Miele Case Study

1. The success of Miele comes to question when the company persistence in staying in German which known as high-cost country, while its competitors has outsourced to low-cost country. Moreover, Miele also producing its own producing machine, which result in bigger production cost and higher product price.

Aiming on customer loyalty, superior value must be delivered along with the superior performance. Narver and Slater (1990) said there are 5 components which composed those things, which are: * Customer orientation * Competitor orientation * Inter-functional coordination * Organizational culture * Long-term focus

In my opinion, those five components can be summarized on their resources. Customer orientation has been manifested through high quality product. On the other hand, competitor orientation has been manifested through plant and office location. The relationship between plant, head office and customer becomes the manifesto of inter-functional coordination. Organizational culture and long-term focus are explained as intangible asset.

In getting a better point of view, those things will be explained in a different way as mentioned below:

a. Assets
Miele has a unique combination of assets as its main reason for outstanding performance in appliance market. The combination of tangible and intangible assets becomes product strength which differentiate it from competitors, those assets are listed as below

1. Tangible

Tangible asset in Miele consists of high quality product, plant and office location. Miele 's high quality products have been known widely, as the proof of consistency in delivering superior benefit in fulfilling customer needs. Setting higher price than its competitor considered as a rational decision since superior benefit has been delivered.

Another tangible asset for Miele is the strategic plant location, whereas Miele 's plants are located in Germany. Furthermore, some production machines and tools