Minit-lube’s Mission

A brief explanation on what is Minit-Lube’s mission and purpose.

According to Heizer & Render (2008), a mission is defined as an organization’s purpose, it provides the boundaries and focus for an organization: it states the rationale or purpose for an organization’s existence on how it will contribute to the society. Hence, it is important for the mission to be well defined.

The mission of Minit-Lube constitutes providing fast economical vehicle maintenance (i.e. oil changes and lubrication), and interior auto cleaning in a spotless environment: ensuring fast, reliable and superior services in a customer friendly environment and trying to keep the price as low as possible. For example, cars can be driven through three abreast into three service bays, with each service bay manned by a service team. Precise task assignments and good training ...Read more>>

Tangible and Intangile Parts of Minit-lube’s Service

Briefly discusses what the tangible and intangible Parts of Minit-Lube’s service are.

Minit-Lube’s product is a combination of intangible and tangible parts. The intangible part would be its service action which is unique, requires high customer interaction, and is produced and consumed at the same time. For instance, the service component (service performed) consists of service representatives/personnel: representatives greeting customers and taking their orders, and personnel performing tasks such as providing oil changes, lubrication and interior cleaning services. Having employees that serve customers with a smile, creates a customer friendly environment, and improves customer relationship; increasing revenue for Minit-Lube when customers are satisfied with the service...Read more>>

Disposable (Daily) Contact Lenses: Acuvue Trueye Review

There are many reasons why you would want to wear contact lens in place of your usual spectacles: you might want to look different or you simply want to have the convenience and practicality of contact lenses. Contact lenses are less prone steaming/fogging up as with glasses. They are also less affected by wet weather (no more droplets!), provide a wider field of vision, and are more suitable for a number of sporting activities.

If you are not intending to give up glasses for good and just want to look different once in a while, daily disposable contact lenses are a very good solution: they require no cleaning as they are thrown away daily after use and are convenient. The only downside is that they are more expensive than those weekly or monthly lenses.

Being a first time user of contact lens, it took me about 1 hour to learn how to insert and remove the contact lens. After that it was just a matter of practice. The type of contact lens that I tried was Acuvue TruEye. After telling the optometrist Ihad never traied contact lens and wanted to, was given a 5-day trial along with a 1-hour tutorial on how to use (insert and remove) them during a scheduled fitting session...Read more>>

Minit-Lube's 10 Operations Decisions That Provide Competitive Advantage

The following 10 operations decisions provide competitive advantage to Minit-Lube’s strategy (Heizer & Render 2008):

1. Product DesignMinit-Lube’s provides services, with a narrow product strategy, could be defined as “lubricating automobiles” (i.e. performing oil changes, lubrication and interior cleaning of vehicles). It allows the subsequent development of more focused and efficient operations. Minit-Lube seeks to differentiate itself from (traditional) competitors by facilitating fast service, and providing convenience to customers (i.e. it has a superior service design which enables it to service 3 cars at a time)...more>>

Challenges in Company Relocation from Urban to Rural

A heavily populated industrialized area’s environment is characterized as an area with socially and economically related adjacent communities. On the other hand, the environment of a small, rural town is characterized by large, isolated regions with low population density (e.g. small towns and farms). Moreover, the living costs of a heavily populated industrialized area are higher than that of a small, rural town. (Heizer & Render 2008)

One major problem will be reluctance to re-locate due to the drastic change in lifestyle from urban, fasting moving environment to a slower and more relaxed lifestyle; morale will be affected. Hence, there would concern for the employees working in the current urban site re-locating to a small, rural town heavily. The company may face resistance from employees as amenities of a small, rural town are lesser than that of a heavily populated industrialized area (i.e. employees may not want to live with the inconveniences and lack of amenities)... more>>

5 Types of Secondary Data

In marketing research, there are two types of data: primary and secondary. Primary data is data that has to be collected and analyzed from scratch, while secondary data refers to data that already exists and was gathered for purposes other than current research project. It is increasingly used to examine a wide variety of marketing and business problems because of the relative speed and cost-effectiveness of obtaining the data. Below are 5 types of secondary data that a company that can collect to help it decide whether it should go into a new catering business (Hair et. al, 2009):

1. Sales data - Sales Activity Reports (Internal)
These reports contain data on sales, competition, territory activities, and changes in the market place (if it is competitor intelligence, it is not considered internal data) , enabling the company to identify potential target markets, sales trends and competition. With this data, the company would be able to forecast future sales trends and revenues for its catering business. For example, the daily sales activity report would provide the company with insight: the monitoring and identifying of sales frequency (i.e. cyclical nature of the sales – sale increase during festive seasons) would enable the company to formulate its marketing strategy appropriately (i.e. set promotions and pricing), or translate the data for other expenses (i.e. price promotions may boost sales volume but does not generate profit)...more >>

Environment Analysis of 3M Greptile Golf Glove

Economic conditions and trends:

Between 1999 and 2004 household income stagnated showing a slight increase since 2004. While personal income has remained relatively stagnant since over the past few decades, household income has risen due to the rising percentage of households with two or more income earners. The rising of household income has brought opportunities to companies that they might spend their extra income to wants. The increasing dual income family might rise the demand for business women who also demand golf as their sport

As golf gloves are not considered as necessities, the rise of income (affluence) may affect the sales of golf gloves. Since 2004 household income has shown a slight increase. Thus it may trigger people to spend their extra income on satisfying their wants. This was an opportunities for 3m firm to launch and promote the Greptile golf glove as those golfers might look after products that can satisfy their hobbies or recreation on golf... more>>