What is a good introduction paragraph with a well-thought of thesis to a case st

Question

What is a good introduction paragraph with a well-thought of thesis to a case study analysis of Mattel's 2007 toy recalls? The analysis will be in depth and around 4-6 pages long. The following will be covered in the analysis:

Evaluate Mattel’s decision using a stakeholder analysis. That is, explore how the decision could affect each of the following major stakeholder groups:

Customers

Suppliers

Distributors

Employees

Managers

Stockholders

Community / Society / Nation

You may consider other stakeholders if you wish, but you must include the ones above. (Consider the decision they have to make—not the decision they already have made. Make sure you read the case carefully.) Use terminology from the SWOT framework and Porter’s Five Forces to add depth to your analysis. (But you do not have to provide a complete SWOT—focus on the issues of the case and how treating stakeholders in certain ways would affect SWOT or the 5 forces.) After your analysis, make a recommendation and justify it: What products should Mattel recall and how? (Do NOT report what they did recall in the case; focus on what additional recalls they should make, if any.) What, if anything, should Mattel do to prevent such recalls in the future? Explain how your recommendation is consistent with one or more relevant ethical frameworks (e.g., utilitarian, moral rights, justice, practical rules).

Explanation / Answer

Mattel is a name one have already come across, predominantly around your childhood days. Mattel is an American multinational company which manufactures toys, and has its HQ in California.

Now, Mattel, one of the biggest toy company, had once recalled around 19 million toys sent from China.

Mattel, the then world’s largest toy company, once announced the biggest recall in its history. This incident is dated back in the year 2007. In a double-barreled announcement, the company said it was recalling 436,000 Chinese-made die-cast toy cars depicting the character 'Sarge' from the animated film “Cars” because they are covered with lead paint, which can be proved toxic.

At the same time, the toy maker said it was recalling 18.2 million other toys because of their small, powerful magnets which could be harmful if children swallowed them. The magnetized toys were also made in China, but they followed a Mattel design specification. About half of the toys in each recall were distributed in the United States.

Amid a wave of increasing safety concerns about products made in China, the recall threatened to set the whole toy industry on its heels, because this incident happened when the companies were beginning to ship toys to stores for the holiday shopping season, when half of all toy purchases are actually made.

Industry analysts said Mattel’s woes are part of a much larger problem. “If I went down the shelves of Wal-Mart and tested everything, I’m going to find serious problems,” said Sean McGowan, managing director and the toy analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. “The idea that Mattel, with its high standards, has a bigger problem than everybody else is laughable. If we don’t see an increase of recalls in this industry, then it’s a case of denial.”

Now, if you think from Mattel’s point of view, this was not at all a small problem to be addressed. Following is the exploration attempt how this decision could have affected the given stakeholders:

These statements show that because of the Mattel’s situation, other companies in the same genre are also highly affected. The society is now a bit worried because toys are somewhat necessary for children and one of the most prominent brand of toys is proving dangerous. As a nation, trade relations with China and Chinese companies would be tumbled because of this news. This can prove very bad for the business situations regarding both the countries.

Now, coming towards SWOT:

Strength: The company has a big reputation and a name in the market. Mistakes do happen. There are no deaths registered because of this situation and this is a big relief. As the company is of this spectrum, they would be having enough staff and related workers to overturn these events, and to transform this situation from negative to positive.

Weakness: A bad news means tumbling stocks.Stucks tumbling is veru hazardous for business. This may scare away investors and supporters as they would not like to be linked to this situation. Majority of distributors might turn their back, products might not be sold, loss would occur, there might be warehouse issues to sustain these amounts of products at once.

Opportunities: A marketing campaign, which can show that they could have easily overlooked this situation but they chose to recall the products because they care. Unlike many other companies, they were the 1st one to take this major step. If you don’t react to such situations, stakeholders would think you have something to hide, or you have accepted your mistake. In some situations, silence is not the best options.

Threats: Companies who don’t have such ‘lead’ problems might now aggressively promote their products, and might even leap ahead of the competition. Another threat is that, if major steps are not take, people will drastically lose hope and a situation might arise from where you couldn’t jump up.

Now, to Recommend:

To prevent such recalls in the future, Mattel should spend a lot of time in the R&D, so that it knows which products or materials can and are to be avoided so that such problems don’t arise.

They should be hand in hand with customer feedbacks and also aware what things are to be used to increase quality and not just sales quantity.

They should also strictly adhere to the rules regarding environment and consumer safety.

My recommendation is consistent with practical rules, because if Mattel doesn’t adhere to the R&D report, and uses products which might be, in the future, prove hazardous, then they might again have to face such grief problem, and this time they might not be able to solve it at all.

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