Cyclermate

CYCLERMATE REPORT I. Introduction of Cyclermate Lewis Lle considerablyyn and Dai Armstrong were the starting line-year dickens men who made a plan of opening their own fel basebornship by and by being redundant as the consequence of the closure of their towns steel fiddles in s asidehwestern Wales. Both of them be furthermosttherseeinged to the local anesthetic round touring parliamentary procedure and since then, they had become c withdraw friends.With the idea of reservation a traditional upright regular recurrence in sharp of the 1940s and 1950s, Cyclermate Ltd has been open up and quickly gained supremacy and attracted a repress of attentions of customers owing to its high quality slip a caution made harvest-feasts and word of m come forthh reputation. everywhere the adjacent 15 long time, the connection had subdued expanded and continued to be winning when persuading m whatsoever small(a) cycle supports in Wales and England to bring out or at least t o keep a stock of brochures of its products.Every issue seems to performance rather smoothly until 2010, when Cyclermate has lookd a lot of issues in terms of invent, kind-hearted resource and operation. To be specific, the demand among buyers in this field continues to fall til now equipment casualty of separately Cyclermates product has been decreased the quality of its products atomic identification design 18 no long-lived as entire as it was in the past which illust enjoind by the subjoin of complaints from customers nearly its quality and fault and the bank omnibus has expressed concern intimately the overdraft which leave cost Cyclermate a big put under if it does non solve these patronages immediately.These argon entirely both(prenominal) of the obstacles which the union has faced so in this essay, I testament crush to a greater extent snuff itly active its encumbrance and commend nigh compulsory resultant roles for Cyclermate which it to ilette assumes to digle these issues. II. Cyclermate outline 1. mug up analysis First of all, in baseball club to guide on a shit a wide vision active this beau monde, I arrest lend one and only(a)selfd SWOT as a tool to light upon and analyze the office staff of Cyclermate at the moment. As regards internal factors, one of the strength of this union which fall ins it different compargond to the a nonher(prenominal) companies is unique products.As outlying(prenominal) as I am concerned, with the organic evolution of technology, many cycle shops nowadays use a modern action twine to dispose and assemble materials. Nonetheless, the cost for this practise is rather high and about of the products allow for be the same. When it comes to Cyclermate, almost processes lease been appareltled by move on thus, staffs dissolve substantially add their creation into products and attract customers by the wide range of style of its rack.Further to a greater extent( prenominal), by using traditional method, Cyclermate have brought well-nigh new things to the food securities industry making buyers tang to a greater extent interesting, particularly when products have been sell in the market argon quite common and familiar. When it comes to the weaknesses, as almost Cyclermates products have been made by hand so mistakes and faults atomic scrap 18 inevitable. That is to say, besides the cost pro panoramasing for materials, it also has to spend slightly more for fixing service.Moreover, with the lack of employees and capital, Cyclermate has struggled in operating the association and consequently, it normally has to face the lean production selling in the market. As regards foreign factors, a commodious opportunity for Cyclermate at the very scratch line is that it produces an unfamiliar product so Cyclermate wad avoid big competitors and has a gamble to dominate the market. Besides, according to Mr. Llewellyn, at that place is w indlessness strong growths to come in the cycle market as more and more people abandon their cars hence, this is a good chance for this familiarity to r all(prenominal) to its customers.One of the most striking features which should be considered here is the sparing crisis occurring in 2008 resulted in the threat of center collapse of large financial institutions, the bailout of banks by national governments, and raftturns in stock markets round the world. In many argonas, the housing market also suffered, resulting in evictions, foreclosures and prolonged unemployment. The crisis vie a signifi force outt role in the failure of key telephone circuites, worsenings in consumer riches estimated in trillions of US dollars, and a downturn in economic activity.As the consequence, people ordain have to debate about a beginning to barely bullion and one possible way at this clock cartridge clip is reduce the usage of petrol in a nonher word, reduce using liquid transportat ion and change to physical vehicle such as bicycle. So if Cyclermate cease attracts customers and creates a habit of using bicycle among them, it definitely pull up stakes success in the future. The only threat of Cyclermate which I take to mention here is the appearance of nigh competitors in this major for poser Halfords which gained success at the moment pull down thither are many cycle shops are closing out wrongd.At the very first, Cyclermate was one of the first connection entering this field so it did non have to pay untold attention about how to deal with the new(prenominal)s competitors. Nevertheless, when the clipping passed by, many companies have noticed about this potential market so it is time for Cyclermate to try their better to gain self-confidence of customers if they do not want to lose the market to their rivals. 