Bus 599 Case Study
Dennis O. Parmer Module 1 Case Strategic Review BUS 599 - MBA Integrative Project Instructor, Dr. Gary Hascall INTRODUCTION In the 1980s no one who was anyone that went anywhere, without his or her Handheld Personal Computer (PC) was not considered fully prepared in the business world. The digital PC as we know it was changed with such a great demand. By the end of the 1990s, a handheld PC was capable of handling all the normal tasks of its ancestor - address book, notepad, appointments diary and phone list, can now offer many more updated applications such as spreadsheet, word processor, database, financial management software, clocks, calculator and games. With all this ability and to satisfy a growing demand, one such company quoted
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your right-hand-man is in your Palm. This research will cover the strategic analysis of the Palm Company. CASE Jeff Hawkins founded Palm Computing Inc, a hand-held computer business, in 1992 which has since changed its names (Yoffie Kwak, 2001). According to Yahoo finance section, in 1999 they changed to Palm Inc. Donna Dubinsky was the former CEO of the company. Hawkins and Dubinsky left Palm in 1998 and founded a company called Handspring, that later took a big share of the market away from Palm (Yoffie, 2001). Currently the CEO at Palm, Inc is Edward T. Colligan. In May 2006, Palm had sales of 1.578 billion and a net income in excess of 336 million (Yahoo Finance). Palm Inc. was very clever and launched a business strategy focusing on movement. They started off with the Judo strategy like a puppy-dog style to keep themselves under the radar of their competition while building up market shares. They focused on movement to define the competitive space and force Microsoft to compete in a new arena. The last part of their movement strategy was to follow through fast to capitalize on their advantage and keep a continuous attack (Yoffie). This strategy was highly successful for Palm allowing them to keep the lead spot in the market for six years until Handspring came around. It also allowed them to continually beat out their competition from Microsoft despite the fact that Microsoft is an industry giant. Judo strategy are good for small companies that are trying to break into a market that is dominated historically by a large company. They can use this strategy to be undetected as a threat to the larger company, and then use it to turn the competitors strengths into strategic liabilities. As the company grows, this strategy does have potential to become a weakness. Yoffie (2001) said, by investing over time in specific skills and strengths, you create opportunities that perceptive rivals can exploit. In other words, you risk becoming the target of another and possibly gain a better judo strategist. A technology startup such as Palm always encounters this when their product captures enough market share, then the large competitors begin developing their own products and competition becomes great. PALM PRE Promotional ads for the Palm Pre / Phone began before its release on June 6, 2009. Information about the phone and its features/ functions was available online, in Sprint stores or by speaking with customer service over the telephone. On the internet all the phones information on feature description were displayed on both www.palm.com/us and http//now.sprint.com/palmpre/. There were even YouTube videos of the software and phone designers explaining and demonstrating the functions. The Palm Pre definitely differentiates itself from its competitors with a new design and cutting edge software. Palm Pre had features that iPhone couldnt match, such as multitasking, universal search, and a drop-down keyboard. The Palm Pre 3 Palm Pre 4 Professional, designed for ages 24-35 because of their constant need to stay in contact with family, friends, and colleagues. At this time the only negative part of the Palm Pre that consumers might not agree with, is that the low cost is not available to pre-existing customers, only new customers. RECOMMENDATION If I were in Palms position I would look for a corporation that was interested in my product and propose that they buy Palm. I would have to agree with the author Dess, by looking for a corporation in the electronics industry that had a reputation for purchasing smaller companies, and allowing them to flourish while providing them with additional funding, research and development (Dess). Several companies with this type of related diversification strategy including Johnson and Johnson and 3M. I would have to look for a company in the electronic industry that had the same type of reputation such as Hewlett Packard (HP), or Sony. HP Merger of PALM In April of 2010, HP agreed to purchase Palm Inc., digital personal organizer and Smartphone manufacturer, announcing their desire to jump into the Smartphone market. This acquisition taken by HP have analysts excited for what is in store for the future. Some question the purchase of Palm Inc. as it was most likely going to fall into bankruptcy if HP had not save them, who once was a strong player in the digital hand held market. They also believe the Smartphone market is a tough sell with three other competitors almost completely dominating the market. Other analysts like the move by HP because it only cost HP 1.2 billion, which is a drop in the bucket of their annual revenue of 125 billion. Hewlett Packard also possess a much stronger marketing force and can boost the sale of smart phones in ways that Palm Inc. could not do. Acquiring Palm gives HP products something to work with rather than starting from scratch and dumping money into developing new smart phones. HP has several strengths which make up the basis of the companys goals and objectives. Its business model includes providing very innovative and high quality products.
