Strategy paper for United Impulse Inc

On Analysis of External Environment United Impulse Inc. (The Company under study) belongs to the garments industry. The export sector of the garment industry is currently facing tough competition with the abolition of the quota system. The domestic front on the other hand faces tough challenges posed by cheap imports from countries like China, Vietnam and Thailand. However opportunities abound for the industry with the projected GNP growth of the country projected to range between 6.5 in 2006 and reach 8.2 by year 2010. Private consumptions taken as a whole are expected to increase as well ranging from 5% to 6.5% over the next five years. Further, the population of the Philippines is expected to grow from current 85.2 million to 93.9 million by 2010. The biggest segments of the population belong to those ages 0 19 years old which comprises a big chunk of the target markets of the company. Using Porters five forces of analysis, the garments industry is susceptible to new entrants. However, with the existing competition and rivalry, as well as current difficulties in doing business, this may deter the entry of new players. However, those firms that have a foothold in the niche markets they have created can still be successful as long as they remain competitive in terms of pricing, quality and efficiency in production. On Analysis of Internal Environment Currently, the company focuses attention primarily on the domestics market particularly servicing the wholesale and retail markets. The good relationships maintained by the company with suppliers, customers and employees have given them enough leverage to propel them to survive and succeed in this business despite the difficult challenges and competition in the industry. As a matter of fact, they will have to capitalize on these strengths as they plan to move forward towards a bigger market share of the industry. Its weaknesses though are overly centralized management team, lack of solid marketing program coupled by poor proper inventory system and information management. Nonetheless, these are issues that the company intends to address as they plan out their strategies to meet their corporate and functional objectives. On Strategic Plan The company envisions itself to be in the forefront of the garments in the country by maximizing company value and being the best provider of quality garments in the domestic market and eventually abroad. Its objectives include to capture a bigger market share as represented by increased combined sales volume to retailers from the current sales of P148, 500,000 to at least P200,000,000 by year 2010 and to target an ROI of at least 20% by 2010. Currently, the company employs the best-cost provider strategy with emphasis on niche marketing on the retail sector. Their flagship products carrying popular character license have proven to be an effective the corporate objectives developed for this paper, there is a need to boost sales figures in the current markets of Character Shop and Childrens Wear and to expand further to cater to the Infants Wear and Teens Wear markets. Further, there is a need to develop and penetrate non traditional channels of distribution including supermarkets, hypermarkets ad well as specialty stores including Toy Kingdom and Toys R Us shops. On Functional Strategies The Companys functional areas have the following functional objectives. In marketing, the objective is to generate additional sales resulting in annual incremental revenue to 10% per year through expansion of target markets and channels of distributions. In operations, the department endeavors to support the efforts of the marketing department through more efficient operations and production planning. Cost saving measures must also be implemented to keep costs down without sacrificing on quality. In finance, the department intends to improve the companys asset utilization through increased sales and achieving higher assets turnover and be on a look out on more investment opportunities tempered by proper risk management considerations. In information management, the objectives include making information available on a regular basis in order for management to make timely decisions to improve the companys internal and external operations that will ultimately lead to an increase in the companys net income. In human resources management, the company intends to improve the efficiency and productivity of the employee s in order to meet current organizational and market demands as well as the growing demand that will arise due to the companys planned market expansion and ultimately lead to an increase in the companys net income. On Implementation The 7-S Framework was used in determining the changes that will occur to the other Ss if one S (strategy) is changed. From the framework, we have determined that for the strategies to succeed, the marketing department will take the lead but will require the support of all the other departments inasmuch as all the strategies to improve sales performances and corporate profitability. The 8-SIT Framework has been used as a tool for implementation strategy as well to determined task and task owners