Grill Kleen Corporation Case

      INTRODUCTION

      The Gril-Kleen Corporation was established as a result of the problems that two brothers confronted with. Among these problems, there are vast amount of time and too much effort to clean the grill which in return resulted in missed order opportunities during the clean process. None of cleaning products or methods met their needs. This dissatisfaction contributed to searching ways to create their own product.

      Taking into consideration of time, economical aspects, and usability for both hot and cold grill and safety, they finally launched their cleaner with the help of a customer from the 
chemical business. However, the issue was that they began to their business as a part time one. Yet, the business was expanded unexpectedly and it was challenging to manage the company. They did not have a successful and organized management, no effective pricing strategy and did not spare enough time to the business. In addition they missed the point where they could enjoy market or product opportunities which could be provided by the cleaner.

      SWOT ANALYSIS

           Strengths

• Gril-Kleen turned out to a good solution since it could be used in both cold and hot surfaces which in return saved time.
• As it was required less time, they did not miss the orders.
• It did not have bad flavor which could permeate into the food and also the ingredients were safe.
• Although it was an effective product, it was also economical.
• They could easily offer solutions for extra labor force or floor space.
• Vast majority of customers were enough satisfied with it to reorder it again. For a new product, this was an important indicator showing the potential in the future.
• It could be used in multiple surfaces such as steel, clothing, chrome, etc., which might provide a competitive advantage to the corporation.

     Weaknesses

• They were lack of sound planning.
• Their space was limited to meet the increasing demand for the product.
• They perceived Gril-Kleen as a part-time company so they did not give much time to it.
• They were lack of successful inventory management to operate the business.
• They had no regular system of record-keeping both in financial terms and in the operation of the business. Thus, they were not keeping track of performance of the business.
• Their pricing strategy was not based on market conditions and they ignored the cost of operations and break-event point.
• Much more than just clean grills, it had additional uses but they did not focus on that.

Opportunities

• According to Warren Ryan’s estimations, there was no single dominant player.
• The cleaner had multiple usages which gives opportunity of new product developments.

Threats

• There were big players in the cleaning industry.
• There might be problems related with patent and trademark issues since they did not register for trademark nor took patent.

RECOMMENDATIONS

      The Gril-Kleen Corporation should take full advantage of Warren Ryan who is a management consultant. For instance, one of the main thing need to do is that to develop and adopt an effective value chain management practices as a way to gain an edge on the competition in the market. They should keep their relative product advantage to continue by making necessary improvements such as having an organized recording system for operational activities, creating performance metrics. Additionally, they should improve production capacity and accordingly they need to decide how large sales force to have to conduct the business.