Make, Buy, or Bend — Andicorp's Cost, Capability & Resilience Crisis

A four-round, advanced operations-strategy simulation set inside Andicorp Manufactura S.A.C., a mid-market Peruvian consumer-durables manufacturer (Lurín + Arequipa, founded 2004, 1,850 staff, S/ 520M revenue, 12% EBITDA margin) that makes household appliances under its Hogarsa brand plus contract manufacturing for two multinationals. In March 2026 a Sol depreciation and a nine-week Callao port-congestion backlog spike imported-input cost by 22% (margin projected to fall from 12% to 7.5%, ≈ S/ 24M of profit at risk), and the board freezes growth capital and orders a 15% cost cut (≈ S/ 47M) in two quarters — without losing the quality edge that wins contract-manufacturing renewals, and while a bank covenant (Net Debt/EBITDA ≤ 3.0x) threatens to breach toward 3.4x. Playing the CEO, you decide what to make, buy, or bend across the firm's functions through Ben Schneider's outsourcing-and-resilience lens, distinguishing core capability from commodity context and pricing resilience against quantified disruption cost. Round 1 — map the capability: classify the in-house tooling & mold shop (S/ 11M/yr fixed, ~60% utilised, the source of design-iteration speed), the two single-source motor SKUs (11-week lead time, a line-down costs S/ 180,000/day) and the fleet/IT/call-centre block as core, commodity or strategic-but-fragile. Round 2 — make, buy, or bend: hit the S/ 47M target by selective capability-weighted cuts rather than a flat haircut, bend the tooling core (nearshore co-development) instead of outsourcing it for a S/ 4.5M saving that risks the S/ 166M anchor renewal, variabilise context for operating leverage, and guarantee the anchor client a design-iteration SLA. Round 3 — invest in resilience under a constrained S/ 6M budget after the single-source motor supplier declares a 6-week force-majeure delay: dual-source the true single-points-of-failure, hold safety stock against the idle, underwrite the SLA with a nearshore partner, and resist over-insuring every link. Round 4 — defend the renewal and recover before the anchor client and the board, committing to a 12–18 month operating model and a KPI suite. The math wires the concept's five classic errors with sticky run-defining flags: outsourcing the tooling core caps capability and gates the top verdict; a flat across-the-board cut caps the differentiator; zero resilience triggers a measurable line-down that costs more than the budget; over-insuring inflates working capital; identity-driven inertia misses the operating-leverage move the covenant needs. Final KPIs track cost savings (S/ M), EBITDA margin (%), the Net Debt/EBITDA covenant and a capability-and-resilience index. Currency throughout is the Peruvian sol (S/).