Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018

This report provides an overview of the issues for Duque Papetiers Gros, annual spending on writing/drawing materials per capita, analysis of Duque’s last three years of sales, feasibility of expanding to Germany & international standards, costs of a new building, mean value of orders, and customer satisfaction.

Report for Duque PapetiersGros
Date:

Report for Duque PapetiersGros
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
Table of Contents
Introduction.............................................................................................................................................2
1. Overview of Issues for Duque Papetiers Gros..................................................................................2
2. Annual Spending on Writing/Drawing Materials per Capita.............................................................3
3. Analysis of Duque’s last three years of sales (2015-2017)................................................................3
4. Feasibility of Expanding to Germany & International Standards......................................................6
5. Costs of a New Building....................................................................................................................7
6. Mean Value of Orders......................................................................................................................8
7. Customer Satisfaction.......................................................................................................................9
8. Summary........................................................................................................................................11
References..............................................................................................................................................13
Appendices.............................................................................................................................................14
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
Introduction
Germany is one of the most affluent markets for stationary in Europe. Each individual
living in Germany spends more than €182 per annum on stationeries. This follows the fact
that the German stationary industry has a total annual turnover of €14.8 billion per annum, as
per a study conducted on behalf of the Trade Association for Office Supply and Writing
Materials. Out of the total €182 spent by an individual on stationeries, it was found that
almost €35.2 is spent on drawing and writing material. Consequently, Germany has the
second highest expenditure on stationeries out all the European Union
countries(malaysia.ahk 2016).
1. Overview of Issues for Duque Papetiers Gros
The German stationary industry consists of almost 2200 companies involved in
wholesale stationeries. This includes wholesaler who sell office supplies, writing instruments,
papers, and business to business intermediaries. Almost 50 percent of these companies enjoy
a net turnover of at least €500,000(malaysia.ahk 2016). Wholesalers who sell papers, writing
instruments, office supplies and act as business to business intermediaries enjoy the option of
making deliveries to not only to retailers but also to customers directly. However there has
been a trend of decrease in the number of wholesalers in the market owing to companies
merging together or going out of the market (Isokane et al. 2017).It has been seen that the
wholesalers are now engaging in strategies that involve with them bypassing the intermediary
retailers altogether to deliver their products directly to the commercial customers and this
seems to have widened their business scope. (malaysia.ahk 2016).
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
2. Annual Spending on Writing/Drawing Materials per Capita
Switzerland
Germany
Austria
France
Slovenia
Italy
Slovakia
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Annual Spendings on Writing / Drawing Materials per capita
Annual Spendings (in €)
Country Name
Figure T2: Annual per Capita expenditure on Writing / Drawing
It is seen that the per capita expense on writing/drawing stationary product is
maximum is Switzerland and it is closely followed by Germany and then Austria. These three
countries are therefore the topmost stationary markets. Germany is therefore deemed as a
favourable market to consider for expanding.
3. Analysis of Duque’s last three years of sales (2015-2017)
The sales data of Duque shows that out of the total items sold, in 2016 16% were
writing/drawing materials and it was 18% in 2017, in 2016 14% were printer cartridges and in
2017 it was 13%, in 2016 15% were general office supplies and it was13% in 2017, 10% were
low cost printers in 2016 and it was the same in 2017, 14% were office furniture in 2016
which increased to 15% in 2017, in 2016 16% were shredders and it was the same in 2017 and
finally 2016 and 2017 shows 15% sales being on paper based supplies.
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
2016
14%
2016
15%
2016
10%
2016
14%
2016
16%
2016
15%
2016
16%
2017
12%
2017
13%
2017
10%
2017
15%
2017
16%
2017
15%
2017
18%
Mixed Pie Chart of Sales by each Product in 2016 and 2017
printer cartridges
general office supplies
low-cost printers
office furniture
shredders
paper-based supplies
writing/drawing materials
Figure 3.1: Mixed Pie Chart of Sales by Product in 2016 and 2017
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
155000
160000
165000
170000
175000
180000
185000 f(x) = 6500 x + 162000
R² = 0.534810126582278
Total Sales (in €)
Year
Total Sales (in €)
Figure 3.2: Total Sales with respect to Year against Prediction of Sales for 2018 and 2019
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
The correlation between the total sales and the year was measured using Pearson’s
correlation coefficient (r) as 0.73. Therefore a strong and positive correlation is implied to
exist between the total sales and time measured in years. It means that as time progresses,
the total sales also increases. The linear relationship between total sales and time measured
in years is then obtained to be:
Total Sales = 162000+6500 * Time in years
The scatter plot shows that the value of r2is 0.5348. This implies that the model that
has been developed explains 53.48 percent of the total variation of the dependent or
response variable, total sales. The ‘Time in years’ variable is taken to be ordinal with 2011
being considered as 1 and the scale increasing in value as years increase (Vermez 2017). Then,
the predicted total sales obtained for the year 2018 is = Predicted Sales for the year 2018 =
162000 + 6500 * 4 = 188,000 (in €)
Again, the predicted sales for the year 2019 = 162000+ 6500 * 5= 194,500 (in €)
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
4. Feasibility of Expanding to Germany & International Standards
The feasibility of the decision to expand into Germany and Belgium was analysed on
the basis of the pros and cons of the decision and a score was determined for each point.
