Report

1.0 CORPORATE PROFILE

 Manufacturing strategy covers three important things which are:-

1)      Corporate and business strategy

2)      Development of manufacturing strategy

3)      Strategy implementation

Corporate and business strategy concern with the scope of an organization’s activities which are the business involve in the company. Our company involve in Green Product. Our product is Composting Bin which can compost waste into fertilizer.

The things that lead to our product are the current issues regarding green technology. Nowadays world are trying to reduce the product that can bring hazards to the environment. So our company’s idea is from there which we sure that our product will meet the demand.

The strategy of manufacture the product must have major implication to the society as well. In business strategy customer is very essential. What customer want and what is the value to the customer is the question that our company must understand and fulfill.

What are the things that lead to our company’s mission and vision are:-

1.      History

2.      Management

3.      Environment

4.      Resources

History from the past stated that anything that happen in the past will happen again it just different period of time. That is why our company is very particular to analyze what is happen in the past to be our guideline in term of strategy of our company. For the past century we can see a lot of company manufacture product without thinking the consequences to the environment. What happen is that our world facing crisis for example global warming, toxic rain and many more. For that kind of situation, our company trying to manufacture the product that friendly environment so that it will benefit for the society.

Top management must set the goal of the company so that the company will achieve what is supposed to be. It covers the long term strategy, strategic option, strategic objective and strategic analysis.

 

 

For that matter, our company must set long term business strategies that involve vision and mission of the company. We also stress on the ethic and business quality policy.

VISION

We strive to be the leading company in Green Technology with excellent quality of green product and to manufacture the most friendly environment product in market.

CORPORATE MISSION

•      To use our expertise to improve the technology with new research and development in Green Technology.

•      To train and developing our human resources for career   satisfaction leading to customer-oriented service.

BUSINESS ETHICS

•       Honesty

•      Tolerancy

•      Transparency

QUALITY POLICY

•      Quality and productivity

•      Friendly environment product

•      Continuous improvement and innovation

                     

2.0 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Strategic management refers to the art of planning a business at the highest possible level. It is the duty of the company’s leader or leaders. Strategic management focuses on building a solid fundamental structure to the business that will subsequently be fleshed out through the combined efforts of every individual that employed. Strategic management hinges upon answering three key questions:

1.      What are the business’s objectives?

2.      What are the best ways to achieve those objectives?

3.      What resources are required to make that happen?

Answering the first question requires serious thought about what our ultimate goals are for the business. What are we trying to make happen and what are we attempting to facilitate or enable. What is the best possible outcome our company can aspire to.

Drilling down to reveal a company’s core objectives can have several phases:

·         Assessing the landscape within which the company will operate, and formulating how the company sees its role within that landscape. This is commonly known as a mission statement.

·         Establishing objectives to answer some of the unmet needs, taking both a long and short-term view of what the company can offer. This is commonly known as a vision statement.

·         Specifying the goals the company has for itself, both in terms of financial and strategic objectives.

Once these steps have been taken, a strategic plan should begin to emerge by effectively setting the stage for answering the second question above, or “How best can we reach our goals?” Phase two of successful strategic management is formulating a plan by which the company can accomplish what it sets out to do.

`Within this phase, a chain of command should be put in place, pairing individuals with the right skills, knowledge, and experience with the business’s needs and objectives. From there, responsibilities for processes and tasks should be distributed across the full chain of command, delegating work to teams and individuals so that they company’s goals can be attained through the combined efforts of all employees. This includes communicating responsibilities and deliverables (what needs to be done, and how the results of those tasks will be measured).

Finally, strategic management involves allocating the right amount of resources to the different parts of our business so that those assigned to particular goals have what they need to meet their objectives. This ranges from providing our workers with the right supplies to performing systems by which employees receive the necessary training, all work processes are tested, and all information and data generated is documented. To effectively manage our business strategically, every inch of our company must have its needs met in these ways, so all parts can work together as a seamless, highly functioning whole.

A critical but often overlooked aspect of strategic management is the need for it to be both planned and unplanned. Company leaders must take the initiative in setting out how the company should function and operate, but they must also be dynamic in responding to needs and requirements as they arise. Strategic management is not a static process that can be limited to a linear process. Often, unexpected results arise (which can be both positive and negative) and strategic managers must be able to respond to occurrences that cannot be predicted.

Effective strategic management is flexible and agile, enabling companies to move quickly in response to new challenges, and replace outmoded ideas and practices with processes that can help meet new needs as they present themselves.

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF I-GREEN TECH SDN BHD

Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long-term, which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations. Basically, there are three levels of strategy in organization which are corporate, business and functional strategy.

Corporate Strategy

Corporate level strategy fundamentally is concerned with the selection of businesses in which the company should compete and with the development and coordination of that portfolio of businesses. From this level of strategy, our company, i-Green Tech Sdn Bhd has selected green technology as our core business.

Green technology is actually the application of the environmental science to conserve the natural environment and resources, and to curb the negative impacts of human involvement. We choose green technology due to the increasing of demand from the customer about green product and the awareness of community regarding green technology itself. Other than that, it is also a way to produce technology in ways that do not damage or deplete the earth's natural resources. The use of green technology also is supposed to reduce the amount of waste and pollution that is created during production and consumption.

Business Strategy

A strategic business unit may be a division, product line, or other profit center that can be planned independently from the other business units of the firm. At this business unit level, the strategic issues are less about the coordination of operating units and more about developing and sustaining a competitive advantage for the goods and services that are produced.

