Richardson Manufacturing Company After a close analysis of the Richardson Manufacturing Company, Inc., various strengths and weaknesses can be identified. Over the last four years, Richardson has experienced an 11% cumulative growth rate, taking into account the impact of previous sales or performance on the each year’s growth on sales. The bulk of growth was between 1998 and 1999, which was well above average at 19.6%. This observation indicates that the domestic market has been strong for Richardson.When deciding whether or not to consider going international to Australia, several factors can be taken into consideration. First of all, because Richardson only holds 2% of the domestic market share, they may wish to concentrate on continuous growth in sales within the United States (domestic) and continue to postpone entering Australia’s market until after the domestic market in the United States is saturated. However, one cannot ignore the fact that Richardson’s ending inventory has been decreasing every year by an overall average of 10%, especially in the year 2000 where ending inventory dropped 28.2%. This decreasing movement of ending inventory represents a move toward efficiency for Richardson. This efficiency is exhibited by the cost of goods sold, which has experienced an average growth of 6% over the past six years of operations. In turn, the growth of profit in manufacturing has grown by 16% each year. This observation attests that the market in the United States has been profitable and encourages manufacturing efficiency. Because of this growth and sales profitability, competition may be invited into the United States market, forcing Richardson to go international in order to keep a lower profile on its domestic sales. It is observable that the net profits in manufacturing have increased by an average of 50% points to a very vivacious operation. However, if the performance of each year is assessed individual...
