CEMEX Case Study Guide Questions:

 

1. How did CEMEX fundamentally change the way it conducted its business?

 

The company's strategy emphasized improving profitability through efficient operations. The company also shifted from selling products to selling complete solutions. With this new strategy, CEMEX has established a very strong brand and has managed to translate it to extraordinary profits from a commodity-driven business.

 

2. How does information systems contribute to CEMEX' competitive advantage?

 

Because of Information Systems nowadays play a vital role in companies like CEMEX. Through digital evolution, it is now easier than ever to order and even track down your ordered products as compared to before. There's also the E-mail services, which all of us benefit from and most specially, the website. Most companies these days have their own website becuase not only does it help promote and advertise themselves but also to do things that wasn't possible before like ordering of items online.

 

3. What is social capital? How does CEMEX build social capital?

 

Social capital is a concept developed in sociology and also used in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, public health and natural resources management that refers to connections within and between social networks as well as connections among individuals. (Forked from Wikipedia).

 

CEMEX builds social capital by continuing the innovation they innovated, high level of commitment to customer service and satisfaction, ability to idetify high-growth market opportunities in developing countries.

 

4. How are is the low-income savings characteristics of Mexican society characterized?

 

During the time of crisis, CEMEX was able to come up with a solution called Patrimonio Hoy (Savings/Property today), which enabled not only for the company to reach greater heights but also to help the poor people buy their products.

 

5. How are the enterpreneurial characteristics of the women in Mexican society tied to the CEMEX BOP strategy?

 

Women are the key drivers of savings in families. In the Mexican society, women are very enterpreneurialin nature, and they very actively participate in the tanda system. Regardless of what role or work they have, they are responsible for any savings in the family.

 

6. What did the CEMEX initial market research in Guadalajara discover?

 

Nearly all the houses appear to be under construction. The construction methods in that place were different from others.

 

7. What is the role of socios in the Patrimonio Hoy system? How important are they in the making the system successful?

 

Socios is another term for partnership and it is vital for them to have partnership because it is the way to become more successful. They need to earn trust with one another and be able to focus on a goal that would make all successful.

 

8. Why do you think it was important fo CEMEX to position itself as a complete solutions provider vs. just another product provider?

 

Because I think it is rare that companies provide complete solutions to its customer, so obviously, it was important and it became one of their advantage and of of the key factors to its success.

 

9. How is the social capital of Patrimonio Hoy promoters related to economic capital?

 

They are related because they both do their purposes and they are connected.

 

10. What, in brief, is the value of Patrimonio Hoy to a) it's promoter b) its socios & partners c) its suppliers and d) its distributors?

 

a) The promoter earns more

b) They earn and at the same time benefit from it

c) It would be easier for them to buy

d) It would be easy for them to distribute

 

Basially, the value is that everyone benefits from it.

 

11. What is patrimonio? Why is this important for the marketing efforts for the Patrimonio Hoy system?

 

Patrimony or Capital Assets : An inheritance coming by right of birth. It is important because these are assets earned by the system.

 

12. How can Patrimonio Hoy offer a slightly higher price than its competitors and maintain a competitive edge?

 

They earn people's trust. As a result people trust their products more than others.

 

13. How does the concept of freezing prices encourage socios to do more business for Patrimonio Hoy?

 

They know for a fact that the price would not go any higher and it would be consistent.

 

14. Intuitively, doing with business with a low income group would be riskier than traditional lending models but it is profitable for Patrimonio Hoy. Why?

 

Because they were able to focus on their goal and do thing correctly and i think less mistake. So, just as long as its the right thing, it would be profitable.

 

15. What is the role of peer/community pressure in the Patrimonio Hoy lending model?

 

They would want to do more business with them.

 

16. How has Patrimonio Hoy changed the consumer behavior in Mexico?

 

It changed their mind sets and had Mexico focused on them.

 

17. What are the challengs of the Patrimonio Hoy program?

 

Though customer enrollment is increasing at a rapid pace, customer retention is a huge problem for Patrimonio Hoy, not bec. of poor quality of products and services, but by virtue of the nature of the business. The biggest challenge is to retain customers for a longer period of time and motivate them to return for additional rooms or other expansions.

 

18. What does Construmex take advantage of the existing remittance market between U.S.A and Mexico?

 

The primary activities of Construmex center around generating customer awareness, customer education, building trust in Mexican community, spreading through word of mouth and working with HTAs to capture a share of the HTA remittances.

 

19. CEMEX Philippines is exploring the possibility of replicating the Patrimonio Hoy system in the Philippines. What are the parallels between the Mexican and the Philippine market?

 

Both countries are not really great when it comes to the majority of people being rich. i think more or less it is the same here and in Mexico. there are a lot of people here homeless. So basically, i think it would be great to bring in the system in our country as it could possibly bring homes to the homeless.

 

20. As an IT practitioner looking at the Construmex business model, what IT-driven systems can you propose to make CEMEX more competitive?

 

Possible Systems:

     1.E-Commerce

     2.Product Delivery Service

     3.Product Tracking

     4.Customer Relation Management

     5.Product Demand Forecasting