Discussion:
Paper and Presentation Topic
Throughout the semester, we have watched several episodes of The Profit on CNBC. You will pick an episode of The Profit and analyze it in the same manner. Then, you will present your findings to the class. In essence, you will teach the class all about what was going wrong and what Marcus Lemonis did to help turn around the business. Although the following suggest some questions you should answer, it is not a comprehensive list. Simply answering these is not enough. Dig deeper.
1. Strategic Vision
a. What was the overall strategic vision? Did this make sense given the people, processes, and product?
b. What about the location, customers, supply chains, etc. Did they fit with the strategic vision?
c. What about the future of the business? Did the strategic vision work to drive the business forward into the 21st Century?
d. What was lacking in the Strategic Vision?
2. People
a. Which of the people in your episode seemed to have the most at stake?
b. Where the managers, owners, principles, etc. savvy business people? Why or why not?
c. What did they do wrong? What did they do right?
d. Did the people have interpersonal relationships that got in the way of doing business? Why and how? Could they overcome this?
e. How did the people get to the point where they could not handle the business? Keep in mind that folks don't just build a business to the point of millions in revenue without doing something right.
3. Process
a. Describe the processes the previous owners/managers used to deliver the goods or services to the customer.
b. Did this process work? What was right and what was wrong about this process?
c. How did the process fit with the overall strategic vision? How did it fall short?
d. Don't forget to add sections on:
i. Supply Chain Management, Resources, and Inventories
ii. Finance and Accounting
iii. Marketing, Packaging, and Brand Management
iv. Process Selection and Design
4. Product
a. Describe the product in detail.
i. What was it about this product that appealed to customers?
ii. Where did it fall short?
iii. Could it be changed? If so, how?
b. What was the need that the product met?
i. What are the features?
ii. What are the benefits?
iii. How was the product positioned in the marketplace?
c. What was the price point?
i. Was this sufficient?
ii. How did it compare to other similar products?
d. What was the target demographic for the product?
i. Did it have mass appeal or was it a niche product?
ii. How did the previous owners try to market the product?
iii. Where did they fail?
5. What did Marcus Lemonis do?
a. What problems did he run into when trying to help the business owners?
i. Why were they hesitant?
ii. Do you think they had a right to be?
b. Do you think the offer that Marcus made to the owners was fair?
i. How much does he value the business at?
ii. Could they have done better? How?
iii. Would you have taken his deal?
c. What was the new strategy that Marcus put in place?
i. People
ii. Process
iii. Product
iv. Did the new operations strategy work?
6. How is the business doing now?
a. Dig deep and see if you can find a website, sales numbers, etc.
b. Do a before and after if possible.
c. Where are they going from here?
d. How much did Marcus help them?
7. What would you and your team have done differently? Why?