In our company, we are focusing on the production of a product that based on the green technology called as “composting bin”. In order to developing and maintaining the competitive advantage of our product, we are taking several actions which are:

1.      Produce the product that has specifications that required and satisfied by the customer.

2.      Use the latest technology, equipment and machinery in production.

3.      Selecting the best supplier among the existing suppliers and rank them based on their performance.

4.      Make a proper planning in order to ensure that our product can be send to the customer on time.

5.      Improve our supply chain management.

Functional Strategy

The functional level of the organization is the level of the operating divisions and departments. The strategic issues at the functional level are related to business processes and the value chain. Functional units of an organization are involved in higher level strategies by providing input into the business unit level and corporate level strategy, such as providing information on resources and capabilities on which the higher level strategies can be based. Once the higher-level strategy is developed, the functional units translate it into discrete action-plans that each department or division must accomplish for the strategy to succeed.

There are several departments that existed in i-Green Tech Sdn Bhd:

·         Marketing Department

The function of this department is to determine what the customer wants. Then, it is also responsible for customer relationship management, sales forecasting, vendor management, market research, sales analysis, price analysis, sales reporting and inventory maintenance.

·         Financial Department

The function of this department is to prepare the budget for the company. It is duty of finance department of company to make the budget before actual providing money to any department. The other responsibilities of financial department are financial management, management of investments of company, management of taxes and management of financial risks.

·         Human Resource Department

The functions of this department are for recruitments and job specifications, preparing manpower budget and list of backups at certain levels, manage the performance appraisal reports and awards for performers, staff trainings and also service rules and acknowledgement.

·         Research and Development Department

This department is responsible for make a research for and development of new products, ensuring the new product meets the product specification, researching the product according to allocated budget and also manages the product maintenance and enhancement.

·         Manufacturing Department

This department responsible for turning inputs into finished outputs through a series of production processes.

·         Quality Department

The function of this department is to evaluate the quality level of a product that has been produced. Besides, it is also identifying what checks and arrangements are required, preliminary checking components, ingredients and materials, checking components, checking packaging materials, checking packed products and customer support.

SWOT ANALYSIS

A scan of the internal and external environment is an important part of the strategic planning process. Environmental factors internal to the firm usually can be classified as strengths (S) or weaknesses (W), and those external to the firm can be classified as opportunities (O) or threats (T). Such an analysis of the strategic environment is referred to as a SWOT analysis.

The SWOT analysis provides information that is helpful in matching the firm's resources and capabilities to the competitive environment in which it operates. As such, it is instrumental in strategy formulation and selection.

Below is the SWOT analysis for our product:

Strength

·         Environments based product

·         Product enhancement compared to other

·         Skilled labor and management

Weaknesses

·         Limited manpower

·         Medium capital

·         Small R&D department

Opportunities

·         Few rivals

·         Rising demands

·         Multiple options of technology

Threat

·         Increasing number of rivals

·         Unstable economy

·         Availability of cheaper technology

PORTER’S FIVE FORCES

The model of pure competition implies that risk-adjusted rates of return should be constant across firms and industries. However, numerous economic studies have affirmed that different industries can sustain different levels of profitability; part of this difference is explained by industry structure. Michael Porter provided a framework that models an industry as being influenced by five forces. All of these forces have give a great influence to the positioning of i-Green Tech Sdn Bhd in the market. Porter’s five forces are:

1.      Supplier power – bargaining power of suppliers

2.      Threat of new entrants – Threat of potential new competitors

3.      Threat of substitutes – Threat of substitute products or services

4.      Buyer power – bargaining power of buyers

5.      Degree of rivalry – rivalry among competing firms

PORTER’S COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES

These competitive strategies are used to counter the five forces that discussed earlier. The business unit level is the primary context of industry rivalry. Michael Porter identified three competitive strategies (cost leadership, differentiation, and focus) that can be implemented at the business unit level to create a competitive advantage. The proper competitive strategy will position the firm to leverage its strengths and defend against the adverse effects of the five forces. Generally, there are four types of Porter’s Competitive Strategies (based on the combination of cost leadership, differentiation, and focus):

1.      Differentiation Strategy

Offers products and services that are uniquely different from the competition

2.      Focused Differentiation Strategy

Offers a unique product to a special market segment

3.      Cost Leadership Strategy

Seeks to operate at lower costs than competitors

4.      Focused Cost Leadership Strategy

Uses cost leadership and target needs of a special market.

Based on the Porter’s competitive strategies, i-Green Tech Sdn Bhd is based on the Differentiation Strategy. This is due to the product which is unique and our target scope is broad. We have developed a product that offers unique attributes that are valued by customers and different from the products of the competition. We charge a premium price for our product due to the value added by the uniqueness of the product. In addition, in order to ensure that our company can maintain the differentiation strategy, we developed the following internal strengths:

·         Access to leading scientific research.

·         Highly skilled and creative product development team.

·         Strong sales team with the ability to successfully communicate the perceived strengths of the product.

·         Corporate reputation for quality and innovation

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP (BCG)

The BCG growth-share matrix displays the various business units on a graph of the market growth rate vs. market share relative to competitors. It analyzes business opportunities according to growth rate and market share.

·         Cash Cow - a business unit that has a large market share in a mature, slow growing industry. Cash cows require little investment and generate cash that can be used to invest in other business units.

·         Star - a business unit that has a large market share in a fast growing industry. Stars may generate cash, but because the market is growing rapidly they require investment to maintain their lead. If successful, a star will become a cash cow when its industry matures.

·         Question Mark - a business unit that has a small market share in a high growth market. These business units require resources to grow market share, but whether they will succeed and become stars is unknown.

·         Dog - a business unit that has a small market share in a mature industry. A dog may not require substantial cash, but it ties up capital that could better be deployed elsewhere. Unless a dog has some other strategic purpose, it should be liquidated if there is little prospect for it to gain market share.

