Preview

Philips vs Matsushita

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1800 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Philips vs Matsushita
N.V. Philips (Netherlands) and Matsushita Electric (Japan) are among the largest consumer electronics companies in the world. Their success was based on two contrasting strategies – diversification of worldwide portfolio and local responsiveness for Philips, and high centralization and mass production for Matsushita. Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands began as a small light-bulb factory in Holland, and by the turn of the century, was one of the largest producers in Europe. One-product focus made Philips a leader in industrial research which stimulated product innovation. Consequently, product line was broadened significantly and the flow of exciting new products and ideas continued through the years. Limited domestic market soon forced Philips to grow internationally. The foundations for what was to become one of the world 's biggest electronics companies were laid. Philips’ major rival, Matsushita, started as a small electrical house-ware manufacturer in 1918. The company expanded rapidly and soon introduced a flood of new products. By the end of the century, Matsushita grew into a global player with powerful brand names such as Panasonic, Quasar Technics, and JVC. However, during the 1990s, Philips and Matsushita both faced major challenges to sustain their position in the market. Changing profile of the industry and globalization forces made Philips and Matsushita’s organizational models and competitive advantages obsolete, and brought up the need for drastic actions. At the brink of a new century, the battle of two giants unraveled with CEOs from both sides implementing another round of strategic initiatives and restructurings. The pressure put on new CEOs was enormous – wrong strategy could mean the end of a century long rich company history.

II. Philips and Matsushita were companies with radically different culture, background and structure. But both of them realized that their strategies were inappropriate

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Admn 417 Assignment 1

    • 1008 Words
    • 5 Pages

    This case addresses Sharp's concern regarding their business model going into the future, as they are quickly losing momentum after being a world leader in their industry for the previous decades. An integral part of the re-evaluation deals with whether or not Sharp should expand its business into other countries. The decision maker in this case Mikio Katayama, President of Sharp Corporation. An engineering graduate, he was an unusual success with the company by being able to clearly communicate his visionary ways, and also being the youngest to lead the company (Lehmberg, 2011).…

    • 1008 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    international case

    • 1477 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Philips and Matsushita are two electronic (equipment and service) based powerhouses who had to expand their business to the international market. One my ask why they needed to operate internationally… each company, Philips and Matsushita, wanted to stand in front of their peer companies as the market leader in the industry. In order to do this, each company would go through various changes, some of which hurt and some of which helped each company. Each company started very small sales and used two very different business strategies. Philips, the Dutch company, built their firm on the localization strategy. Philips built their post-war organization or NO’s. The National organizations were very self-sufficient and were able to respond to market conditions of the different countries they operated in. Consumer preferences played a big role in the development of Philips. Christopher A. Bartlett states, “in some countries, rich, furniture-encased TV sets were the norm; in others, sleek, contemporary models dominated the market.” This being said, National organizations were at a huge advantage to other companies because they could sense and take action to differences seen through various national markets.…

    • 1477 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sony and Matshisuta

    • 1761 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Frist of all, the differences between Matsushita and Sony’s products is one of the primary reason that makes their decision various. In the reading, it reveals that Matsuhita was focusing more on the low-tech products such as NN-MX20WF (their new model mocrowave oven), DVD player, automatic washers and 29-inch TVs. One the contrary, Sony’s product is more distinctive and it emphasizes more on developing new technology. Indeed, Sony has successfully at commercializing new technologies into innoative products such as the transistor radio, tape recorder, Beta- Max video recorder, CD, Walkman, minidisk, DVD and even camera and camcorder. In another words, Matsushita just centrated on being customer intimate but Sony differenticated itself by innovation. Therefore, as we can notice, the functional products of Matsushita have low demand uncertainties, long product life cycle, low profit marginsm low product variety, low stockout cost and low obsolescence but the innovative products of Sony have high demand uncertainties, short product life cycle, high profit margins, high stockout cost and high obsolescence.…

    • 1761 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Finnish company Nokia is a prime example of company having to take on a new corporate strategy in order to compete with competitors that have over taken them in the market. Nokia had to replace its chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, who had spent over half his life at the mobile phone maker. The reason for this change is because Nokia where struggling to compete with the smartphone market and were very slow to innovate. Nokia’s share price was falling, whilst Apple, a competitor with a smart phone on the market, saw a rise in their net profit by 78%. There are various reasons why external causes of change have taken place, including technological advances and competitors actions that have left Nokia behind.…

    • 910 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    3. Competition – the main competition are Sony and LG. Sony will offer the biggest competitive challenge in the international market, especially in its main market of Japan.…

    • 3708 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Samsung

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages

    From its inception as a small export business in Taegu, Korea, Samsung has grown to become one of the world’s leading electronics companies, specializing in digital appliances and media, semiconductors, memory, and system integration. Today Samsung's innovative and top quality products and processes are world recognized. This timeline captures the major milestones in Samsung's history, showing how the company expanded its product lines and reach, grew its revenue and market share, and has followed its mission of making life better for consumers around the world. (SAMSUNG All rights reserved)…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    When Jack Welch assumed as CEO of GE in April 1981, he had the challenge of revitalizing the competitiveness and productive competency of the company. In 1981 the economy was in a recession and high unemployment combined with high interest rates exacerbated GE’s problems. GE needed to be restructured and this entailed the modernization and streamlining of operations, downsizing the organization, reduction of payrolls and stringent efficiency measures.…

