Debriefing Questions for Round-4

Submitted By: Round 4 - Group 11 - Company: Erie; Industry: C134781

Vikalp Sinha PGP/24/310

Medha Jha PGP/24/098

Satvik Chandna PGP/24/052

Karishma Agrawal PGP/24/092

Sneha Singh PGP/24/472

Theme: Analyzing your competitors: Evaluating your own Strategy and How good was your
anticipation of other competitors

In this assignment, you should choose to analyse the competitor moves (Preferably the
closest). Make sure that each member of your team is analyzing different competitors if
possible. Detailed analysis of your competitor: 1. Give a short description of their current
strategic position -- products, segments, plants, capital structure, source of competitive
advantage, etc. Consider their product line from a “consumer reports” standpoint. 2. Assess
their current opportunities and threats. Please submit your analysis as an assignment

1. Why do you define the said competitor as the closest to you?

2. Given the segments they have settled upon, how big could their sales volume get?
What is the profit potential?

3. Can they maintain a competitive advantage?

4. Predict their sales and profits for the ending year of the simulation.

5. Indicate the performance measures this team should use to assess themselves.
(Cumulative profit, market share, ROA, ROE, ROS, Asset Turnover, Stock price.)

6. What modifications would you make on the basis of the strategies that competitors
(your closest). Would you redefine your vision? Or revisit the vision
Answers:

1) We select Baldwin as our closest competitor because

a) In the segments we are targeting, they are our main competitors, based on the
sales numbers.
b) They also have the one of best overall financial health among our competitors
c) Looking at their investments, they are prioritizing Traditional, Low-end and
High-end. This means that they are not only our current competitors, but would
continue to compete with us in the same segments.
2) Doing a segment wise analysis of competitor Baldwin
a) Adding the current sales values in all segments, and estimating the projected
values
b) Taking an estimated average of costs per unit, and projecting that value in the
next 4 years
c) We are left with the following rough estimates

Possible Sales Volume = 7000

Profit Potential = $ 65,000,000

3) Baldwin can possibly maintain a competitive advantage because

a) They are following similar strategy as us, of being cost conscious
b) Their R&D, and their Marketing focus corroborates their focus on the same
segment as us.
c) Other competitors are not as invested in these segments.

4) Predicting the sales and profits of Baldwin for the ending year of the simulation:
This is just an estimate, but we feel that the following values correctly estimate
Baldwin’s final rounds

Possible Sales Volume = 7000

Profit Potential = $ 65,000,000

5) The performance measure that should be a north star metric for Baldwin is
cumulative profit because in the end, the main objective for any company is to make
profit, and cumulative profit is an excellent metric to consider. This is not only a
metric that is easily understandable, but is also a metric that we can measure year
by year to look at the rate of improvement for the company.
.
6) The changes that we need to make in our strategy are:
 a) Putting more money into the marketing activities of Traditional, Low-end and
High-end segments as this is where they are competing with us and we need
to drive up our demand.
b) Customers in these segments are concerned with the amount of time the
manufacturer takes to introduce new designs and how quickly we can deliver
the product. Thus, we need to reduce the design cycle and production cycle.
c) Increase the profit margins by cost cutting, reducing inventory costs, and
using AI.

We feel that our vision should remain the same as we are moving forward in the right
direction, vis-a-vis, the expected direction of Baldwin.