Taino Construction Supplies - Case Study Example

Global Business 12 March Taino Construction Supplies Case Study. This Case is about Taino Manufacturing Supplies business and innovation activity. Taino is a company based in a small country of San Felipe somewhere in the Pacific region. The main line of the case is thinking of its president and CEO Mario Rivera. Firstly he analyses the situation in the company, its history and previous development. Taino produces a wide range of traditional as well as innovative products. The most of them are designed for building industry.

It has developed and produces green products such as using fly ash in concrete products, cobblestones with enhanced durability and sunlight cobblestones. Besides the company is environment protection and social oriented. This is reflected in green building and social projects participation, using alternative ways of the extraction of sand. Secondly, Rivera analyses the company’s competitors, customers and market situation. It appears that though Taino does not have direct local competitors there are competitors on the global level and the main of them is Cementos de Mexico which is Tainos partner and client at the same time.

Another big customer is House Depot (retail) and some big construction companies. The market analysis shows that the construction market in San Felipe is in time of crisis. However, some segments for example “do-it-yourself” are stable. Besides the company have faced with other challenges, such as government, environmental groups and partners difficult relations. At the same there are emerging possibilities on the market to raise sales of some products in home market and exporting to other countries in particular into some states in the USA affected by hurricanes.

Consequently, Mario Rivers searches for the ways of turning all the innovation investments in competitive edge of the company. Analysing the balance sheet and income statement I would characterize the financial situation as difficult Although company increased net sales and received gross profit in 2008 it still suffers net losses. I have also noticed great increase in mortar sales and decrease in concrete paver sales over the last three years. Tainos relations with the government, regulatory agencies, environmental groups, pro-green building groups, customers and competitors are different and controversial.

On one hand Taino has so strong and trusted reputation among the local customers that some of competitors launched the market with product names similar to Tainos. On the other hand there are problems with fly ash supplier and green organizations which claim that Tainos activity is not environmental friendly. The government of San Felipe does not accept the low obligating using fly ash in public building. The construction industry is so complex that competitors might be partners and clients at the same time.

Therefore, companies are very dependent of each other and building good relationships is one of the main components of success. Cementos de Mexico and Taino are bright example of such kind of companies. The further development of Taino depends of the ability of realization of investments in innovation in the future. Reading the attached article I have understood that Rivera must answer some questions about his investments. They are “Is it real? Can we win? Is it worth doing?”. I believe, some innovations of Taino answers “Yes” to this questions for example using fly ash.

But some of them don’t. The example of this case might be cobble stoning Cartahena’s historical streets. It may answer “Yes” to the first two questions but “No” to the last one. It is not worth doing because of problems with the government and resource consuming development of special cobblestones. I would recommend to Mario Rivera to stop projects which are not real or no worth doing and focus on products bringing profit or other real value to the company. Besides Taino must focus on utilization all the knowledge and know-how achieved through investments in innovations.

Bibliography Figurea Carmen R. and Sagebien Julia. Taino Construction Supplies Case Study. Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation, 2010.