Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) means that a corporation should be held accountable for any of its actions that affect people, their communities and their environment; it may require a company to forgo some profits if its social impacts are seriously harmful to the corporation’s stakeholders or if its funds can be used to promote a positive social good. Tougher competition recently has compelled the firms to adopt something that is different from their rivals and has also put a pressure on the firms to examine their philanthropy and other social activities, by doing so the company can sometimes achieve a strategic advantage over its competitors. There is a business case for CSR but it is much less important or influential than many proponents of civil regulation believe, CSR is best understood as a niche rather than a generic strategy: it makes business sense for some firms in some areas in Continue reading
Corporate Strategies
Case Study: Pfizer’s Strategy Analysis
Business-Level Strategy Pfizer, Inc. has chosen the value creation alternative of differentiation. Differentiation forces Pfizer to increase costs, resulting in an increase in product price, and most importantly an increase in customer perceived value. Pfizer’s differentiation can be achieved by producing high-quality, innovative drugs which require extensive research and development as well as patent protection. For example, Pfizer spent approximately eight billion dollars on 100 research and development projects in 2018. Furthermore, Pfizer, Inc.’s business-level strategy is known as broad differentiation. This strategy enables Pfizer to serve a large market while still creating value through its differentiation. A key tradeoff associated with a differentiation strategy, although creating a high perceived value of the brand, is the implementation of a high-cost structure. A high-cost structure demands that consumers pay premium prices for its products, which can be unattractive to some. It is near impossible to provide a low-cost yet differentiated product Continue reading
Case Study of Apple: Competitive Advantage Through Innovation
Apple Inc. is an American consumer electronic company which designs, develops manufactures and supports the well-known hardware products such as Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Most of Apple’s products seem to be a trigger of revolution in electronic market and this reason contribute Apple as a market leader. The main strategy to run its business is not only creating new innovation product but also incremental improvement. The strength of Apple is “think different”. With innovative ideas and aesthetic designs, Apple has changed how people listen to music and communicate. One of the success products of Apple is iPhone which is a revolutionary device. It combined the feature of music device (iPod) and mobile phone technology with the key feature on this product that is “multi-touch” and “multi-tasking” on the graphic user interface. The phone supports a camera, a multimedia player, a blue tooth, web browsing and Continue reading
Factors that Motivate the Mergers and Acquisitions
There are several factors that motivate the mergers and acquisitions. These factors can be broadly summarized into two categories: 1. Exogenous Factors Affecting Mergers Accounting. The availability of pooling accounting for mergers has been a significant factor in the 1990s merger activity. Pooling avoids dilution of earnings brought about by the recognition and mandatory amortization of goodwill when a merger is accounted for as a purchase. As pooling came under increasing pressure from the SEC and the FASB, its impending demise, first at the end of 2000 and then in the first-half of 2001, undoubtedly acted as a stimulant for some mergers, but it is not possible to gauge accurately how many deals were undertaken in 1999 and 2000 to beat the deadline. Now, at the beginning of 2001, the FASB is proposing that purchase accounting replace pooling but that goodwill should not be automatically written down, but instead should Continue reading
Case Study of Dell: Simple but Effective Marketing Strategy
In 1984, with only $1,000 in startup capital, Michael Dell established Dell as the first company in its industry to sell custom-built computers directly to end users, bypassing the dominant system of using resellers to sell mass produced computers. Since a young age Michael Dell has been intrigued and fascinated in the idea of eliminating unnecessary steps. So it was not surprising when he established a company where there marketing strategy was based on eliminating the middleman. “We sell computers directly to our consumers, deals directly with our suppliers, and communicate directly with our people, all without the unnecessary and inefficient presence of intermediaries. We call this “the direct model,” and it has taken us, to use a common phrase at Dell Computer Corporation, “direct to the top””. The direct business model eliminates retailers that add unnecessary time and cost, that could diminish Dell’s understanding of customer expectations. The direct Continue reading
Takeover Bid – Meaning and Types
This is a technique for affecting either a takeover or an amalgamation. It may be defined as an offer to acquire shares of a company, whose shares are not closely held, addressed to the general body of shareholders with a view to obtaining at least sufficient shares to give the offer or, voting control of the company. Takeover Bid is thus adopted by company for taking over the control and management affairs of listed company by acquiring its controlling interest. While a takeover bid is used for affecting a takeover, it is frequently against the wishes of the management of Offeree Company. It may take the form of an offer to purchase shares for cash or for share for share exchange or a combination of these two firms. Where a takeover bid is used for effecting merger or amalgamation it is generally by consent of management of both companies. It Continue reading