Short characterization of the markets
The market parties place orders with the distributors (you) for different types of products at irregular intervals. There might be market fluctuations you have to watch.
The Europen market is divided into several geographic regions:
- UK/Irish Market: The UK/Irish market is viewed as a separate market, as it is geographically disconnected from mainland Europe. Organizations from the UK and Ireland place orders in this market, which has also several local suppliers. The Irish suppliers benefit from the favorable tax situation and establishment grants.
- Scandinavian market: Scandinavia has one of the highest percentages of computer use in the world, with a lot of focus on mobile and wireless equipment.
- Mediterranean market: This is a large market with France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Distances are quite large, and the region includes several industrial centers with a high demand for computers.
- German / Benelux market: This market includes Brussels with the seat of the European Union, the industrial Ruhr area in Germany, and former East Germany where many investments in IT are still being made. With many ports such as Hamburg, Rotterdam, and Antwerp, this market is one of the easiest ones to reach from other places in the world.
- Eastern European market: One of the fastest growing markets in Europe. With the new EU member states Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovakia, this is an interesting region to operate in.
- Southeast European Market: This market includes Greece, the former Yugoslav republics, and the new EU member states Hungary and Slovenia. IT use is growing tremendously in this region, so the market offers many possibilities for a distributor.
Each of the distributors has a local market, but of course it is allowed to compete on the other European markets as well, or even on the international market!
Short characterization of the distributors
There is one distribution company in each of the European markets. As you are managing the distributor in the game, not much can be said about the performance or competitiveness of the distributors. The competing distributors in Europe are:
| Market | Company | Location |
| UK | Waltons | Manchester, UK |
| Scandinavian | Storstrom | Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Mediterranean | Satolas | Lyon, France |
| German / Benelux | Scheffer | Enschede, The Netherlands |
| Eastern Europe | Gdynia | Warsaw, Poland |
| Southeast Europe | Najdenovski | Skopje, Macedonia |
Short characterization of the suppliers
UK: Fanagans, Galway, Ireland
Fanagans is a fast growing business that profits from the Irish government tax regime and establishment grants. Based in the large industrial zone in Galway, they have all the relations to shippers and subcontractors that they need. Fanagans offers all types of computers for a reasonable price. Their workflow quality is excellent. Their only problem is the shipping time of their products to mainland Europe. This tends to make their products slightly more expensive than the products of their competitors.
| Product type | Product quality | Workflow quality | Pricing |
| Desktop | Excellent | Good | Average |
| Laptop | Excellent | Good | Average |
| Linux | Excellent | Good | Average |
| Multimedia | Excellent | Good | Average |
UK: Hytec, Edinburgh, Scotland
Hytec has been on the market for many years. Originating in the heavy industry, and later moving into control systems, they have a lot of experience with getting components from all over the world. They specialize in desktop computers and Linux servers. Their sales staff is a little sloppy, so answering of customer demands is not always done quickly. The price of their desktops is good, but their Linux servers are too expensive.
| Product type | Product quality | Workflow quality | Pricing |
| Desktop | Excellent | Below average | Good |
| Linux | Excellent | Below average | Pricey |
Scandinavia: Aursunden, Trondheim, Norway
Aursunden is an average computer supplier. They offer all products for a reasonable price, and can respond in a reasonable time. Six years ago, they won an innovation award, but since that time management has changed twice, and the innovative character of the company is gone.
| Product type | Product quality | Workflow quality | Pricing |
| Desktop | Good | Fair | Average |
| Laptop | Good | Fair | Average |
| Linux | Good | Fair | Average |
| Multimedia | Good | Fair | Average |
Scandinavia: Vanavesi, Tampere, Finland
Finland is one of the most mobile countries around the world, with a high density of telecommunications networks and wireless access points. Vanavesi is aiming at the mobile market by offering laptop computers. They can usually offer a sharp price in a reasonable time. The quality of their laptops is good.
| Product type | Product quality | Workflow quality | Pricing |
| Laptop | Good | Excellent | Cheap |
Mediterranean: Desarrollo, Barcelona, Spain
Desarrollo is part of a European chain of computer suppliers. They source around the world, and offer an averagely priced set of computers. The size of the company has also resulted in a slow handling of the orders. Desarrollo tries to keep the local inventory small, as they can source from other members of the chain when they do not have enough stock available in Barcelona. Therefore, customers sometimes have to wait long for their promised orders. Desarrollo offers all types of available computers, and can handle special requests as well because of the size of the chain.
