COM-425 Week 6

In week 6, I have been asked to analysis Demon-Tweeks supply chain management.  The upstream supply chain is the dealing between the company and their suppliers.  Demon-Tweeks buy directly from their suppliers or in some cases through a third party.  The downstream supply chain of the company is the communication between Demon-Tweeks and its customers.  Products are often bought directly from the company therefore excluding the involvement of intermediaries.

The company use a pull approach in their supply chain management.  This method is market-research driven in order to enhance the quality of the service to the customer and also to enhance the quality of the product to the customer.  This helps increase customer satisfaction with the product and the service provided.

The characteristics of Demon-Tweeks supply chain management are very similar to a virtual integration chain.  Demon-Tweeks deal with their suppliers daily and therefore have built a close relationship with their suppliers.  The company also deal with third parties when buying specialised products.  It is also important that also have a good relationship with them in order to keep the price of products as low as possible.

A value network is important to Demon-Tweeks.  Value networks are in place in order to create good communication between the supplier and companies.  Demon-Tweeks could face some problems if its communications between the company and the supplier was poor.  The price Demon-Tweeks sell a product at is often determined by what price the supplier can provide the product.  If communication was poor, prices could be raised and could impact on Demon-Tweeks potential profits.

An example of efficiencies in Demon-Tweeks supply chain is the purchasing of products from the supplier before they have been purchased by a customer.  Products are purchased from the supplier and are stored in the Demon-Tweeks warehouse until there are effectively sold.  This helps improve the speed a product can be dispatched to the customer.  It can also impact on the customers decision to buy a product if they see that it is in stock and can have it at their doorstep the next day.

COM-425 Week 5

Demon-Tweeks is currently the largest company in the UK to supply products for the car modification market.  However, there has always been a threat from other companies who supply similar products.  This is mainly because these products can be bought at a similar price.  Few products are unique to Demon-Tweeks so the company should always be aware of the threat from other companies who supply similar products.

There is always a threat of new competitors entering the car modification market.  To avoid the erosion of the market share, this must be closely monitored by companies currently in the market.  However, entrance of new firms to the market will face high barriers before entry.  For example, Demon-Tweeks will have a huge budget to spend on advertising in the market.  They will also have a high number of suppliers as they are very well established.  A new company will not have the budget to advertise on the same scale as Demon-Tweeks therefore making it hard for the company to be recognised and will not have the same number of suppliers because they are new to the market.

The intensity of competitive rivalry could impact Demon-Tweeks in many ways.  Many companies that deal with car modification products are now creating websites as they have seen how successful Demon-Tweeks and POTN have been.  This has led to a large industry growth.  This could lead to the company having to reduce prices to compete within the market as well as compete when marketing their products.  If the company lose any customers to their rivals, they could also face a rise in the cost per unit of products being bought, therefore could face profit margins decreasing or having to raise the price of a particular item.

The bargaining of the companies customers doesn’t have much on an impact on Demon-Tweeks.  Customers can put some pressure on the business if they see a product cheaper elsewhere, but quite often prices are almost similar in the market.  Demon-Tweeks should have a team in place to deal with price comparison.  But as a customer, Demon-Tweeks can put its suppliers under pressure.  An example of this would be if the company buy particular products in high volume from one supplier, see these products cheaper elsewhere, pressure can then be put on the supplier to reduce the price of the items.

Another impact that could have an impact on Demon-Tweeks is the ‘Bargaining power of suppliers’.  The suppliers of products to the company can have a degree of power.  For example, if a supplier knows that they are the only company who supply a unique product to Demon-Tweeks, they have the power to charge excessively high prices for that particular item.  This will only be the case with suppliers who supply unique products.

COM-425 Week 4

When reading through the terms and conditions of www.demon-tweeks.co.uk, I found nothing unusual or nothing that I hadn’t seen prior to this.  All terms and conditions posted seemed very reasonable.

The terms and conditions for returning goods to Demon-Tweeks are very similar to other companies who sell items via the internet.  They state that a customer must inform the company if they are going to return the goods bought via the website within 7 days.  After this, they have 28days to return the product to the company.  The product bought form the company must have seals and enclosures still intact and must not have been installed before returning the product.  A customer cannot return an item that is seen as a specialised item.  If all these terms and conditions have been met, the consumer will receive the amount of credit equal to the product.  Demon-Tweeks competitors, www.potn.com terms and conditions are almost identical to those at www.demon-tweeks.co.uk therefore it cannot be said that one company’s terms are better than the other.

When registering with www.demon-tweeks.co.uk, the company carry out extensive steps to insure that the information given to them cannot be intercepted or viewed by any unauthorised party.  Policies are also provided to the user telling them how information is stored and how it is used.  This can be found on the on the private policy statement on the website.  Encryption is used to store details on registered customers.  It transforms the information saved so that it is unreadable to unauthorised users therefore helps protect storage and back-up files belonging.

A cookie is a small text file saved on a user’s computer when searching on a web browser.  A cookie contains information such as user preferences on a particular website.  Cookies are used on the Demon-Tweeks website to identify a user, track when the user uses the website and will also contain information on the users shopping cart.

COM-425 Week 3

When exploring the internet to find information on the website www.demon-tweeks.co.uk I found that www.compete.com was the most useful.  The website had a number of useful figures i could use in my investigation.  From these I found the number of unique visitors throughout the year, the number of visitors each month and the average number of visitors each month.  From August 2008 to August 2009, the total number of unique visitors to the website was 24660.  This means that throughout the year, the website has had an average of 2055 visitors each month.  A table below illustrates this:

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/demon-tweeks.co.uk/

Its ranking in the most viewed websites studied by www.compete.com in August 09 was 890,948 but in the previous year it had ranked 364,935.  The total number of websites compared on the website is almost 3,000,000.  Considering the demand for the products supplied by demon-tweeks is quite limited, this is a considerably high ranking.  One of Demon-Tweeks competitors would be www.potn.com, a company that also specialise in motor sport and modification products.  Unfortunately, I could not find any figures for this website so I could not compare the two. 

If a customer would like to buy an item from the Demon-Tweeks website, there are a number of processes that have to be taken.  The customer can search for a product by going through different categories or can use the search bar found on the sitemap.  The customer must then select a product to be purchased.  This will automatically add the item to the basket.  All items added to the basket must be checked so that they are correct and then the buyer can proceed to checkout.  The customer will then have to register an account with Demon Tweeks which will contain username, password, name, address and contact telephone number.  After the customer has successfully registered, they will then be asked for their payment details.  These will then be checked and if they are correct, the item will be dispatched from the Demon-Tweeks warehouse. 

One channel that could have an impact on Demon Tweeks is mobile device access.  This could lead to more opportunities for the company.  It isn’t possible for the company to  attend every race weekend on the calendar throughout mainland UK.  Therefore access to the internet from the race course could mean that  teams would potentially order products as they were needed.  Products could then be delivered by the company as soon as the order is recieved.  Orders using this form could be dealt with in the same form as internet orders.