Introduction Westlake Bowling Lanes is a small business in downtown Raleigh. It was founded by late Dane Sugar and is currently owned by Sugar’s Raleigh-based son, along with a pair of his close friends. During Sugar’s lifetime, he managed every aspect of the business, but after his death in October, 2008, the new board of directors failed in hiring a suitable business manager, until 2009, when they hired Shelby Givens (Sugar’s granddaughter). The company currently faces serious financial challenges. It was struggling with declining sales and increasing costs. Since 2004, revenues had fallen by more than 40% while costs especially for employees health insurance, maintenance, and utilities climbed. Credits and loans had been borrowed to …show more content…
Capabilities refer to a firm’s skill in using its resources to create goods and services. During the 1970s and 1980s, Westlake lanes hosted a steady stream of family bowlers and birthday parties. Mr. Sugar also cultivated popular bowling leagues, 32 weeks in duration, for his Raleigh friends and neighbours. However, the capabilities of Westlake lanes can be described as a commodity that can be readily found. The VRINE Model | | Test | Competitive Implications | Performance Implications | Valuable | Westlake Lanes has been in existence for over 30 years and this makes it valuable because of the customers’ sense of trust and loyalty towards it and also because of its prime location in downtown close to lively neighbourhoods. Givens educational background and skills increases the viability of the business. | Therefore, it satisfies the value requirement. Although, this is not an advantage, because value is just a necessary tool for competing in the industry. | These resources have helped it achieve normal profit (i.e., profit that covers input and capital costs), up until now. | Rare | Westlake Lanes had the capability to bring back old memories by playing the seventies and eighties music which is unique. Also, loyalty is not easy to buy. West lake also has a very good relationship with its lenders. | Valuable resources which are also rare convey a competitive advantage, but its relative permanence is not assured. The
It is my understanding that Westlake Lanes is considering the following three options for its
Throughout the years Westlake Bowling lanes performance level was reducing, Shelby Givens was appointed as the general manager in order to make the situation better and repay the long-term loans. Board faced the situation whether to sell the business and repay the loans (or) to continue its operations as Shelby Givens plans shows promising revenue in the future.
2.Competitive Advantage – It includes the best product of an Organization in the competitive market.
Is Atherley Furniture Company able to continue to operate their chair division while reducing the debt and increasing the profits of the company?
“Some people will take that, thinking that’s a lot of money,” said Linda Towe, executive director of Project Tour (Teaching Our Own Understanding and Responsibility), an umbrella group that includes Westport and neighboring Lakeland and Mount Winans (“Developing revival of Westport has profit, pitfalls”).
After carefully reviewing the income statement, balances sheet and cash flow it seems that the company has a negative cash flow for 1998, so even before thinking about obtaining internal and external resources for long term investment, the company must assure resources for their own working capital.
The Threat of New Entry: The threat of new entry is relatively low in this case. Because Westlake Lanes has been operated for 30 years in an excellent physical location where close to lively neighbourhoods and restaurants in Raleigh’s downtown area. And during these 30 years, Westlake Lanes gained a large amount of loyal customers. It is hard for a new entrant to get such a location and relationship with customers even though the capital requirement for opening and operating a bowling alley is not high.
In recent years many healthcare organization has been facing financial difficulty forcing many to go into bankruptcy and eventually shutting down. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported that “there were over 504 hospital closures during the 1990s. Approximately 10% of all urban hospitals and nearly 8% of rural hospitals closed within the same period” (HHS, 2003). Hence, going through financial stress is not peculiar to ABC Hospital. Having studied hospital financial record and profitability for many years Langabeer noted that an average healthcare organization like ABC Hospital is susceptible to bankruptcy because they have “significantly poor liquidity, a high degree of debt leverage, and significantly low fund balances
The company lost money almost every year since its leveraged buyout by Coniston Partners in 1989. The income generated was not sufficient to service the interest expenses of the company which stood at $2.62B in 1996. From Exhibit 1, we can say that interest coverage ratio computed as EBIT / Interest Expense was 1.31 in 1989 and has been decreasing over years and currently stands at 0.59. This raises a question of how the company can meet its interest payments without raising cash or selling assets.
Our choices led to a constant increase in net income over the three years. Short term debt increase by approximately 100% percent but steadily reduced over the next three years. We were happy with the positive growth of the company and the fact that we were able to pay off most of the initial short term funding required by the increase in working capital requirement. Overall the current situation of the company in 2018 is good, although the total value created is less than 20% of that created in phase 1. From this we learned that the value of the firm can be significantly increased more through a reduction in working capital requirement than through increasing the firm’s sales and net income.
acquire it or a substitute something else in its place. This is probably the toughest criteria to
Resources are the source of the firm’s capabilities. Resources are bundled to create organisational capabilities. Some of a firm’s resources are tangible and intangible. Tangible resources are assets that can be seen and quantified. Intangible resources include assets that typically are rooted deeply in the firm’s history and have accumulated over time. Intangible resources are relatively difficult for competitors to analyse and imitate. The four types of tangible resources are financial, organisational, physical and technological. And the three types of intangible resources are human, innovation and reputational (Hanson, D., Hitt, M., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E., 2011, pp. 75-78).
It’s noticeable how the company’s operations have been deteriorating as they are having a more difficult time translating sales into cash. Their A/R turnover is not where it needs to be, and in line with that, their liabilities are increasing as well. The company has also been inefficient with the use of their assets as their current activity ratios are not up to par with the industry standards.
Capabilities mean how the company mixes and utilizes all assets to bring the best product offered. These capabilities summarize in company 4Ps, which are listed as below:
They have been negatively are affected by the company's short-term loans with high amount interest rates