The Changing Mattress Business Essay -- Economy, Economic Downturn

Changes in the global environment, in conjunction with the deepest and most prolonged economic downturn since the Great Depression, receive started a sea change in the domestic mattress industry. The end of distinct consumption for big-ticket items such as mattresses and foundations, is the result of declining new family line sales, tightening of consumer credit, the consumer confidence index still well below pre-recessionary levels (Wang, 2010), and unemployment hovering virtually 10%. In order to remain viable in quickly changing global and task environments, mattress manuf secondurers will need to lower hearty and manufacturing costs, develop products that differentiate them from their competitors, or develop new channels of statistical distribution for their products.Domestic production of mattresses and foundations in 2010 was slightly below 6 zillion dollars and almost 16% less than the peak mattress production of 2007 (International Sleep Products Association, 2010). some consumers pose lost confidence in the economic state of the realm and therefore have begun to believe that, as Newt Gingrich said recently, if you crappert afford to obtain a house, dont buy it (Gingrich, 2010). The economic downturn has signaled the end of conspicuous consumption, defined as the act or practice of spending money on expensive things that ar not necessary in order to impress other spate (Merrian-Websters Leaners Dictionary, 2010). Identify functional and dysfunctional control systems within your own schemeI am currently a Senior Vice-President of Sales for great power Koil Licensing (King Koil). The company licenses mattress-manufacturing facilities, called licensees, both domestically and internationally, to produce the brands that King Koil owns. The l... ...ving the wherewithal to state our lifestyle will be difficult to achieve if this strategy fails. From a professional standpoint, I have had a certain level of victor as a retail executive for th e past 37 years, and have built a reputation that I do not compulsion sullied through an association with a company that fails. The mattress industry in the States has contracted as consumers have suffered through these difficult economic times and will continue to face more changes in the global environment and changes in the task environment. The enterprises that remain stuck in the middle, stick to the old slip panache, react to these changes too late will likely go the way of Two Guys, Kobackers, Woolworths, Montgomery Ward, Circuit City, Studebaker, and too many other businesses that failed to shanghai their organizations through the economic mine fields that confronted them.