Finally the two scores were compared to come to the final decision. The following table
expounds on the analysis and its results.
Should I expand my business to Belgium & Germany?
Pros Score/10 Cons Score/10
Expansion of brand presence
to more locations and
markets
8 Need more capital
investment 8
Greater efficiency and
largerscale of output 8 Increase in logistic
complexities 6
Greater impact of the brand
in local market 8
Challenges on the front of
business relationships and
cultural adaptation
5
Total Pros 24 Total Cons 19
Average Pros 8 Average Cons 6.33
Therefore it was seen that the pros outweigh the cons in the decision to expand
business into Germany and Belgium.
The following list constitutes of the International Standards which are applicable to
the activities of Duque:
 DIN 4999
 DIN EN 1010 – 3
 DIN EN 12858
 ISO 618:1974
 UNE – EN 12858
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
5. Costs of a New Building
The cost per month for repaying a 30 year long repayment mortgage equal to
£200,000, with an interest rate of 10 percent per annum on the loan amount outstanding at
the beginning of each year is €1755.14.
The cost per month for repaying a 30 year long mortgage equal to £200,000, with a
rate of interest of 10 percent per annum on the loan amount every month is €1691.78. Here,
the rate of interest of 10 percent was readjusted to compute the Annual Percentage Rate
(APR) which in turn was used to calculate the repayment cost per month.
Therefore the cost of the second scheme whereby Donald would be required to pay
on a monthly basis an annual interest of 10 percent is deemed to be more favourable as the
repayment amount is lesser than what is would be if Donald had to pay once every year at a
interest rate of 10 percent.
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
6. Mean Value of Orders
Donald believes that the mean price of the orders received by his firm per month is
€240. Due to the fact that the firm receives a large number of orders every month, it is not
feasible to inspect each and every order, simply due to the ensuing time constraint. Therefore
the inspection process is done only on a representative sample of size fifty, drawn randomly
from the entire lot.
Let, X be the estimated sample mean, μ be the mean of the entire population, s be
the sample standard deviation and n be the size of the sample.
Here, X = €230, μ = €240, s = €43, n = 50,degrees of freedom = n-1 = 50-1 = 49,Level of
significance = α = 0.05 (5 % level of significance).
In order to verify the validity of his beliefs, the following conjectures are tested against
each other:
Null hypothesis: Ho: μ = 240
Alternate hypothesis: HA: μ ≠ 240
Then the statistic of interest is the student’s t-statistic, defined and obtained as follows:
t= X−μ
s
√ n
=230−240
43
√ 50
=−1.644
The null hypothesis is rejected at 5% level of significance if the absolute value of t is
greater than the theoretical value of t for which P(T>t)+P(T<-t) is equal to 0.05, that is the
critical value of t at 0.05 level. The critical value of t was then found to be 2.0096 and the
observed t-statistic was found to be lesser than the critical value. Hence there is not enough
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
evidence to reject the null hypothesis that the mean is €240 (Vermez 2017). Thus not enough
evidence was found to refute Donald’s belief. Therefore it is inferred that Donald’s
assumption is not incorrect.
7. Customer Satisfaction
The survey questionnaire developed for the purpose of this study, that is customer
perception and satisfaction to be specific, is concise and precise. It is devoid of redundancy.
The questions are mainly objective and close ended with only one question being open-ended
which asks for feedback from the customers taking the survey. Therefore, in context of all
these aspect no major change is deemed to be necessary for the questionnaire. However,
taking note of the fact that the rate of response had been lower than 5% in the years prior to
this, it is suggested that one takes cognizance of methods to improve effectiveness of
distribution and therefore the response to the questionnaires.
