he opposed such a change of a basic strategy because he taught Cherry Tree had done little to serve the special education market through parents of children who needed the products. The rational he came up with was schools might buy one or two units per classroom, promoting this item to parents for home use might result in the sale of eight or ten additional units per classroom of special education children. No one in the company perceived this idea of being a problem,