The main business of i-Green Tech Sdn Bhd is based on green technology and this core business has high relative market share and high market growth rate. Green technology has a dominant position and growing industry in the market. As the result, it needs growth strategy and lies down on the stars position in the BCG Growth-Share Matrix. So, i-Green Tech Sdn Bhd have selected the growth and diversification strategy as its type of strategy and focusing on the growth strategy which is the expansion through current operations. We need to expand our business in order to maintain our sustainability in the current and future market to compete with another challenger.

  STRATEGY FORMULATION PROCESS

          It is useful to consider strategy formulation as part of a strategic management process that comprises three phases:  diagnosis, formulation, and implementation.  Strategic management is an ongoing process to develop and revise future-oriented strategies that allow an organization to achieve its objectives, considering its capabilities, constraints, and the environment in which it operates.

          Diagnosis includes:  (a) performing a situation analysis (analysis of the internal environment of the organization), including identification and evaluation of current mission, strategic objectives, strategies, and results, plus major strengths and weaknesses; (b) analyzing the organization's external environment, including major opportunities and threats; and (c) identifying the major critical issues, which are a small set, typically two to five, of major problems, threats, weaknesses, and/or opportunities that require particularly high priority attention by management.

          Formulation, the second phase in the strategic management process, produces a clear set of recommendations, with supporting justification, that revise as necessary the mission and objectives of the organization, and supply the strategies for accomplishing them.  In formulation, we are trying to modify the current objectives and strategies in ways to make the organization more successful.  This includes trying to create sustainable competitive advantages -- although most competitive advantages are eroded steadily by the efforts of competitors.

               A good recommendation should be:  effective in solving the stated problem(s), practical (can be implemented in this situation, with the resources available), feasible within a reasonable time frame, cost-effective, not overly disruptive, and acceptable to key "stakeholders" in the organization.  It is important to consider "fits" between resources plus competencies with opportunities, and also fits between risks and expectations. 

         

There are four primary steps in this phase:

          *   Reviewing the current key objectives and strategies of the organization, which usually would have been identified and evaluated as part of the diagnosis

          *   Identifying a rich range of strategic alternatives to address the three levels of strategy formulation outlined below, including but not limited to dealing with the critical issues

          *   Doing a balanced evaluation of advantages and disadvantages of the alternatives relative to their feasibility plus expected effects on the issues and contributions to the success of the organization

          *   Deciding on the alternatives that should be implemented or recommended.

THREE ASPECTS OF STRATEGY FORMULATION

          The following three aspects or levels of strategy formulation, each with a different focus, need to be dealt with in the formulation phase of strategic management.  The three sets of recommendations must be internally consistent and fit together in a mutually supportive manner that forms an integrated hierarchy of strategy, in the order given.

1. Corporate Level Strategy:  In this aspect of strategy, we are concerned with broad decisions about the total organization's scope and direction.  Basically, we consider what changes should be made in our growth objective and strategy for achieving it, the lines of business we are in, and how these lines of business fit together.  It is useful to think of three components of corporate level strategy: (a) growth or directional strategy (what should be our growth objective, ranging from retrenchment through stability to varying degrees of growth - and how do we accomplish this), (b) portfolio strategy (what should be our portfolio of lines of business, which implicitly requires reconsidering how much concentration or diversification we should have), and (c) parenting strategy (how we allocate resources and manage capabilities and activities across the portfolio -- where do we put special emphasis, and how much do we integrate our various lines of business).

2. Competitive Strategy (often called Business Level Strategy):   This involves deciding how the company will compete within each line of business (LOB) or strategic business unit (SBU).

3. Functional Strategy:  These more localized and shorter-horizon strategies deal with how each functional area and unit will carry out its functional activities to be effective and maximize resource productivity.

The strategy formulation and planning process of our company consists of the following primary building blocks:

• assessment of the company's current position
• identification of the company's desired position
• evaluation of the strategic gap between the two and the critical issues to be resolved in order to close the gap
• formulation of strategies and action steps to resolve the critical issues

In summary, in order to determine where it is going, our company needs to know exactly where it stands, then determine where it wants to go and how it will get there. The resulting document is called the "strategic plan".  For example, in our company we focus on the goals based planning which is probably the most common and starts with focus on the organization's mission (and vision and/or values), goals to work toward the mission and strategies to achieve the goals.

4.0 ELEMENT OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Strategic management consists of several elements including :

1)      Strategic Analysis

2)      Strategy Implementation

3)      Strategy Choice

All the element works together to produce a great strategy for a company in terms of decision making and investment for capital and manpower allocation. A decision done for the benefit of the company must be analyze and the greatest must be selected for implementation. Thus, a proper strategy must be develop and must consider all the available option and resources.

In order to view the process of strategic management there are two ways to be implement which are :

1)      Managed through planning process ex. Objective setting, Analysis, Evaluation of Option, Selection and Planning of Implementation.

2)      Managed through a process of “Crafting” ex. Development on Experience, Assessment of environmental changes and market awareness.

Strategic Management process divided into two views which are internal and the external factor. For the first case of view which managed through planning process more toward internal factor that can be develop inside the company while the second one which is managed through process of crafting is more focused on the external factor of the company.

In the strategic management model all the factor for getting the best decision on company future are works together to develop a standard and guidance to the company.

All the available factor and resource must be properly allocate in order all the planning to work in the desired milestones. For a company to achieve a high benefit and moves toward a properly develop, it must never ever remove any of the factor as it will unbalance the focus of the strategic management.

As the strategic management expands into many factors it will help the management and planning team to increase the performance of the company. The factor available in the frame work will properly help identify the cause at shorter time.

I-Green Tech Sdn Bhd focusing on internal and external planning as a medium of understanding the strategic management planning. As the company started develops, primary mission and vision is selected as the core of our operation. Since the developing technology of green product, we want to cope the customer and at the same time upgrading lifestyle of people inside the country. As specialist in the engineering and capability of manufacturing green product, our core principle suited most of the important sector in the planning where we were targeting green technology and our experience in the technology.

