Opportunity:
For nearly 35 years Ozzie Zakarian had grown Wirefab to 70 employees while making a handsome profit along the way. He was now 65 and now realized that he had the opportunity to sell the company and secure his wealth for himself and his three nieces. At the same time he wanted to work for another five years while transferring the company to his management team. The biggest problem facing Zakarian is how to sell the company he had work so hard to build.
Customers:
Wirefab sells to over 100 different customers and no one customer accounts for more than 15% of the total sales. This diverse customer base consists of large industrial companies and smaller manufacturers. The large companies buy wire in bulk from the company and internally form it to their specifications; they also contract Wirefab to design individual wire products for them. The smaller companies use Wirefab and their machines to fabricate wire products for them. These customers buy from Wirefab because of their superior quality and fair pricing. They are able to give accurate and fair quotes due to their cost accounting system. Finally, most of the customer base is located in New England close to the factory in Massachusetts.
Competition:
The wire industry is highly competitive and fragmented. There were three main competitors to Wirefab located in New England. They were Eastern Wire, Acme Wire, and Titchener. All three of these competitors were privately owned, comparable in size, and operated in the same way as Wirefab. However, Wirefab had two distinct advantages over their competition. First, they delivered a consistent quality product to ...