Tennant Case Analysis
Case Analysis: Tennant Company | Lead-In/Key Issues
Over Tennant Company’s (Tennant) 141 year history, they have consistently remained a producer of floor-cleaning equipment and technologies focusing their efforts in producing products for non-residential use. Since the new CEO Chris Killingstad has come to the company however, he has been dramatically changing Tennant’s value proposition with a broader emphasis encompassing “chemical-free cleaning and other technologies.” This case shows Tennant’s move beyond traditional green efforts to centralizing environmentally-friendly performance at the heart of the company’s focus, and whether this new focus provides enough benefit as a competitive advantage.
The challenge now for Killingstad and Tennant is how to move forward into 2013 in terms of company focus and direction; mainly the extent to which they should diversify. Should Tennant move into residential markets with smaller units for consumers to use in-home? Should they continue to focus on the commercial side, investing instead in the market potential of their ec-H20 and irreversible electroporation technologies? Or should they enter emerging markets with low-cost alternatives to truly increase their global exposure and propagate their vision of chemical-free cleaning?
Situation Analysis
External Analysis
In this section I will use case information and provide an analysis of the commercial cleaning industry. I am choosing to ignore the residential cleaning industry at this time as they have only begun thinking about the consumer market at the time the case was written. Also, given the push by the majority of cleaning companies to “go green" it is important to look at the entire cleaning industry rather than just the ecologically-friendly niche in order to assess the level of Tennant’s competitive advantage relative to the industry as a whole. As aforementioned, there has been a general trend towards green alternatives in the 21st century, across a
Over Tennant Company’s (Tennant) 141 year history, they have consistently remained a producer of floor-cleaning equipment and technologies focusing their efforts in producing products for non-residential use. Since the new CEO Chris Killingstad has come to the company however, he has been dramatically changing Tennant’s value proposition with a broader emphasis encompassing “chemical-free cleaning and other technologies.” This case shows Tennant’s move beyond traditional green efforts to centralizing environmentally-friendly performance at the heart of the company’s focus, and whether this new focus provides enough benefit as a competitive advantage.
The challenge now for Killingstad and Tennant is how to move forward into 2013 in terms of company focus and direction; mainly the extent to which they should diversify. Should Tennant move into residential markets with smaller units for consumers to use in-home? Should they continue to focus on the commercial side, investing instead in the market potential of their ec-H20 and irreversible electroporation technologies? Or should they enter emerging markets with low-cost alternatives to truly increase their global exposure and propagate their vision of chemical-free cleaning?
Situation Analysis
External Analysis
In this section I will use case information and provide an analysis of the commercial cleaning industry. I am choosing to ignore the residential cleaning industry at this time as they have only begun thinking about the consumer market at the time the case was written. Also, given the push by the majority of cleaning companies to “go green" it is important to look at the entire cleaning industry rather than just the ecologically-friendly niche in order to assess the level of Tennant’s competitive advantage relative to the industry as a whole. As aforementioned, there has been a general trend towards green alternatives in the 21st century, across a