The current distribution method in question is to send them to potential respondents
via email. It could be beneficial if an email informing them about the questionnaire, what the
purpose of the study is and exactly how the information they are providing is going to be
utilized is sent to them before or along with the survey form. This would serve to mitigate
any suspicions or hesitancy from their minds. The information email also should inform the
respondent of the time that may be required to complete the form so that they may be able
to adjust the task to their schedule and fill the form as per convenience. Additionally, it could
also help if a little incentive in form of gift cards or discounts or vouchers could to offered to
the participants for taking part in the survey. A system could be set in place to send reminders
to participants who have not yet filled the form and this could work to reduce non-response
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
that may arise out of forgetfulness on part of the respondents. All these steps may be
implemented to reduce some of the non-response from the participants.
The survey on 2017 had managed to yield 20 complete responses of the
questionnaires. The questionnaires held information about the respondents about different
services like customer service, product and service quality, staff sales and commodity prices.
The descriptive measure of the observed ratings on each item is hence discussed.
The average rating for customer service was found to be 3.5 out of a maximum of 4. It
is thus quite high and the standard deviation was found to be low at 0.76. This implies that
majority of the respondents are satisfied in regard to the customer service of the company.
The products and service quality was rated to be 3.15 on the average and on scale of 1 to 4 it
is a high rating. Compounded by the fact that the standard deviation is a low 0.37, it is
indicated that customer satisfaction in terms of the quality is also good. The sales staffs
employed by the company were found to have an average rating of 3.45 which is again high
on a scale of 1 to 4 and since the standard deviation was found to have the low value of 0.83,
the company is again found to be performing well in this aspect as well. Finally, looking at the
ratings on product prices of the company, the mean rating was found to be 1.95 on a scale of
1 to 4. Now this is a low rating and taking note of the fact that the standard deviation is also
low with value 0.51, it is implied that this area is one where the customers may not be very
satisfied.
Hence, the product is deemed to be a key cause for concern for the company. It could
jeopardize their business and so it is suggested that they review the existing price scheme of
their services and products to identify the specifics of the dissatisfaction and thereafter rectify
the current prices to suit the customers as well as their own business. The other three aspects
being deemed satisfactory, it is expected that ensuring increase in customer ratings in this
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
aspect alone would improve their overall ratings to a great extent and in turn work to
increase profits of the firm.
CUST_SERV QUAL_P&S SALES_STAFF PRICE_VALUE
Mean 3.5 3.15 3.45 1.95
Standard Deviation 0.76 0.37 0.83 0.51
Table 7.1: Summary Statistics of Customer Satisfaction
8. Summary
The paper had attempted to put forth a market report regarding the feasibility of
Donald’s firm to expand into other European countries. It was determined that firstly the firm
would need to acquire a suitable building in the foreign locations to set up necessary facilities
and enhance the existing ones. Therefore capital would be required. To arrange for the loan,
Donald is willing to put some existing assets on mortgage. Now, choosing between two
available options of repayment policy that spans over 30 years, it was found that the scheme
with 10 percent per annum amounted to greater repayment amount that the one with the
same rate at a monthly basis. Therefore the second scheme was deemed more suitable.
Furthermore, the firm was found to have less than satisfactory customer ratings on product
pricing and it is suggested that the firm would benefit from reviewing their schemes on that
front.
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
body text wordcount, excluding diagrams/captions, etc approx. 2000 words
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
References
Isokane, M., Tadokoro, C., Sasaki, S. and Prakash, B., 2017. Influence of Ink Composition on
Tribological Properties of Ballpoint Pen. Tribology Online, 12(5), pp.257-261.
Malaysia.ahk.de., 2018. MGCC Perspectives – A Chamber of Commerce magazine. [online]
Available at: http://www.malaysia.ahk.de/fileadmin/ahk_malaysia/Perspectives/MGC047-
Mar.Apr16_iPAD.pdf [Accessed 27 Apr. 2018].
Vermez,E., 2017. An Introduction to analyzing data& Information: A problem solving. London.
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Report for Duque PapetiersGros 2018
Appendices
Product item 2015 Sales (€) 2016 Sales (€) 2017 Sales (€)
printer cartridges 25000 26000 22000
general office supplies 25000 27000 23000
low-cost printers 15000 18000 18000
office furniture 25000 25000 27000
shredders 25000 29000 29000
paper-based supplies 25000 27000 27000
writing/drawing materials 25000 30000 32000
Total Sales (€) 165000 182000 178000
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