Case Analysis of Barco Projection System: Worldwide Niche Marketing Introduction Barco N.V. was established in 1934 as a producer of radio broadcast receivers. At the end of 1970's, facing the economic recession owing to oil supply shock, the company altered its market strategy from consumer market to industrial niche market of projectors. This decision was based on firm and clear vision that Barco knew which market it had to serve. Pursuing top-of-the-line in the high-end niche market, Barco focused on R&D to retain the top quality and launched series of international expansion activities. The strategy of the most advanced player in the niche market resulted in years of its market leadership in graphic projector sector of high-end industrial market. Barco Projection System (BPS) virtually enjoyed the fruit of its dedication on technologically superior projectors, however, the projector market encountered an unexpected (in light of BPS) new product 1270 "superdata" projector (1270) from Sony. Introduced at Siggraph trade show in 3rd quarter of 1989, 1270 showed its superiority in brightness, image quality, and resolution to the counter product of BPS. Since BPS couldn't expect a competing product like 1270, both the company and the distributor were shocked and stirred. Considering Barco's scale in the market, even though BPS was in the position of industry leader, it couldn't defend itself from the attack of the giant like Sony. At this point, to keep the market position and share BPS should take an immediate action against Sony's market conquering movement with the high-quality but low-priced projector 1270. At this time, the managers of Barco were considering basically two options: pricing option and product development option, but both options had some defects. Strange relationship with the Giant BPS was known its high quality to distributors and end users. Based on its strategy of being ranked in top 3 in the designated market segment high-end projectors, BPS had achieved the no. 1 in graphic projector and managed to be top 3 in data and video projector sectors. BPS had intentionally set the bar by making its product "unnecessarily complex" to prevent the entrance of other competitors. Dealers and end-users complained about it but BPS held this strategy since it was regarded as a necessary differentiating way among competitors: Sony, Electrohome, and NEC. Sony was the strongest competitor and had a unique relationship with Barco. Competing in the market of industry projector with Barco, it provided the core component of the projector to Barco - tubes.
Product life cycle is an important marketing concept which divides the sales history of a product into distinctive stages (Vashisht, 2005). These different stages would present their own opportunities and opportunities and thus call for different strategies for marketing practitioners. Generally, a product would goes through four stages including introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Home theatre products seem to head towards its declining stage with its sales dropped by about 10% in 2012 in Australia (Euromonitor International, 2013). Its profit is also dropping with more generous pricing competition in this market. However, there is a new trend emerging that could transform the competition landsc...
After several new product failures, the company began using customer input to help develop new products. In 1989, the fishing electronics industry is experiencing a downturn, and the company's sales and profits are slipping. The company, which has one product line (depth sounders) and a strong brand (Hummingbird), has conducted substantial market research on three new products. These products are project 901, hummingbird VHF Radio, Locator/ GPS navigator. Of these, project 901 is an extension of the depth sounder product, while the other two would be new product lines for the company. Top management is deciding which one or more of the three new products it should proceed with. In this paper, I will discuss the positive and negative aspects of each product ideas and my recommendations to Techsonic management
Identify and work the BATNA. Also be aware of other negotiator’s BATNA. Remind other negotiator the advantages of TexasAgs offer relative to their unpredictable BATNA. Remind them in subtle way their BATNA is not as strong as it looks. The new production facility of competitor will not be operational until 1987. Resell rights, favoured nations and meet competition are not industry norm and they would not get it even with new competitor. (Lewicki, Saunders, Barry, 2011, p. 258).
Answer: It seems from the case that there are several reasons why B&D leads in Professional-Industrial and Consumer product segments, but trails in the Professional-Tradesmen segment. It is also clear from the tests performed by Black & Decker that their products were at comparable, or even better at some cases, quality.
Warren Buffet once said, “Price is what you pay, value is what you get.” These words have a very significant meaning when a business is looking to make a major decision. Everyone knows the price of buying a new piece of equipment, but very few understand the value. When searching for large growth opportunities it is the value of the equipment that matters, not the price tag. For your company, the Toyo Jidoki TT-9CW offers value far beyond the numbers on the price tag.
