Reference no: EM133539996

Case: "Chris, we make the highest quality grass seed and fertilizer in the world. Our brands are known everywhere!" stated Caroline Ebelhar, the vice president of manufacturing for SLCC Inc. "Yeah! But the customer doesn't have a Ph.D. in organic chemistry to understand the difference between our grass seed and fertilizer compared to those of our competitors! We need to also be in the lawn care application service business, and not just the manufacturer of super perfect products," responded Chris Kilbourne, the vice president of marketing, as he walked out of Caroline's office. This ongoing debate among SLCC Inc.'s senior management team had not been resolved but the chief executive officer, Mr. Steven Marion, had been listening very closely. A major strategic decision would soon have to be made. SLCC Inc., a fertilizer and grass seed manufacturer with sales of almost $1 billion, sold some of its products directly to parks and golf courses. Customer service in this goods-producing company was historically very narrowly defined as providing "the right product to the right customer at the right time." Once these goods were delivered to the customer's premises and the customer signed the shipping documents, SLCC Inc.'s job was done. For many park and golf course customers, a local subcontractor or the customers themselves applied the fertilizer and seed. The application personnel often did the job incorrectly using inappropriate equipment and methods. The relationship between the application service personnel, SLCC Inc., and the customer also was not always ideal. When claims were made against SLCC Inc. because of damaged lawns or polluted lakes and streams, the question then became who was at fault? Did the quality of the physical product or the way it was applied cause damage? Either way, the customer's lawns or waterways were in poor shape, and in some cases, the golf courses lost substantial revenue if a green or hole was severely damaged or not playable. One claim filed by a green advocacy group focused on a fish kill on a stream near a golf course. One of SLCC Inc.'s competitors began an application service for parks and golf courses that routinely applied fertilizer and grass seed for its primary customers. This competitor bundled the application service with the primary goods, fertilizer, and grass seed, and charged a higher price for this service. The competitor delivered and applied the fertilizer on the same day to avoid the liability of storing toxic fertilizer outside on the golf course or park grounds. The competitor learned the application business in the parks and golf course target market segment and was beginning to explore expanding into the residential lawn care application service target market. SLCC Inc. sold the "highest quality physical products" in the industry but it was not currently in either the professional park and golf course or the residential "application service" lawn care market segments. SLLC Inc. considered their value chain to end once they delivered their products to the job site or non-lawn application service. The competitor sold the customer "a beautiful lawn with a promise of no hassles." To the competitor, this included an application service bundled with grass seed and fertilizer.

Perform the case analysis and submit a managerial report of a quality suitable for a consulting practice that provides answers to the following listed below.

Question 1. Define SLCC Inc's and XYZ's current strategic mission, strategy, competitive priorities, value chain, and how it wins customers. What are the order qualifiers and winners? Draw the major stages in their value chain (using the supply chain framework).

Question 2. Draw and describe the customer benefit package (CBP) that SLCC's Inc. provides and that of the competitor XYZ. How does each company define its core business on a continuum of goods and services? Provide examples of two different processes that create and deliver goods or services in the current SLCC INC and in the competitor XYZ CBP.

Question 3. What problems, if any, do you see with SLCC's current strategy, vision, customer benefit package and value chain design, and pre- and postservices (considering the pre- and post- services framework view of a value chain)?

Question 4. Provide a new or revised strategy and associated customer benefit package and value chain that are best suited for SLCC INC to compete in today's marketplace. What options does SLLC INC. have to do their own applications? What do you recommend and why?

Question 5. What issues do you see with respect to "green" in this industry?