Founded in 1866 as a family business, Johnson & Johnson now has over 130,000 employees in 60 countries worldwide. What started off as a small, three-person business, the company has now expanded across the globe and was named a “2017 Fortune’s Most Admired Company”. One may wonder, how did brothers Robert, James, and Edward Johnson set the foundation for the next 130 years to come? This success can be attributed to Johnson & Johnson’s Strategic Framework, which is at the root of all decision-making. The company’s Strategic Framework is comprised of three main components: The Foundation, Strategic Principles, and Growth Drivers. All three sections of the Strategic Framework include insight into Johnson & Johnson’s Management Approach, which guides the company’s philosophy for continuous success. The Foundation includes the Credo, which establishes the values incorporated into the decision-making process. The Credo can be seen in every single office and corner of Continue reading
Corporate Strategies
Reasons for Mergers
In general, a merger can be defined as the integration of an acquired company into the existing, acquiring company. In terms of finance, an acquiring company purchases the majority of shares from the acquired company, thus merging both assets into one expanding share. A merger tends to be a permanent arrangement and usually the company who acquires the shares retains its namesake. The International Competition Network identifies three major types of merger transactions: Share Acquisitions, Asset Acquisitions, and Joint Ventures. A share acquisition is defined by obtaining a controlling equity interest in the target such that it can exercise ‘decisive influence’ over the target’s business operations. On the other hand, an asset acquisition is defined as a “buyout strategy” in which valuable elements – rather than shares – of a financially unstable company are purchased. Furthermore, the acquiring company can choose which specific assets or liabilities it wants to purchase. Continue reading
10 Steps to Successful Crisis Management
A crisis is an abnormal situation, or even perception, which is beyond the scope of everyday business and which threatens the operation, safety and reputation of an organisation. Crises do not discriminate based on a company’s size or notoriety, and they can hit when a company least expects them. They come in many forms — strikes, layoffs, product recalls or allegations of misconduct, but while some of these may seem small, every crisis has the potential to damage the reputation of a company. Regardless of the severity of the situation, crises pose a serious threat to companies — not only to their reputation but their fiscal health as well. When Odwalla’s apple juice was thought to be the cause of an outbreak of E. coli bacteria, the company lost a third of its market value. The same allegation against Jack in the Box restaurant in 1993 caused the hamburger chain’s Continue reading
Case Study: Sony’s Business Strategy and It’s Failure
Sony is the combination of two word sonus and sonny. The both words sonus and sonny is a latin word. The literal meaning of sonus is sound and, sonic and sonny is little son. Easy to pronounce and read in any language, the name Sony, which has a lively ring to it, fits comfortably with the spirit of freedom and open-mindedness. Since, Sony is the combination of two word “sonus” and “sonny”, represents a very small group of young people who have the energy and passion towards unlimited creations and innovative ideas. Sony foundation was started in 1946 when Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita worked together with a small team of obsessive and committed group of employees build “Tokyo Tsushin Kenkyujo” (Totsuko), or “Tokyo Telecommunications Research Institute” (billion dollar global conglomerate). In 1958 the company was formally adopted “Sony Corporation” as its corporate name. The main objective of the company Continue reading
Meaning of Demerger
It has been defined as a split or division. As the same suggests, it denotes a situation opposite to that of merger. Demerger or spin-off, as called in US involves splitting up of conglomerate (multi-division) of company into separate companies. This occurs in cases where dissimilar business are carried on within the same company, thus becoming unwieldy and cyclical almost resulting in a loss situation. Corporate restructuring in such situation in the form of demerger becomes inevitable. Merger of SG chemical and Dyes Ltd. with Ambalal Sarabhai enterprises Ltd. (ASE) has made ASE big conglomerate which had become unwieldy and cyclic, so demerger of ASE was done. A part from core competencies being main reason for demerging companies according to their nature of business, in some cases, restructuring in the form of demerger was undertaken for splitting up the family owned large business empires into smaller companies. The historical demerger Continue reading
Value Chain Analysis – Porter’s Value Chain
The concept of Value Chain was propagated by Michael Porter in the 1980s in his book “Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance” (Porter, 1985), as a tool of analyzing the firm’s internal environment and resource base. Value Chain Analysis is an analytical tool that describes all activities that make up the economic performance and capabilities of the firm, used to analyze and examine activities that create value for a given firm. A firm can be conceived of an aggregation of discrete activities and the competitive edge arises based on how a firm performs these activities better than its competitors. The cluster of these activities is called the value chain. According to Porter: “Competitive advantage cannot be understood by looking at a firm as a whole. It stems from the many discrete activities a firm performs in designing, producing, marketing, delivering and supporting its product. Each of these activities can Continue reading