Consulting Workshop – Case study submission

Siddharth Das (PGP/18/052)

Rahul Yadav (PGP/18/042)
(Q1) Analysis of the Integron Incorporated case on the results of the study done by
the Consultants
Answer:
Integron Inc, a manufacturing company, faced a lot of issues. To become competitive in
the market, they conducted the benchmarking study through external consultants to come
up with strategies to help them succeed in the competition. Lloyd consulted Hantwood
Associates, to conduct a benchmarking study of the manufacturing process. Two
consultants who were the recent graduates of a well known business school, Debra
Spooner and Charlene Crandall helped Lloyd in the consulting process. The consultants
made some meaningful insights based on their survey:
 The market segment had similar buying criteria but set different priorities to each
criterion.
 The application engineers rated the relative importance of criteria different from
the customers but had a similar list to that of customers.
 While the engineers continuously saw cost as the most important element in the
buying decision, customers said that cost was the only barriers that dissuaded them
from adopting the chips
 The manufacturing department of the organization was failing to meet all the
needs of some segments while going for a general approach to all segments.
 Some of the application engineers complained that they felt like they were doing
two jobs. We can conclude that ICD requires proper job description.

b. Advice to Lloyd
The results given by the consultants of Hantwood Associates were very comprehensive
and covered the entire market segments including the customers and application engineers.
The study showed how both application engineers and customers rate different criteria
while buying the MCM chips. It also gave information about the market positioning of
ICD. As per the results we can suggest the following advice for Llyod:
 Market prediction is difficult, so Llyod should go for agile methodology across
all departments.
 Since the industry is moving more towards software skills, agility in skills will
definitely add value to their organization.
 Reorganization is needed in the manufacturing department because no proper
guidance is available and proper guidelines are required to know if the employees
are working in right direction.
 Llyod should work for fixing the jobs at various levels since we can observe is
lack of communication between customers and application engineers.
 To become a market leader, Llyod major focus should be on cost and quality.
 Relying totally on the survey can be disastrous since few people participated.
Major changes can be implemented and further future study can be done to bring
further changes
(Q3) As Garry would you have waited for the market to become more stable and
repeated the study till more customers where available to participate? Why and why
not?

Gary felt that though the results were accurate, they were by no means statistically
significant, as the survey results were based on very small number of respondents. He was
perplexed to choose from among the following decisions.

Decision A: He could wait and repeat the study when there were more customers in the
market. As the MCM market was still in its infancy and the market had by no means
stabilized, one could not make a credible prediction.

Pros & Cons: The advantage of such a decision would be that it would allow Gary some
observation period to witness the shaping of the market in the future. By stalling any
commitment decisions now, he could find out which of the emerging segment would turn out
to be profitable one and then make radical changes according to the criteria specified by that
segment. This strategy would be an easy way out, and possibly right, but only in short term.
If he waited too long before deciding the future strategic path than the competitors might gain
an edge and leave Integrated Component Division behind in the rapidly changing industry.

Decision B: The Manufacturing organization could choose a general approach to all the
segments.

Pros & Cons: In the survey results it was identified that each market segment identified
similar buying criteria but assigned different priorities to each. From the survey it is clear that
“Meeting technical requirements” & “Quality” are the two most important criteria for
selecting a supplier. Since, ICT’s performance in these attributes is above their competitor’s.
They can target all three segments i.e. ‘Workstation’, ‘ATE’ and ‘Wireless’. According to
this insight, it might seem credible to choose a general approach. But, this would lead to
Application engineers and customer’s feeling that ICD’s approach is unfocussed and would
result in inadequately meeting the specific needs of each segment. Moreover, their staff also
would face difficulty in filling different roles for each segment.

Decision C: The Manufacturing organization can, with the help of survey results, can identify
their strengths and select the most profitable set of segment. And accordingly lay out a
strategic path that will help in developing future competencies.
Analysis: Upon careful observation of survey results one could establish that ICT’s
performance is superior to competitors in meeting the top buying criteria of workstation and
wireless. Hence they could focus on achieving the superior performance level for the
attributes desired by these segments.

Priority Buying Criteria of ICD Performance Competitor

Workstation as per Performance
priority
1 Meet current 6 5.5
technical
requirements
2 Quality 6 5.75
3 Cost 4.6 5.75
3 Ability to produce 5.5 5.5
high volumes
4 Longevity/Reputation 6.7 7
5 Length of time to get 3.5 5.5
volume production

Priority Buying Criteria of ATE as ICD Performance Competitor

per priority Performance
1 Service - -
2 Meet current technical spec 6 5.5
3 Quality 6 5.75
4 Cost 4.6 5.75
5 Continuing ability to offer 6.75 7.00
technical solutions

Priority Buying Criteria of Wireless ICD Performance Competitor

Performance
1 Quality 6 5.75
2 Meet current technical spec 6 5.55
3 Ability to test - -
4 Cost 4.6 5.75
5 Ability to produce at high 5.5 5.5
volume