Gateway falls short of their strategies. Gateway has attempted to revive itself by becoming a producer of a wide variety of consumer electronics products branded with the group’s name. But PCs still make up the bulk of its sales Compare Dell’s and Apple’s highly disciplined innovation efforts to Gateway’s shoot-anything-that-moves approach. Gateway started as a process innovator, becoming, with Dell, a pioneer of direct distribution, but it also tried to be a product differentiator, maintaining relatively high-cost manufacturing plants, investing more than Dell in R&D, and launching expensive brand-advertising campaigns. It innovated aggressively on the retailing end as well, pioneering the exclusive stores that Apple would later (and more successfully) copy. It even tried to be a service innovator, pursuing a highly publicized “beyond the box” strategy involving the provision of various consulting services to small businesses. By trying to innovate everywhere, Gateway failed to build a strong competitive advantage. Continue reading
Management Case Studies
Management case studies are real-life examples of issues and problems found in particular workplaces or business organisations. Case study assignments give the opportunity to relate theoretical concepts to practical situations. Most case studies are written in such a way that the reader takes the place of the manager whose responsibility is to make decisions to help solve the problem. In almost all case studies, a decision must be made, although that decision might be to leave the situation as it is and do nothing.
Case Study on HR Issues: Supervisory Support
Joseph a plant level worker has been twenty years of experience, in Zeal Zink Ltd, a large scale industrial establishment in Maharashtra. He is hard working, competent, punctual and reliable employee of Binani Zink Ltd. He is having good interaction and interrelation with his superiors, co-workers and other members in the organization. The management has better impression and appreciation about his performance and commitment. The only disagreement the management has on him is his affiliation to one of the trade unions in the organization. Management didn’t have any impression towards the existence of trade unions within the organization as they believed that trade unions are to mislead and exploit the work force and a big hurdle in the smooth progress of the organization. To make Joseph more work oriented, management decided to promote him to supervisory level. The promotion decision is beyond his expectation. He found himself very happy with Continue reading
Case Study on Business Ethics: Napster Copyright Infringement Case
Duplicating software for friends, co-workers or even for business has become a widespread practice. All software programs are protected by copyright laws and duplicating them is an offense. How, then, has making illegal copies become such a common and accepted practice in people’s homes and places of work? Part of the answer revolves around the issue that software isn’t like some other intellectual property. Intellectual property is that which is developed by someone and is attributable directly to the thinking process. Software is different from a book in that anyone can easily copy it-and an exact replication is achievable. Another reason is related to cultural differences. People don’t see copy as stealing. People don’t find anything wrong in making a video copy of a hit feature film and selling it or hiring out. People defend their behavior by saying: ‘Everybody does it! I won’t get caught! Or no one really Continue reading
Case Study: Why Walmart Failed in Germany?
Wal-Mart, the mega-retailer, was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 in Bentonville, Arkansas. It started with $700,000 in its first year and scaled up to $5.4 million by 1974. The retailer continues to grow while others struggled with inflation and recessions. In 1980, Wal-Mart became the youngest US retailer to exceed $1 billion in net sales. During the 1980s, Wal-Mart began to further expand and thus pushing some retailers to closing some of their regional stores. The company engaged in diversification by creating membership-stores such as Sam’s Club, smaller, more conventional pharmacy/grocery stores called Neighborhood Markets, and finally Supercenters with a wide selection of consumer goods. And, in 1991, Wal-Mart became the world’s largest retailer. Wal-Mart had been able to implement its Every Day Low Price strategy by focusing on 1) developing a sophisticated logistics system with heavy information technology investments, 2) efficient distribution system by placing retail stores close Continue reading
Case Study: The Business Strategy of Apple
Apple Inc is a multinational American company that design and sells computer software, consumer gadgets and personal computers. It was co-founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Apple Inc is well-known for being innovative as they kept on producing new innovations from the first Apple computer Macintosh to the more recent iPhone and iPad series. Today Apple Inc. is very well known in the world because of their advanced technology in products such as iPods, iPhone, Macbooks, Apple TV and other professional software. All the high tech products provide consumers with a better living standard in many different ways. Moreover, Apple Inc’s dominant position in the global market has changed the trend of consumer usage of electronic appliances such as in virtual communication. People will never need to carry multiple devices where each one only offers a handful of functions. Furthermore, Apple also created a substantial value in Continue reading
Case Study: McDonald’s Business Strategies in India
McDonald’s The modest beginnings of McDonald’s at Illinois in USA, turned out to be among the main brand names in the international scene. It has been synonymous to what is widely-accepted the fast-food concept. The company operates over thirty one thousand stores all over the world to date. It was one of the first to perfect the concept of fast service in the food industry in its early days of operations in 1955. Given that the products of the company are mainly western in character; its operations have also expanded to the Asian region. The first Indian McDonald’s outlet opened in Mumbai in 1996. In the rest of the globe, it operates thousands of store franchises that functions autonomously. McDonald’s in India Around the world, McDonald’s traditionally operates with local partners or local management. In India too, McDonald’s purchases from local suppliers. McDonald’s constructs its restaurants using local architects, contractors, Continue reading