Frame work

i.          Strategic Analysis                  1)         The environment

                                                           2)         Culture and shareholder expectation

                                                           3)         Resource and strategic capacity

ii.         Strategy Implementation       1)         Planning and allocating resources

                                                           2)         Organisation Structure and Design

                                                           3)         Managing strategic choice

iii.        Strategic Choice                     1)         Selecting strategy

                                                           2)         Evaluating option

                                                           3)         Identifying strategic options

I-Green Tech Sdn Bhd is trying to be the leading green technology manufacturer as the company being established. Since the analysis from our company proved that the demand in the green machinery is increasing, it is an advantage toward our production and sales. Implementation of design technology is our specialist increase the confident at our site to get proper benefit and higher rates of sales. Finally, since the selected field gives benefit the most for us, the involvement in green technology is the most strategic management and will result improvement in our company the best.

Organization Objective

In an organization it is very vital for the management team and its whole members to understand the company objective as there are trying to strive for the goal. Understanding the objective will allow the organization to become more efficient and at the same time increase the opportunity for the company to move forward. A company objective must consist of :

The reason for the establishment :

1)      What the company does

2)      External influences

3)      Internal Values and goals

All these objective is Influenced by subjective and objective conditions :

1)      Subject conditions

2)      Objective conditions

As the result of it increase the ability to move forward through the planning condition to achieve further state and at the same time applying all the proper planning that was constructed based on the factor give.

I-Green Tech Sdn Bhd targeting to produce eco-friendly combusting bin that dissolve domestic waste. Our priority in the green technology is based on the expertise of the employee in design and engineering and at the same time the demand in the market is wide open. Our core value in supporting the community in providing cleaner and better environment becoming our strength in the market. Our target in the end is all the community, in every house in country and outside the country has our product as is expand in market. Since our target is global, it is necessary for us to maintain good relationship with the customer. A proper interaction with customer provides by us will lead to the successful strategy develop.

Theories of Objective Profit Maximation

In the strategic planning of the company production theory of maximization profit is very important for a production line to determine the lowest cost at the appropriate rate of production. However the planning must consider several factors including demand of customer, product cycle and the marketing strategy involved.

The law itself is believed to have disadvantaged when :

1)      Outcomes of decisions are unknown

2)      What about risks

3)      May only apply to owner controlled firms

4)      Leisure Vs Money

5)      Lack  of data

However at the bright side of the company planning it gives the management

1)      Empirical evidence

2)      Efficiency

Thus a proper planning of production capacity must be properly done without leaving external factor before the production is done. Some of the company restricted to the risk of production since the constrained on the budget thus resulting less profit taken. While at the some planning a rash action of production lead to loss when the external factor changes dramatically when the production is done.

I-Green Tech Sdn Bhd produces part by the demand of the market so that we can be cost compatible to the society. We are trying to cut down the manufacturing cost as we can so we were able to supply society with our product. To get maximization of profit the production in our company must be bringing down to the optimum of our capability. However to make low cost and at the same time we want to increase our domestic market segmentation, we were increasing our efficiency so that we were able to produce with lowest cost. Improvement and training or developing worker skill will lead to increase in production in daily basis, thus we were able to defy some of the risk in the production.

Theories of Objectives Managerial Theories

Managerial decision basically the important part of company future. Most of the managerial decision is based on 4 important targets which are :

1)      Revenue Maximized

2)      Growth Theory

3)      Managerial Discretion

4)      Managerial Utilities

I-Green Tech Sdn Bhd is a leading manufacturer of combusting bin. Since the product is unavailable before us, it becomes a great opportunity for us in terms of revenue and we were able to become the major effect in the product cycle. By becoming the first company, the risk in the production is lower since our product is first on the market.

Theories of Objectives Coalition and Shareholders

In order to fulfill target it is important to return the benefit to the employee, shareholder and the people in the company or an organization. It is become a mandatory as maintaining human relationship will increase the efficiency of the company.

1) Employees              1)         Job satisfaction

2)        Wages

2) Society                   1)         No pollution

3) Government           1)         Tax

4) Shareholder            1)         Dividends

                                   2)         Capital Growth

5) Managers                1)         Responsibility

                                   2)         Status

3)        Salaries

6) Bank                       1)         Interest

7) Customer                1)         Useful

2)        Desirable

3)        Product

I-Green Tech Sdn Bhd is a company that benefits all people with the production of combusting bin. Since the company will lead the market segmentation, the product will become a major profitable company in these areas. The investment in capital from bank loan and capital will be returned with interest. Thus, it will make the cooperation become smooth in the next deals. Besides that, the employees will benefit the most with the wages and benefit given to them in order to increase their efficiency. For the government, I-Green tech Sdn Bhd will pay taxes as for production and profit get. Lastly the customer will benefit from the production of first eco-friendly combusting bin that is necessary for today use.

Theories of Objectives Social Responsibilities

1)      Safe Product

2)      Avoiding pollution

3)      Contribution to charities

4)      Being part for the communities

5)      Societal marketing

Since the combusting bin is an eco-friendly green technology, the specification and its ability will become the main attraction due to its function as well as it marketing strategy. Thus by producing this product, our company has contributed to the society and the management strategy to involve in the green technology will benefit the company the most.

Theories of Objectives

 

1)      Single or Multiple Objectives

2)      Goal Hierarchy

3)      Floor Level

4)      What Should Be Top

Some Other Issues

1)      Short or long term

2)      Profit and Risk

3)      Survival

4)      The firm as a hobby

I-Green Tech Sdn Bhd has multiple objectives as to become leading company in green technology; we were also wanted to become society based company that produces for the society improvement. Our primary objective in green technology will serve most people and gives great impact in the market. Profit is very important in our objective. However we were willing to take risk as to become leading manufacturer. Our survival as a company is basically with proper planning and marketing strategy that will gives advantage for us in the market.

