Laura Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Laura - Essay Example Fast moving items are being recorded in the store managers’ hand-held computer in order to relay the message to the head office and its central design team. When it comes to production, Laura chose to print roughly 40% of its own fabric and produces 80% of its finished products. This production strategy allows Laura to be more flexible in responding to the sudden changes in fashion trend. Having an efficient logistics and Laura’s commitment to produce unique and fashionable clothing preferred by its target consumers throughout UK and Europe within a short span of 15 days makes the company able to keep up with the fast changing fashion trends. By continuously expanding its market distribution via increasing the number of its store outlets, telephone / mail order operation, and investing on online catalogue and ordering system including its practice of changing the store clothing designs every 4 weeks makes the annual sales increase over the The strength of Laura’s production system includes its ability to determine the trend of in-fashion clothing and its immediate response to the customers’ needs and wants by investing on a low cost in-house garment production that is responsible in printing its own fabrics, cutting, and sewing of garments just-in-time for delivery. The benefit of such production strategy is that it allows Laura to immediately respond to the customers’ constantly changing preferred fashion style within a short span of 15 days. The problem with this type of production strategy is the fact that its competitors are saving more money from outsourcing the production of garments in third world countries by bulk. In line with a much lower cost of production, Laura’s competitors are able to sell their product line at a much lower price. For this reason, Laura is not able to penetrate the lower end of the markets that are

Competitive Analysis of General Motors Case Study

Competitive Analysis of General Motors - Case Study Example The tools like PESTLE, porter's five force and SWOT analysis are used in this report in order get a better result. The report is designed in such a way that, first there is an introduction followed by PESTLE analysis, porter's five force analysis and SWOT analysisetc. Automobile industry was always a topic of discussion in the field of business and environment. The development of a country by avoiding the automobile industry is impractical or in other words it is ineffective. The main problem the industry is having is that the influence of micro and macro financial environment in the industry. The recession or any other downtrend the economies badly affect the automobile industry, especially car industry. At the same time any boom or overall economic development of an economy creates a positive impact in the automobile industry by way of increased sale of motor vehicles. Different financial and economic tools help in studying the automobile industry in a better way. Tools like PESTLE analysis, SWOT analysisetc. are extensively used in the market study of automobile industry. Here, automobile industry in the United State is studied by focusing on the company General Motors. General Motors held the top position among the car industry of the world for a long period. The great leadership of the company was one of the main success factors. But this was past and now the sales of the company are showing a diminishing trend. By looking at the present position of the company, nobody will believe that this was such a company, which was making a huge profit. Due to different reasons the company is now running into losses. One of the main reasons was the present financial crisis. The crisis not only affected the business of General Motors, but also it affected the business of other automobile companies in /the United States and other parts of the world. As crisis reduced the purchasing power of the people, it caused a drastic reduction in the sale of automobiles. Majority of People will not go for luxurious items and car is considered as the luxurious item. The reduction in sale of the car caused to have a negative impact on the reputation of the company. The pri ce per share of the company declined and the debt of the company increased. Now the company is facing it difficult to run the business in a balanced way due to different factors, especially poor management. The poor management led to ineffective use of funds, increasing of debtetc. The company lost its position in markets where the company is considered as holding top position. Another reason for the failure was that the company's attitude. The company focused on marketing and financing activities instead of focusing on customer requirements. The company forgot the basic of the business activity that is consumers are the king in the market (Ramakrishna, 2006) GM which once controlled about half the US market is now struggling to maintain its leadership position. This is not the case of GM alone. Even Ford Motors (Ford) and Chrysler, the other carmakers from Detroit, have been losing their market shares in recent times. In the late 1990s, the "big three" had a combined market share of more than 70%. Now, their combined market share in the US is 58% and it is declining continuously (Domestic trends, 2008, p. 3). GM