Kimura KK Case Write Up Essay Example

this one… He is your best ambassador within our company. ”). Accordingly, he is “the influencer”.

Dr. Komoda, a very respectful person among Kimura K. K. , was the chief of production, thus responsible for all areas of optical disk replication and also responsible for defining the specifications that the Spartacus would need; besides this, he also tested the machines when they arrived in Osaka, Japan, to make sure they were performing accordingly to the big production for Walt Disney Pictures. He was planning an output of 15,000 DVD’s per day with this new acquisition and considered the deal with Walt Disney very important for the company. Dr. Komoda is ”the user”.

Finally, Dr. Eiji Hashimoto, the Finance Director and the “old and trusted supervisor”, was not an expert on technology, but on numbers. He was responsible for evaluating the different quotations given for the same machine from different suppliers, including Pramtex, and he aimed at finding the best price for the machine that had at least the required specifications the company needed, and so, he is “the analyzer”. Parallel to all the process, there is Ms. Seiko Yamashita, which was the secretary of Dr. Nomura.

She controlled the information and assisted to some discussions of the decision-makers. Although she was not part of the negotiations per se, she was able to alert Mr. John about his unprofessionalism, so we can say she had an impact on this case as well, as “the gatekeeper”.

Q. 3 Why did Pramtex fall in Japan? For Pramtex to succed in Japan, it would have to have more than the delivery of a “superior” product, and,

first of all, it would have to succeed on its deal with Kimura K. K, due to their influential position in Japan, in order to grow reputation in the market.

Indeed Pramtex and Kimura K. K. made an agreement on a first order of three Spartacus machines, but the australian company failed to do the second agreement, where it would sell three more to Kimura K. K. ’s plant in Taiwan. This order was yet made from one of its competitors – Singulus. Although small, Pramtex was apparently having a good start: they used the most advanced technologies and had partnerships with key customers for the development of their innovations on technology, as Sony, Kimura K. K. and Hitachi.

This allowed them to charge premium prices and also to be represented in the most important markets for their products, as the Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese. So, it is evident that the second order from Kimura K. K. was very important for Pramtex to strengthen its position among the Japanese market. Following their strategy of being at the edge of technology, Dr. Max Scorse, a key member of Pramtex’s R&D team, developed Spartacus - a DVD production system, equipped with all the functions involved in the production of a DVD disk.

This machine was very unique, especially because it used the most advanced technologies (which, actually, granted it the nickname of “Rolls-Royce” of the DVD production systems). With a little help from Mr. Nomura, who was a passionate about Pramtex’s technological products, Mr. John Reef closed the deal – Kimura K. K. would buy the first three Spartacus to their Osaka plant. But

it was not only based on this friendship that Mr. Kimura signed for the Spartacus machine. After all, this purchase was too important for the company to be so naive.

Thus, other options were analyzed, and Mr. Hashimoto examined in detail their first quotation, from where he concluded that at least two competitors had better prices – Singulus was at least 20% cheaper. So, even though Pramtex had more than the technology required by Kimura K. K. , the price was not so attractive relatively to its competitors. After this event, a second quotation was then asked, which firstly John forgot to send in time and ended up sending it more than one month later, and secondly was perceived both by Kimura K. K. ’s president and Mr. Hashimoto as “not very different from the original one”.

At this point, what in my opinion was failing, is that Pramtex was too concerned about delivering the most advanced technology, disregarding the role that their technology would play for their client (as, in this case, winning Disney’s confidence) and other features that they were also evaluating, such as price. Anyway, one month and a half later, the contract was being signed, despite not having the agreement of every Kimura K. K. member and with a lot of support from Mr. Nomura.

With a few days of delay, the machines were installed in Osaka and prepared for being tested by Mr. Komoda. During this tests-stage, Mr Komoda found a problem that his engineers couldn’t fix, and phoned John in a Saturday morning. And from now on, the sequence of events ruins the image Pramtex was building next

to Kimura K. K.. As an answer to this phone call, John argued that there was nothing he could do over the weekend, and that he would solve the problem Monday morning; when, given the importance of this customer, it should provide a more extent and immediate service, with engineers support, at least on these first days of testing.

Then, on Monday, when he tried to find Max (the only one that was familiar with every detail on the Spartacus machines) to expose the problem, he was not available. What I perceive from the case is that, although Max could be an amazing scientist and innovator, and although he could be really good on what he did, he was not customer concerned. He sold the first three machines to Kimura K. K. and took the sale of the other three for granted, and so, he was already involved in a new project.

What Pramtex should have done, if they wanted to grow in the Japanese market though, would be not to concentrate all the knowledge of the technology in one single person and it should neither decrease the attention towards the client, even after the purchase was done. Then, although Max did not tell it directly to the customer, the fact that he said (about the part they had to fix in one of the Spartacus sold to Kimura K. K. ): “That? s not even our product, we purchase it from a supplier …)” shows again that he was not so concerned about keeping a good relationship with the customer, which did not help when Kimura K. K. took the decision of

whether or not to buy the second row of machines. Another fact that reinforced their fall in Japan was that, despite the high quality of the output, the machines were not as user friendly as they could, and the operators did even make changes on them so that they were easier to manage.

Besides this, there was still the issue of the price, which was raised again for the second negotiation. Finally, before an answer is given about the second order, Kimura K. K. received a letter from Pramtex accounts departments saying that they were late in paying one of the installments of the first three machines. However, that payment had already been made at the time, which transmitted again lack of confidence in the customer. What occurred afterwards was that Kimura K. K. did not order three more Spartacus, neither did Sony.

So, to sum up, the main failures were: right in the beginning, when John failed to send the second quotation; then, the problem around the payment of the third installment; and, finally, the poor service delivered when one of the machines was broken. This showed Pramtex’s unprofessionalism and, as a consequence, passed the image that they were neither a good supplier nor a good partner to other Japanese companies. Because, as it is said in the beginning of the case, Mr. Kimura, the president, was known for keeping close contact with its competitors, among others, Sony, so, it wouldn’t be difficult to spread the feedback on Pramtex.