Executive Summary
This case examines P&G and whether or not they have the ability and means to make their SK-II product a global brand. In this case, we examine P&G's need for a new global strategy and their ability to develop SK-II into a worldwide beauty product. Ultimately we will see that P&G needs to expand their hold in the Japanese market while becoming more familiar with the needs of potential markets.
Analysis
In recent years Paolo de Cesare was very successful at the head of the European and Japanese Max Factor divisions, but the idea of taking the SK-II that was so successful in the Japanese market global is very risky. Up until the 1980's, P&G Japan was only a minor contributor to the P&G international growth. In 1985, Durk Jager found that the key reasons for the failure lied in the fact that they had not recognized the distinctive needs of the Japanese consumer. Over the next four years under his management changes were made to research, advertising and distribution that provided a 270% increase in sales, and Jager assumed the position of group vice president for Asia. However, in the 1990s the business could not keep up with the competitors in the Japanese market. Just as indicated in the article "Philips versus Matsushita," the organization began to be more focused on the structure of the company than the strategy of the company and where it was going. Jager then developed Organization 2005, his strategy in the rapid development and roll out of new products globally, which also involved several management changes. Just as indicated in the article "Philips versus Matsushita," the organization began to be more focused on the structure of the company than the strategy of the company and where it was going. One of the changes in O2005 was the promotion of Paolo de Cesare to head Max Factor Japan and was faced with the dilemma of whether or not the SK-II could break into the global skincare market.
Although the SK-II line was successful in Japan and neighboring Asian markets, such as Taiwan and Hong Kong, it is important to note that these are fairly small markets. There were three alternatives: break into mainland China with the SK-II line, bringing SK-II into the Western market, or expanding and developing the SK-II line in the Japanese market.
Based on the case, Lawson Cosmetics has an unresolved issue. They cannot decide on whether they should take the new branding initiative global, which is brought up by Gupta. Lawson is obviously a multinational company. In my opinion, they should develop major elements to market locally, and regionally and globally at the same time with a consistent brand image, but they need to adapt its brand to different markets by different ways carefully.
Although Lafley has had success, the underlying problem remains. How will Lafley return P&G to its rightful place in Corporate America? P&G's solution to its problems is through product line extensions, expansion into non-premium brands, as well as acquisitions, licensing, reinforcing market orientation through consumer focus, and outsourcing. This recommendation was based on following items;
The most significant weakness for Belle Couleur would be the undifferentiated product that will be introduced to the Dutch market. Although the number of shades of hair color will be reduced to accommodate the limited retail shelf space, the colors offered will not be reformulated to cater to Dutch preferences. The colors available to the Dutch market will be those that have been specifically formulated for the French market. The problem lies in the differences in color preferences of the Dutch and French women. While the French prefer darker and conservative colors, the Dutch preferences lie at the opposite end of the color spectrum, preferring lighter shades. The market research indicated that buying intentions of the Dutch women decreased after the test-use because the color ¡§didn¡¦t cover gray¡¨ or ¡§was too dark¡¨. Moreover, competing local and international brands in the hair colorant market formulate their products to Dutch market preferences.
However, entering into a market as different as Japan is not without its risks, and must be ensured to be successful, with the help of market research, marketing, and operational theories, lest the new venture become a very costly mistake. Target Consumer Market When moving to a market with a consumer culture so different from the home market, a company must be careful to analyse its target audience in detail, to avoid costly cultural faux pas. To get a good feel for the Japanese culture, a good place to start would be the experts in the cultural studies field. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, created during his in-depth GLOBE study of the cultures of the world, gives a good comparison between the priority differences between Japanese and English culture. A detailed analysis of the cultural differences will be given in the ‘Marketing Issues’ section of the report.
