Santek Images Case Study

Assignment Questions:

1. Many outsourcing decisions involve the concept of a core competency. Define what is meant by this term. Discuss if film technology is truly a core competency of Santek.

A core competency is a specific factor that a business sees as central to the way the company or its employees work. It fulfills three key criteria:

1. It is not easy for competitors to imitate.

2. It can be reused widely for many products and markets.

3. It must contribute to the end consumer's experienced benefits and the value of the product or service to its customers.

Santek Images has a wide global market for its film products. Many products at Santek use self-contained instant film, which Santek refers to as media. Only one other company in the world has similar technical capabilities. Most of the innovation valued by customers occurs within media rather than hardware and the margins for media products are higher than the margins for hardware products. Hence, film technology proves to be the core competency of Santek Images.

2. Develop a process that would guide firms through the insourcing/outsourcing process. Create a process that is robust enough to use across a variety of product/service applications.

Step 1: Investigation and Tendering

✓ Define Core Activities based on core competency

✓ Analysis of company, customer and competitor

✓ Define Sourcing strategy ( insource or outsource)

Step 2: Evaluation

✓ Estimate economic and operation benefits

Step 3: Supplier selection and development

✓ Negotiation

✓ Technical assessment

✓ Savings identification

✓ Implementation schedule

Step 4: Implementation

✓ Team, strategy and schedule ( Training of working staff)

✓ Agreement on supply & logistic terms

✓ Measurement of actual performance

✓ Progress report

Step 5: Performance measurement & continues improvement

✓ Monitor suppliers performance

✓ Relationship analysis

✓ Continues improvement opportunities...