Customer Profitability Analysis Using BCG matrix for Derrick’s Ice-Cream Co.
Derrick’s Ice-Cream Company is located in modern premises and manufactures and distributes 30 different ice-cream product lines from its suburban base in the UK. The products are distributed by Derrick’s own fleet of refrigerated trucks to six major wholesale distributors.
Annual sales are currently around the £10m level, distributed among the wholesalers as indicated in Table 1. Derrick’s control about 35% of its metropolitan market, but this shrinks to less than 10% in outlying areas where there are many small competitors.
Market shares for six customers
Customer % Sales
Ardron’s Wafers 19
Butler Ices 12
Cahill’s Cones 25
Donleavy Ices 09
England Wedges 14
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The cold stores cost is approximately £500000 p.a. to run, but excess capacity can be hired out to other non-competing firms.
The requirement of meeting the sometimes uniquely specific requirements of customers has been causing Derrick’s management some serious headaches recently. They recognize the importance of a client-focused approach to marketing and distribution, but are beginning to feel that they are being exploited by some customers who are never satisfied with the level of service provided, however extensive it may be and this is costing them a lot of money.
So, to analyze the current situation we will form a BCG matrix and recommend decision on its results.
BCG matrix will help us to examine distributors in he company’s portfolio on the basis of their related market share and industry growth rates.
In other words, it is a comparative analysis of business potential and the evaluation of environment.
According to this matrix, business could be classified as high or low according to their industry growth rate and relative market share.
Relative Market Share = SBU Sales this year / leading competitors sales this
In addition, the company distributes their products through a network of 42 owned and leased distribution centers. As of December 29, 2012, they distributed their products via 39 distribution centers in the United States and three in Canada. The company owns four and lease 38 of these distribution centers. Furthermore,
The Nine –Cell industry attractiveness/business strength matrix will have the industry attractiveness on the vertical axis and the competitive strength will be on the horizontal axis ; to the far left corner will be a large bubble representing U.S. grocery and The U.S. snacks indicating that the U.S. Grocery and the U.S. snacks have both favorable industry attractiveness and competitive strength and thus warrants priority attention . In addition the U.S beverage, U.S. cheese and the U.S. convenient meals seem to huddle in the 3 diagonal cell stretching from the lower left to upper, indicating they merit intermediate attention by the Kraft incorporation, however these segments of the company can be profitable if the company can investigate the possibility of improving consumers demand for beverages, cheese and convenient meals through innovation and by providing the consumers with what they want.
An environmental analysis in plays an essential role in business management by providing possible opportunities or threats outside the company in its external environment. The purpose of an environmental analysis is to help to develop a plan by keeping decision-makers within an organization. The changes include exchanging of executive parties, increasing guidelines to decrease pollution, technological developments, and fluctuating demographics. An environment analysis helps the industries to improve the outline of their environment to find more opportunities or threats.
The Unilever Group’s report on ice cream stated that they saw volume growth and share gains in most markets. Specifically they saw a strong performance in Western Europe, Mexico, Indonesia and Australia. Much of this growth was due to the Magnum Gold acquisition and the marketing of this product in these markets. Product quality improvements helped their Klondike line achieve strong results in the U.S.A. The Unilever Group maintained a negative price growth in ice cream. The negative price growth reflected slightly lower gross margins, at constant currency, with commodity costs higher.
We recognise that customer needs differ across our key customer groups and business divisions/units, so we need to provide a tailored level of service to them, in line with their unique needs.
Firstly, there is a common assumption that a high market share will automatically mean high profitability of a product. This isn't always the case, as the costs of development of a product must be taken into consideration. For example, when Boeing launch a new jet, yes they have a high market share but they still must cover the extremely high development costs. Although jets are a very specialised product, it is the same for other more simple products as a large chunk of a companies resources go on design and research. Also, at the launch of a new product lots of money must be spent on advertising to ensure that the product does get the market share it wants. The good thing about this is that if this risk is undertaken, the product may in the future become a cash cow and the companies will be able to reap the benefits and the product will be able to support new products. Do you see the cycle that the products follow?, this all links very closely with the product lifecycle. Of course a company should not just assume that a product will follow this cycle, there is no guarantee that a product will follow this cycle and a marketing department would be stupid to assume that a product will. This is another problem with using the Boston Matrix to make decisions (as it is a problem with all other aspects of marketing), that markets just aren't that predictable.
The modern commercial world’s vicious way of luring in customers creates an endless circle of insecurity, dissatisfaction, and the need for acceptance.
BCGmatrix wasdeveloped by Boston Consulting Group in 1967. BCG matrix is the powerful tool to makes the portfolio of company, which indicates company’s current status in relative market. In the other words, application of BCG matrix gives the ideas for relative market position in market (Linstead, 2015). It was illustrated in 2×2 matrix form; it deals with the two main criteria: about company’s relative market share and company’s growth rate. The vertical axis in the matrix shows market’s rate of growth and the horizontal axis indicates firm’s relative market share. BCG matrix divides company into four groups as star, cash cow, question mark and dog. In the star group, company have high relative market share and high market
This analysis consists of analyzing the external environment of the company (competitors, social, technological, regulations, etc.). The purpose is to identify the key opportunities and threats in the environment.
BCG matrix is commonly used to analyze business portfolio by comparing relative ratio of one’s market share to the largest competitor’s in the industry. Google’s search industry is cash cow
Every customer is different in many different ways and represents different levels of value. Besides, they all have different needs. Once the identification process is complete, differentiating them comes in hand and this will help a company to strategize and focus its efforts on gaining more advantage with the valuable customers. Thus, you can now tailor the company’s communication and service to each individual
The reason gets to be clearer with an examination of the BCG Matrix. This examination technique isolates zones of a business into four classifications:
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix analysis is a method to analyze through the market share position and industry growth rate of a business. The relative market share position means the ratio of a division’s own market share in a particular industry to the market share by the largest rival firm in the particular industry itself.
The BCG matrix portrays the perspective of the product portfolio, which is the growth-share matrix. This framework of tool categorizes products within a company's portfolio or within the business units as stars, cash cows, dogs, or question marks according to growth rate, market share, and positively or negative cash flow. By using positive cash flows a company can capitalize on growth opportunities. From this analysis, it can be seen that the products that is growing
It requires a great deal of effort to induce satisfied customer to switch away from their current existing. Thus, customer satisfaction is been given top priority in today’s competitive world.