Prepared by Mohamed Tarek Esmat
Student ID 091076
Q1: What is the underlying logic behind the global product company idea?
Global Product Company (GPC) philosophy is mainly aiming at producing products that fit global markets with lowest cost and highest profit. This philosophy has mechanisms that have been applied to different phases of product lifecycle:
Manufacturing phase: In manufacturing phase, cutting costs was achieved by moving manufacturing activities and eventually design and engineering activities from high-cost countries to low-cost countries.
R&D phase: R&D is a very important phase in product development, it is essential to develop new products that can compete in the global market and considers different customers’ needs. Having high skilled workers in developing countries, where labor has relatively lower costs, has enabled the movement of R&D from high-cost countries to low-cost countries, however R&D programs, objectives, and strategies were still managed by headquarter and the corporate global senior management.
Marketing & Sales phase: On contrary to R&D and Manufacturing, marketing & sales have to be localized operations according to each region and country. Accordingly, GEMS has established many offices around the world for sales and marketing management to get closer to the customer.
Q2: Should the Global Product Company philosophy be altered to suit the needs of medical diagnostic market in China?
China already has the third largest market for medical diagnostic after USA and Japan and it is already the fastest growing, it has the biggest market for low-ended products which has about 20% of the worldwide industry revenues. Accordingly, somehow the tenets of the GPC policies should change to increase the market share in the low-end products; GEMS should adopt the new “In China for China” policy and bring the plants in already low-cost countries to China. According to Chinese