Newell Company: Corporate Strategy Essay Example

Newell's corporate strategy was mainly focused on high volume and low cost product to large mass retailer. The goal of the company was to increase its sales and profitability by offering a complete and complementary range of products and reliable service to the mass retail stores. Newell's initial focus was on home and hardware products which later on expended to other markets. The company strategy was to grow and expand its product line through acquisitions, rather than internal growth. Before 1998 Newell acquired different companies in the basic home and hardware products industry and started diversifying into unrelated field such as children products, widow covering, writing instruments and others. The company was also looking to expend overseas to Europe and Asia. The target companies are mostly underperforming and suffer from high cost and sometimes inefficiency. Newell strategy was designed put these companies through a process of streamlining, and to focus on operational efficiency and profitability, this process known as "Newellization". It aim to adjust and these companies to Newell's standards in cost structure and processes in less than 18 months and later on, even within 6 months. "Newellization" is one of the company strongest resource by which Newell acquires and integrate a new acquired company acquisition into their existing portfolio within a short period of time. In this process Newell looking to improve the acquired company ability to supply their products in faster time while quality of the products is not being affected and lowered. Newell also makes changes in the management of these companies by removing unnecessary executives and save their costs. Other acquisitions also include small business to complete product lines which can be essential to provide a one stop solution for customers.

Newell’s diversification approach is based on the company’s needs for growth and their customers need for diversity and efficient supplier. The