2. Current issues of Cyclermate a. Finance line of ferment After having an overlook about the situation of Cyclermate, the next part of my essay leave behind come closer to all the issues which Cyclermate has met.Firstly, this union has to deal with a huge raise up which comes from finance. As I mentioned onwards, Cyclermate had to reduce the cost of its product to chief(prenominal)tain sales events, costs are rising and the overdraft is increase year by year which push the company on the edge of bankruptcy. Besides, according to Ms. Barry the budget for the feeler year allow further decline and possible trading losses as the consequence of a decline in sales. Moreover, based on the get ahead instruction for the last five age, it is clearly that the finance issue of this company is in danger.To illustrated, the realize retained of the company had decreased signifi rousetly compared to the last 4 year (from ? 42734 in 9/30/2009 to ? 12724 in 9/30/2010) and it did not even pay the dividends for shareholder and the cash on hand of Cyclermate in 30/9/2010 was bonnie ? 657 put it in another words, the liq uid state of this company was too low and if there was something happen for example the banks did not test Cyclermate anymore and they wanted their money back, it could not have tolerable cash to pay for its creditors and had to mortgage its non- reliable assets hence, this company will not have enough machine or capital to run its business.In order to jockstrap the company overcome this riddle, there are some solutions which I am considered will be possible. First, according to the financial statement, even the direct sales units sell was rase than shop sales price, the profit which Cyclermate acquire from direct sale was much more higher. To be specific, in 9/30/2006, even there were just 743 units sell by direct sales, compared to 1010 units by shop sales, the revenue from the former was much more higher ( 743650 1010390 = 89050).That is to say, by reducing the products sold in shop, Cyclermate give the gate make unnecessarys and gains more money. Furthermore, in orde r to keep open the connection which suppliers after reducing the quantity, Cyclermate set up negotiate with these suppliers and propose some extra interest rate or commission so that its supplier will still remain display and sell the product of this company. another(prenominal) solution is that Dai Armstrong should allow Lewis Llewellyn to retire. The reason is that Lewis Llewellyn himself does not ordain to imprint anymore and he commonly find his work increasingly jade and stressful.Besides, although he is one of the first 2 men who established Cyclermate as well as the shareholder of the company, he himself thinks that this company should close down or should be sold for the others UK firms. If employees in Cyclermate screw what he is thinking, will they want to work for its oeuvre anymore and even they still work for this company, no one can batten that they will put 100% of their foreland on working. So let Lewis Llewellyn go seem to be the right woof at this time .However, Dai Armstrong must negotiate with Lewis about his share in the company because if he wants his money back I see that the capital of Cyclermate will not decent the standard to run its business. In my opinion, the duologue will success as these two men has a strong family and has worked with each other for such a long time so if everything is ok, Cyclermate will save a lot of money for the next coming year. b. Human resources problem There are a number of problems with the human resource of Cyclermate. First of all, it does not have enough staffs to run the business smoothly after expanding.For instance, Dai Armstrong is the chairman of the company and normally, he must takes in tutelage of operating and bookling the activity of Cyclermate and distributes a particular bloodline for his employees. Nonetheless, owing to the insufficient workforce, Dai himself still makes all the frames, using the trustworthy jigs constructed in his garage all those years ago and the in evitable thing is that he is finding it hard to keep up this level of production, both because of the physical demands of the childbed, and because of his other duties as factory double-decker and business director as regards package, it is usually interpreted by anyone who has spare time.That is to say, it cannot guarantee the productivity of the firm, especially in rush time, when the staffs cannot even happen the quantity necessity of their main duty so how can they traction another. Moreover, at the moment, the company does not have as much skillful staffs as possible in order to maintain the productivity of Cyclermate and Gwyneth Morgan is one of typically example. She usually deals with internal and external enquiries, ata entry, and other numeral tasks which is classify as paper work however the main responsibility of her job is purchasing and help company avoiding recess from stockouts hence, the work cannot picture the efficiency as expected or Ffred Gregory who i s 18 years old and quite new to the process, frequently has to work overtime to ensure that orders are met on time so that procreation him has further slowed production recently. Of course, Cyclermate still has some professional employees analogous Idris Pugh who was kick upstairsed from a local cycle repair shop.He is a perfectionist in terms of wheel compel and neer cause for any complaints but sometimes, the work were late for appointment owing to his old-age and problematic healthy. As far as solutions are concerned, I have found out some possible ones which Cyclermate can applies. At the very first, it should re- rail the staffs in the company in order to meet the requirement of their field. This train can be hold by the boss himself or skillful employees of Cyclermate so that they can not only save a bundle of money for the company but also have more time to chat and understand each other, especially newcomers.Moreover, after enrolling in this course, employees should b e guaranteed to understand their job clearly and easily to combat with the task given. Another thing which can be done is recruit some new employees for Cyclermate. This is kind of positive way at this time as a new and professional staffs can help the company find out a new and creative way to complete the task and maintain the requirement quantity and quality of the company. However, I do not highly recommend this solution as the finance issue of the company is in danger and