Posted: June 8th, 2015

Topic: Market of ATKINSON WALKER SAWS

 

 

ATKINSON WALKER SAWS

PLAN: Report style and format:

• Title page
• Table of contents with page numbers
• Introduction
• Short explanation of the project
• Explanation focus of the report: North America & Europe
• Literature review
• Methodology
• Results & discussion:

1. Overview of potential countries & areas

 

1. North American market focussed on USA & Canada
2. Market analysis: PEST
   1. USA
   2. Canada

 

1. Competitor analysis
   1. USA
   2. Canada

• European market focussed on 2 countries

1. Market analysis: PEST
   1. Finland
   2. Sweden

 

1. Competitor analysis
   1. Country 1
   2. Country 2

 

1. Expansion suggestions for Atkinson Walker Saws
2. Selling options
3. Agencies
4. Distributors

 

1. Building brand presence (brand awareness)
2. Social media
3. Trade missions
4. Exhibitions

 

1. Conclusion
2. Recommendations

 

• References
• Appendices

 

Getting started on your project:

Aims:

·         How to increase the business

·         How to export (find suitable partners or customers)

·         Do a market analysis

 

Outcomes:

·         Evaluation of potential countries and companies

·         Find agents & distributers to work with

·         Find exhibitions

·         At the end of this project they will be exporting to other countries

 

From the above decide on the research focus:

LONGPEST analysis

 

Division of tasks between the members of the group:

 

 

 

 

 

• References
• Appendices

 

• Company manager = Terry Lee (first person outside Walker family to own the business)
• He bought 3 engineering companies: AWS, EEI & Steve….. àeach of them do different things
• Atkinson Walker Saws was bought 6 months ago: bought the company with friends that are accountants and specialist about mergers & acquisitions
• Always tries to find niche market products because belter margins & demand prices = higher
• AWS has a small number of competitors but they have large market places
• All 3 companies that Terry Lee bought make profits ; the profits are reinvested in new plans, in developing the business, in training and in R&D à only way to grow the business
• The previous owner of AWS, Mr. Walker did not go out and looked for customers and did not contact old customers
• They want to increase their sales
• Have a list of old customers (from the previous owner) that have not made orders since 2-3 years
• Want to look at other products that they can make with the same machines that they already have
• They also bought 7 new machines to increase capacity and to increase productivity, they combine their existing machines with new bought machines to produce new products)
• Target = 1 million £ (they have invested £750,000 and they are expecting 1 million return)
• Look at exhibitions
• Export area of growth: until now they export very little
• UKTI: UK industry body à put them in touch with a foreign company: person for example working in the UK embassy in China that speaks perfectly English & Chinese will do a market research for AWS and put them in contact with Chinese company à 2 major advantages: 50% of the market research fees paid by British government and 50% by AWS. It is an easy way of making business without having to go to China.
• currently 23 employees
• stocks cost money

 

 

Through your website we found out that you are already exporting to Germany, France and Sweden.  How did you made these contacts? (Was it trough the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce or trough business connections?)

Germany, France & Sweden = existing customers from previous owner

Terry Lee supposes that these customers came to an exhibition that takes place one a year in Sheffield, because Mr. Walker did not use to go out and find new customers.

 

4. What do you think is your competitive advantage?

Good quality, made in Sheffield, our saws last 10 times longer but just 3 times more expensive

 

5. To whom do you sell your products? (Rather companies, private consumers or distributers?)

UK= mostly end users

TROI = using group ( 5% commission)

France = 1 company

Middle-east: distributer (but facing problems, because the customer is not paying)

 

6. What are the challenges/ difficulties that you are facing now?

They are increasing their stock holdings, but the more stocks you hold the more it is expensive. How can you make stocks as efficient as possible?

 

7. Could you tell us more about your productivity? How many saws do you produce per month and per year?

Between 1000- 2000 saws a month, which means 60.000£ a month. They reduced the manufactured time per month, but increased the produced quantity. They are being more efficient.

 

8. From our research we found out that you have some competitors like: ….. Could you tell us more about your competitors?

UK = Emest Benit

Sweden = SWEDEX, this company hast several agents in the UK. Their strategy is that if you order today, you will get your saw tomorrow.

à In order to fight back their strategy AWS has now bigger stocks than it used to have.

à Difference between SWEDEX and AWS is that AWS have a better quality for the same price as SWEDEX.

They think they may increase the price because customers willing to pay more also want better products. Sometimes if you have good quality but you sell cheap, customers will thin that maybe you do not really reach the good quality standard.

 

9. The project focuses on finding suitable partners or customers to increase your export sales, but can you explain more on the expectations that you have for this project. (How many partners or customers?)

 

àFinding the right ways of doing things:

– find someone to sell to (distributer): such as OEM original equipment manufacturer (UK Company), Sears (US company).

– find agents (stock saws in their factory and sell them to customers

 

àFind wood working equipment manufacturer

à OIM

àFind original equipment manufacturer (that sell machines, they do not want to have a poor quality saw on their machinesà does not look good on a brand new machine)

à Find foreign exhibitions especially wood cutting industries (in Germany for example)