Overview NARS Cosmetic is a cosmetic company founded by Francois Nars in New York, US in 1994 (Hollywoodnoirmakeup.com, 2012). It is considered as one of the best-selling cosmetics and skincare products company in U.S.A, Canada, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan (Shiseido Co., 2014). Since the demand for cosmetics is growing every year and people are looking for more quality products, the company decided to open a new branch in the Middle East to have more customers and to satisfy them by making the NARS product more easily accessible. The aim of this paper is to indicate the best country among the GCC to open a new NARS Cosmetic branch by studying every country’s feasibility of a new cosmetic branch. We hope this expansion can please our customers and make better reputation in GCC countries,besides increase our profit.
L’Oreal is the largest beauty company in the world and in the past 100 years that it has expanded, it has supplied to 130 countries with offices in 58 different countries. This global company is the number one premium cosmetic product in the world today and has taken the core and beauty of people’s everyday lives since 1907, the beginning of L’Oreal. The superior leadership of a guy named Eugene Schueller started this strategic company with basic products such as hair care and also the first man-made hair color product. Five years later you could find these products in Austria, Italy, and the Netherlands. In 1934 Eugene invented the first mass market of soap less shampoo and this led the success of L’Oreal in the country of Europe which soon recognized them as the leader in body care and hair coloring products. Finally soon after World War II L’Oreal moved into the United States and the company seemed to change. When L’Oreal expanded the competition was more involved and more growth was needed in order for the company to be more successful. With problems like this, the strategy and planning that has been applied in L’Oreal has been huge for the success of the company. L’Oreal realized they needed to expand in other fields of the beauty market and target markets in order to stay alive and successful. This would mean that L’Oreal would need to acquire other companies as part of their expansion and through this they have kept the constancy of the leading company with acquisitions of many small companies. Finally in the 1980s they started their globalization into new markets all around the globe by acquiring new companies that would form the cosmetics that we know today. Although the role of acquisitions has never been the main focus of the company, internal growth and strategy was the number one reason for L’Oreal becoming such a big name. The main strategy was to adopt new companies and expand it from within believing that the brand could be taken globally and benefit their overall brand portfolio. The main role of acquisitions was to increase and lengthen the internal growth rate. L’Oreal started acquiring companies from the beginning of their name. They started with the basics of their own brands such as L’Oreal Professional, L’Oreal Paris, Kerastase, and Club des Createurs de Beaute.
Colgate-Palmolive has been a strong force in the oral hygiene industry. The company has many strengths that have contributed to the company’s success. The company has become a global leader with seventy five percent of sales coming from international operations (Colgate, 2011). The company has built strong brand recognition over the years. According to Sekar and Thomas (2008) “brand differentiation is now becoming an important tactic for combating competition in the hostile marketplace.” While price is important, brand is also an important influence for consumers (Chain Drug Review, 2010). Another influence is product positioning. Colgate-Palmolive has been successful in positioning their products in stores and displaying more skus than other brands.
Alan G Lafley, the former CEO of Procter & Gamble, once said “Let’s execute along this strategy, but know that we’ll probably get some of this wrong, so be open to changing it (AZQuotes.com). Procter and Gamble has undergone many strategic changes in the last 15 years which have had a profound impact on the company’s profits and market share. The strategic changes that Procter & Gamble has undergone have been both positive and negative. While it is important to document the financial impact of the changes under Alan Lafley, it is also important to track the changes and growth under the current CEO David S. Taylor, while also showing Procter & Gamble’s competitive advantage.
By investing more in market research than any other company, conducting thousands of research studies and investing millions in consumer understanding every year, P&G has made a success out of articulating unspecified consumer wants and needs translating them into products. Not only is their a successful transition from idea to product, but P&G has also demonstrated global success in branding these products into household names with the logistics and distribution capabilities to translate it into meeting consumer and retailers needs satisfactorily. By translating these characteristics into continuously improving efficiency and productivity, P&G can give the best brand value to the Indian market by building relationships with consumers,businesses and retailers, making Oral B the toothbrush household name in India.
