Name Muhammad Ibrahim

ERP 04140

• Stationary suppliers
Publisher Sellers
• Ink , Paper • Owned by Mountain
• Special material • Editors Publishing
• Cardboards • Designing • located around the country • Book stores
• Printing • Online sellers
• Graphic Artists • Retailers
• visual impacts
• Authors
Material
Distributors
suppliers Graphi
c
Artists
• visual
impa
cts
Range of Visuals

Weekly
meeting/discussion

Author & Agent

then published

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Name Muhammad Ibrahim
ERP 04140

Question-2

Customers For textbooks

1-Online Retailer and Bookstores,
Bookstores across the country are catering to the need of the customers. Institution form
partnership with the bookstores, so that availability of the required material can be ensured.
These stores are further classified depending on the target market. Brick & Mortar chains are
quite popular in Pakistan because of the country dynamics. Online retailers such as amazon
and Kindle had international presence before, however they are trying to penetrate in the
developing markets. These customers want a low price and good quality so that they can do
volume sales.

2- Educational Institutions
- Academic Curriculum
- Short Courses
In Pakistan curriculum depends on the system of education student is enrolled in. It varies
greatly depending on enrolment in private or public institutions. Moreover, short courses are
quite common these days offering academic certifications. Students require books to have a
readable format and should be long lasting. Professionals purchase books so that they can
change with the continuous changing environment. For example, finance graduate gives
professional exams to further strengthen skills. Primary requirement of the institutions is
inclusion of material taught in the books & ease of using that material online and offline.

Key customer for the Publisher

Key customers for the publishers are the bookstores. In case of the weak distribution
publishers can do horizontal integration and takeover the distribution if it is not performing
its task up to the expectations. Publisher until owns the brick & mortar stores will always be
able to sell B2B.

Question-3

Major Players in Supply chain

- Suppliers

- Publishers

- Distributors

- Retailers

Above mentioned stakeholders are the major players in supply chain. They all have very
different operational roles. Suppliers provide material such as ink, paper and special material

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Name Muhammad Ibrahim
ERP 04140

to fulfil orders. Publisher work very closely with the design teams and authors so that
customer could get books according to their requirement. Therefore, from the publisher’s
point of view it’s just not printing but also development. It is important to have conformance
to the customers requirement. If the customer wants high quality book then the design and
printing should fulfil, however, purchasing power is always kept in consideration. Distributors
play a role for the book’s availability on the bookstores and retailers make sure that best seller
books are placed in a location easily accessible. Therefore, each player is associated with
creating a value for the customer.

Question-4

Changing Role in the future

In the future everything depends on the ingression of the e-books. With changing
technologies demand for physical books will be replaced by the e-books. The role of the
conventional suppliers will start fading away. Application developers and digital payment
companies will start embracing the roles of suppliers. Publishers will work on how to optimize
the visual aspect of the book on the digital platforms. Publishers will work with the authors
to make the books more interactive as the customer preference would change. Designing,
editing and visuals will be carried out still by the publishers, however role of printing will be
eradicated Sales and distribution will also change as customer’s traffic on the brick & mortar
stores will be reduced. Online sellers will be most favourable platform for the sales of books.
Online market places such as Amazon, Kindle and Alibaba will be favourable options for sales.

Suppliers Publisher Sellers

App developers Designing Online sellers
SEO organisations Editing Amazon, Alibaba
Platform developers Digital Optimization

Question 5

Long term Operational Changes

My recommendations to Dave Eisenhart would be to forecast the future demand for the
online vs offline books and start planning creation of content. Setting transformation goals
would help the publisher from becoming obsolete in the rapidly changing technological
environment. Long lasting partnerships with digital platforms such as Kindle, Amazon and
Goodreads would help strengthen sales and the distribution. Moreover, digital readers are
much different from the conventional reader as they are quite demanding and want platform
to have all the qualities of offline platforms in addition to advanced technological tools.
Content creation would be also be different as books will be offered in various different forms
such as audio books, video navigation tools. Therefore, conventional method of printing and

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 Name Muhammad Ibrahim
ERP 04140

designing might not be applicable in the future and Eisenhart should invest in 3D
technologies. Artificial Intelligence and machine learning can also help in predicting the future
consumer needs as consumer interaction with the digital platforms is easily trackable. Lastly
he needs to invest in the technologies those give him competitive advantage in the future.

Question 2- Following firms have a long been seen as having a strong competitive advantage

1-Atlas Honda Limited

Atlas Honda is known for manufacturing quality motorcycles with innovative design.
However, the competitive advantage is 5s dealership model followed throughout the country.
5s dealership model includes

 Sort
 Set in order
 Shine
 Standardize
 Sustain

Honda dealership network is famous for providing exceptional customer service. Japanese
organizations always follow customer first approach and it got translated into Atlas Honda
Pakistan. Innovative design and engine capacity (Honda CD 70, CG 125) was key to success
though Honda motorcycles were expensive than Chinese imported bikes.

2-Coca-Cola

Coca Cola has the advantage of the strong distribution network in Pakistan. Coca-Cola İçecek
is handling the bottling operations for Coca Cola International.
 Intensive Distribution through CCI
 Direct relations with Fountains
Coca Cola has very unique supply chain model all across the world

CSDS
Artificial Concenterate Distribution
Bottlers Fountain
Sweetener Producer Company
High fructose Coca Cola Outlets
Coca Cola (owned by
Corn syrup Icecyk mass
International Icecyk)
merchandise

Coca Cola is also known for bringing online system for the retailers, so that redundancies in
the order taking could be avoided and real time information could be shared with various

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ERP 04140

different stakeholders. Coca Cola developed a system of of real time analysis and order
fulfilment that really differentiated them from rest of the competitors.

Telenor Pakistan

Telenor is known for its innovative ideas and creation of disruption in countries where they
operate. In Pakistan Telenor tapped in the untapped market of about 18 million bill
paying customer, 10 million migrants who use to send remittances from urban areas to
the rural areas & lastly 68 million unbanked population in the Pakistan.

Telenor’s competitive advantage is

- 125000 branches all across the country.

- Introducing Telenor mobile financial services
- Utilizing already existing sales and distribution model for introducing new products.
- Collaboration and later on owning Tameer Microfinance bank

Smart payments and branchless banking were fairly new concept when Telenor decided to
enter in this segment. Competitive advantage of Telenor was retail outlets in the villages nearly
about 125000 on the other hand a bank could have only 15000 branches in country.

Imtiaz Super Market

Competitive advantage of Imtiaz is everyday low prices. Imtiaz negotiate prices with the
suppliers that are quite low than mom and pop stores/ kiryana stores, therefore attracting
consumers who are interested in bulk purchase. Imtiaz has developed efficient supply chain
network therefore they are able to tap into segment looking for savings on monthly groceries.

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