Introduction
It is surprising how many essential items of everyday life people take for granted. Plastic bags are among these elements; though essential for a range of household tasks, they are taken for granted most of the time, and so are the companies that produce them. In the B2B organizations’ circle, however, MultiPak is rather well-known as well respected entrepreneurship providing extensive services in the manufacturing domain.
Producing polyethylene bags, boxes, bubble-and-foam products, and other goods used for wrapping and storing goods, the company has gained quite a reputation over the years of its operations, as the statement provided at the firm’s official site(MultiPak, 2016) states. The firm views wholesale companies as their target customers since the items produced by wholesale enterprises typically require packaging items separately for the convenience of the end customer and the safety of the product during its transportation. Stihl Incorporated is one of the B2B organizations that MultiPak works with.
Value Proposition
MultiPak is surprisingly vague with its value proposition, only stressing that the clients have confidence in the company’s capability of meeting the increasingly high-quality demands (Lin, Tan, & Jeng, 2013). Nevertheless, the short yet confident statement made by the organization points to the fact that it upholds a set of very rigid quality standards. In other words, it is the outstanding quality of the product that the entrepreneurship views as the primary customer value proposition.
On the one hand, the focus on quality seems rather reasonable in the environment of the global economy, where cheaper substitutes threaten to oust products offered by large corporations. Therefore, MultiPak should not only exploit the current competitive advantage as its primary source of success but also move forward by improving it and introducing new elements to it.
On the other hand, using product quality as the main means of attracting clients does not seem reasonable in the environment of increasingly high competition. A range of organizations evolves and comes up with new ideas that propel them to new stages of development, whereas MultiPak with its consistent focus on quality as the most recognizable element of its product may become easily forgotten.
It would be wrong to demand that the firm should abandon the current concept of quality promotion. Instead, it should introduce a more rigid framework of quality management, e.g., the Six Sigma (DMAIC) framework, at the same time developing a new brand product and a brand image. Thus, entrepreneurship will retain its recognizability and make sure that its goods will be memorable enough. Moreover, attracting new customers will become a possibility.
Competitive Differentiation
As stressed above, MultiPak should pay more attention to creating the product design that will make it stand aside from the rest of the enterprises working in the same niche and creating similar products. Building a competitive advantage that will be stronger than the current one can be viewed as the most sensible step to make as far as the development of the competitive differentiation tactic is concerned. As stressed above, the quality standards should be aligned with the DMAIC principle so that the organization could improve its products on a regular basis and, therefore, always be one step ahead of the competitors (Pyzdek & Keller, 2014).
Furthermore, the emphasis on designing the brand that would represent the firm in the global market arena can be viewed as a rather efficient tool in attaining the required level of competitive differentiation. To achieve the identified objective, MultiPak will have to redistribute its financial assets so that the R&D department and the Marketing team should receive the funds necessary for creating a successful promotion campaign.
However, apart from carrying out the steps outlined above, the enterprise should also view the idea of revisiting its pricing strategy as a possibility. There is no need to stress that working in the realm of the global economy presupposes taking significant costs. Particularly, the expenses for retrieving the required raw material processing it, transporting it, acquiring the necessary inventory, paying the staff, etc., affect the financial status of an organization significantly, and MultiPak is not an exception to the rule (Isaeva, Safiullin, Bagautdinova, & Shaidullin, 2013).
Nevertheless, it is crucial that the organization should consider offering its customers certain options for reducing the current prices. For instance, an elaborate discount framework should be created as the tool for increasing customer loyalty rates to the necessary level, as well as attract new clientele.
In addition, the significance of investing in the staff should not be underrated as one of the means of increasing MultiPak’s competitive advantage and, therefore, enhance its competitive differentiation. To be more accurate, the company should consider the needs of the employees just as important as those of its customers. The identified philosophy will help increase the level of employee loyalty in the organization. As a result, it will be easier to help the staff accept the principles of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which will serve as the premise for promoting a new philosophy of quality in the organization (Kalra & Pant, 2013).
New Marketing Practice
MultiPak has recently engaged in the marketing practice known as the development of its Supply Chain Management (SCM) strategies. Particularly, the entrepreneurship has been increasing its SCM channels consistently. Although the entrepreneurship has been focusing primarily on building relationships with retailers, it has been embracing the range of its potential clients:
Multi-Pak USA, Inc is a solutions-oriented supplier that always strives to accommodate our customers with unbelievably low plastic bag order quantities, incredibly fast turn-around times on polyethylene bag orders, and reliable quality on all of our poly bag and poly tubing products, all at competitively priced wholesale plastic bag pricing. (Medical Diverse Directory, 2016, par. 3)
Therefore, the organization has been carrying out its expansion through the acquisition of new customers and the consistent improvement of its products since recently. Although the innovation mentioned above can be viewed as a major foot forward in improving the current competitive position of MultiPak, it is desirable that the company should also focus on the design of a new brand product.
Topics
The changes that the company has undergone can be viewed from the perspective of supply chain management and B2B marketing channels. Particularly, the transfer to using wider SCM channels shows that the firm has been attempting at a rapid and effective expansion. Moreover, the focus on customer satisfaction rates points to the fact that entrepreneurship has been analyzing the specifics of the organizational buying behavior in the context of the global economy.
Conclusion
After years of operating in the context of the manufacturing industry and gaining the reputation of a trustworthy organization with perfect products, multipack may have to reconsider its current SCM strategies. In addition, the quality issue along with product diversification, in general, and the redesign of the current brand image, in particular, need to be taken into account.
Reference List
Isaeva, T. L., Safiullin, L. N., Bagautdinova, N. G., & Shaidullin, R. N. (2013). Aspects of a multi-level study of competitive performance of objects and subjects of economic management. World Applied Sciences Journal 27(13), 116-119.
Kalra, N., & Pant, A. (2013). Critical success factors of total quality management in the Indian Automotive Industry (NCR). International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences, 2(8), 620-625.
Lin, R. J., Tan, K. H., & Jeng, Y. (2013). Market demand, green product innovation, and firm performance: evidence from Vietnam motorcycle industry. Journal of Cleaner Production, 40(1) 101–107.
Medical Diverse Directory. (2016). Multi-Pak USA Inc. Web.
MultiPak. (2016). Products. Web.
Pyzdek, T., & Keller, P. (2014).The Six Sigma handbook. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.