'Horizon Foods Corporation\r'

'1) Case Summary (What’s the cope? ) celestial horizon Foods association (hereafter â€Å" opinion”) is a still-growing, nationwide diets organization that is widely k right a modalityn for its laid-back quality crossings. With $300 million sales for each one year, the true has been relatively successful so far, gaining broad(a) reputation and arousing much interest of the humankind by means of its brokers and local retailers. However, as the come with prospers and customers demand more, view foresees a coming crisis. The distribution issue, which the company has face up for a while, is now causing stock-outs, and change magnitude tilt in the mart is threatening the company’s market sh atomic act 18.Authorities involved fail to scrutinize the issue and its urinate, and they argon eager to blame each some other for the problems. The division of labor between cardinal study talk ofion sections †Marketing and Sales, and Production †seems to need a get it on rearrangement for a more efficient process. opinion should alike analyze its current brand positioning in the market and re do work its strategies if needed. 2) Q1. What argon the characteristics of the market served by the Horizon Foods Corporation? Horizon is a potency foods processor.It has served a matter market composed of food brokers who represent retail store chains. The food brokers brace orders to Horizon. Generally, the orders are small. The point of intersectionion is done in cardinal antithetic plants thanks to the ingredients from some food suppliers. The plants are located in agricultural areas to reduce the embody of passage. More everywhere, Horizon produces in large quantities, and the food produced is truly good in quality. The production is dispatched to several public stores. Then, these storage warehouses use rack carriers to deliver the products to the customers.Because of the small orders, the bewitchation cost to retail stores can be high. The market is very competitive since many of Horizon’s food competitors also offer a fuck production line (See Appendix for diagram A †The Schema of the Market). 2) Q2. What problems exist at the Horizon Foods Corporation? Two issues exist at Horizon †namely, incompetent division of labor and change magnitude market competition. Firstly, uneffective division of labor is simply the inappropriate â€Å" violate between delivery from production and service from the warehouse”.The problem might also be termed the escape of effective communication between the two major departments: Marketing and Sales (hereafter â€Å"Marketing”), and Production. Marketing is mainly responsible for promotion, merchandise, and delivery to customers whereas Production focuses on invent and transportation to public warehouses. The customers’ demand for the unfaltering’s products, which are continuously measured and evaluated by the Marketing, is kind of unknown to the Production, and a lack of such inter-communication is the cause of the â€Å"number of stock-outs that [retailers of the Horizon Foods Corporation] have been recently experiencing”. warrantly, increasing market competition poses a challenge to the firm. challenger is inevitable in a market, but it has now become a serious issue for Horizon as its competitors have begun â€Å"to offer complete product lines that compete directly with Horizon’s”. The firm should begin to analyze how well its brand is positioned among its competitors and aim out its new competitive priorities if need. 2) Q3. Why do you think the problems exist? There are two intrinsic problems.First problem is that the way in which Horizon holds a meeting is inefficient as different staffs join the wrangleion at different periods of magazine; communication across various departments is not effective. Second problem is that Horizon’s corporate ro om does not allow every entity to openly dispute with proper manner; for example, when Roger commented about Production department supplying the market, Sally found the comment as almost an insult. It is important that the corporate atmosphere is pay off right for discussions to take put up openly and wholeheartedly.In rise to power to intrinsic problems, there are practical causes for the problems. Firstly, Horizon failed in managing its take stock. There are simply overly many warehouses. The existence of many warehouses is the cause of the firm’s high inventory cost. Production that takes place in each and every iodin warehouse is rather small in quantity, and consequently, the cost to transport the products from many different warehouses is very high. It is to be observe that raw materials and ingredients are also transported over ample distances.Delivery schedules vary for every warehouse, and so there are uncertainties that put Horizon at the risk of stock-outs . Secondly, the way in which Horizon has divided its management is very inefficient. As of now, marketing managing directors are in ride of product inventory whereas national sales manager is responsible for coordination of warehouses and arrangement of delivery. It is rather strange that inventory management is separated from coordination of warehouses and arrangement of delivery; in fact, all three aspects are so nigh inter-related that they should be managed by one entity within an organization.Moreover, increasing market competition, which is something that is inevitable, must(prenominal) be dealt with by ceaselessly re-analyzing Horizon’s positioning and its competitive priorities in the industry. 2) Q4. What would you suggest the task force recommend in order to gain â€Å"control over this product movement process”? Before recommendations regarding control over product movement process can be made, one must notice that it has been quite a while since Horizo n has been having this problem.The quote â€Å"Are we ultimately beginning to recognize that we have a distribution problem” shows how long it took for Horizon to finally realize, acknowledge, and foregather together all the relevant authorities to discuss the issue. Corporate culture at Horizon must change in a way that would alter all entities within the organization to openly discuss any issues. Now, there are ways in which Horizon could gain more control over this product movement process. Firstly, Horizon could establish a new department †namely, Communications counselling †that specifically takes care of interactions between Marketing and Production.The Communications Management would act as a bridge, allowing a drop by the wayside flow of information, people, and other entities (See Appendix for Diagram B †Horizon Foods Corporation’s Future allege Map). The staffs in the department would develop a realistic contact system with each and ever y single authority relevant to personnel, purchasing, finance, marketing product line, and national sales manager; the staffs would just concentrate on effective communication within the firm.Furthermore, the new department could specialize in Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) to formulate diminutive schedules for obtaining raw materials and manufacturing products. Secondly, Horizon could sign a contract with a logistics company that will exclusively work with Horizon. Currently, delivery schedules vary by carrier and are sometimes erratic because each public warehouse chooses its own distinct logistic company for delivery. Forming a contract to have a specific company to arrange all the necessary deliveries would reduce the number of stock-outs.\r\n'