Jones Blair Case

We evaluated our company’s position in the industry, and found ourselves in an excellent starting position to further develop our products and match them to the industry’s needs. Our market share is adequate and we can advance further with our strategy improve and reposition our products in the coming years. We have underutilized capacity, which we intend to improve, while increasing automation to reduce costs. We have plans to improve our promotion to improve product awareness and with the appropriate product lines we will increase price to improve margins and better align our high-end product image. Our current financial position is optimistic, showing our leverage (Assets/Equity) at 2.0, when our goal is to maintain 1.5-2.0 overall. By utilizing the analysis tools we are learning what elements are driving demand, how to effectively tailor our products through R&D, how best to adjust our marketing and pricing, while lowering input costs, in order to improve margins and to ensure our stakeholders are all satisfied.

As we continue to move toward the end our quarterly objectives. I wanted to take the time to explain some of our costs. In our particular field of designing and manufacturing products, we are always engaging in ways that we can mitigate loss and improve our processes. Performing such changes will give a stronger presence in the market by allowing us to remain competitive.

Revenues and Direct Costs are as follows: $16,000,000 in total revenues, $9,833,155 in direct expenses, $6,166,845 in contribution margin, and 38.5% in percent of revenues. Their indirect costs are as follows: $1,200,000 in facilities costs, $1,600,000 in general overhead, and $2,800,000 in total overhead. This leaves the OP

The biggest challenge that they face as a company is they do not have the room the increase expenditure by such a vast amount. Currently there is $3,675,000 in promotional dollars allocated as follows; sales and administration expense (995,000), cooperative advertising programs with retailers (1,650,000), consumer advertising (562,000) and trade promotion (467,000). adding the $225,000 increase in consumer advertising will not allow the 5% of expected sales for total promo expenditures. John Bott, the vice president of sales disagreed with the budget allocation and noted that sales expenses and administration cost were projected to be $65,000 in 2008. This led him to believe that an additional sales representative would be needed to service company accounts because 50 were being added. Therefore he estimated this addition would cost at least $70,000 including salary and expenses in 2008. Bott also stated that “That's about $135,000 in additional sales expense that have to be added to our promotional budget for 2008”

Chicago police believe a teenage gang member shot and killed four men at a South Side restaurant last week to avenge the fatal shooting of his father a few blocks away the previous night.

Total Sales Dollars (for covering each incremental dollar of advertising) = Absolute increase in dollar sales / Advertising expense = $500,000 / $150,000 = $3.33

→ about 65% of revenues from sale of individual products; customized products represent 35% of sales

The amount of extra sales that would be required to cover this cost of 300,000 would be

A potential problem with this strategy is with a large, non targeted marketing push, 75% of audience the company would be targeting is not purchasing paint. Based on the company’s standard of recovering the costs within a year, if the company doubles its advertising costs, sales should show a significant increase and there is no guarantee of this.

Jones-Blair needs to increase their sales while keeping their margins consistent with limited resources on advertising and sales promotion.

However we feel that this strategy also has several weaknesses. Compared to the first option presented by the VP of Advertising, we would still need to advertise that our product is coming down in price. If we don’t advertise, the consumer is still going to be drawn to our competitors because they will remain unaware of the new parity in pricing. Also, if we

After analyzing the results from the previous quarter, it was determined that the prices set for each segment were not sufficient. Product sales priority were also not properly adjusted. With the R&D investments, sales priorities needed to be changed for the main focus to become the most profitable market segments. Prices were not competitive which in turned decreased revenue, market share, and profitability. To become more competitive we altered the prices in each market segment. The Workhorse product was the first to change, the price was lowered to $2500 in an attempt to increase sales; at this price Team 4 was still making a profit on this product, as well as making the price much more competitive. The Workhorse sales priority was also lowered to 3rd in Americas and 4th in APAC and EMEA. This product was not selling as well as we had hoped, and was no longer as profitable as it once was which led to this decision. Next, the Innovator product’s price was adjusted; this involved a price increase to $4100. This price was adjusted to include the new

Suppose you are the regional sales manager for ABB Electric, and you have been given a budget for a supplementary direct marketing campaign aimed at 20% of the companies in your region

The case is about the "Jones/ Blair Co." headquartered in Dallas, Texas that manufactures paint in more than 50 states. Companies that supply paint and the various coatings generally make a profitable business in the US (particularly in terms of the more common architectural paint) although environmental laws exist that cause challenges to the companies too.

With $2 million marketing budget designated for Social Media, Video and Mobile in 2011, it is important to allocate the money according to the nature and return on investment (ROI) of each categories. In summary, out of the $2 million, $450,000 should be allocated to Social Media (22.5%), $500,000 to Videos (25%), $500,000 (25%) to Mobile, $250,000 to social partners (12.5%) and $300,000 (15%) to Store Kiosks. The detailed breakdown is shown in Table 1 below.