Delamere Vineyard Essay

Delamere Vineyard is a weensy, integrated booze fashioning chore in Tasmania, specializing in pi non noir (red) and chardonnay (white) drinks. Richard Richardson, Delameres owner and wine-colored put upr, manages and operates the vineyard and winemaker largely al genius. His products gestate won praise and awards in the past, but Richardson strives continuously to improve. Delamere competes in the high-priced segment, in which tint is paramount. Richardson is hygienic equipped as a winemakerwith a Ph.D. in agricultural chemistry and 15 old age experience. (Harvard billet School, 2000) Winem likeg is a very exclusive, yet competitive business that requires great care and perceptiveness of client demands.ProblemRichard Richardson, winemaker at Delamere Vineyard, is facing a change in his production of wine with uncertainty because of his ongoing desire to improve quality and sales. He has relied on his scientific knowledge to repoint his guild and now would like to move forward and improve his quality of wine and join on profit. Richardson is in the process of upgrading his production process to receive a better quality product based on customer satisfaction and wine critics, and look ats to make a purpose on how he bequeath implement this.Objectives/GoalsRichard Richardson is facing challenges for the new direction of his company. He needs to make some decisions as to his innovational way of wine production to enhance the quality and accession his profit and sales. Richardson needs to improve customer satisfaction for his pinot noir and chardonnay wines. Richardson has to improve his marketing and advertising for the vineyard to increase sales and profit. Richardson needs to arise a niche in the wine assiduity and set his wine apart from the separate vineyards. Richardson has been making mediocre wine for the past 15 years and desires to set his company apart by increase the quality and production of his wine to boost profit and sales. A t the establishment of his vineyard, Richardson had drawn inspiration from his scientific training and the advice and example of different(a)s who preceded him (Harvard business enterprise School, 2000).Richardson needs to focus on the process of weakening quality wine with the purpose of meeting a large percentage of customer satisfaction without sacrificing capital or increase be in production over a long period of time. Since Richardson is fixated on two types of winemaking, he needs to focus on the ways to improve quality and control outcome to maintain symmetry throughout the years. Customers are quick to notice subtle changes in wine quality and are apt(p) to err on the side of caution when deciding on future buys. Wholesalers are the wineries main cum of sales and they sought consistent quality at a moderate price, and favored wines that would have childlike appeal by being made in a recognizable and popular style (Harvard Business School, 2000). Richardson is very emotionally attached to his business and takes the entire role of decision making upon himself. Richardson needs to run across insight into new trends in winemaking and procedures that have worked in the past with other vineyards. Delamere Vineyards should be a family business built on the constant goal of improving production, distribution, sales and quality.AnalysisDelamere Vineyard is soon producing pinot noir and chardonnay wines at varying qualities to satisfy the demands of the consumers. Richardson has been working on his wine selection and vineyard for 15 years and is now in search of improvement of for quality of wine. Scientific knowledge has allowed him to start and go his business of wine making with little knowledge of the process most winemakers go through to defecate a quality and enjoyable wine selections. Richardson, composition his process so far has yielded positive results, is in need of reevaluating his production process and possibly the distribution proc ess to increase his business.Richardson bears the entire responsibility of decision making for the company. While instinct coupled with analysis may make a powerful decision-making combination, watch intuitions pitfalls. Often, your gut is just plain wrong because its subject to biases (HBR, 2001). Decisions that involve where a companys future is headed and changes in operations must be made with a hand head, and the long time notion of three heads are better than one should come into play. Richardson admits that sales is myrmecophilous on the quality of the wine. The process of winemaking is difficult to specifically characterize and replicate for consistency.Richardson has pinpointed some areas in his business where improvement sack be made to set his wine apart from the competition while increasing productivity and sales. His first option involves consideration to amend winemaking procedures to eliminate the possibility of oxidation as the wine matured. Excessive contact wi th oxygen, along with other chemicals, induced compounds called aldehydes, which could create a searching and unpleasant flaw in the wines taste, unforgettable bitter aroma somewhat akin to stale oil, along with an unattractive browning of the color (Delamere Vineyard, 2000). This option leads to a constant output of grave quality wine. This process allow for allow Richardson to attract a large amount of customers through twain mail order and wholesalers due to the fact that this process can produce the homogeneous type of wine product every year. Customers tend to feel at ease purchasing wine from distributors who have produced the same product on a constant basis and feel comfortable with the level of quality.Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) is the peculiarity drug to combat oxidation in the winemaking process. Considering the fact that most winemakers tend to agree that the psychiatric hospital of mho dioxide (SO2) is the failsafe solution to preventing oxidation, the decision to inc orporate some level of sulfur dioxide should be definitely considered and implemented. Richardson claims that he presently includes a small amount of sulfur dioxide into his winemaking process and it debating his new court go by his current process, increase his SO2 or spend time and money and waste some of his product to develop the correct scientific method for the incorporation of sulfur dioxide. Logic and reasoning would conclude that Richardson should stick with effort standards when it comes to the level of sulfur dioxide to add to the winemaking process since it has been proven time and again with success. He is displease with his current wine production, and therefore, he should not even consider the approach of doing nothing when it comes to preventing oxidation in his wine.The long term benefits of spending time perfecting the process of how much sulfur dioxide to add to the mix could be proficient to Delamere Vineyard. Richardson has the ultimate goal of setting his wine apart from other manufacturers while keeping the small family business image. He is already well versed and educated in science and would not need to enlist in outside garter to spend time perfecting his process. Sticking with the status quo on the garland result likely ensure consistency in the short run, but prove to be a common type of wine in the industry. Over the years, various management studies have found that executives routinely rely on their intuitions to solve complex puzzles when logical methods (such as a cost-benefit analysis) simply wont do. In fact, the consensus is that they higher up on the corporate ladder people climb, the more than theyll need well-honed business instincts. In other words, intuition is one of the X factors separating the men from the boys (HBR, 2001).Richardson is more likely to trust his scientific knowledge and experiment with realistic scenarios to advance his understanding of the winemaking process to guide him towards perfectio n. Richardsons countenance possible project involves finding a way to deepen the color of his red wine. Richardson is convinced that his main market Australians would be more likely to purchase his wine if it had a fuller red hue. Richardson identify that other manufacturers succeeded in darkening their wine by providing a durable maceration before and by-line fermentation and introducing higher temperatures during fermentation.The dilemma was that Richardson was already performing these tasks with his current wine, which meant his only option would be to conversion from his currently fermentation process to a more sophisticated one. This process would cost the vineyard $30,000 to purchase and at least 10% of product with no real assurance that it will be successful. The cost-benefit of this approach will lead to Richardson risks capital that he doesnt have available to waste to hopefully produce a product that has a hue preferred by his customers. Managers apply factual researc h to historical precedent thats so widely accepted in an organization that its no longer challenged.Things deemed to be common knowledge are often the result of inferences made by the primal disposition theyre a product of evolution, and so tend to be governed by emotions and instinct (Harvard Management Update, 2002). Richardson has unlike views on his long-term goals for his vineyard. On one spectrum he is focused and passionate about improving the quality and consistency of his wine and winemaking process to increase sales and profit. Richardson would also like to accomplish this in his small family own business with almost the entire operating burden placed solely on himself.On the other hand, Richardson has mentioned the potential long-term growth benefits of quality improvements to his vineyard. Richardson has not made note to how his family owned vineyard would continue to operate should they increase production and sales of their product. Investing time and money into o ntogeny the company would require increased staff and land to store the wine barrels before sales and distribution. Richardson needs to weigh his options and focus on his own long term personal goals in growth to the organization. Does he want to be working for the next 30 years? Employing in outside sources of help will bring a fresh perspective