 

 

5.0 STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS

Strategy is integral to organisations of different sizes and maturity. Every plan is unique to the organisation and its state. The correct formula will provide the right direction to focus efforts and with correct execution, you will achieve success.

i-Green Tech Sdn Bhd consulting practice is committed to deliver measurable value for customer by delivering management solutions across four service lines:

·                     Corporate strategy

·                     Customer and market strategy

·                     Performance improvement

·                     Supply chain

Corporate strategy

In most (large) corporations there are several levels of management. Corporate strategy is the highest of these levels in the sense that it is the broadest - applying to all parts of the firm - while also incorporating the longest time horizon. It gives direction to corporate values, corporate culture, corporate goals, and corporate missions. Under this broad corporate strategy there are typically business-level competitive strategies and functional unit strategies.

There are organisations that think, and there are organisations that do. At the top of the mountain lie organisations that do both. They have a vision and they have a strategy for achieving that vision. They implement that strategy through everything they do. These great organisations are able to create and capture value today and position themselves for greater value tomorrow.

For our Corporate Strategy, we are struggling very hard to position our organization in terms of responsiveness, cost leadership and product differentiation requirements. All of these terms are very crucial for every company to have competitive advantage in the market compared to the other competitor.

Our corporate strategy service offerings:

Corporate strategy

Determine the best strategy to be competitive in the market place.

Strategic flexibility

Effectively prepare and position our organisation for the future.

Step-by-step growth 

Continually identify, evaluate and address the needs within the market to accordingly adjust our performance trajectory.

Synergy 

Evaluate inter-divisional cooperation and configuration to create a more successful emerging structure.

Intellectual asset management

Efficiently and effectively create, acquire, manage, protect and extract value from IPs.

Innovation and growth 

Launch and improve programs to enhance our ability to innovative

Customer and market strategy

In today's world, no matter how had you try to avoid the reality of it, we are all market facing. If everyone has a customer, it doesn't matter if you are a utility company, an airline, an Internet service provider, a telecom, a government agency, a hospital or a bank; you are a retailer. The customer is closer than you think.

 

Our customer and market strategy offerings:

 

Customer experience

Understand and define the ideal customer experience and improve the quality of interaction.

Product, market and customer strategy

We provide insights and expertise in developing market strategies, customer segmentation and marketing resource management.

Pricing

Optimize pricing to increase profitability through our price setting and price execution methods.

Marketing effectiveness

Understand competitive factors for better market positioning.

Sales transformation

Align and support company sales force to increase its market share via customer transformation initiatives.

Investment strategy

Make the right investments for the right product innovations.

 

Performance improvement

Many organisations have a vision of where they want to be but don't have the ability to enact the changes they need within to reach that destination. This change needs to be executed in properly defined steps, one at a time. The mistake is in taking wrong ones or too many at once. Transformation, when completed one at a time, will lead to organisational success.

Our performance improvement service offerings:

 

Capital and real estate transformation

Maximizing value to exact performance from our capital and real estate assets.

Optimised operations 

Maximise the efficiency, control and value of our back-office operations.

Expansion optimisation

Global and domestic expansion through optimal and intelligent deployment of resources.

Enterprise cost reductions 

Employ cost reduction measures that are immediate and sustainable.

Shared Services

Evaluate the costs and benefits of enacting a shared services strategy

 

 

Supply chain

Corporations which have mastered supply chain performance and its complexity have seen its efforts translated into tangible results - higher profits, lower costs and greater operational efficiency. The challenge today is in the increasingly globalised business climate, where intimate knowledge of global industry practice and trends can give your supply chain strategy the needed 'edge' to exceed industry expectations.

 

Our supply chain service offerings:

 

Lean and optimise 

Assisting to develop executable strategies that provide a balanced approach to simultaneously reduce waste and complexity.

Increase profits 

Reduce cost while maintaining quality to ultimately drive earnings.

 

Product innovation and lifecycle management

Bring products to market faster through reduction of overall cycle time and development of complexity, improving design reuse and collaboration in the design process.

Supply chain strategy

Capabilities and strategy tactics and enabling technologies to improve the flow and cost of handling goods.

Sourcing and procurement

Implement a sustainable sourcing framework though a combination of technology and strategy.

 

Our organisation strategies offerings:

Organisation strategies

• Organisation design

Helping our clients drive value through their organisation by redesigning and redefining their capabilities, operating model, structure, role and responsibilities

• Job design

Designing workgroups and individual roles, responsibilities, accountabilities, competencies, and metrics to enable deployment of process, technology, or compliance-driven change. Helping align an individual’s job with the organisation’s objectives.

Strategic change

• Change leadership

Working with senior executives to lead and drive strategic and operational changes throughout the organisation. Includes identifying and mitigating people risks when dealing with change, designing and monitoring change management plans, and obtaining buy-in from critical stakeholders.

• High-performing culture

Assessing and managing culture to build sustainable performance-driven organisations. Strategic goals are linked with employee behaviour, facilitating two ultimate outcomes: increased employee engagement and business performance. While culture change is a slow process, it can be accelerated and quick wins can be achieved.

• Strategic communication

Connecting the hearts and minds of people to strategy through a spectrum of modular services, including “traditional” stakeholder management communications, internal branding, social media, and advisory on communications as a function and strategic visioning.

