Michael todman whirlpool

Though Company Andrews is at an equal place with the other Capsim companies at the outset, the other companies will be fighting for the market share with the same tenacity with which we will. To create a competitive challenge, we will need to decide where we will improve our products, how we will market them, streamline our production processes, and price them so that our customers will want to buy from us, but ensure we do not go bankrupt. Opportunities and threats are the external forces that affect a company. Opportunities are seen as “favorable conditions in the environment that could produce rewards for the organization if acted on properly” (Pettus, 2012). By researching the market and our customers’ needs, we can see where our improvements will help to position us favorably. Threats consist of those market forces that could do our company harm, whether they by conditions in the market or obstacles along the way.

Section 3: Strategic Direction

Business level strategies help companies to gain and maintain market competitiveness and include criteria known as key success factors (Pettus, 2012). Our strategy will adapt over time based on the decisions we make regarding our products. The six basic business level strategies one can use for the Capsim are Broad Cost Leader, Broad Differentiator, Niche Cost Leader (Low Technology), Niche Differentiator (High Technology), Cost Leader with Product Lifecycle Focus, and Differentiator with Product Lifecycle Focus (CAPSIM Team Member Guide, 2014). The Lifecycle focus strategies may take a decade or more to manifest and would take several rounds to see any real change. Due to the nature of this class being short-term as opposed to long-term, we are unable to use the strategies with a lifecycle focus (Bowman, 2018). I think the best strategies to employ are Niche Cost Leader and Niche Differentiator. Because Team Andrews has products in all market segments, it is important to treat each one a bit differently. Low technology sensors will have very little costs within research and development (R&D), whereas high technology sensors will need to keep up with the market, especially in terms of product age. Our customers care about product age more than anything else. They will spend more money on the newer technologies. On the Perceptual Map, we wish for all our products to end on the lower right-hand side. This can mean smaller size and higher performance. Those products already starting on the lower-right will move very little, whereas those on the higher left-hand side will move the most. So combining strategies for our products will be the best over-all option for company success.

The Industry Conditions Report and CapStone Courier found to be essential informative data for imminent company. The data retrieved will allow the company to market its sensor products for competitive advantage. Based on my initial evaluation of the CAPSIM Capstone Business Simulation, found innovation, marketing, production, finance, and industry conditions, such as consumer segments that influence buying power of consumers (Capsim, 1985-2012), and (CapStone, 2018).

The Current Situation in the Capsim simulation and the recent changes to the industry.

The current situation in the CapSim simulation of firm’s sensor market segment indicates their customers fall into five markets consisting of traditional, low end, high end, performance and size. These five market segments tend to overlap based on consumers perception of the product that overlaps based on perception of size and performance. This can be illustrated in round (one year) on the y-axis, size, and x-axis, performance, where lower end overlaps both performance and traditional, that drifts to the left; where traditional overlaps both size, and high end, which also overlaps in the upper left corner of the graph (CapStone, 2018 , 1). The current changes to Capsim simulation was due to position of each five segments where traditional performance grew 0.7% and size declined by 0.7%. Low end grew 0.5% where sized decreased 0.5%. High end grew 0.9% opposed to size that decreased 0.9%. Thus, performance grew 1.0% where sized decreased 1.0% (CapStone, 2018, 2). Other changes that affected the industry’s simulation consists of growth rate and buying criteria (i.e. price, age, mean time before failing (MTBF), and ideal positioning). For example, buying power of traditional consumer found importance of price was 23%, age group, 47%, importance of positioning 21% (performance, 5.0; and size, 15.0), and MTBF, 9%