Red Fish Blue Fish LLP

Red Fish Blue Fish LLP

CASE 2.1

Two  years  have  elapsed  since  Fran  Fisher,  CEO  of  Red  Fish–Blue  Fish  met  with  Eric  Lynch and Jeff Fisher, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Management and Vice Presi-dent of Operations respectively, to discuss increasing their scope and scale of operations. There  has  been  good  news  and  bad  news  during  this  period.  The  good  news  is  that  sales  have increased domestically as the company expanded into Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.  In fact, the construction and consulting business improved dramat-ically.  Jim  Beierlein  accepted  the  position  of  Vice  President,  Construction  Sales  and  his  experience  and  contacts  had  been  a  real  benefit  to  Red  Fish–Blue  Fish.  However,  global  sales  were  disappointing,  according  to  Fran  Fisher.  European  and  Canadian  Sales  were  good, but the Asian Market sales were not very good. They developed some new web pages for China, India and Japan. While they had many “hits” on the web page, the sales were not  satisfactory. The company relied upon internet sales in the Asian Markets.

Some Additional Background

Red  Fish–Blue  fish  was  established  in  2007  by  Fran  Fisher  after  he  decided  to  make  a  career  change.  He  was  at  that  time  a  successful  broadcaster  specializing  in  broadcasting  athletic events but was also visible in other venues. He had developed an interest in fishes over  the  years  and  maintained  large  fish  tanks  which  were  part  of  the  décor  in  his  office.  One of his friends Andy Zimmerman, was a dentist who specialized in dental care for chil-dren and adolescents. Andy approached Fran when he was remodeling his offices to help use  fish  tanks  for  new  décor  but  also  he  thought  that  it  would  help  relax  and  interest  his  young patients and make their experience less stressful. Fran got interested in the project and spent a considerable amount of time and effort in the design aspects and in the selec-tion  of  the  fish.  Andy  was  so  impressed  along  the  way  that  he  insisted  on  paying  Fran  a  substantial consulting fee and offered to provide financial backing for a new venture which subsequently was named Red Fish–Blue Fish. And as they say, the rest is history. The busi-ness took off like it was “shot from a gun” and Fran was able to bring in several additional individuals to help with supply chain issues, construction and overall operations. Now they were at a crossroads with respect to expansion.

Current Challenges and Issues

The  company  had  established  a  footprint  in  China  through  purchasing  most  of  their  fish  from  supplies  in  china  and  a  Chinese  Export  Company.  Fran  hired  several  students  from Penn State’s Supply Chain Program to do some studies for him as part of their intern-ship; their analysis agreed with Fran’s conclusions, that is, global markets offered the most potential.  They  based  their  conclusions  on  two  important  developments  that  they  found  with  their  research—the  Trans-Pacific  Trade—agreement  that  was  in  the  works  between  the  United  States  and  about  a  dozen  Asian  countries  and  the  demographics  of  the  Asian  countries!!!

CASE QUESTIONS

1. Explain the advantages of a trade agreement and how it might impact a company like Red Fish–Blue Fish.
2. What makes the demographics of the Asian countries attractive for future trade development?
3. What challenges would Red Fish–Blue Fish likely experience ?
4. What are the options for Red Fish–Blue Fish as far as global intermediaries are concerned? What do you recommend? Why?
5. What other options does Red Fish–Blue Fish have to expand their Asian sales?