6.0 COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Competitive advantage can be viewed as any activity that creates superior value above its rivals. A company wants the gap between perceived value and cost of the product to be greater than the competition. It can be gained by offering the consumer a greater value than the competitors, such as by offering lower prices or providing quality services or other benefits that justify a higher price. A firm is said to have a "sustainable" competitive advantage when its competitors are unable to duplicate the benefits of the firm's strategy. To attain a "sustainable" competitive advantage, its generic strategy must be based on:

• Valuable. It is of value to consumers.
• Rare. It is not commonplace or easily obtained.
• Inimitable. It cannot be easily imitated or copied by competitors.
• Non-substitutable. Consumers cannot or will not substitute another product or attribute for the one providing the firm with competitive advantage.

Michael Porter defines three generic strategies that firm's may use to gain competitive advantage: cost leadership, differentiation, and focus. A firm utilizing a cost leadership strategy seeks to be the low-cost producer relative to its competitors. A differentiation strategy requires that the firm possess a "non-price" attribute that distinguishes the firm as superior to its peers. Firms following a focus approach direct their attention to narrow product lines, buyer segments, or geographic markets. "Focused" firms will use cost or differentiation to gain advantage, but only within a narrow target market.

Our company, i-Green Technology Sdn Bhd, focused on the products and image differentiation compared to other competitors. Product differentiation can be achieved by offering a valued variation of the physical product. The ability to differentiate a product varies greatly along a continuum depending on the specific product. In Principles of Marketing (1999), authors Gary Armstrong and Philip Kotler note that differentiation can occur by manipulating many characteristics, including features, performance, style, design, consistency, durability, or reliability. i-Green Tech offer unique products with high quality and customization, based on green products, we differentiate and utilizing environmental value as our image and products thus we consider that as our order-winning factor.

Green and Competitive Advantage

Due to environmental legislation, economic influences and increasing concern about the environment among the general public, today’s businesses are becoming more committed to environmental issues. Many companies have considered adopting green practices, such as offering green products, working with green suppliers, retrofitting their office, building to become more eco-friendly, and offering green solutions. If a business wants to attract the increasingly large environmentally-conscious market and gain a competitive edge, it must become known as an eco-friendly organization.

A global study of 11,000 consumers in the U.S., U.K., and others on their attitudes toward green products showed that 80 percent of the world’s consumers said they were attentive to sustainability issues. An estimated one billion people in over 180 countries participated in Earth Day 2009.In addition, media attention given to environmental awareness is rapidly increasing. Mainstream business publications such as Fortune, BusinessWeek, and the Wall Street Journal have dramatically increased their coverage of the topic. There has been an abundance of high-profile stories and special features on green products and businesses. Green TV programming has exploded in popularity such as Planet Green, The Green, and Go Green TV.

Same phenomenon happens in Malaysia where government sector especially struggle to promote Malaysia as regional green economy hub for green technology, eco-products and services. Towards that vision, Malaysia has organized lots of international conference such as The International Greentech & Eco-Products Exhibition & Conference Malaysia 2010 (IGEM), collaborating with other country to improve the sector and lunches green technology policy to government and private sector. Besides, more banks in Malaysia are going into green technology financing in view of the potential market for environmental business. However, it is still considerably new industry in our country.

Environmental concern and social responsibility are the selling point and marketing schemes of our product to customers which will make our company to sustain the competitive advantage. Offering green products and design solutions, if effectively marketed and advertised, can significantly promote our brand and make our business stand out in customers’ minds.

Advantages of Green Practices

Taking a green approach as business strategy offers many advantages because making a positive impact on the environment yields increased sales, profits, and positive PR as the recession resides. A green approach incorporates and enhances all of the elements critical to building a sustainable company: a strong competitive stance, lower operating expenses, powerful marketing, solid public relations, good brand awareness, a solid reputation, and a well-run company.

Good corporate citizenship gives a firm a strong, positive reputation. Adopting green practices and green design solutions demonstrates that an organization has the good of the public at heart. As the spirit of good corporate citizenship, this promotes goodwill and helps the company develop a great reputation by demonstrating environmental consciousness. Going green provides good companies a variety of ways to promote their good works. It helps generate a positive business image with environmentally conscious customers, employees, and the marketplace.

Sustainability is now a core component of corporate brands. Offering green products and design solutions, if effectively marketed and advertised, can significantly promote our brand and make our business stand out in customers’ minds. If you redesign a product so it doesn’t have toxic substances, it’ll cut regulatory burdens and avoid a potential incident down the road. If we can cut waste and reduce resource use, we’ll save money.

Order Qualifier and Order Winner

The discipline of operations management developed some of its own ideas about strategy and those ideas changed over time. In general, the four major strategic objectives or advantages of the operations function are: Low Cost, High Quality, Speed (Delivery), and Flexibility. Most firms today would argue that it is not enough to do well on only one dimension; firms must do well on all four. But firms may still choose to emphasize one as a competitive advantage; this is somewhat akin to order winners/qualifiers, firms must now meet very high thresholds of performance on three of the dimensions, and then excel on the order winning dimension.

Determining the order qualifier and order winner for a company is important part of strategy formulation. Order qualifiers are those characteristics that must be present at a minimum for a product to be considered for purchase by a consumer. For example, for a consumer to consider purchasing a toy for a child, it must have certain features like safe construction, parabolic shaping, and proper function. After identifying the toys that "qualify" with those characteristics, the order winner might be price. The order winner is the final factor on which the consumer bases the purchasing decision.It’s determined by individual customers and whole market to an industry. Furthermore, they could change over time.

            For an environment based company like i-Green Tech, we are emphasizing on clear green business agenda at every stage. We adapt proactive stance toward environmental improvements in production to gain ‘greener’ image to the public eye.

Product development will not be only the responsibility of product design and engineering department; it also includes the fully team-work among marketing, engineering, procurement, logistics, and materials operations.  Questions like: how to ship your products to customer effectively?  What green components can be purchased?  What is the optimal packaging size and re-cycle materials to pack your product?  Company has to consider the new product development process as part of the green supply chain strategy.    

