Welcome back. As you can see, while you were working,
I've been working. Next week's class, going to bring
everything together. It's a workshop,
real life case and you've got the case. C.W.
Barger & Sons. Here is the issue. This is a business
that is selling a commodity product. The commodity product is a product that
has no differentiation except cost, price.
When you sell a commodity product, usually, the lowest price wins.
Usually, the person with the lowest price is the biggest company.
You don't want to sell commodity products.
Commoditization is the cancer of business.
Commoditization is the cancer of business.
This business, okay, is selling commodity products and that's why its business is
plateaued and decreasing. And the father has told the son, Eric,
you either need to fix this business or we're going to shut it down. And the
purpose of the workshop is for you to create a growth plan for C.W.
Barger & Sons. And how do you do this? Well, I want you
to think about the four ways to grow and I want you then as you're thinking about
improvements and innovation and scaling to think about all the different things
this business does. How would you improve manufacturing? How
would you improve sales? How would you improve delivery? How would you improve
inventory and raw material control? How would you improve the customer
experience? How would you improve your employee engagement? What would you do
advertising and marketing? And then, go use the growth boosters,
say which could apply to this business and come up with a list of ways to
improve and grow this business. Now, I can tell you, okay, that there
are, because of what Eric Barger did, he actually quadrupled the size of this
business in 3 years. He did about 26 different things, so when
you're thinking and writing your list, if you come up with four things, there's a
lot more you could be thinking about. If you come up with ten,
there's lots more you could be thinking about.
And I want you to create your list, then go on the discussion boards and
share your work product and see. And see if you can come up with, say 25
good ideas, then, you will have what, what, is the
case B, which is the second part of the case.
Don't read it until you go do all of this,
then it's the answer, and grade yourself.
What did he do that you didn't say? What did you do that he could have done?
And then that's what we're going to have a wonderful conversation about the next
class. This has been a great class. I appreciate
your engagement. Remember, my little daughter that always
asked why? She would call this class a smoking hot class. See you next class.