HP has a wide variety of products and services. They offer so many that it can easily still earn profits even during times of recession and economic downturn. HP has been able to compete more aggressively and beat out competitors by reducing costs. HP is extremely active in research and development which coincides with its GO to be committed to innovation. Lately, HP has partnered with other leading technology companies to leverage cost and maximize customers experiences. HP has introduced several green initiatives to maintain its objective in corporate citizenship. These citizenship initiatives are based on product reuse and recycling, climate and energy, and supply chain responsibility. HP also has a huge focus on internet protocol (IP) technology. This has led to some large success in leveraging networks for voice and video communication. One of HPs weaknesses is its stock price. Due to the recent recession, the fluctuation in HPs stock price is a major weakness because it is an indicator of uncertainty for the company. Due to the size of HPs workforce, it is also difficult to manage and maintain a workforce that is globally dispersed. Revenues that are earned abroad are also difficult …show more content…
to retain in a tax-efficient way. The company is forced to pay high taxes at times in some countries that set limits on revenues earned, or charge higher corporate tax. HP faces aggressive competition from rival competitors in all areas of its business activity. To remain competitive, HP must continuously develop new products and services since product life cycles are short. Existing products must be enhanced as well to compete effectively with its competition. HP has many competitors, such as the top three in the computer business, consisting of International Business Machines Corporation IBM, EMC Corporation EMC, and Dell. competitive strategy IBMs competitive strategy is based on global core processes. Through a centralized company, the company leverages its strengths as a provider of solutions to companies. Its focus is providing customers with computer services, not just computers. This is a key strength to IBMs competitive strategy by their ability to focus on customers and provide individual solutions. IBMs major weakness is its vast disbursement of employees throughout the globe. Due to the companys massive scope of operation, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate customers needs which lead to loss in sales and profit. EMC Corporation is a global competitor that provides global services in every industry in the public and private sector. EMC mainly focuses on helping companies design, build, and manage flexible, scalable, and secure information infrastructures. EMC provides technology, products, and services to consumers in more than 100 countries. EMCs major strength is based on its past ability acquire and integrate more than 40 growth-oriented software and services companies. The companys strategy is also based on its Total Customer Experience strategy which includes the industrys broadest portfolio of systems, software, and services, our ability to create total integrated solutions. EMCs biggest strength is its VMware product line. This product line has been unmatched by its competitors for quite some time. EMCs only weakness now is its requirement to pay higher taxes because of its recent increase in profit revenues. Dell Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, markets, sells, and supports computer systems, as well as provides related services worldwide. Dell is a large competitor to HP in regards to Interprise Storage product lines, computer systems, as well as services. Its competitive strategy is based on delivering customer solutions directly and through channel partners in either business-ready configurations or through the cloud as a service. Commercial customer demand for Dell enterprise solutions including servers and networking systems, storage and services increased significantly worldwide which is its current strength. Dells current weakness is the decline in consumer demand for its products. Recently, A.G. Edwards pointed out that the weakness that Dell is experiencing in the consumer market is not reflected in Hewlett Packards results, which enjoyed 15 unit growth for consumer PCs during HPs January quarter of 2010. THREATS HP also has some significant threats from its competitors. IBMs brand name and product recognition has been around for many years and is here to stay. This company has a high penetration in high computer hardware, high end operating systems, applications, and specialized software which has the potential to take over HPs market share if HP fails to remain competitive. EMC is reporting growth this year which means HP must compete heavily in particular with industry standard servers. EMC will continue