A Rose by Any Other Name
Rose Company manufactures a wide variety of commodities such as “wide variety of paper goods – plates, bowls, cups, napkins, tablecloths, favors, crepe-paper streamers, and so forth – for birthday and holiday parties and other social events (Stone 1). The company’s top management team comprises Tom Rose, who holds the top management position and Jerry Davis, Tom’s former college roommate, is the company’s chief financial officer.
Cassie Martin is the marketing director, Hank Lewis is the national accounts manager, Marge Dinson is the sales director for the independent stores, Jack Kuczinski is the production manager, and Charlotte Hann is the design director.
Partyware industry
Partyware industry is competitive given the many firms that are producing substitute commodities and targeting the same market. Companies that compete closely with Rose include Party and OfficeMart among others, but Rose has a competitive advantage its competitors.
Rose’s competitive advantage comes from its ability to produce a wide variety of commodities, large market coverage, acting as a major supplier to retailers, customers’ confidence in the quality of its products, and competitive pricing. All these aspects are lacking amongst Rose’s competitors.
The partyware industry has a large marker size and it has predetermined price ranges for the commodities, which makes it hard for any company to set its own competitive prices; however, high growth rate can be achieved through quality production and branding.
The key identifiable industry trend is branding where every company needs to rebrand its products by using newly developed printing technology. Rose, as a market leader, is capable of doing rebranding, thus becoming well positioned in the industry.
Rose Partyware’s customer base and relations
Rose Company has a large market coverage, which gives it a large sized customer base and this aspect has enabled it to be the market leader in the industry. The company does not have specific type of customers, but it targets everybody. According to Cassie, the marketing director, customers need commodities that have quality guarantee in a bid to have value for their money.
The company sells directly to other businesses who are retailers, who then sell to the end user customers. The retail customers have close relations with the company because their products dominate the market and they are of high quality, thus enabling their business to attain growth. On the other hand, the end user customers are loyal to the company’s products and this aspect explains why the Rose leads in the partyware industry.
Problems facing Tom Rose
As the key decision maker for the company, Tom has a huge responsibility, which requires him to make the best decisions that would satisfy the top management team, favor the company’s growth, and retain good customer relations.
He needs to make a decision on whether Cassie’s branding idea will be undertaken with regard to the possible consequences, and decide whether to agree to Party’s proposal coupled with how to reject it and maintain a good relationship at the same time (Stone 3).
In every decision that he has to make, there are possible alternatives; for instance, he can reject Cassie’s proposal and ask her to redo the research and rectify the pricing problem. In addition, he can reject Party’s proposal by allowing it to carry out its production and invest in Cassie’s idea.
Pro and cons of each decision alternative
Rejecting Cassie’s proposal and asking her to rectify the pricing problem has a great advantage as the new proposal will be generally accepted by the management team and it has the ability of increasing customer base and hence the company’s profits.
In addition, it will enable the company to attain a competitive advantage through quality products and strong branding. On the other hand, the disadvantage associated with this alternative is based on the relationship between Tom and Cassie, whereby she will feel offended because she would question the trust bestowed on her by Tom, and thus she might redo the research in bad faith.
By rejecting Party’s proposal, Rose will retain pride in its brand in the market and invest more in attaining competitive advantage over Party in the long-term. This move will increase the customers’ confidence in the Rose’s products and make it hard for the Party’s products to penetrate the market. On the other hand, the major disadvantage associated with this alternative is losing the market in Party’s stores, which means loss of significant market share.
The best decision for Rose Partyware
As a business, long-term goals should supersede short-term endeavors in the decision-making process, and thus Tom needs to invest in Cassie’s proposal. Her research results indicate a great confidence in the company’s customers and they are not concerned with rise in the product prices if rebranding is executed.
Although Tom is speculative of losing market share if prices were increased, the decision has long-term disadvantages whereby Party would incur huge cost of production and increase its product prices as well. Hence, the product prices will increase in the future and the great benefits will be to Rose if Tom takes the risk of accepting Cassie’s proposal.
Works Cited
Stone, Daniel. “A Rose by Any Other Name.” Harvard Business Review 2003. Web. <https://hbr.org/2003/03/a-rose-by-any-other-name>