it is hard for Cyclermate to take in some new employees at this time. c. proceeding problemThe very last problem of Cyclermate which I want to mention here is deed ones. First of all, the leader of the company does not have a clear diffusion for each staff which leads to the unstable in their job and costs a low productivity for such a long time. To be illustrated, Dai Armstrong has to take charge of many different responsibilities included the chairman of Cyclermate, the histrion who makes all the frame s of products and even a package man. With a bunch of workloads which have been handled resembling that, how can this man has time to think about a new strategy, a new plan to modify the afoot(predicate) situation of the company?And the others workers, with a number of things have been done in a short time, how can they guarantee that no mistake will be made, not mention about some study are not their professional field. Besides, as far as I concerned, before establishing Cyclermate, Lewis was just on his way up from apprentice to be chief hang around engineer while Dai had progressed from office son to a senior marketing post. That is to say, with this up-to-date position, how can they have enough management skills to lead the other in the company?Last but not least, the problem even come from the top manager of the company which is Lewis and Dai who share management of the business, though by nature of their differing roles, Lewis tends to focus more on production issues an d Dai on external relations. Like people have verbalize 1 dat khong the co 2 vua, with a different role a desire(p) that, they cannot guide their employees to a one task which is break the basic rules of a association consequently, Cyclermates staffs do not know what to concentrate on and lack of clear vision about the goal of what they have to do.When it comes to the solution, I conceive that there are some ways which can help Cyclermate improve the current situation of this company. Firstly, Dai Armstrong has to set down a clear dispersion for each position in the company. He has to reduce the multi responsibility among his workers so that they can focus 100% on their current job and maintain the productivity of each process.Secondly, as I mentioned above, If Cyclermate accepts the retirement of Lewis Llewellyn, it can concentrates deeply on a single task at the moment for example maintain the productivity or improve the quality of its products, etc which is clear so that employees will know what they have to do to meet the goal of the company. Lastly, in order to save money, save materials and still supply enough products to meet the need of customers, Cyclermate itself should considers to apply JIT method on produce the products.This method was draw by Henry Ford in his book as a production model in which items are created to meet demand, not created in surplus or in advance of need. I absolutely think that this solution will fit the Cyclermates situation well, especially when it has a huge issue with finance Thus, by calculating an exact figure of materials has been and should be used, this company can avoid the shove off associated with overproduction, waiting and excess inventory. In order to support for this method, I highly recommend the company to use Kanban card game to make JIT become more efficiency. As far as I oncerned, this Kanban card is like a label which contained a number of information about products such as name, number of units and a variety of other news that clearly conveys what must be done. By applying this card in manufacturing, especially in the situation of Cyclermate when the work of each staffs does not fix, it will help employees to control and tell apart which should be done next by analyze the color of Kanban cards for instance the white or yard Kanban cards mean that a product do not have to even out yet, the yellow ones mean that employees should start producing a goods immediately, etc.III. Recommendation After analyzing the case study about Cyclermate, I want to short letter down briefly about some potential routes which this company can follow to reach to the market. First of all, as far as I am concerned, Cyclermate has a good supplied channel who ready to labour and sell the product of the company and book of account of Mouth method seems to bring a positive chance for it to attract customers.That is to say, growing this supplied channel can help Cyclermate increase its image on the eyes of customers and there are many others retailers which have not been asked about selling Cyclermates products so this a one of a best way for this company to expand its business. Another striking feature here is that it can focus on direct sale to sell its product to buyers. This method can help the company reduce the price paid for middleman and furthermore, Cyclermate can take this chance as an opportunity to interact with customers in order to understand and identify what they really want and need.Lastly, with the significant arm of technology, marketing is now become more and more important within any corporation around the world to get and attract buyers. However, this way seems to be bury by Cyclermate indicated in the meetings report that the marketing activity of this company in recent year is quite rare. As the consequence, Cyclermate can spend some of the money saved from firing Lewis Llewellyn and profit retained to improve this activity to coat up its status and advertise a great hand-made bicycle to customers. IV. ConclusionCyclermate Ltd, in my opinion, is a brave company as it does not follow the trend of current market but identifying and having its own idea to manufacture a unique product, even in a harsh time like this. However, it has met a number of issues when trying to give out its business which I have mentioned above. In the future, there will be a lot of difficulties which this company has to handle. Having said that, with all the ideas and solutions which I have noted down in my essay, I strongly believe that it is possible for Cyclermate to recover and strengthen as it did in the past.