| Product type | Product quality | Workflow quality | Pricing |
| Desktop | Good | Below average | Average |
| Laptop | Good | Below average | Average |
| Linux | Good | Below average | Average |
| Multimedia | Good | Below average | Average |
Mediterranean: Sistemi, Genoa, Italy
Sistemi offers good desktops for a low price. The company has a no-nonsense attitude, and it is working with the most modern order tracking software to satisfy their customers.
| Product type | Product quality | Workflow quality | Pricing |
| Desktop | Good | Excellent | Cheap |
| Linux | Good | Excellent | Cheap |
| Multimedia | Good | Excellent | Cheap |
Mediterranean: Debeaux, Mulhouse, France
Debeaux is currently going through a merger with Subrenat, which caused quite a stir with the employees from Debeaux, as they had always seen Subrenat as one of their main competitors. The CEO of Debeaux, Mr. Gauthier, indicated that it was necessary to save on support staff in order to be competitive again. Some of the support staff are looking for another job in the region, as they expect to be fired when the merger gets through. The technical support staff is quite good. Debeaux does not sell Linux computers.
| Product type | Product quality | Workflow quality | Pricing |
| Desktop | Good | Problematic | Average |
| Laptop | Good | Problematic | Average |
| Multimedia | Good | Problematic | Average |
Germany/Benelux: Eisenstein, Koblenz, Germany
Eisenstein is part of a big European telecommunication chain. It does the final parts of the assembly before shipping out the computers. Parts and computer modules are bought on the world market, for laptops, they tend to just build in the hard disk and memory, which makes their laptops slightly boring. Their Linux servers tend to be technically behind the products of some of their competitors. Eistenstein always tries to sell complete solutions to their bigger customers, including all the telecommunications equipment and networking. Their sales and support staff is working fine.
| Product type | Product quality | Workflow quality | Pricing |
| Desktop | Good | Average | Average |
| Laptop | Good but not innovative | Average | Pricey |
| Linux | Not innovative | Average | Average |
| Multimedia | Good | Average | Average |
Germany/Benelux: Kapsch, Linz, Austria
The Kapsch company is special in the sense that they assemble the computers to customer's orders. The company has highly trained personnel and is very flexible; the downside is that ordering can take long, due to the peaked demand that the company faces. At this moment, Kapsch does not sell laptops.
| Product type | Product quality | Workflow quality | Pricing |
| Desktop | Excellent | High quality but slow | Expensive |
| Linux | Excellent | High quality but slow | Expensive |
| Multimedia | Good | High quality but slow | Expensive |
Eastern Europe: Pulaski, Poznan, Poland
Pulaski wants to get out products as fast as they can, and they usually succeed in that, but their handling is sloppy. Last year, the company faced a number of lawsuits from companies who did not get their products on time, and could not cancel their orders. Their laptops are of very low quality, and actually too expensive, given the low quality. Pulaski never cared about customer care, and their free helpline is usually unmanned.
| Product type | Product quality | Workflow quality | Pricing |
| Desktop | Fair | Terrible | Cheap |
| Laptop | Bad | Terrible | Pricey |
| Linux | Fair | Terrible | Cheap |
| Multimedia | Fair | Terrible | Cheap |
Eastern Europe: Danubis, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Danubis is selling computers assembled from parts from various Chinese factories. The quality of their computers is reasonable, and their multimedia computers have an excellent performance. Their workflow is average, but also here the multimedia department performs better than the other departments. The prices are average for all types of computers, although their Linux computers tend to be pricey.
| Product type | Product quality | Workflow quality | Pricing |
| Desktop | Good | Fair | Average |
| Laptop | Good | Fair | Average |
| Linux | Good | Fair | Pricey |
| Multimedia | Excellent | Excellent | Average |
Southeast Europe: Tvornica, Croatia
Tvornica really profits from its strategic transportation location in Split, Croatia. They import high quality electronics, hard disks, and processors from different European and Asian suppliers for a good price. All their computers are offered in a reasonable time. Tvornica outsourced their customer handling services to the international company Global Service Handling Inc., and was able to negotiate an excellent Service Level Agreement (SLA).
| Product type | Product quality | Workflow quality | Pricing |
| Desktop | Good | Good | Inexpensive |
| Laptop | Good | Good | Inexpensive |
| Linux | Good | Good | Inexpensive |
| Multimedia | Good | Good | Inexpensive |