to remain a tough competitor for HP in this market. Dells current strategy is to seek huge profits from increasing corporate demand of its products and services. HP should be aware of dells reliance on this market segment and be prepared to offer better products and services at better prices. OPPORTUNITIES Opportunities are available for HP if it can exploit its competitors weaknesses. IBM is not penetrating new market bases such as China, India, and other emerging markets as quickly as HP. HP has the opportunity in the near future to capitalize on this. EMC is doing extremely well with its products and services at the moment. HP needs to create some opportunity by possible investing more money into RD to create innovative or better products that can rival EMCs existing product line. In regards to Dell, HP should take as much advantage as possible now with Dells refusal to participate in the lower end product market. This is an opportunity now for HP to take a huge advantage over this particular segment. Opportunities for HP in the near future include the handheld market which is still in its infancy stage. There is still a lot of potential in this market for HP to take advantage of. HP has also seen a surge in recent server and personal computer sales while its competitors have remained sluggish. HP also has the opportunity to advance in the lower end product market in contrast to Dells current strategy. HPs threats include declining consumer demand which can become an industry trend depending on market volatility. EMC is also a huge potential threat to HP because of their current success. HP needs to watch this company closely because it is currently offering some software products that are better than HPs product line. HP is currently the global leader in its principle business segments. HP needs to quickly provide similar products and services that will rival IBM, EMC, and Dell as well as increase market share in its major segment industries. HP needs to follow its current goals to adjust prices of products and services to remain competitive.
CONCLUION I found this case study very interesting. We discussed the focus of a strategy review, and how a small company has to go after a specific market segment. It was exciting to see how Palm called themselves a mere organizer at first. Their subtle way of introducing their product was also remarkable. I could easily see where companies might get swallowed up easily by trying to compete directly with a big competitor. Palms insistence on keeping things simple and not adding tons of bells and whistles to their product helped them keep an edge over Microsoft. This made an impact on my thinking and made it more clearly as to how a company truly needs to keep focus and not allow competition to dictate where they are headed. In regards to the Smartphone, this market is large, profitable and rapidly growing. Companies that can provide a device and experience will have a higher share of the market. HP still has opportunity to control a huge segment of this market with Palm products if it can move quickly and provide a product that exceeds current demand to its consumers. Palm Inc. did not take every opportunity that came their way. They thoroughly analyzed each one and did not spread
themselves too thin. Overall, I think this case study was very helpful. I believe I now understand the competitive strategy much better. REFERENCES Yahoo Finance, Edgar Online, Palm Inc. (PALM) (n.d.). from HYPERLINK http//finance.yahoo.com/q/issPALMannual http//finance.yahoo.com/q/issPALMannual Yoffie, D., Kwak, M. (2001). Mastering Strategic Movement at Palm. MIT Sloan Management Review, 43-1, 55-63. Dess, G., Lumpkin, G., Eisner, A. (2007) Strategic Management (3rd ed.). Boston McGraw-Hill Irwin Marketing Management A Strategic Decision Making Approach. 6th ed. Boston McGraw Hill Palm USA- Products for Consumer, Professionals and Businesses ( HYPERLINK http//www.palm.com/us www.palm.com/us) and HYPERLINK http//now.sprint.com/palmpre http//now.sprint.com/palmpre HYPERLINK http//h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtmlc71087pirol-reportsAnnual http//h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtmlc71087pirol-reportsAnnual HYPERLINK http//www.hp.com http//www.hp.com. http//h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtmlc71087pirol-newsArticleID1419424highlight Case Module 01, Strategic Review PAGE PAGE 10 Y, dXiJ(x( I_TS 1EZBmU/xYy5g/GMGeD3Vqq8K)fw9 xrxwrTZaGy8IjbRcXI u3KGnD1NIBs
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(W )6-rCSj id DAIqbJx6kASht(QpmcaSlXP1Mh9MVdDAaVBfJP8 AVf 6Q
