Cumberland Paper
1. What’s your price for the curled metal pads? Why?
2. How attractive an opportunity is this for CMI?
3. How are you going to market these pads? Describe your marketing plan.
4. What are you going to say to the Colerick Foundation?
Exhibit 1: SWOT Analysis | | | | Strengths | Weaknesses | CMI was one of the largest manufacturers of curled metal products in US with an 80% market share | CMI’s sales were dipping and management was not optimistic of maintaining the current market share in the long run | Cumberland had a history of using curled metal technology to develop innovative metal products like slip-seal to meet the demanding specifications | Existing cushion pads in the market seem to be meeting the need adequately and hence no specific attention was being paid to develop new and high performing products | The results of tests of the use of new metal pad had been excellent, exhibiting nearly 33% gain in efficiency and 20 times more life as compared to asbestos pads | Because of the lack of an existing market and sales and distribution channels, company faced a herculean task of convincing the channels that there indeed was a market for the new pad | Existing pads in the market came in standard diameters but CMI’s manufacturing process provided the flexibility to develop pads in any diameter using the same band of curled metal | Because of the lack of statistics on cushion pad usage, CMI did not have a clear idea of the sales mix of the various product sizes | Contractors and Subject matter Experts(Prof. R. Stephan McCormack of Pennsylvania A&M university ) had expressed great enthusiasm about the new pad | At this stage of prior to product launch and manufacturing, CMI seem to be struggling to find a responsible contractor to use the product and monitor its performance | Opportunities | Threats | No direct competition for Cumberland existed because of the lack of
2. How attractive an opportunity is this for CMI?
3. How are you going to market these pads? Describe your marketing plan.
4. What are you going to say to the Colerick Foundation?
Exhibit 1: SWOT Analysis | | | | Strengths | Weaknesses | CMI was one of the largest manufacturers of curled metal products in US with an 80% market share | CMI’s sales were dipping and management was not optimistic of maintaining the current market share in the long run | Cumberland had a history of using curled metal technology to develop innovative metal products like slip-seal to meet the demanding specifications | Existing cushion pads in the market seem to be meeting the need adequately and hence no specific attention was being paid to develop new and high performing products | The results of tests of the use of new metal pad had been excellent, exhibiting nearly 33% gain in efficiency and 20 times more life as compared to asbestos pads | Because of the lack of an existing market and sales and distribution channels, company faced a herculean task of convincing the channels that there indeed was a market for the new pad | Existing pads in the market came in standard diameters but CMI’s manufacturing process provided the flexibility to develop pads in any diameter using the same band of curled metal | Because of the lack of statistics on cushion pad usage, CMI did not have a clear idea of the sales mix of the various product sizes | Contractors and Subject matter Experts(Prof. R. Stephan McCormack of Pennsylvania A&M university ) had expressed great enthusiasm about the new pad | At this stage of prior to product launch and manufacturing, CMI seem to be struggling to find a responsible contractor to use the product and monitor its performance | Opportunities | Threats | No direct competition for Cumberland existed because of the lack of