Read the case below. Groups will discuss mini-cases in the discussion forum. Discussion forum will close at specific times . You need to write you entries during that time interval. Everyone is expected to have an active and substantial participation. Just saying “I agree” or paraphrasing someone else’s ideas does not count as a substantial participation. In order to get full credit, It is expected that each student has at least 5 substantial entries. While discussion is in groups, your grade will be based on your individual participation. Schoolstuff MinicaseSchoolstuff, Inc. is a manufacturing company located in the South of the USA. Its product lines, which are geared to the school market, include marketboards, chalkboards, tackboards, presentation cabinets, bulletin board cabinets, and display cases. Schoolstuff is recognized for the high quality of its products.Schoolstuff does not sell directly to schools but through a network of dealers who call on contractors whose part of their business is to build or remodel schools. These contractors compete for projects through a bidding process. In order to prepare their bids, contractors request proposals from all their suppliers including from Schoolstuff and its competitors. Once all the supplier information is compiled, contractors prepare a bid hoping to beat everyone else on price.Lately, Schoolstuff has been losing business to a Chinese competitor whose price is 30-40% lower. That has been putting a lot of financial pressure on the company to the extent that this year they may just break even. The future does not look better.Discuss how you would approach the problems being faced by Schoolwork. This case is based on a real company.reply following discussions:(1.From an operations management standpoint, they should look at their products history and find the sales and inventory records and consider cutting the products that are selling less, or products that have been in inventory for a long period of time, and decide whether or not to keep or sell them, eventually midsize items like those that Schoolstuff inc. supplies, if kept in inventory too long will cause a clutter in a warehouse and end up costing the company time and money to move those items2.I had a thought about the bidding. I think that schools should be able to choose what supplies and what company to get them from based on quality. I think the bidding is just a way for larger companies to take over, like China, even if their products are not as good of a quality. The companies with the best quality products should be the ones standing out to schools. The students deserve the best quality products. I know this is not a realistic idea to solve the problem, but it could help3.Probably the first thing I would do would be to figure out the cost-benefit of no longer using the dealers. It seems like there are too many middlemen in this process, thus the line of communication is too long and probably by the time Schoolstuff, Inc. learns about their standing about a potential bid, their competitors has taken the deal from it. On top of that, there has to be a cost using the dealers and that probably is the reason why their bids may be high because their might be fee attributed to each successful bid. Not to mention, who else can really talk about your product than those who actually work at your company. The next step, would probably be to looking at what products within our line is doing well and determine whether or not to cut the products that dying. For example, if the schools are purchasing whiteboards and not really wanting chalkboards, why keep the chalkboard line if they’re dying and potentially costing money to store them. Lastly, I would look to the marketing department to find ways to build upon on the fact that our products are high quality and that we’re known for it. Sometimes, it takes simple rejuvenation of the brand to make others remember that you’re still there.)
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