your right-hand-man is in your Palm. This research will cover the strategic analysis of the Palm Company. CASE Jeff Hawkins founded Palm Computing Inc, a hand-held computer business, in 1992 which has since changed its names (Yoffie Kwak, 2001). According to Yahoo finance section, in 1999 they changed to Palm Inc. Donna Dubinsky was the former CEO of the company. Hawkins and Dubinsky left Palm in 1998 and founded a company called Handspring, that later took a big share of the market away from Palm (Yoffie, 2001). Currently the CEO at Palm, Inc is Edward T. Colligan. In May 2006, Palm had sales of 1.578 billion and a net income in excess of 336 million (Yahoo Finance). Palm Inc. was very clever and launched a business strategy focusing on movement. They started off with the Judo strategy like a puppy-dog style to keep themselves under the radar of their competition while building up market shares. They focused on movement to define the competitive space and force Microsoft to compete in a new arena. The last part of their movement strategy was to follow through fast to capitalize on their advantage and keep a continuous attack (Yoffie). This strategy was highly successful for Palm allowing them to keep the lead spot in the market for six years until Handspring came around. It also allowed them to continually beat out their competition from Microsoft despite the fact that Microsoft is an industry giant. Judo strategy are good for small companies that are trying to break into a market that is dominated historically by a large company. They can use this strategy to be undetected as a threat to the larger company, and then use it to turn the competitors strengths into strategic liabilities. As the company grows, this strategy does have potential to become a weakness. Yoffie (2001) said, by investing over time in specific skills and strengths, you create opportunities that perceptive rivals can exploit. In other words, you risk becoming the target of another and possibly gain a better judo strategist. A technology startup such as Palm always encounters this when their product captures enough market share, then the large competitors begin developing their own products and competition becomes great. PALM PRE Promotional ads for the Palm Pre / Phone began before its release on June 6, 2009. Information about the phone and its features/ functions was available online, in Sprint stores or by speaking with customer service over the telephone. On the internet all the phones information on feature description were displayed on both www.palm.com/us and http//now.sprint.com/palmpre/. There were even YouTube videos of the software and phone designers explaining and demonstrating the functions. The Palm Pre definitely differentiates itself from its competitors with a new design and cutting edge software. Palm Pre had features that iPhone couldnt match, such as multitasking, universal search, and a drop-down keyboard. The Palm Pre 3 Palm Pre 4 Professional, designed for ages 24-35 because of their constant need to stay in contact with family, friends, and colleagues. At this time the only negative part of the Palm Pre that consumers might not agree with, is that the low cost is not available to pre-existing customers, only new customers. RECOMMENDATION If I were in Palms position I would look for a corporation that was interested in my product and propose that they buy Palm. I would have to agree with the author Dess, by looking for a corporation in the electronics industry that had a reputation for purchasing smaller companies, and allowing them to flourish while providing them with additional funding, research and development (Dess). Several companies with this type of related diversification strategy including Johnson and Johnson and 3M. I would have to look for a company in the electronic industry that had the same type of reputation such as Hewlett Packard (HP), or Sony. HP Merger of PALM In April of 2010, HP agreed to purchase Palm Inc., digital personal organizer and Smartphone manufacturer, announcing their desire to jump into the Smartphone market. This acquisition taken by HP have analysts excited for what is in store for the future. Some question the purchase of Palm Inc. as it was most likely going to fall into bankruptcy if HP had not save them, who once was a strong player in the digital hand held market. They also believe the Smartphone market is a tough sell with three other competitors almost completely dominating the market. Other analysts like the move by HP because it only cost HP 1.2 billion, which is a drop in the bucket of their annual revenue of 125 billion. Hewlett Packard also possess a much stronger marketing force and can boost the sale of smart phones in ways that Palm Inc. could not do. Acquiring Palm gives HP products something to work with rather than starting from scratch and dumping money into developing new smart phones. HP has several strengths which make up the basis of the companys goals and objectives. Its business model includes providing very innovative and high quality products.