Before Lafley took over for Jager, P&G was stretched to the max, haplessly wasting away resources and opportunities with an overcomplicated business strategy. P&G was raising prices on their best selling brands to cover for missed sales and high production costs for new brands that failed to be a successful [Lafley, 2003]. They had hired too many employees and were involved in several investments that were unprofitable. P&G had not had a hit product since the launch of ALWAYS feminine products in the 1980’s and each additional product flop only stretched their recourses thinner and thinner. Costs were high and moral low with employees not afraid to voice their lacking confidence with P&G’s leadership and direction. Subsidiaries were blaming corporate for their missed earnings and visa versa [Lafley, 2003]. Strategies between the brands at P&G clashed and each were out to safe guard their own interests. The prices of their consumer products were too high while the company failed to deliver customer satisfaction. These factors distracted them from what had originally made them successful – being an industry leader in innovation (Markels, 2006).
...&D capability was not supported by their ability to efficiently produce and market the innovation. Since the R&D is separated from production and sales, it was not market-oriented enough. The limitation of sharing local market knowledge also leads Philips to its inability sell the excellent innovation that R&D has developed. Seeing this as opportunity, Japanese companies able to combine Philips invention with their mass-market production ability and successfully became the leader in the market.
Both companies’ changing strategic postures and organizational capabilities led to the major restructuring each company was forced to undertake as its competitive position was eroded. However, it is extremely difficult to overcome deeply set administrative heritage. Although Matsushita and Philips followed different strategies - classic "global" and "multinational" models respectively, both of them proved to have limitations.
Based on the information provided in the L’Oreal case, Yue Sai struggled to grow and capture additional sales in the high-end Chinese cosmetics sector. In the past, L’Oreal attempted to position Yue Sai in several different ways which can be viewed as detrimental to the company image, showing uncertainty as the company struggles to see which positioning strategy will stick. The most recent positioning presented in the case, which desires to “deliver Yue Sai’s longstanding brand promise that ‘Nobody knows Chinese skin better than Yue Sai’”, allows the highest probability of success for the company capitalizing on countless fresh trends in Chinese cosmetics (6). The positioning statement would reflect this new strategy: “For the modern Chinese woman Yue Sai offers a line of high-end cosmetics. Unlike other high-end cosmetics Yue Sai combines traditional Chinese medicine and sophisticated technology adapted to the unique skin type of Chinese women.” Yue Sai saw reasonable success and hope in the new Vital Essential line which utilized traditional Chinese medicine and, therefore, resulted in above average repeat purchases. Continuing to focus the strategy around traditional Chinese medicine should benefit Yue Sai considerably. Another suggested strategy would be to wholly reposition Yue Sai, however this is ill advised. As stated in the case, Yue Sai tried numerous different positioning strategies, which ultimately provided no clear path strategy. Repositioning would show uncertainty in the company, lowering brand value in the eyes of the consumer.
American and European corporations dominated the international business arena until the Japanese manufacturers made inroads into US markets with their high quality low priced products. They introduced production systems such as Kanban, Just-in-Time (JIT) and 5S that changed the culture within production facilities. They internationalized the world with those businesses that had competitive advantages over local firms in terms of costs, quality and management practices. Over a period of time they also entered non-core businesses where they lacked competitive advantage (Anthony Goerzen., 2007). They paved the way for other Asia Pacific businesses to enter global markets.
...re chances of growth and development for the company which is clearly understood through the research done on the Ansoff’s matrix. P&G is much ahead of its competitors and has also won many honors in terms of offering quality and innovative products. The company’s products are also sold by wide variety of retailers around the world and also through many e stores that sells the product online. Finally the company has also got more expansion opportunities which is clearly understood through the Yips model of Internationalization. As the company continues to acquire international brands over the years and succeeds in offering quality and innovative based products to the people all over the world it tend to give a much better completion to its competitors and of course get a wider market share making its competitors give a tough time in the industry.