Manufacturing Strategy: of Catherine Confectionaries - Case Study Example

The paper "Manufacturing Strategy: Case of Catherine Confectionaries" is a perfect example of a case study on business. Catherine operates a small scale business. Depending on her customer base, her business aims at small scale consumers. Her consumers dictate whether she will change the operational or structural approach of her business. Catherine deals with two types of consumers: need-based consumers and wandering consumers. From this, it is clear t say that she has not stabilized the target market. Her confectionary’s impact has not been felt in the market. These two consumer types usually are not profitable. Most times they are seasonal customers.

            Need-based consumers dictate the nature of your products. To capture the interest of this group, one needs to adjust to fulfill their needs and satisfaction (Hill, 2000). In Catherine’s scenario, she is forced to change her recipes depending on the demand of the customer. Her recipes are dictated by the demand of the market. Need-based consumers are usually unpredictable in terms of demand. Their demand levels destabilize in short periods of time. It is not advisable to predict their commitment to the business. Wandering customers, on the other hand, are consumers who visit the supplier to know their needs. They are the least profitable group of consumers. According to Hill (2000), to capture the interest of these consumers, one needs to impress them before they purchase the products. In Catherine’s shop, the one-stop-shop consumers fall under this category.

            Catherine’s structural decision to lease a restaurant space was appropriate. Her kitchen space could not handle the demands of all her customers. Additionally, with increased customer demand, one needs to get a professional mode of operation. Catherine was aiming at advancing the depth of her business and increasing her operational space was an appropriate move. However, leasing a business premise without a permanent consumer base may be a bad structural decision (Hill, 2000). This decision shifted Catherine’s fund's approach. This was an increased liability which she was not completely ready to take up. Different when she was operating from her business Catherine had to focus more on profit-making than impressing her customers.

            To add to her liabilities, Catherine hired unskilled staff to help her. This came as an expense since the staff’s input was not correspondent to their output. What her consumers needed was a more organized infrastructure change which eases operation in the organization and makes consumer interaction effective. This was not the case, since Catherine had to spare extra time to supervise her staff and hence lost focus in providing quality products for her business. If she had hired skilled staff members, the output of her business would be impressive. She would get enough profit to pay her employees and enjoy the success of her business.

            The negative result of Catherine’s venture is experiencing is due to her unadvised decisions. First, she should look for more experienced staff. Apart from the experienced staff, she should define each position by expectations. Additionally, she should find a stable target market. Finding a target market would give her the appropriate time to focus on her consumers (Hill, 2000). She should also utilize the space in her leased restaurant to maximize production. However, before making the decisions she should consider how profitable the decision would be or vice versa.