HP has a wide variety of products and services. They offer so many that it can easily still earn profits even during times of recession and economic downturn. HP has been able to compete more aggressively and beat out competitors by reducing costs. HP is extremely active in research and development which coincides with its GO to be committed to innovation. Lately, HP has partnered with other leading technology companies to leverage cost and maximize customers experiences. HP has introduced several green initiatives to maintain its objective in corporate citizenship. These citizenship initiatives are based on product reuse and recycling, climate and energy, and supply chain responsibility. HP also has a huge focus on internet protocol (IP) technology. This has led to some large success in leveraging networks for voice and video communication. One of HPs weaknesses is its stock price. Due to the recent recession, the fluctuation in HPs stock price is a major weakness because it is an indicator of uncertainty for the company. Due to the size of HPs workforce, it is also difficult to manage and maintain a workforce that is globally dispersed. Revenues that are earned abroad are also difficult …show more content…
to retain in a tax-efficient way. The company is forced to pay high taxes at times in some countries that set limits on revenues earned, or charge higher corporate tax. HP faces aggressive competition from rival competitors in all areas of its business activity. To remain competitive, HP must continuously develop new products and services since product life cycles are short. Existing products must be enhanced as well to compete effectively with its competition. HP has many competitors, such as the top three in the computer business, consisting of International Business Machines Corporation IBM, EMC Corporation EMC, and Dell. competitive strategy IBMs competitive strategy is based on global core processes. Through a centralized company, the company leverages its strengths as a provider of solutions to companies. Its focus is providing customers with computer services, not just computers. This is a key strength to IBMs competitive strategy by their ability to focus on customers and provide individual solutions. IBMs major weakness is its vast disbursement of employees throughout the globe. Due to the companys massive scope of operation, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate customers needs which lead to loss in sales and profit. EMC Corporation is a global competitor that provides global services in every industry in the public and private sector. EMC mainly focuses on helping companies design, build, and manage flexible, scalable, and secure information infrastructures. EMC provides technology, products, and services to consumers in more than 100 countries. EMCs major strength is based on its past ability acquire and integrate more than 40 growth-oriented software and services companies. The companys strategy is also based on its Total Customer Experience strategy which includes the industrys broadest portfolio of systems, software, and services, our ability to create total integrated solutions. EMCs biggest strength is its VMware product line. This product line has been unmatched by its competitors for quite some time. EMCs only weakness now is its requirement to pay higher taxes because of its recent increase in profit revenues. Dell Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, markets, sells, and supports computer systems, as well as provides related services worldwide. Dell is a large competitor to HP in regards to Interprise Storage product lines, computer systems, as well as services. Its competitive strategy is based on delivering customer solutions directly and through channel partners in either business-ready configurations or through the cloud as a service. Commercial customer demand for Dell enterprise solutions including servers and networking systems, storage and services increased significantly worldwide which is its current strength. Dells current weakness is the decline in consumer demand for its products. Recently, A.G. Edwards pointed out that the weakness that Dell is experiencing in the consumer market is not reflected in Hewlett Packards results, which enjoyed 15 unit growth for consumer PCs during HPs January quarter of 2010. THREATS HP also has some significant threats from its competitors. IBMs brand name and product recognition has been around for many years and is here to stay. This company has a high penetration in high computer hardware, high end operating systems, applications, and specialized software which has the potential to take over HPs market share if HP fails to remain competitive. EMC