La importancia de la quimica

When Helmets are not Enough
Pete Thomond - Cranfield University Fred Michel and Antoine Monville – Pactuco International

What would you do in the event of an attack by a low cost Chinese manufacturer?

Pactuco is a French plastics mouldings manufacturer. The chapter shows how insurgent Chinese manufacturers have begun to disrupt its core market –forcing it to consider new competitivepositions. Pactuco leaders used the DPM tool to idnetify a disruptive response.

©The authors, 2004

Pactuco International
The birth of cycle helmet manufacturing in Europe
In 1992 Bell Sports created a company called Euro-Bell. It was the first factory in Europe focused on the manufacture of bicycle helmets. In 1999, Bell Sports decided to relinquish control of manufacturing to focus purely uponits design and sales activities, allowing other plastics moulding firms to tender for their business. Consequently, Euro-Bell became Pactuco International. Thus until 1999, Pactuco in its former guise as Euro-Bell, manufactured helmets exclusively for Bell Sports; since 1999, Bell Sports has remained one of Pactuco’s major customers. Independence from Bell Sports generated new opportunities forPactuco. However, the senior

management team also recognised that these opportunities were accompanied by new threats, especially an over-reliance upon one customer – its former owner. This created the necessity to find new business ventures for their plastics moulding and polystyrene injection capabilities (Figure 1). It was clear that diversification into new markets was an option for thefirm; it owned a wealth of industrial machinery and a wealth of technical experience in the expanded polystyrene process. However, following an analysis of their strengths and weaknesses, the senior management team decided to focus its efforts in areas where they had extensive commercial experience - the manufacture of protective helmets. Quite soon new customers in the protection helmet industry werefound (and not just in the bicycle sector).

Figure 1: Expanded polystyrene injection machines

©The authors, 2004

The impact of Chinese insurgents
New customers and less reliance on Bell Sports looked to create a more secure future for Pactuco and its 110 employees. However, the rapid emergence of Chinese manufacturers, into this already competitive worldwide market, generated a hugethreat for Pactuco’s existence. These competitors, although previously almost non-existent, had begun to offer products of marginally less quality but at significantly less cost. The management team conducted a review of the product offerings past and present within the protective helmet industry. This study generated two conclusions:

1. Although the industry had moved forward, it had essentiallyremained the same for several years (Figure 2) and now competitive advantage was firmly focused upon cost reduction.

2. Pactuco was nearing the end of its capacity to compete on price within its core product range. It needed to generate new areas of competitive advantage and saw the rapid introduction of innovation to the top of the management agenda as crucial for the firm’s permanence.GIRO Stelvio (1997)

BELL X-Ray (2000)

LAZER X3M (2003)

Figure 2: Regular helmets manufactured by Pactuco

The Chinese competition was effectively disrupting the protective helmet industry using a low-end disruptive strategy. Pactuco would never again be able to compete in these lower tiers of the market, purely because of cost structures. The market had shifted, yet the senior managementteam held the firm belief that their organisation could offer something new to high-end customers in the protective helmet industry (Figure 3). Using an existing relationship with CDN, a new-product-design consultancy, they initiated a new focus on innovation. ©The authors, 2004

High-end Demanding customers A Product Performance B

C

Low-end Non demanding customers

Disruptive...