Situation Analysis for Trafalgar Fire Australia - Essay Example

Your Trafalgar Fire Australia Current Situation In 1990, Trafalgar tied up with Tyco International Ltd an international fire solution company. Tyco was founded in 1960 and operates in 60 countries throughout the world. This move however was unsuccessful, resulting to the decline of Trafalgar’s brand popularity and sales. In May 2009, Trafalgar Passive Fire Solutions was acquired by Fire Containment. Fire Containment is “a 100% Australian Owned company, offering unique and specialist passive fire protection systems” which operates in Australia and New Zealand. This is part of Fire Containment’s strategy to “to expand its already powerful product portfolio and grow its customer base” (Fire Containment). Currently, Trafalgar manufactures two broad categories of products: the Trafalgar products composed of general building fire protection products and the Trafalgar Passive Fire solutions which includes passive fire containment and access panel products / systems for the building and construction industries. Trafalgar products, both for the passive fire solutions and general fire security products can be purchased from the Trafalgar main outlets and Fire Containment. With the new change, no notable developments are observed yet although the two companies are hopeful that the collaboration will bring forth exciting and dynamic range of fire protection products. Current positioning The company has the luxury of targeting two spectrums of the market: the Class A with their passive fire resistant technology and the general market of builders with their Trafalgar products. The company boasts of its long history of existence and excellence in the business. It has been in operation for the last 60 years. The company’s products are proven to be effective and customer-friendly. One of the latest developments in the company is the provision of product testing and customer support. “Continuous fire and acoustic testing of our products at various testing authorities to Australia, New Zealand and other world-wide standards is a philosophy of Trafalgar” that enables the company “to offer the most advanced in technology to our customers and continuously improve and develop our products further to satisfy the current market demands” (Trafalgar). The company holds on to three commitments: leadership in corporate governance, protecting the environment and occupational health and safety. The company positions itself as a socially responsible corporation, committed to both sustainability and excellence. It has such strong corporate values, making it more appealing to the customers. What is more interesting is they do this without compromising quality. Competitor analysis The fire protection industry in the country is active and dynamic. Trafalgar is faced with enormous competition from the other players. One of the competitors of Trafalgar is Rondo. “Rondo Building Services have been the pioneers in the design of suspended ceiling systems, steel stud drywall partition systems, building board and render finishing sections since 1964” and it operates in Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia (Rondo). Rondo is committed to provide the highest quality products and services through an established and “world recognized quality control practices, state of the art manufacturing processes, a culture committed to innovation and the provision of expert engineering services” (Rondo). Similar to Trafalgar, Rondo is also committed to environmental protection. They have recently built a new facility which enables stormwater recycling and safe storage of hazardous materials. Rondo is similarly committed to occupational health and safety, but they seem to do things in a more creative way such as the introduction of Mission Zero. Another competitor is Como which operates under its mother company Mace Ltd in January 2003. The heart of the Como business is construction. It is an extension of the consultancy and management business of Mace. “Originally operating under three divisions - Interiors, Construction, Homes - Como introduced the Mace brand of progressive, innovative construction practice right into the heart of the contracting world” (Mace Ltd.). Again, noticeable with Como is the commitment to environment and health and safety, things that are also highlighted in the Rondo and Trafalgar businesses. Over-all, the company values value for money, time delivery, end result, meeting client needs, communication and design. They also have some potent competitors in Mergin and KKD, plus the host of fire protection companies which offer products such as extrication system, training equipment and foam equipment. Some of these are Bruck Textiles Pty Ltd., GAAM Emergency Products, Safety Equipment Australia Pty Ltd and Orion Safety Industries Pty Ltd. SWOT Analysis Strengths Trafalgar has a rich history of construction. It also has a wide market, covering New Zealand and Asia Pacific. It boasts of excellent outputs such as Auckland Skytower, Sydney AMP Tower, Sydney Superdome and Telstra Stadium. The strength of Trafalgar relies on their proven practice of excellence, creativity and innovation. Obviously, the company