Assignment 1: Terracog Global Positioning Systems: Conflict and Communication On Project Aerial

Assignment 1: TerraCog Global Positioning Systems:
Conflict and Communication on Project Aerial
A Report submitted to
Prof. Gita Chaudhuri
In partial fulfilment of the requirements of the course Witten Analysis and

Communication – I
By
Harsh
Section B
Roll No. 1911097
On
07-07-2019
MEMO
To: Emma Richardson, EVP, TerraCog Global Positioning Systems

From: Harsh, Executive Assistant (To EVP)
Date: 16th March, 2008
Subject: Whether TerraCog should launch or not ‘Aerial’ in the upcoming holiday
season and its implications.
Please find below the attached analysis for Project Aerial as to whether TerraCog
should launch or not Aerial in the upcoming holiday season, and the impact of the
same on the business.
1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
TerraCog which was established 31 years back in 1977, has grown from
manufacturing of high quality sonar equipment for sports enthusiast to a company
specializing in high quality Global Positioning System. Its product was better than other
and it emerged as one of the top notch companies in the market. They believed that a
little lag in terms of technology was justifiable because their products surpassed those
of competitors in addressing customer demands. They failed to evaluate one of the
products launched by one of their competitors and were losing their market to them.
In order to compete and regain its market share -
TerraCog has the options of
1. Either going ahead with the Launch of Project Aerial with low margin (at $425).
2. Cancel product launch for now and to recreate and redesign the product in a
better way and then return to market after 5-6 months.
3. Scrap project Aerial and focus on the underserved GPS markets of cycling and
fitness apps.
4. Launch Aerial at a price of $475 and have a presence in market and then to
improve the quality in time bound manner to justify its price,
The factors to be considered before choosing an option are USP-Quality, Customer

Satisfaction, Market Share, Reputation and impact of the decision on different
departments.
After closely evaluating the options on the above mentioned criteria’s, it is

recommended that TerraCog goes with the option of cancelling launch of Aerial for
now and return to the market with a Wow Product after doing proper market research
and improved coordination between departments and structured development of the
product not in a hurried manner.
2
Situation Analysis: TerraCog started in 1977, manufacturing high quality sonar
equipment for sports professional and it started to extend its market by launching high
quality GPS products to hikers, campers and hunters in 1990. TerraCog didn’t believed
that there was a need to market its products as the products were of high quality and
effectively catered to the needs and demands of the customers, facilitating the
company in capturing the market. The products of TerraCog left the competitors far
behind when it came to durability, navigation and other value added features like
integrated compass and barometric altimeter. Because of this, they emerged as one
of the best companies in the market catering to this sector.
TerraCog was planning to enter in an underserved GPS sub-markets which included

cycling and fitness applications in early 2007.When Posthaste, a competitor of
TerraCog, introduced a GPS prototype called “BirdsI” at the Summer 2006 Retail
Outdoor Show having unique feature of static satellite photographs which was a
marked improvement on what other competitors were offering through their products,
TerraCog did not see any major threat as according to their research the technology
offered by BirdsI was not a significant improvement over the maps which the products
of TerraCog possessed as well as their team was confident to point out that
Posthaste’s product lagged on accuracy as well as reception quality which proved to
be wrong. Only two months after being launched, BirdsI had seen an impressive sell
throughout the market. After this also, the management at TerraCog endorsed that
success of BirdsI was only because of shopping during holiday season and as the
holiday season will get over the popularity of BirdsI will fall and their products will fare
better in the market than BirdsI. By the time TerraCog came to realize their mistake in
evaluating BirdsI, the product was a huge success. Garmin, another competitor of
TerraCog announced the launch of its satellite image version which would cost around
$395 to the customers.
In order to keep its marketshare intact as well as regain that was lost to BirdsI,
TerraCog planned to launch a GPS with satellite image feature which they named
“Project Aerial”. As the product was to be launched in the upcoming holiday season of
2008 for which not much time was left. So, in order to speed up the process of
development and avoid costs because of major reconfigurations, redesigning within
the existing GPS platform was proposed. However, the estimated cost of sales
threatened to dart the project. Ed Pryor, who is VP of sales feels that “Aerial” should
3
be priced around $425 to capture the market share it lost to the competitors but as per
the estimate of production team, price for sale would be at the minimum $475
considering adequate margin. This price was quite too high for the sales team to
consider as the products of other competitors such as Posthaste and Garmin were
priced way below $475.As well as the version which was currently offered by TerraCog
was priced at $375.So, $100 above that price when there was not much tweaking with
the application was huge. So, the sales team wanted the price to be kept not more
than $425.The key managers gathered for two argumentative meetings that featured
rage, blame and bewilderment, but yielded in no effective choice to make. The
responsibility of making the group come to a common decision lies with Emma
Richardson who has been recently promoted to be the Executive Vice President of the
Company.
Problem Statement: Whether TerraCog launch or not Aerial in the upcoming holiday
season or postpone it, and the impact of the same on the business.
Word Count: 608

Assignment 1: Terracog Global Positioning Systems: Conflict and Communication On Project Aerial

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Assignment 1: Terracog Global Positioning Systems: Conflict and Communication On Project Aerial

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Assignment 1: Terracog Global Positioning Systems: Conflict and Communication On Project Aerial

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Assignment 1: TerraCog Global Positioning Systems:

Conflict and Communication on Project Aerial

Prof. Gita Chaudhuri

In partial fulfilment of the requirements of the course Witten Analysis and

To: Emma Richardson, EVP, TerraCog Global Positioning Systems

TerraCog has the options of

The factors to be considered before choosing an option are USP-Quality, Customer

After closely evaluating the options on the above mentioned criteria’s, it is

TerraCog was planning to enter in an underserved GPS sub-markets which included

Word Count: 608

You might also like