Hi all, I have recently been stuck in profitability case (specifically, the "root cause" part). Would really appreciate hearing some feedback and advice.
I'll use this case to illustrate the problems I encountered: Office Vending Machine (p.6)
https://www.taodocs.com/p-60809693.html
After initial analysis, I know it is the volume drop which resulted in a probability decrease, and other competitor's volume is not dropping.
My question here is how should I structure the process of finding the root cause of a volume drop?
Should I ask time to structure the problem "why has volume dropped", and structure this problem like a full case?
Here's how I did it:
1.Company
Expertise and advantage? Is the current capacity meeting demand? Organization (such as sales force)?
2.Product
Manufacture process? Logistic? Weakness point of the product?
3.Client
Who is the end user? What is the purchase criteria and preference? What is their need?
4.Competition
Who are the competitors? Market share? What have they been doing that our client is not? What are the competitors strength?
I was really stuck at this process because without much information, I don't know what specific direction to explore.
For instance, it might be an operational issue / competition issue / clients willingness to pay dropped, etc.
What would be a good way to structure and what would be some good questions to ask?