will also draw strength from its tie-up with Fire Containment. The latter will play a strategic distributor for Trafalgar. This time, the tie up with Fire Containment, unlike the one with Tyco will be complementary such that products and services will further be enhanced. Weaknesses The company has the right goals and values in mind. Actually, it equals with Rondo and Como in the mission of zero hazard and accidents at work and environmental protection. However, Rondo was able to creatively introduce its goal unlike Trafalgar. Rondo has a “Mission Zero” which has a goal of “zero accidents, zero injuries, zero illnesses, zero emissions and zero waste” (Rondo). “Mission Zero is the newly introduced social and environmental brand which assists Rondo in achieving defined targets with regards to the health, safety and working environment of our people, as well as systematically reducing the environmental footprint of our operations” (Rondo). In terms of marketing creativity, some companies might be more superior to Trafalgar. Opportunities What is admirable in Trafalgar’s situation is its opportunity to expand both in the Australian market and in other countries such as New Zealand and Asia Pacific. This opportunity might not be present with other companies. The good thing about this opportunity of expansion and introduction of products abroad is that it can enjoy economies of scale through voluminous production, thus having the luxury to push prices down. They will be very competitive in terms of pricing when they economies of scale is achieved. With the current tie-up with Fire Containment, distribution of products is expected to increase augmenting sales figures. Threats Trafalgar faces fierce competition from big companies such as Mace Ltd. The threat of competition for Trafalgar is experienced both inside Australia and outside. As mentioned, the marketing strategies of some competitors such as Rondo are creative, even more than Trafalgar. This might be detrimental as marketing strategies are found to be very important in attracting new customers and maintaining existing ones. Another threat is competition from outsiders. Japan is one country from where competition might arise. This will then make it difficult for the company to penetrate new markets, especially in Asia. Porters Five Forces Five Forces Analysis assumes that there are five important forces that determine competitive power in a situation. These are: 1. Supplier Power: Here you assess how easy it is for suppliers to drive up prices. 2. Buyer Power: Here you ask yourself how easy it is for buyers to drive prices down. 3. Competitive Rivalry: What is important here is the number and capability of your competitors – if you have many competitors, and they offer equally attractive products and services, then you’ll most likely have little power in the situation. 4. Threat of Substitution: This is affected by the ability of your customers to find a different way of doing what you do – for example, if you supply a unique software product that automates an important process, people may substitute by doing the process manually or by outsourcing it 5. Threat of New Entry: Power is also affected by the ability of people to enter your market. Source: (Mind Tools Ltd) In the case of Trafalgar, the sellers are obviously few. Their product is also less affected by economic canges in the short-term as this industry maintains bulk of inventory. Examining the supply side then, we know that suppliers have the greater power to dictate prices. Suppliers for their products are also not regulated by the government, making it hard to contain prices. In the case of buyers, they are of great number, thus their market power to dictate prices is low or maybe non-existent. This gives much leeway for Trafalgar to adjust prices according to the prices from the suppliers. Trafalgar is operating in a perfectily competitive market. Again, as observed they are of almost equal ability and values. They are also from companies of proven excellent practices and output, thus divesting Trafalgar of market power and dominance in the industry. It is not impossible for the company to achieve large market share but this will have to go through tough competition. The creation of passive fire protection is relatively new, thus there will be little or no substitute at all fro this product. New entrants are not much of a threat for Trafalgar. This is because, this business needs hugh start up capital, thus limiting the number of possible entrants. Assumption Trafalgar will continue to thrive and grow in the industry, but it faces much competition especially from the likes of Rondo. However, with the current tie-up with Fire Containment, Trafalgar can capitalize for expansion knowing that the latter is a successful distribution company. What we expect then is greater sales and greater volume of production thus having competitive prices brought by economies of scale. Works Cited Fire Containment. "Fire Containment acquires Trafalgar Passive Fire Solutions." Press Release. 2009. Mace Ltd. 19 October 2009 . Mind Tools Ltd. 19 October 2009 . QuickMBA.com. 19 October 2009 . Rondo. 19 October 2009 . Trafalgar. 19 October 2009 . Read More