Medical Devices Contract Manufacturing - Essay Example

Teacher: Table of Contents MDCM CASE 2 Introduction 2 Strategic Goals of MDCM 3 Competitive Environment 4 Critical IT Objectives for MDCM 5 Conclusion 6 Works Cited 8 MDCM CASE Introduction The company MDCM, which is abbreviated as medical devices contract manufacturing company is ranked among the top most companies because of its continuous progress. The company has its own strategy to compete in the market. According to the management of the company, the customers of the company should be satisfied as the most adopted preference. Along with the customer satisfaction, the promises that are made with the customers should also be fulfilled in order to gain customers’ faith. The services that are provided by the company must also be of standard quality. The company has been suffering loss in the market in spite of all its steps and strategy designed for the customers and company’s benefit. The company shares its benefits and losses with the customers in order to form close relations with the customers. With the passage of time, the company has identified the importance of its global status. It has expanded by opening many offices, branches and acquisitions in different parts of the world. However, the company identifies its lacking procedures and slowed information collection and update due to which, it goes through transformations under the heading of Horizon 2000. The company requires a well established IT strategy in order to meet the competition in the market. This paper analyzes the issue in detail. Strategic Goals of MDCM MDCM does the business of medical devices contract manufacturing and is well reputed because of its expansion with the passage of time. The company has well defined strategic goals and due to some problem with meeting the goals, the company has faced continuous losses. The strategic goals of the company are as follows (Jeffery & Norton 1-7): To facilitate the customers with their required devices within due time. To develop an online ordering and account management system that the customers will be able to use themselves. To provide an end-to-end package of medical device contract manufacturing services. To design and fabricate specialized equipment used in the assembly of manufacturing services. To form close partnership arrangements with its customers. To share rewards and risks of the business with its customers. To work with customers as close as it is possible. To reduce manufacturing costs to their lowest level. To maximize customer satisfaction by delivering quality parts and assemblies on time. To expand its business by opening new offices and manufacturing facilities close to its largest customers. To maintain that the acquisitions that the company makes, allow the company to spread its operational excellence while keeping the foreign companies autonomous enough to be able to better serve their local customers. Competitive Environment The firm MDCM faces a strict competition in the market because of more firms in the same business. With increasing concept of globalization, more people are active in market and provide globalized facilities to their customers due to which, all the firms face challenges to work towards success and expansion of their business on global basis. MDCM has designed a strategy to form good and close relation with its customers by involving them in their business as the company used to share its rewards and risks with its customers. However, with new businesses introduced in the market, this practice was copied and conducted by other businesses as well due to which, a competitive environment was created in the market (Jeffery & Norton 3). As a competitive strategy, the company MDCM opened many offices at locations, which were near to their largest customers. Along with offices, the company also made a number of acquisitions. According to Jeffery & Norton (2006), “the acquisition targets were all non-US-based companies that had competencies in contract manufacturing similar to MDCM’s” (3). MDCM’s management maintained that the acquisitions allowed the company to spread its operational excellence while keeping the foreign companies autonomous enough to be able to better serve their local customers (Jeffery & Norton 3). Due to this strategy adopted by MDCM, the firm was able to progress on global basis in competition with its competitors. The company, MDCM was the largest firm in the market known for the provision of medical devices manufacturing services; however, the company’s management was not able to manage its procedures successfully as the company was going into a loss. The company performed excellently in gaining customer satisfaction as its chief motive was to satisfy its customers but it was not able to offer prices of competitive nature because of the loss it was suffering in the market. After noticing the company’s status in the market, the newly promoted CEO, Max McMullen showed interest towards a major transformation program, which he named as “Horizon 2000”. McMullen brought many changes such as reorganized the organization as a whole, reduced the number of suppliers, outsourced all of the MDCM’s inbound and outbound logistics and reorganization of production facilities. The main motive behind all these transformations was to bring MDCM in competition to its competitors with profit, to sustain globally and to provide an end-to-end package of medical device contract manufacturing services on global level. To progress in the market and to keep in the competition required MDCM to upgrade its IT level. IT problems were also required to be solved. Critical IT Objectives for MDCM The status of IT in the company was not in the interest of the company as many overhead and costs were involved in doing tasks that were not required or were of little importance. There were many systems used by the staff members of the company and compatibility was really lacking. A major supporting system was absent. They were a lot many customized procedures followed in IT. The information flow was inaccurate and slow due to which, the provided information was flawed. Different departments had different systems. Even one department has multiple systems. A single system was not followed, implemented or used in the organization or any department. According to Atkins, a global IT infrastructure was required by the company and he also found out that twenty three IT experienced managers were there who can prove of great help for the company’s structuring of IT strategy. The IT objectives that are suitable for the company’s competitive status in the market are: To provide access of online services to the customers so that the customers can place orders and can settle their accounts on online basis. To develop a single website that keeps the capacity of organizing the company and it’s all branches over one place. To generate databases and to develop a system that collects and provides all the necessary information related to company’s procedures when the user wants to retrieve any information. To develop a LAN (Local Area Network) and a WAN (Wide Area Network) to handle all global procedures. To make data retrieval and update of information much more efficient and fast to facilitate the customers of the organization. To interconnect all the offices, acquisitions and branches of the company to form a globally connected set up. To allow the customer to check their order status and their access paths within as much less time as possible. To introduce an enterprise resource planning system in the company to connect the company procedures and to facilitate the users with one system. Conclusion The company MDCM has gained a reputable status but with the passage of time and global expansion, the company has faced a number of challenges and competition with other firms. It has identified its continuous losses and inability to perform certain IT related tasks successfully due to which, the company requires an IT strategy that is competitive and successful. The company’s current business strategy is focused on having good relations with customers and expanding the business on a global scale. However, for these current strategic objectives, the company requires a global IT strategy that keeps the capacity of enabling the company’s customers as well as other users to get their required information and to place orders and analyze their performance within no time. Therefore, the company requires a well formed database and global and local networking capability to handle its current procedures. Works Cited Jeffery, Mark and Norton, Joseph F. MDCM, Inc. (A): IT Strategy Synchronization. Kellogg School of Management, 2006. Read More