Referring to current issue Computron is bidding $622,400 to sell its 1000x digital computer to Konig, which is 43% higher than least bid. A new manufacturing plant in Frankurt plant might have to sit idle for a couple of months if Computron couldn't win bid. Also Computron 1000X is purpose-built computer while Konig needs machine with less accuracy and flexibility.
BBS Computing is located in Greece New York It is a Computer Sales, Service center that also does some Networking systems. Paul Saussa, Ron Bess and John Bonacci are both owners and employees of the business. It is a relatively small business that mainly does computer sales and repair with some occasional networking jobs. The actual business consists of a show room and a workshop. The showroom has different models of computers that customers can have built to buy. There are 4 different types depending on a customer’s budget for a computer. The low-end models consisting of a Pentium III processor and 256 Mb of RAM and the basic keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer, and speakers, and the high-end models consisting of a Pentium 4 processor or equivalent with 256 or more Mb of DDR RAM and premium speakers, keyboard, mouse, printer and monitor. Thus, meaning you get what you pay for. The display models allow you to show a customer some of the features of the different types of computer systems that are offered. Such things as operating systems such as Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, and also programs like Nero for CD burners, All-in-Wonder TV tuner cards and applications such as Microsoft Office. This was my first opportunity to work with Windows XP.
With a near total saturation of the consumer electronics market, companies need to look beyond their boundaries and add value to their offerings, and sometimes it means total reinvention of the company.
BSB made another mistake when they focused more on technology and not on customers and costumer needs. Data doesn’t give significant information that costumers wanted higher quality TV (comparing to existent BBC or ITV for instance) as BSB assumed, and therefore thought that having the 15-year franchise of the high-powered DBS channels, the other medium and low-powered were not a concern. Nevertheless, competitors had the capability to overcome the entry barriers. This could be made for example with Astra that would launch medium powered satellite in 1988, and so, before BSB planned to start broadcasting. With medium-powered satellites, Sky coul...
To meet and respond to its customers needs, IBM creates, develops and manufactures many of the worlds most advanced technologies, ranging from computer systems and software to networking systems, storage devices and microelectronics. Indeed, IBM has various product lines and services a few of which are: the Personal Computer that was first created in 1981, AS/400 business system, RS/6000 family of workstations and server systems, S/390 enterprise server, groundbreaking ThinkPad notebook computer; the award-winning IBM Netfinity and finally, PC Servers. It is an important supplier of hard disks, random access memories, and liquid crystal monitors.
Samsung Electronics Company (SEC) began doing business in 1969 as a low-cost manufacturer of black and white televisions. In 1970, “Samsung acquired a semiconductor business” which would be a milestone that initiated the future for SEC. Entering the semiconductor industry would also be the beginning of the turnaround phase for SEC. In 1980, SEC showed the market its ability to mass produce. SEC became a major supplier of commodity products (televisions, microwave ovens and VCRs) in massive quantities to well known original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). For this reason, Samsung was able to easily transition into a major player in the electronic products and home appliances market (Quelch & Harrington, 2008).
IDEO should not accept the Visor project, exepet if the other company change the deadline is one of largest and most efficient firm for product designing worldwide. The major customers of IDEO include 3Com for which IDEO develops Palm V-held computer. As the Palm V is getting the huge market success this has initiated a competition in the industry of hand-held computers. The major competitors of this industry are HandSpring and 3Com. Both are approach to IDEO for design the new competitive VISOR product. HandSpring management has now demanded IDEO to design and manufacture the prototype of VISOR in less than half the time it took to design the Palm V. Now IDEO is in a scenario that it has to make a decision that whether it should develop the product or not. Or IDEO should propose HandSpring to increase the development period as otherwise in such period of time they have to compromise their innovation and design in order to meet the deadline.
information about the history and the current company situation are covered. Later some interesting and different technical issues are
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Larson, Rasmus. 5 Display Technologies of the Future. 20 November 2012. 21 November 2013 .