to Richardsons winemaking approach.Richardsons third possible improvement is to determine the best mix of whole bunches, stalks, and de-stemmed grapes to include in his crush to speed up and automate production. When Richardson was evaluating this option, red flags were popping up at every point. Initially, he specified that is option did not solve any foreseeable problem with his winemaking process therefore if there is no problem a solution cannot be developed. Second, this type of fermentation would require more space in his winery and limit his ability to control the entire winemaking process. Since most of his potential projects focus ed on more control in the development of wine, this idea actually contradicts Richardsons problem with his vineyard.The ability of managers to solve problems and make decisions rationally has long been assumed to be one of the valuable products of experience on the job. But refinement observation of their actually practices has shown that even veteran managers are likely to be very unsystematic when traffic with problems and decisions. And their hit-or-miss methods often produce decisions based on erroneous conclusions, which means that the decisions must also be wrong (HBR, 1965). Any option that would increase his cost while not ensuring a definite increase in profit would be making a decision which would hinder the ability to prosper in the future. The small chance that altering the mix of grapes would result in a more complex and reminiscent wine does not outweigh the potential result that the wine could rapidly turn to vinegar spoilage his entire vintage.RecommendationsWinem aking is capital intensive, in terms of both investment and working capital. Startup costs for even a small vineyard and winery were heavy, relative to anticipated cash flow (Harvard Business School, 2000). Richardson needs to consider enlisting outside help experienced in the business of winemaking who can lend some insight into new trends in winemaking and procedures that have worked in the past with other vineyards. The ability to bounce ideas off other people who have knowledge in winemaking will allow Richardson to make future decisions without bias. He currently relies on intuition, past experience in his vineyard, and his scientific background to produce his wine.Richardson needs to incorporate a full-time staff that can use his ideas and industry standards to not only improve the quality of wine, but improve the manufacturing process which can develop his company as well. Richardson will not be able to run his family business as a one man shop when his sales double. Richards on would also benefit from removing his cognitive blinders in his company and investigate other vineyards that have been experiencing the same type of situations.Usually businesses experience the same types of problems in manufacturing and distribution, and learning from other companies mistakes will allow managers to make reasonable decisions with minimal risk. Richardson should prioritize his projects and develop a time line for achievement based on the risk assessment. The idea of eliminating the oxidation in the mine is an option that will bequeath the least amount of financial loss. Richardson would be smart to start his project with industry standards for the introduction of sulfur dioxide while also taking time to use his scientific knowledge to find the perfect change for future vineyard growth and quality development of the pinot noir. Richardson would be foolish to entertain the idea of spending $30,000 which is almost half of his net income on a rotofermenter. The outc ome would only generate a 10% increase in price and the cost-benefit/long-term benefit is nonexistent.In decision making, managers can take on the six thinking hats to solve the problem. The black hat in decision making allows participants to identity hazards, risks, and other negative connotations. This is critical thinking, looking for problems and mismatches (Six Thinking Hats, 2010). His black hat decision making skills should see that a 10% increase over a period of 1 year would only yield $25,000 if it succeeds. Richardsons third project idea of switching to whole bunch fermentation will cost him too much in wine product spoilage, take away valuable winery space that could be used for extra wine barrels and produce no guaranteed profit if successful. This idea would be beneficial if Richardson would commit to long-term goals of increased staff, especially in the managerial capacity. This would also allow him to focus on perfecting his winemaking process while someone else cou ld focus on day-to-day operations.Works Cited(2010, Aug. 6 ). In Six Thinking Hats. Retrieved Aug. 17, 2010, from httpen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Thinking_Hats Hayashi, A. (2001). When to Trust Your Gut. Harvard Business Review, pp. 3-11. Stauffer, D. (2002). How Good Data Leads to Bad Decisions. Harvard Management Update, pp. 1-5. Stryker, P. (1965). Can You break This Problem?. Harvard Business Review, pp. 73-78. West, J. (2000). Delamere Vineyard. Harvard Business School, pp. 1-21.