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Introduction
Shomei is a company that is involved in the production of greeting cards whose main consumers are in the community. It is the third largest company in this industry. Because of factors such as the introduction of e-cards on the internet the company must develop with a better strategy so as to maintain its position in the industry, This Company has a number of competitors such as Hercules and Atlas.Shomei has the competitive advantage of utilizing the DIM technology plus the use of high quality washi paper. This company also is in possession of nanopiezo printers which have the ability to allow personalization of the e-cards such that individual consumers to print their own preferred messages on the greeting cards. Before choosing the best strategy for Shomei it is important to look at the available options.
Analysis
Proposal A Involves an attack on the giants in the sense that there will be expansion to the supermarkets and other mass merchandisers like Keyso chain supermarkets. As already indicated the precondition for this option is that $.99 point price be met and this would lead to severe repercussions that would mean compromised quality of the Shomei greeting cards. Furthermore adopting this options would get Shomei into the risk of economies of scale which would really cost the company. In short this option would make Shomei loose its competitive advantage.
Proposal C would call for riding on desktop publishing with kiosks giving consumers a chance to create greeting cards from scratch. The reason im not advocating for this option is that Shomei would suffer because it will not have the best technical designers. Eventually it will prove to be a costly choice as most of the talents in the technical design section would all be wasted.
Proposal D would involve sleeping with the enemy which means that the product line would be expanded to incorporate multilingual and photographic cards. This would involve getting the likes of Snapadoo and Felicita cards.The problem with this two group of cards is fitting within Shomei market structure which would be very difficult. Infact Felicita would call for consumers who are sensitive to the prices of cards. This would affect Shomei negatively and even reduce the sales volume of its greeting cards.
Proposal E would get Shomei introducing new cards into the market.The handcrafted washi wallpapers would be introduced into the market because there is no barrier to their entry. However this would affect the position of the company infact the employees would wonder the kind of direction Shomei would be taking. Even though this strategy would tend to increase the standing of Shomei in the greeting card industry its benefits do not come out clearly
Proposal B is what I can advocate for Shomei to adopt. Shomei would ride on the internet wave by teaming up with online gift and flower companies like Kurimono and provide excellent products to all the consumers. Most of the consumers of Shomei greeting cards have desired for online cards and this would be a great opportunity to increase the sales volumes and take the position of Shomei very high in the greeting card industry. Presence of Shomei would help to solve the problem of quality and consumers would be satisfied than ever before.An online system would allow consumers to customize their own greeting cards using the database that would be provided.Problems and other issues related to distributions will be solved with this strategy and it will see the company achieve profit margins that have never been witnessed before.
References
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Baron DP. 1995. Integrated strategy: market and nonmarket components. California Management Review 37: 4765.
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Freeman RE. 1984. Strategic Management: a Stakeholder Approach. Pitman: Boston, MA.
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