had seemingly secured its position in the tech market as a top of the line brand with a…
The company has two major hurdles that it continually must battle to be successful. The first is the rapid advancement of technology in a monopolistic competition. The second is the expectations of its customer base. There is a significant amount of competitors within this market that are constantly dueling to be cutting edge or have the latest technology. The other is the customer base and their requirements to have a product that satisfies their needs and wants for his or her everyday lives. The uniqueness that Apple has is that they are a luxury product maker and thus must provide a product that tips the scale and compels one to want to purchase such a product. Thus far, Apple clearly understands this dynamic and is doing very well and looks to be pulling…
It can be said that the company has always strived to take the lead in terms of high performing products in the market. With this said, HP has always had significant competition among other companies in the same market realm. They have managed to keep industry norms to par as well as excelling in product launch and innovation.…
4. According to the global computer giant ‘ACER’ which is based in Taiwan, what are…
After carefully analyzing Ford’s existing supply chain, I realized the main issues that Ford have are its large base of suppliers, suppliers does not have enough IT capability to support the requirements of Ford and it appears that Ford and their dealers have not too much communication in obtaining the accurate forecast. Meanwhile I am also aware of its highly complex nature of auto manufacturing comparing with computer industry. It would be applicable for the customers to place order online as all their concerns are the price and specification. However with several 10 thousand dollars’ car, the customers would prefer to go to dealership to do test drive. Thirdly, I also realized it is an urgent need to modify their supply chain to make it more cost effective and more profitable. Therefore my decision is the partial implementation and execution of the virtual integration direct business model that has been used by Dell. Through this model, Ford will use the emerging information technologies and internet as well as new ideas from high tech industries in order to provide forecast and replenishment plan to their suppliers and allow end users to place order directly and make modification. Furthermore, Ford can boost its sales by providing better customer service and by having faster communication between suppliers, manufacturers, and customers in the value chain. This proposed system will have to run concurrently with the existing supply chain so that Ford will cover both market segments at the same time. Ford should set up a special department in order to handle this new business process. Investment in new high tech IT equipments is required as well as training should be provided before the new project’s kick off date. Suppliers’ computers should be linked to Ford’s master computer network and customers should be made aware of this new shopping experience for buying an automobile. To measure the performance of this model, Ford should schedule…
Global Electronics, Inc. (GEI), headquartered in Sarasota, Florida, designs, manufactures, and markets discrete power semiconductors and analog, digital, mixed-signal, and radiation-hardened integrated circuits for signal processing and power-control applications. The company employs about 2,300 people at its three U.S. fabrication facilities (located in Huntsville, Alabama; Evansville, Indiana; and Reading, Pennsylvania), and has 4,000 employees at its assembly and test facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In 1999, GEI 's profitability came down with operating losses reaching $100 million on sales of approximately $650 million, causing management concern about the accuracy of the company 's standard cost system. There was a feeling that the standard cost system could not truly identify which of the company 's products were profitable and which were not. The lack of an understanding of product profitability, a flawed product mix, and poor marketing and pricing decisions could have contributed to GEI 's financial problems. A combination of internal problems and external threats in an industry characterized by increasing global competition, decreasing product life cycles, product proliferation, and exploding technological capability led to a shake-up of the company 's top management in February 2000. As part of the shake-up, GEI installed a new president, Mike Alberts, and a new controller, Steve Shannon, for the express purpose of strengthening the company 's position in the market and improving its financial performance.…
Problem: Unsuccessful differentiation. Although HTC created different kinds of brands for their smartphones it failed to differentiate itself from competitors. It could not market the brand as a unique one in order to conquer customer loyalty as other companies did, such as Apple and Samsung. Hence, the failure of creating brand recognition set them apart from the differentiation strategy they were pursuing.…
1. Tata Group is one of India’s largest companies, employing 424,000 people in many different industries, including steel, motor vehicles, watches and jewelry, telecommunications, financial services, management consulting, food products, tea, chemicals and fertilizers, satellite TV, hotels, motor vehicles, energy, IT, and construction. Such diversity far exceeds that of any North American or Wester European company. What are the conditions in India that might make such broad-based diversification both feasible and profitable?…
In comparison to Stan Shih, Leonard Liu was a Taiwan-born, US based senior IBM executive “with a reputation for a no-nonsense professional management style”. On the other hand, Stan Shih had a more frugal approach to management and delegated a decision making responsibilities to his employees to harness “the natural entrepreneurial spirit of the Taiwanese. Shih believed in a “hands off” style of management, bias for delegation and an informal manner. His style of management put all the trust of the firm in the hand of the employees hoping the employees will always do the right thing in the interest of the firm. This style of management worked because it created a very close family among the employees and attracted up and coming engineers that didn’t want to work for companies that suppressed their creativity. Stan Shih management style didn’t believe in the interest of the shareholders as the first priority. Stan Shih management embedded the focus that the customers are first, employees second and shareholders are third. Shih management style challenged employees to “think and learn” at the same time while they are working for the firm. In Shih’s management style management were allowed to nurture the pupils and as long as the mangers took responsibility for their actions, the managers had the freedom to make decisions. As I mentioned in the beginning, Leonard Liu had a no-nonsense professional management style. Liu worked for a US based IBM; therefore he had the Americanized conquest and conquers management style. He believed in acquisitions of companies that can help Acer improve their products no matter the state of the company they are acquiring. Take for example, Counterpoint (acquired for $1 million plus a stock swap) and Service Intelligence a $500,000 transaction) Shih suggested the deal be structured as a joint venture to maintain the Altos managers’ stake in the business. However, Liu insisted on…
The market for personal computers has been growing rapidly for several years with little end in sight. As of the end of the year 2000, approximately 120 million PCs were sold worldwide. Projections for the next five years of industry sales are as shown below:…
Google recently acquired mobile-device maker Motorola Mobility and will soon manufacture smart phones and television set-top boxes. Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet represents its bridge between hardware and e-commerce. Oracle bought Sun Microsystems and now champions engineered systems (integrated hardware-and-software devices). And even long-standing software giant Microsoft now makes hardware for its Xbox gaming system. Technology titans are increasingly looking like vertically integrated conglomerates largely in an attempt to emulate the success of Apple.…
1. Explain the “foundry model” that TSMC carved out in the semiconductor industry. How does it differ from the conventional business model?…
In September 1995, John Peter, a marketing manager of Hewlett Packard Asia Pacific (HPAP) was evaluating the company’s long term strategic investment options for doing business in Vietnam. Hewlett Packard Asia Pacific was a subsidiary of the Hewlett Packard (HP) Company, and its headquarters was located in Singapore. Vietnam had recently adopted an open-door policy after the U.S. lifted its embargo on the country in February 1994. The country had a population of over 70 million, and foreign investment in the country had climbed steadily to reach almost US$12 billion by the end of 1994.…
ASUS has grown greatly over the last few decades till now and the country is now leading in the global market. ASUS has long been at the first position of this growth and while this company started life as a humble motherboard manufacturer with just a handful of employees. Now the ASUS is leading technology company in Taiwan with over 12500 employees. Asus makes products in almost every area of Information Technology too including PC components, peripherals, tablets and smartphones.…
Market capitalization (early 2010): about $250 billion; greater than GE, 7x of Sony, which have higher revenue and significantly more products and people.…