Manufacturer has to design their process in a green way as well.  Indirect supplies should not include any toxin materials.  Process will not generate hazardous wastes and emissions to the environment. 

Planning

·       Factor sustainability into strategy, future resources, and budgets. Our company has highlighted proactive sustainability as a core value in our mission statement.

·       Joining in industry partnerships with respected certification programs is a smart long-term investment.

·       Clear business case for sustainability initiatives.

·       Join any local or international conference about environment awareness and contribute to society in environment awareness campaign.

Processes

·       Go green across the full value chain. Switch to recycled packaging, the raw materials used, product’s supplied and transported method, image of the product and company.

·       Reliance on recyclable or renewable materials, new energy and material conservation initiatives, and "replenishment" programs (such as forest replanting programs)

·       ‘zero-defect’ as well as ‘zero waste’ goal in QC.

Products

·       Our green products are superior to the other because we adapt the environmental value in the features and providing additional features that make the product more reliable and user-friendly. For instance, one of it i-Green Composting Bin provide alternative to consumer to preserve the environment by turning the waste into plant fertilizer, means free fertilizer for your garden It will save the waste management cost at the same time. The additional features include in the product such as blander and solar power will help to improve our market performance.

·       A green product should use less packaging and cost less for transportation. Thus, we can offer less prices than other competitor.

Promotion

·       Send out messages about our “ecomagination” efforts through TV and print ads, conferences and trade shows, magazine articles, and a dedicated Web site.

·       Attach small brochures made from recycled, non-bleached paper and non-toxic inks on environment awareness on each product.

·       Offer fast and on-time delivery, usually within a week of order placement.

·       Special price offer for internet purchasing.

·       3-years product warranty.

·       Offer Contract Farming and Investor Program

i-Green Tech will operate in the local market. There are 15,000 potential customers in this market area. Currently, we have 2 main competitors at the market. We feel we can capture 45% of the market within the next four years. Our major reason for believing this is that our products are more reliable, quality and flexible, lower price and we are emphasizing superior customer service in all our operations.

Competitor	Product	Strengths related to this competitor
Hijau Kembali “Can O Worm”	Price : RM 500	Their advantages: -          Conquer major market since they are the first -          Product is larger in size -          Better services provided Our advantages: -          Additional features in product -          Lower price offer -          Come with various color and design -          Green packaging system
Vermihut “ GG Worm Bin”	Price = RM 350	Their advantages: -          Attractive design -          Better packaging and delivery system Our advantages: -          Product is larger in size -          Additional features in product -          Slightly lower price offer -          Better advertising and promotion method

A trade-off (or tradeoff) is a situation that involves losing one quality or aspect of something in return for gaining another quality or aspect. It implies a decision to be made with full comprehension of both the upside and downside of a particular choice. In economics the term is expressed as opportunity cost, referring to the most preferred alternative given up. A trade-off, then, involves a sacrifice that must be made to obtain a certain product, rather than other products that can be made using the same required resources.

Trade off itself can consist of several different elements and this comparison between the elements will result in different action. The element of the trade off is as below :

1)      Capital Expenditure

2)      Working Capital

3)      Cost

4)      Service

Trade off itself must prepare for the different in reaction since the output will be changes due to parameter selected to be trade. Operation resource and market segmentation is linked together by strategic reconciliation to hold the objectives and goals of the company. Sometimes, some goal of the company needs to be sacrifices in order to win the primary objectives. This particular risk taken by the company is compulsory in order to get something mo better for the company development.

Focused Operation

In operation resources trade of happen due to :

1)      Appropriate resource

2)      Limited Capabilities

3)      Clearly focused resource

Market requirement trade off happen due :

1)      Clarity of objectives

2)      Clearly target market

3)      Risk of market changes

Strategic Reconciliation will lead to :

1)      Leaning and improvement

2)      Structural Vulnebility

I-Green Tech Sdn Bhd also applying the concept of trade-off in the early stage of the management and production. For example, at the early stage of company development, bank becomes a source of capital for the company. Choosing between loan that gives low interest rates and longer pay back period is a major decision. Since our company is still developing at the early stage at that times, longer period is chosen compared to interest rate. Here, interest rates become trade off in order to get longer pay back period. In the production period some trade off also occur in selecting the material for the production. For example, selecting aluminium compared to matel sheet will reduce the weight but increase the manufacturing cost. To deal with the weight of the product holes aluminium sheet is used so that the usage can be minimize and at the same time less weight. Lastly since I-Green tech Sdn Bhd is targeting to be a leading green manufacturer product, we need to consider using green material and green process. Thus, the capital invested is more than usual production. This trade off for cost invested is a major trade off for the benefit of long run.

8.0 MAKE-OR-BUY DECISION

Definition of the Term

The make-or-buy decision is the act of making a strategic choice between producing an item internally (in-house) or buying it externally (from an outside supplier). The buy side of the decision also is referred to as outsourcing. Make-or-buy decisions usually arise when a firm that has developed a product or part or significantly modified a product or part is having trouble with current suppliers, or has diminishing capacity or changing demand.

Make-or-buy analysis is conducted at the strategic and operational level. Obviously, the strategic level is the more long-range of the two. Variables considered at the strategic level include analysis of the future, as well as the current environment. Issues like government regulation, competing firms, and market trends all have a strategic impact on the make-or-buy decision. Also, firms should make items that reinforce or are in-line with their core competencies. These are areas in which the firm is strongest and which give the firm a competitive advantage.

Make-or-Buy Decision at Present.

The increased existence of firms that utilize the concept of lean manufacturing has prompted an increase in outsourcing. Manufacturers are tending to purchase subassemblies rather than piece parts, and are outsourcing activities ranging from logistics to administrative services.

