Project Outline for Checkers Industrial Safety Products, Inc.

Based in Broomfield, CO

Project Purpose: Identify, qualify, and understand the opportunities for Checkers Industrial’s niche safety products in the Entertainment industry. Segment the Entertainment Industry to conduct voice of the customer interviews that will provide insight into customer demand, expectations, regulations/safety requirements, and buying patterns.

History: Checkers Industrial Safety Products is a manufacturer and supplier of niche safety products. Our product portfolio consists of wheel chokes, cable protectors, flag whips, and several ancillary items. Our growth and success has been driven globally for the demand of increased safety particularly in the mining and construction, utility, and defense markets. Recently, our company received interest from the entertainment industry, primarily inquiring about our cable protectors. This project is targeted to gain a better understanding of the market need and/or demand for our safety products, both domestic and globally. We are forecasting our growth in this market to achieve seven figures by 2013.

Project Objectives: Objectives include:

  • Conduct , listen, and understand the Voice of the Customer
  • Understand the market size, target geographies, industry trends, key drivers, and seasonality of the business
  • Segment the entertainment market into subcategories (theme parks, movie industry, athletic venues, etc.) and learn the demand for our products by subcategories
  • Understand the most efficient and effective sales channel to the entertainment industry and include estimated profitability of the partners in the supply chain
  • Understanding the brand loyalty distributors (indirect sales channel) have with manufacturers and their willingness to stock product and/or sell
  • Identify associations and trade organizations that help promote the use of our product and/or regulations within the industry
  • Identify tax incentives in different geographical locations to film movies
  • Determine the impact brand equity has on key decision makers selecting the type of product to be used (do they see value in our products or are they price driven?)
  • Identify the competitive set and/or threat of alternative solutions to our product and value
  • Understand the different needs and requirements of these niche safety products globally

Project Scope: The scope of the project pertains to niche safety products that are utilized in the broad array of subcategories that comprise the Entertainment industry. Primarily, the focus should be centered on our product offering (wheel chocks, cable protectors, and flag whips); however, if additional niche products are identified, we would be interested in being provided a list of these products for potentially adding to our product portfolio.

Deliverables: At the conclusion of the study, the management team at Checkers Industrial Safety Products would welcome hosting the team and listening to a presentation that would include:

  • Detailed list of subcategories within the Entertainment industry, segmented and prioritized by market size, opportunity to serve and products that would serve each sub segment, seasonality of the business, and a sales forecast 2011 - 2015
  • List of global target geographies and potential sales channel partners
  • List of events to target including annual events and one-time events that present opportunities for our products (i.e. Music festivals, sport venues, FIFA World Cup / Olympics (men and women), Special Olympics, etc.)
  • Regulations of safety requirements in the industry pertaining to our products
  • Global competitive set and/or alternative solutions to our value added products
  • Customer verbatim from conducting VOC interviews

Project Approach

Initially, we would have the team visit our Broomfield, CO facility to educate them on our product offering, value proposition, current market applications that parallel potential opportunities in the Entertainment industry, and our current position/customers/ and relationships within the Entertainment industry. We can then detail a plan with milestones and target due dates to accomplish research, conduct VOC, formulate strategy, and litmus test for the relevance of what the team has discovered building towards a final presentation.

Critical Milestones and Event Dates

  • Aug 31st – Checkers Industrial Safety Products attends Project Fair
  • Week of September 6th – Kickoff meeting of team at Broomfield office; conduct introductions and initial sharing of information and guidance on research to conduct
  • Week of September 20th – Regroup to ensure initial guidance and direction is understood and within the guard rails and scope of project; assign tasks to be accomplished
  • Week of October 4th–Conduct VOC and customer visits
  • Week of October 18th – Review of initial VOC results and discuss what the team has learned; provide additional guidance and what key initiatives still need to be performed
  • Week of November 1st – Ensure objectives have been thoroughly researched and review any hurdles or stumbling blocks that need to be addressed
  • Week of November 15th – Regroup to review task list
  • Week of November 29th – Begin to aggregate information and start building presentation
  • Week of December 6th – Review presentation draft and dry run
  • December 15th – Presentation

Roles & Responsibilities

  • Student Team – conduct research, group discussion, performVOC, develop and present final presentation
  • Checkers Industrial Safety Products –
  • Scott Hazelwood – (Business Development) Project Lead
  • Jesica Bailey – (Director of Sales & Marketing) Provide Guidance and Support
  • Greg Gundrum – (VP Sales & Marketing) Sponsor

Quality Considerations

  • VOC the customer interviews will be conducted with actual and prospective customers so product knowledge and a baseline understanding of our niche products will be required to have a productive conversation
  • Final presentation will be to the Executive Management Team at Checkers Industrial Safety Products and potentially to several members of the Board of Directors of Tonka Bay

Assumptions

  • Seasonality of business (unknown at this time)
  • We are confident that the Entertainment market utilizes our product; however, being a niche safety product, there is potential that customers are unaware of our product offering. Capturing and estimating the “true” size of the market may be difficult as there is potentially two groups (1) those who use and are aware of our product today and (2) those who have a need for our products but are unaware they exist and/or how to procure them.