A company named Acme previously succcessful in another line of products, was encouraged to look for other
Question:
A company named Acme previously succcessful in another line of products, was encouraged to look for other opportunities and launched the mini Crane for use in the construction trade. The market for cranes is dominated by LiftTech, a global leader in industrial lifting solutions, and Acme has found it hard to transfer its previous success into this fast-growing and competitive market. The Operations Director expects the attrition rate to worsen dramatically in the near future and that this could have an impact on quality of output. The Finance Director was more sanguine, noting that Acme has a high Gross Profit, healthy Cash Flow and plenty of inventories. He said, ‘We have kept to our objective of never having to borrow. The recent share price fall is due to short-term investors and unjustified reports in the financial press.’ The CEO was fairly optimistic. He said, ‘The Crane is taking time to respond to changes I implemented last year. The price increase was designed to increase profits, but market share has fallen from 10% to 8% already. I have every confidence in this product and we will achieve the synergies we were looking.
Required:
1) Assess the situation using financial and strategic analysis. Is the ‘no firing’ policy likely to be the solution to Acme’s problems?
2) Analyse Acme’s strategic position and suggest a set of options for the short run and the long run.