Make-or-buy decision
Business Spot
Taiwanese smart phone maker HTC Corporation is considering outsourcing manufacturing to other companies to improve its efficiency. Before building its own brand, HTC concentrated on manufacturing low-end smart phones for companies like Apple. However, in recent years, HTC has been under pressure from shareholders to reduce costs because of loss net operating income for the third quarter of 2013. Now, HTC wants to change its strategy; they want to concentrate on the research and development of high-end smart phones and outsource some of their low-end smart phone production to increase their sufficiency and lower the costs. In the smart phone industry, in order to improve efficiency, it is important for
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In the HTC outsourcing case, identifying and picking up the quantitative and qualitative factors is the first step. First, for the quantitative part, the variable and fixed costs of producing the smart phones must be taken into consideration. Usually, variable costs include direct materials, direct labor, and variable overhead. Also, we need to collect the data about the salary paid for workers and supervisors, depreciation of the equipment, and the allocated general overhead. The purchasing price of smart phones which the supplier offered is another required factor when comparing production cost. Secondly, for the quantitative part, HTC needs to do a lot of research to know whether their supplier has a good reputation and reliability, and analysis the benefits and costs if they choose to purchase the smart phones from the supplier instead of producing them.
2. The analysis must also separate relevant costs from irrelevant costs and look only at the relevant costs.
When making the make-or-buy decision, it is necessary to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant costs. Relevant costs for making the product are all the costs that could be avoided by purchasing the product. An avoidable cost can be eliminated in whole or partially through choosing one alternative over another. In the HTC
3. If a cost is identical under each alternative under consideration within a given decision context, the cost is considered:
While we are performing our analysis on different aspects of the company, we look at the three main types of cost. When we remain devoted to improving our costs, and the faults related, we show our same devotion to our consumers. This is portrayed by the quality of products we put on the shelves. Prevention costs, appraisal costs and Failure costs are areas
1. A cost is not relevant if it: A. B. C. D. E. Does not differ for each option available to the decision maker. Changes from period to period. Is a future cost. Is a mixed cost. Is a fixed cost.
Danshui Plant No.2 is a contract manufacturer locating in southern China and was assembles electronic products for companies wishing to save labor costs and they are using semiskilled labor for less than 1 dollar an hour. In August 2010, Danshui Plant No.2 in southern China has a 1 year contract in the period between 1 June 2010 and 31 May 2011 with Apple incorporation to assemble the Apple iPhone 4. Based on the contract, Danshui need to assemble 2.4 million iPhones within 1 year. However, Wentao Chen, manager of Danshui Plant No.2 was anxious about the plant is not able to assemble 2.4 million as their expected and is operating at a loss when the third month of the contract. Their current production was only 180,000 units
HTC’s competitive position is not sustainable. In fact, the disappointing financial performance in Q1 2012 and the increasingly decreasing operating margin all points to a slower growth. Besides the statistics, HTC also face several imminent threats, such as the popularity of Samsung and Apple’s smartphone offering, the increase in competitors in the smartphone market, the shift in market, from operator push to brand pull, and the ongoing patent war with Apple. However there are also opportunities HTC can take advantage of to keep its competitive position. The opportunities are presented in the high growth rate of Smartphone Market, 61% in 2011, and the lack of well made Android Tablet.
HTC start up as a professional original engineering manufacture company (OEM) for PDA and other computer parts in 1999. While it changes its core business from PDA to smart phones, it discovered an opportunity of developing its own brand. In 2007, it brands itself into HTC while introducing the “TOUCH” series. This paper discusses the theory of global strategy for individual organizations and the necessary strategic actions for HTC in order to transfer itself into a leading smart phone company in the
Tommy Jones begged, pleaded, and hoped beyond hope for that new touch screen phone that would immediately move him up the social ranks at his school. His wish was granted on Christmas morning. He was rewarded with that sleek, black phone with 4G capabilities. Two months later the next phone in that series is out; it is almost an exact clone of the first model with the most moderate changes, and suddenly Tommy’s phone is obsolete. There was no great improvement when compared to the old model, no; the corporation knows that it will sell, no matter how small the improvement. This model of constant obsolescence has become the norm in the economy today; companies reap profits with mediocre products, completely uncaring of the consumers. To put
Outsourcing is a method used by many corporations in which their products are manufactured in foreign countries often for cheaper labor.This method method of productions has it’s pros and cons.
