“The Nashua Corporation Case”

I. Points of View: The Director of MIS, Tim Gallagher.

II. The Problem: The corporate expense has continually increasing due to improvements of their order processing.

III. The Objectives:

a.) To find solution how to reduce their corporate expense without prejudicing the order processing.

IV. SWOT Analysis:

	Strength	Weakness	Opportunities	Threats
a.) Manpower	1.) They have highly qualified and competent employees.	1.) Some employees are slow in processing customer’s orders.	1.) Training for system analysis is being offered by many IT based training institutions.	1.) Many companies are also looking for employees who are equipped with IT based education; they might pirate your employees.
b.) Money	1.) Stable sales rate.	1.) Lesser net income due to increasing amount in corporate expense.	1.) Customers are looking for a new kind of product.	1.) Competitors are offering lower prices.
c.) Market	1.) Stable market.	1.) Some customers are unsatisfied with speed of their services.	1.) -do-	1.) -do-
d.) Materials	1.) They are using high-tech equipments to improve the quality of their service.	1.) Equipments need more maintenance that increases their expenses.	1.) Better technologies for business enhancements are being introduced from time to time.	1.) Other companies are upgrading their systems to compete in terms of quality service.
e.)Machine	1.) -do-	1.) -do-	1.) -do-	1.) -do-
f.) Memo	1.)Informations were being disseminated well to have a better communication.	1.) Some guidelines have reduced some managerial positions like the middle managers.	1.) IT based companies are offering deals in enhancing a business IT systems.	1.) Competitors far ahead than them.
g.) Methods	1.) They are practicing new and better system of processing customer’s orders.	1.) There new systems are pretty costly.	1.) New and more effective methods are being introduces by many research institutions.	1.) -do-

V. Alternative Courses of Action:

a.) Increase their prices.

Advantages:

1.) Income can cover up expenses.

2.) Income can even make their system better.

3.) Income cab use for expansion to improve their company.

Disadvantages:

1.) It can loss many customers.

2.) As it losses many customers, income will be again lower down.

3.) The company may incur bigger loss than their income.

b.) Cost cutting of other expenses.

Advantages:

1.) The company can save much from the expenses that they supposedly incur.

2.) The save amount allocated for the other expenses can cover up the expenses they incur at the order processing.

Disadvantages:

1.) Company usual activities will be greatly affected which may cause inefficiency to both staff and company operation itself.

2.) Company’s inefficiency due cost cutting may create loss than having big amount in expenses during the normal operation.

c.) Use the right capacity of technology advancement for the whole operation.

Advantages:

1.) Big expenses will be moderated without prejudicing the company’s efficiency.

2.) Save operation and corporate cost.

3.) Savings can be considered as retained earnings of the company which later accumulated can be use for additional system.

Disadvantages:

1.) Operation speed may vary.

2.) Sudden increased in customer order may not be accommodated directly.

VI. Conclusion/Recommendation:

After we have evaluated the whole situation, we had decided to choose the last alternative courses of action; it is all because we believe that this option can really solve the problem. As we all know, the increasing expenses that the company is undertaking at this time are all cause by their improvement in their system to provide quality service to the customers. Along with the aim to provide quality service to the customers, they had also increased the versions and numbers of their equipments and system analysts, which of course generates additional expenses for the company. But as they improve their quality of service they are just thinking on how to become the best provider of service that they serve, they did not consider that their major role to operate business is to gain profit out of their service, of course with the customers satisfaction. So, the best thing that they should do is to examine if how much force that their operation need to function and serve the total amount of orders that their customers are requesting. In this way they can able avoid excess services that they are operating in each day that will result into lowering of their operation cost. As the operation costs tend to decrease, their expenses also will decrease but they should make sure that they are giving the right capacity, not excess or inadequate services, to the customers so that their operation and quality of service will not be prejudiced.