Make-or-Buy Decision at Strategic level.

In their 2003 book World Class Supply Management, David Burt, Donald Dobler, and Stephen Starling present a rule of thumb for out-sourcing. It prescribes that a firm outsource all items that do not fit one of the following three categories:

1.      The item is critical to the success of the product, including customer perception of important product attributes.

2.      The item requires specialized design and manufacturing skills or equipment, and the number of capable and reliable suppliers is extremely limited.

3.      The item fits well within the firm's core competencies, or within those the firm must develop to fulfill future plans.

Items that fall under one of these three categories are considered strategic in nature and should be produced internally if at all possible.

Make-or-Buy Decision at Operational level.

Make-or-buy decisions also occur at the operational level. Analysis in separate texts by Burt, Dobler, and Starling, as well as Joel Wisner, G. Keong Leong, and Keah-Choon Tan, suggest these considerations that favor making a part in-house:

1. Cost considerations (less expensive to make the part)
2. Desire to integrate plant operations
3. Productive use of excess plant capacity to help absorb fixed overhead (using existing idle capacity)
4. Need to exert direct control over production and/or quality
5. Better quality control
6. Design secrecy is required to protect proprietary technology
7. Unreliable suppliers
8. No competent suppliers
9. Desire to maintain a stable workforce (in periods of declining sales)
10. Quantity too small to interest a supplier
11. Control of lead time, transportation, and warehousing costs
12. Greater assurance of continual supply
13. Provision of a second source
14. Political, social or environmental reasons (union pressure)
15. Emotion (e.g., pride)

Factors That Influence the Decision

Factors that may influence firms to buy a part externally include:

1. Lack of expertise
2. Suppliers' research and specialized know-how exceeds that of the buyer
3. cost considerations (less expensive to buy the item)
4. Small-volume requirements
5. Limited production facilities or insufficient capacity
6. Desire to maintain a multiple-source policy
7. Indirect managerial control considerations
8. Procurement and inventory considerations
9. Brand preference
10. Item not essential to the firm's strategy

The two most important factors to consider in a make-or-buy decision are cost and the availability of production capacity. Burt, Dobler, and Starling warn that "no other factor is subject to more varied interpretation and to greater misunderstanding" Cost considerations should include all relevant costs and be long-term in nature. Obviously, the buying firm will compare production and purchase costs. Burt, Dobler, and Starling provide the major elements included in this comparison.

Elements of the "make" analysis include:

1. Incremental inventory-carrying costs
2. Direct labor costs
3. Incremental factory overhead costs
4. Delivered purchased material costs
5. Incremental managerial costs
6. Any follow-on costs stemming from quality and related problems
7. Incremental purchasing costs
8. Incremental capital costs

Cost considerations for the "buy" analysis include:

1. Purchase price of the part.
2. Transportation costs.
3. Receiving and inspection costs.
4. Incremental purchasing costs.
5. Any follow-on costs related to quality or service.

One will note that six of the costs to consider are incremental. By definition, incremental costs would not be incurred if the part were purchased from an outside source. If a firm does not currently have the capacity to make the part, incremental costs will include variable costs plus the full portion of fixed overhead allocable to the part's manufacture. If the firm has excess capacity that can be used to produce the part in question, only the variable overhead caused by production of the parts are considered incremental. That is, fixed costs, under conditions of sufficient idle capacity, are not incremental and should not be considered as part of the cost to make the part.

i-GreenTech Sdn. Bhd. and Make-or-Buy Decision.

The company is focusing on being a responsible corporate company that can improve current pollution and waste management. Therefore, the composting bin is invented so that the amount of food waste can be reduce by not throwing them away in a rubbish bin but the waste is segregated into the composting bin instead. The type of material that can be composted into organic compost includes food waste, papers, egg cartons, and boxes. In determining the decision whether to buy or to make the components of the product, certain factors as discussed earlier are to be considered.

Components Structure of the Composting Bin.

            The composting bin is built from several components which the main body is made from plastic. Shown below is the list of components of the composting bin:-

1.      Body part made of plastic.

2.      Blade.

3.      Carbon.

4.      Riding Wheel set.

5.      Solar Panel.

Based on observation of the part components, the area of expertise of the company and the capacity of the company which is likely to focus on green technology, the proper action is to buy the part components. Subsequently, the company is responsible on the assembly process of the components. In this context, assembly process include the construction of the product from several components according to the SOP (Standard Operational Procedure), labelling of the product and also packaging process before being forwarded to the logistic unit.

Area of Expertise

            i-GreenTech Sdn. Bhd. is a company which the area of expertise is in the development of green technology. The exploration of green technology is based on the recent demands by both the government and the society which existed from the awareness towards the environment’s condition. Thus, most of the efforts of the organization are directed towards the development of product that offers green solutions for the problems arise. In considering the ability of the company, to make the components of the product would involved other manufacturing processes like injection moulding for the main body, bulk deformation process for the blade and other process which clearly falls outside the area of expertise. Therefore, in this case, buying the components from the supplier chain is the correct action.

9.0 CONCLUSION

Most organisations operate with a business plan and a broad corporate strategy, but not all manufacturing companies have a manufacturing strategy, and many of those that do, fail to update it on a regular basis. Competitive advantage can be gained by having a superior mix of people, technology, focus and direction. A manufacturing strategy explores all these issues. The time scale of completing a radical manufacturing change dictates that a long-term view is essential to permit planned investment and implementation.

 Manufacturing objectives cover such things as cost, quality, delivery and flexibility and usually there are trade-offs between them. Trade-off decisions are also required in a number of key areas in order to support the manufacturing objectives. So our company trying to adopt all the manufacturing strategy that available to ensure the company can sustain and achieve our company goal.