\Sam Johnson is the owner of a medium-size electronics company, Integrated Electronics Manufacturing (IEM), which produces high-grade electronic modules used by several major electronics manufacturers to produce a variety of military and commercial telecommunications devices such as aircraft radios, navigational equipment, land-based satellite receivers, and other items. IEM has 60 employees. Normally, IEM purchases electronic parts such as resistors, capacitors, circuit boards and enclosures from several different suppliers and assembles the modules in its own facility. Some of the parts, like circuit boards and enclosures, are built to IEM engineer’s specifications while others are “off the shelf”.
“We always keep on pace with the demand of our end customers, delight them through continuing maintain a close relationship between manufacturing, ongoing Research and Development as well as working closely with supply chain and outsourcing partners, to provide cost-effective, high-quality Smart phone, wireless devices and software to our customers, internationally. Constant Training and Development program and strong culture practices are held to motivate the employees, also, to ensure infinite innovation and creation come out from them. Most importantly, offer attractive
6. The company has three main problems: the first problem is that they may unable to complete 200,000 IPhone 4 units in any of the three months they have been working on the contract. The second problem is they cannot hire more workers. The third problem is the company have problem with the Samsung flash memory installation. We have some suggestions for the company to solve these problems. Firstly, Danshui Company should improve their salary policy. We recommend company should motivate workers to produce more efficiently, for instance, they can set a basic salary for workers and offer them bonus if workers complete target. Secondly, the company should provide professional training for labors. So they can work more efficiently. After workers becoming more professional, the company cannot only use less labor hours, but also save more materials. A third suggestion is that Danshui Company should also improve the quality of production supervision. They should hire a more professional supervisor who is familiar with the production process and is able to build a good relationship with labors, so they can work more efficiently and the company can even save more money on materials.
- The smartphone industry is very capital intensive due to high research and development (R&D) costs and expensive manufacturing facilities. This raises the barrier of entry and makes it difficult for small companies to enter. Many of the firms that compete in this industry have existing long-term contractual relationships with mobile carriers and benefit from their significant brand equity. These companies also have a great deal of knowledge and experience through economies of learning, which gives them a major cost advantage over smaller entrants. New entrants will have difficulty getting carriers to adopt their phones because many carriers are already in profitable deals with the large mobile phone manufacturers.
The make-or-buy decision is the act of making a strategic choice between producing an item internally (in-house) or buying it externally (from an outside supplier). The buy side of the decision also is referred to as outsourcing. Make-or-buy decisions usually arise when a firm that has developed a product or part is having trouble with current suppliers.
There are many competing brands of smart phones and Samsung has reported a decline of profits in 2014. Information from GSM arena shows than Samsung released 54 new phone models in 2014 , compared with 24 by HTC , 11 Motorola and 2 by Apple, leading to increased production costs and lack focus on a specific customer segments thereby losing some of its competitive advantage (GSM Arena , 2015).The lack of popularity of its own OS (Tizen ) and dependence on Google’s Android platform makes it vulnerable on google to develop an “ecosystem”. There are component integration issues as well as loss revenue from potential App sales (Strategic Mangement insight , 2015). Negative publicity from litigation due to patents are likely to continue as technology patents are vague and Samsung with is large portfolio is likely to infringe on some of the patents (Tibken, 2014).
Aside from the impact on price, the opening of an economy attracts imports into the domestic country, which results in the provision of variety for consumers. For example, eleven mobile phone companies control 66.6% of the world market share, inclusive of Samsung, Sony, Apple, Nokia and Huawei. These companies originated in Korea, Japan, United States, Finland and China respectively (Williams, 2015). Consumer’s gain from choice and, therefore, higher utility can be achieved.