is reporting growth this year which means HP must compete heavily in particular with industry standard servers. EMC will continue to remain a tough competitor for HP in this market. Dells current strategy is to seek huge profits from increasing corporate demand of its products and services. HP should be aware of dells reliance on this market segment and be prepared to offer better products and services at better prices. OPPORTUNITIES Opportunities are available for HP if it can exploit its competitors weaknesses. IBM is not penetrating new market bases such as China, India, and other emerging markets as quickly as HP. HP has the opportunity in the near future to capitalize on this. EMC is doing extremely well with its products and services at the moment. HP needs to create some opportunity by possible investing more money into RD to create innovative or better products that can rival EMCs existing product line. In regards to Dell, HP should take as much advantage as possible now with Dells refusal to participate in the lower end product market. This is an opportunity now for HP to take a huge advantage over this particular segment. Opportunities for HP in the near future include the handheld market which is still in its infancy stage. There is still a lot of potential in this market for HP to take advantage of. HP has also seen a surge in recent server and personal computer sales while its competitors have remained sluggish. HP also has the opportunity to advance in the lower end product market in contrast to Dells current strategy. HPs threats include declining consumer demand which can become an industry trend depending on market volatility. EMC is also a huge potential threat to HP because of their current success. HP needs to watch this company closely because it is currently offering some software products that are better than HPs product line. HP is currently the global leader in its principle business segments. HP needs to quickly provide similar products and services that will rival IBM, EMC, and Dell as well as increase market share in its major segment industries. HP needs to follow its current goals to adjust prices of products and services to remain competitive.
CONCLUION I found this case study very interesting. We discussed the focus of a strategy review, and how a small company has to go after a specific market segment. It was exciting to see how Palm called themselves a mere organizer at first. Their subtle way of introducing their product was also remarkable. I could easily see where companies might get swallowed up easily by trying to compete directly with a big competitor. Palms insistence on keeping things simple and not adding tons of bells and whistles to their product helped them keep an edge over Microsoft. This made an impact on my thinking and made it more clearly as to how a company truly needs to keep focus and not allow competition to dictate where they are headed. In regards to the Smartphone, this market is large, profitable and rapidly growing. Companies that can provide a device and experience will have a higher share of the market. HP still has opportunity to control a huge segment of this market with Palm products if it can move quickly and provide a product that exceeds current demand to its consumers. Palm Inc. did not take every opportunity that came their way. They thoroughly analyzed each one and did not spread
themselves too thin. Overall, I think this case study was very helpful. I believe I now understand the competitive strategy much better. REFERENCES Yahoo Finance, Edgar Online, Palm Inc. (PALM) (n.d.). from HYPERLINK http//finance.yahoo.com/q/issPALMannual http//finance.yahoo.com/q/issPALMannual Yoffie, D., Kwak, M. (2001). Mastering Strategic Movement at Palm. MIT Sloan Management Review, 43-1, 55-63. Dess, G., Lumpkin, G., Eisner, A. (2007) Strategic Management (3rd ed.). Boston McGraw-Hill Irwin Marketing Management A Strategic Decision Making Approach. 6th ed. Boston McGraw Hill Palm USA- Products for Consumer, Professionals and Businesses ( HYPERLINK http//www.palm.com/us www.palm.com/us) and HYPERLINK http//now.sprint.com/palmpre http//now.sprint.com/palmpre HYPERLINK http//h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtmlc71087pirol-reportsAnnual http//h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtmlc71087pirol-reportsAnnual HYPERLINK http//www.hp.com http//www.hp.com. http//h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtmlc71087pirol-newsArticleID1419424highlight Case Module 01, Strategic Review PAGE PAGE 10 Y, dXiJ(x( I_TS 1EZBmU/xYy5g/GMGeD3Vqq8K)fw9 xrxwrTZaGy8IjbRcXI u3KGnD1NIBs
RuKV.ELM2fi V vlu8zH
(W )6-rCSj id DAIqbJx6kASht(QpmcaSlXP1Mh9MVdDAaVBfJP8 AVf 6Q