Scotts Miracle-Gro: The Spreader Sourcing Decision

The Scotts Miracle-Gro company is the world's largest marketer of branded consumer lawn and garden products, with a full range of products for professional horticulture as well. Headquartered in Marysville, Ohio, the company is a market leader in a number of consumer lawn and garden and professional horticultural products. The case describes a series of decisions regarding the ownership and organization of the assets used to manufacture fertilizer spreaders. This case is intended to illustrate the application of and tradeoffs between financial, strategic and operations perspectives in a relatively straightforward manufacturing "make-buy" decision. The case involves a well-known, easily-described product that most students would assume is made overseas. Sufficient information is provided to roughly estimate the direct financial cost associated with internal (domestic) production, offshore (non-domestic) production and outsourced production. In addition, information is included that may be used to estimate potential transaction costs as well as costs associated with foreign exchange risk.