Cost And Value Driver For Rogers, Bell And Cogeco Companies Report Sample

Introduction

Before an organization hits the ground running, it is important that it has a clear strategy. This strategy is to contain a number of other strategies such as the financial, sales and marketing and public relations strategies. The financial strategy that an organization should have to this effect is the cost-benefit strategy. The cost-benefit strategy should in turn identify the cost and value driver for a specific organization, and for that organization’s specific fiscal year, if the cost-benefit strategy is to be effective. It is against this backdrop that the ensuing discourse seeks to determine the validity and importance of the cost and value drivers for Rogers, Bell and Cogeco Companies, as shall be seen forthwith.
According to Bryne, McIntyre and Middleton, Cogeco Inc. is a thoroughly diversified media and Telecommunications Company whose headquarter is based in Montreal and serves both commercial and residential clients through a number of its subsidiaries. Telephone services, cable television, and Internet connectivity are some of the services that are provided by Cogeco Inc. Cogeco Inc.’s media services stretch to cover a large number of radio stations and several public transport advertising companies. Fully known as Compagnie Generale de Communication, Cogeco Inc. has an integrated group of more than 40 cable telecommunications firms. The effectiveness of Cogeco Inc.’s cost and value strategies is attested by the fact that in the fiscal year of 2013/2014, the company’s operational cost subsided by 3.5% (Bryne, McIntyre and Middleton 511).
On the other hand, Terpstra and Verbeeten divulge that Rogers Communications is a heavily diversified Canadian media and communications company. Rogers Communications mainly deals in diverse fields such as cable television, wireless communication, mass media, Internet connectivity and telephone services. Rogers Communications is based in Toronto, Ontario. The cost and value strategy of Rogers Communications is underscored by the immense extent of its growth. For the year 2011, Rogers Communications had a net income as CAD 1.56 billion and a revenue value of CAD 12.42 billion. Similarly, the company had a total asset value of CAD 18.36 billion. The company had a total equity value of CAD 4.7 billion and 28,750 employees (Terpstra and Verbeeten, 499 – 508).
Conversely, the Bell Company as a joint stock company specializes in providing Canada and the global market with services such as Internet connection and supply, cable television, telephone services and wireless communication. Other companies exist and operate under the aegis of Bell Company. Although Bell Company cites guiding values such as integrity, performance and innovation as the guiding principles that have been responsible for its growth, over the years, yet the company has cost and value strategies that have propelled it forward. The veracity of this standpoint shall be seen in the ensuing discussion.

For Cogeco Inc., the primary activities that are engaged in are inbound logistics, outbound logistics, operations, marketing and sales and servicing. As touching inbound logistics, the arrangement of inbound materials take place in parts, material form or as finished inventory, from suppliers to manufacturing, assembling, retailing or warehousing stores. At this point, the organization strategizes how the logistics and synergies are to be used for the production of the desired product (Cogeco Cable, 1).
According to Michael, the same situation applies for Rogers Communication and Bell Company. This is because, just like Cogeco Inc, they have to strategize and revisit their business strategies so as to achieve optimal performance in the field of production and in the market (Michael, 32).
As is provided by Icon Group Ltd., the second activity that Cogeco Inc.’s operation engages in includes the normal operations. This is part of the value chain is concerned with the management of the processes that convert inputs in form of raw materials, energy and labor into outputs such as finished products or goods or services. It is at this point that Cogeco Inc. puts its synergies (materials, equipment and infrastructure, financial resources and labor) under strategic consumption for the production of a finished product, ready for the market’s consumption. For the financial year 2014/15, Cogeco Inc. used CAD 22,122 to facilitate operating activities. The company further used CAD 167,822 to run all its operations (Icon Group Ltd, 11).
According to Kohles, Bligh and Carsten, Rogers Communication used CAD 142,100 to facilitate the production of its products. The relatively low amount of expenses is informed by the fact that the company had surplus products that had been carried forward from 2013. Bell had in turn used CAD 95,000 to run its productive costs simply because of the surplus products it had carried forward from 2010 and the fact that it deals in fewer products, compared to its bigger counterparts such as Cogeco Ltd and Rogers Communication (Kohles, Bligh and Carsten, 466-85).
As touching outbound logistics, Cogeco Inc. stores and transports final products and the flow of related information from the final stage of production to the end user. It is important to note that only infrastructure such as telephone poles and telephone set are transported to the client. The fiber optic cables are fed through the already existing infrastructure. The expenses that Cogeco Inc. incurred at this phase fall under the CAD 167,822 that had been used to run all the operations.
Out of the CAD 142,100 that Rogers Communication had used to facilitate its operations, it had used CAD 65,000 to facilitate the exacting of the outbound logistics. On the other hand, Bell Company in the financial period 2013/14 used CAD 40,000 to carry out its outbound logistics.
The penultimate part of the primary activities that Cogeco Inc. engages in, in the cost and value drivers includes sales and marketing. This stage involves selling a product or goods or services as a way of exchanging values with the clients. Although the client is the primary target in this venture, other targets include business partners and the society in its entirety. This stage involves advertising and installing the products to clients who have subscribed to Cogeco Inc.’s services. The expenses that Cogeco Inc. incurred in this process fall under the CAD 167,822 that had been used to run all the operations.
Icon Group Ltd continues that Rogers Communication in turn had used CAD 50,000 to advertise and to penetrate its market more effectively. The crux of the matter herein is that Rogers Communication had felt in the fiscal year 2013/14 that it was not well known in the local market and in Europe and thus invested greatly in advertising as a marketing tool. On the other hand, Bell Company used CAD 30,000 to market itself. This is the case since, just like its counterpart Rogers Communication, the company had felt that it was much less known compared to Cogeco Inc and Rogers Communication (Icon Group Ltd, 17).
The final part of the primary activities that Cogeco Inc. engages in, in the cost and value drivers is servicing. This process involves, undertaking all the necessary activities to keep the service or product being provided by Cogeco Inc. running efficiently, even after the buyer or consumer has bought and possessed it. This involves the maintenance of the services that Cogeco Inc. provides. Normally, Cogeco Inc. will provide these maintenance services according to calls from clients. This undertaking is financially catered for in the aforementioned CAD 167,822.
Rogers Communication had used CAD 30,000 to service the products that it had provided its services with. Just like its counterpart Cogeco Ltd., it had to service the already sold products, based on the calls that clients had placed. Most of the calls the clients had placed were aimed at reporting malfunction and breakage in Internet supply, faulty telephone connectivity and poor visibility of the cable television services that had been connected (Oaks, et al., 680-88)
Bell Company in turn used CAD 15,000 to service the products and services that it had sold to its clients. The services that Bell Company serviced for the clients included its faulty or inconsistent or intermittently channeling fiber optic networks and malfunctioning or ineffective antivirus. For all the three communication dealers (Bell Company, Rogers Communication and Cogeco Ltd.), there is no recourse to servicing these already sold products since this provision had been catered for in their terms and services. The only exception would be when the malfunction would be a result of the client’s act causing mechanical damage to the already bought product.