    • 1859 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    They scraped old plants and after advances were made they used new machines or factories. They also became a leader in industrial research, creating physics and chemistry labs to address production problems as well as more abstract scientific ones. After developing the tungsten metal filament bulb, which was a great commercial success, Philips had the financial strength to compete against its giants rivals. Because of Holland 's small size Philips was soon forced to expand to other countries for having enough volume to mass produce. So it started building sales organizations in the United States, Canada, and France. All other functions remained highly centralized in Eindhoven. Philips created also local joint ventures to gain more market acceptance.…

    • 2341 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Throughout their long histories, N.V. Philips (Netherlands) and Matsushita Electric (Japan) had followed very different strategies and emerged with very different organizational capabilities. Philips built its success on a worldwide portfolio of responsive national organizations, while Matsushita based its global competitiveness on its centralized, highly efficient operations in Japan.…

    • 7249 Words
    • 29 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sony Executive Summary

    • 275 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Sony's current financial difficulties are tied into its corporate culture which was verbalized over 30 years ago. With such an immensely colossal multinational corporation, greater orchestrating and more utilization of strategies should be pursued. Sony could commence with the implementation of a new mission verbal expression, with profit and benefits of the company tied more proximately to everyday operations. Internally, the four forces, the management, the designers, the engenderment and the marketing should achieve better communication and cooperation. Coalition and cooperation between competitors should additionally be actively sort after in order to engender standards in new fields. Sony should aim at being the bellwether instead of being the maverick. As for cost cutting, Sony should earnestly consider establishing operations in other Asian countries in order to capitalize on the frugal labor and the budding markets. Finally, diversification, instead of pursuing the expeditious transmuting and facilely imitated consumer goods market, Sony should utilize its technological ken-how for high-end business and office equipment. With SWOT analysis and Porter's competitive forces model, we can view that the market is much more competitive with less profit margins and lead-time for product innovation. The conclusion is that change is needed in Sony. However, even with strategirial and structure change, the Sony spirit of innovation should remain intact because that is what made Sony grow and would make it stay vigorous. Introduction The first thing that comes to people’s minds of the company and products of Sony is its high-technology-filled-with-contrivances electronic goods and innovation. It was additionally this innovation that makes Sony the greatest company that commenced in post-war…

    • 275 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Honda Effect Reference

    • 324 Words
    • 2 Pages

    "The Japanese don’t use the term “strategy” to describe a crisp business definition or competitive master plan. They think more in terms of “strategic accommodation,” or “adaptive persistence,” underscoring their belief that corporate direction evolves from an incremental adjustment to unfolding events. Rarely, in their view, does one leader (or a strategic planning group) produce a bold strategy that guides a firm unerringly. Far more frequently, the input is from below. It is this ability of an organisation to move information and ideas from the bottom to the top and back again in continuous dialogue that the Japanese value above all things. As this dialogue is pursued, what in hindsight may be “strategy” evolves. In sum, “strategy” is defined as “all the things necessary for the successful functioning of organisation as an adaptive mechanism.".......Richard T. Pascale (1984). “Perspectives on Strategy: The Real Story Behind Honda’s Success," California Management Review…

    • 324 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Philips V. Matsushita

    • 1054 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Philips and Matsushita are the biggest international players in the consumer electronic market. They have developed strategies and global organizations that can enhance the firms’ capabilities in the global market. Due to the small size market in their country, Philips, Netherland based company, began to look for the international opportunities by developing their overseas business units and creating local joint ventures to market their products in foreign countries, but all other functions still remained in Netherland. However, after the time, Philips started to decentralize their organizations and built their production facilities in different regions to protect its foreign sales from the trade barrier and high tariffs. They developed the national organizations (NOs) and allowed their NOs to create their own technical capabilities and develop products that can response to the change of demands in specific market. Japanese company, Matsushita, began their internationalization by exporting their core products, such as Color TV and VCRs, to the large-scale market. To provide customers with the competitive price, they shifted their basic productions in the low-wage countries, such as Southeast Asia countries, but all advance and high value process remained in Japanese plants. Even though they continue to build their divisions in many regions, Matsushita still tried to keep their offshore operations under the parent company control in order to monitor quality and productivity level on their products.…

    • 1054 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Philips vs Matsushita

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages

    It seems that Philips was doing great when it concentrated on one product in one country. When the company started to broader its present to other geographical locations succeeding became more complicated.…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Child Support: An Obligation, Not a Choice Children come with various responsibilities, parents have a legal right to provide and care for said child. In some cases a two parent household is not practical; when this happens, if two parents cannot come to a mutual agreement on how finances for the child will be provided, child support payments are usually the resolution. For years, there has been an ongoing debate on whether or not this should be mandatory. If both parents cannot produce a joint contract stating the terms of how the child will cared for financially, child support should be mandatory.…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Philips Case Study

    • 1586 Words
    • 7 Pages

    simultaneously across all markets for manufacturing, marketing and sales to operate as efficiently as possible. In the world of consumer electronics, timeto-market can be a key competitive advantage, and our existing processes were introducing too many delays. Quality and consistency were also suffering, leading to poor communications with consumers and potentially damaging Philips’ brand.” Addressing the increasing complexity and demands from the business needed a fundamentally different approach. “Our goal was to…

    • 1586 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays