Crocs case

MIS 3537 Internet & Supply Chains

Spring 2014

Due Date: Jan 30, 2014

Refer to the case “Crocs: Revolutionizing an Industry’s Supply Chain Model for Competitive Advantage” from the Harvard Business Publishing website

Answer the following questions briefly:

1.  What are Croc’s core competencies?

2.  How should they exploit these competencies in the future? Consider the following alternatives and comment how each alternative matches / does not match with Crocs core competencies.

• Further vertical acquisition into materials
• Growth by acquisitions
• Growth by product expansion

3.  What are the drawbacks of having too little or too much inventory?

4.  Is Crocs a high margin or a low margin company (compared to competitors)? How does a company’s margin impact its inventory decisions?  In other words, should a high margin company carry more or less inventory?

One group will present this case in the class, and another group will post the correct answers to these case questions on the blog after the class discussion. Rest of the groups are required to submit a printout of their answers to the instructor at the beginning of the class. Also, be prepared to discuss the case in the class.

Here are some tips for writing the case answers:

1. Answers should be brief and to the point (10 lines max)

2. Answers should be substantiated by proper reasoning from the case or other sources.

3. Avoid general statements such as “make customers happy”, “increase profits” etc without proper explanations