Home Internet Services, and also CPS Model for 3 companies

Just as Science Letter points out, every one of the aforementioned companies has a CPS Model that is unique, seeing that all the three companies are not only unique, but also have to protect their information and business strategy. However, for all the three companies, there are serious points of convergence. For instance, Cogeco Inc., Rogers Communication and Bell Company individually mainly get their capital resources from plough back profits, loans and shares that shareholders bought. The profits are ploughed back into the firm’s central pool of revenue after all the operational costs and a targeted amount of liabilities have been settled (Science Letter, 4071).
Again, all the three firms also consider their performance as a way of gauging their progress. Cogeco Inc., Rogers Communication and Bell Company use performance evaluation to ensure that performance targets are hit, every fiscal year. To this effect, performance evaluation is done on a biannual basis. Employees who meet their performance targets are rewarded at the end of every fiscal year while those that fail to meet their performance targets are taken for workshop drives and training programs for the inculcation of more skills. All the three companies also use scalability to determine their positions in the market. To measure the extent of their scalability, the three companies analyze their ability to discharge a growing amount of duties capably as the organization expands. The areas that are looked into to determine this scalability include financial expansion, administrative ability and load scalability.

Works Cited

Amelia Bryne Potter; Neal McIntyre; Catherine Middleton. “How Usable Are Outdoor Wireless Networks?” Canadian Journal of Communication, 33.3 (2014): 511. Print
Cogeco Cable. Shareholders’ Report: Three-Month Period Ended November 30, 2014. Retrieved on March 13, 2015, from: http://www.cogeco.ca/export/sites/cogeco/corporate/files/financial_annual_report_en/2015/CCA_Q1_2015_Shareholders_report.pdf Electronic
Icon Group Ltd. COGECO INC.: International Competitive Benchmarks and Financial Gap Analysis (Financial Performance Series). Icon Group International, 2000. Print Kohles, Jeffrey C., Bligh, Michelle C. & Carsten, Melissa K. “The vision integration process: applying Rogers' diffusion of innovations theory to leader-follower communications.” Leadership, 9.4 (2013): 466 – 485. Print
Michael, Geist. “Canadian Broadcasting Policy for a World of Abundance.” Canadian Issues, 2007: 32. Print
Oaks, Jeffrey A; et al. “Communications.” Technology and Culture, 48.3 (2007): 680 – 688. Print
Science Letter. “Rogers Communications Inc.; Rogers Communications Declares Increased Quarterly Dividend.” Science Letter, 2009: 4071. Print
Terpstra, Maarten and Verbeeten, Frank H. M. “Customer satisfaction: cost driver or value driver? ; empirical evidence from the financial services industry.” European management journal, 32 (3): 499 – 508. Print