Macy's Department Store is home to thousands of products and brands - Coach included. Coach has it's very own department within the Macy Stores. That makes Macy's a "Reseller" of Coach products. In researching Coach I realized that Coach doesn't authorize many businesses to sell their products; just a few stores outside of the Coach Stores, Factory Outlets and Coach's Internet Website. But the relationship between Coach and Macy's is still a Business to Business relationship - A Macy's buyer places an order for Coach products from Coach then turns around and offers those products to a Macy's customer.
Another Business to Business relationship Coach has is with it's suppliers - the companies that supply Coach with the raw materials they need to make products like Coach handbags, wallets, belts and other accessories. Those relationships are probably the most important business relationships Coach has, aside from the relationship they have with their customers. It's important for Coach to have good business relationships with their vendors who supply the raw material needed to make their products, without that raw material they can't make their products.
It's also important for Coach to have good relationships with the vendors who supply or maintain the equipment used to make Coach products. Major Equipment like the machines and computer systems used in the production process have to be maintained by professionals who know how to fix them when they go down. The type of equipment used for the production of Coach products are also known as Business Products - all of the equipment used to make products and also the equipment that's used on a daily basis by employees such as computers, fax machines, telephones, supplies, etc.
As I read over this chapter and thought about my company (Coach) I realized that running a business, big or small, really requires you to be good at maintaining good, professional business relationships. The overall goal would be to have a great relationship with your vendors who supply your raw materials but be firm enough with them to make sure your not paying too much for those materials. You want to make sure that you have a great relationship with the vendor who supplies and maintains your office equipment so that when you need something asap you get it and when you need something fixed it's done quickly too - but you want to make sure at the same time your not paying too much for those services either. And on top of that you have to make sure that your making a product that's pleasing and appealing to current and future consumers.
To sum-up this semester with this last blog post I feel like with all of the time I've spent researching my company -Coach- I really did learn allot about not only this retail business but about business in general. I was especially surprised to learn about how Coach moved their factories outside of the US and into other countries to lower their production cost. It was surprising to see the conditions of these factories and to read some of the complaints that workers had - it was disappointing as a buyer of Coach products to learn about how Coach got their start right here in NYC, made tons of money and then decided to move production to China. At the same time I understand that from a business perspective it's a smart move. I also learned a lot about some of the other companies my classmates researched. I found it interesting to learn about McDonald's plan to revamp employee production in an effort to keep customers coming back and I even started using some Burt's Bee products after my curiosity about the company caused me to try some of their stuff - it's great btw. And as for the marketing aspect of this class...well I'm definitely more aware of advertising's that I see everyday and sometimes ask myself...what are they really doing here? Are they genuine and is their ad effective?
As a Business major I feel like I've learned a lot and I enjoyed this class so thank you.
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