Case Study Philips NV
1. Describe changes in Philips environment occurring during the 1960’s and 1970’s
(a)
Philips operates in a very competitive market domestic and internationally. There have been various changes over the last decade, with the emergence of the company from a position near economic failure to a well-known brand that is still lacking in performance. From the 1960’s onward, a number of significant changes took place. Due to the efforts of the GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade barriers fell worldwide. There have been many attempts at designing models which describe the competitive environment and the determinants of profitability from Western competitors.
The first element is that of the existing competition. Philips market for their products are elevating domestically and emerging internationally, however the environment in which it operated in for both of these markets is highly competitive. The way in which the products are perceived had changed over the last decade may have been seen as a luxury by the domestic markets are now seen as becoming more and more a necessity as technology moves into the home internationally. According to Cahners, the name Philips s is well known, indeed it is ranked as the global brand leader in electronics Cahners Research and in terms of Inter-brand's World's Most Valuable Brands 2000. However, there are also some problems with this and the way that it has been competing and brand awareness alone does not create sales, socially in a market where there is firm competition.
2. Describe why Philips had low profits durng the 1970’s and 80’s
(a)
The problem faced by the company may be seen as a result of the lack of change and the inability to identify the way the market was moving. In the 1970‘s and the 1980’s there were different market drivers and challenges. Philips has many different products, and with such a diversified portfolio there has been a spread of risk, but this has also lead to a lack of specialization. This is partly being corrected with a concentration on video cassette recorders. However, unlike many other companies in the market, there is not a single association with the brand.
Other companies have had a higher level of differentiation due to the way in which they have been able to identify with a single product, and this has enhanced their reputation, such as Sony and Matsushita initiating VHS. This is an industry where reverse engineering is extensive and many competitors will be working on similar technologies.
The primary problem would be the structure of the organization. This is due to the fact that there are thirteen departments in total which would lead to the failure of the ability to concentrate on long term viability of the business.
The lights helped the audience determine who was speaking, by putting a spotlight over the actor and dimming the rest of the lights. Also, the color of the lights changed according to each scene and the mood for that particular scene. For instance, a musical number about a character’s tragic past would include soft, golden lighting while a scene about dancing in dance class might include purple lights to show the overall mood of the scene. In addition, the costumes used in the musical added even more life to the musical by providing a visual representation of each character and his or her personality. The costumes allowed the audience to determine the character traits of each character while also deciding the type of homes the characters came from. For instance, one of the characters was dressed in pants and a shirt that would normally be seen worn by an older man or a father. This lead the audience to believe that the character might be an older person who has a family of his own. Later, it was revealed that the character actually had a wife and two kids, proving the audience
Definition of Main Problem: There can be no argument that Wal*Mart has revolutionized the discount retailing industry. Furthermore, CEO Glass and COO Soderquist have stepped in at the helm of this company and continued to take it in the right direction by quadrupling sales and profits from 1987 to 1993. The main problem they now face is how to sustain their phenomenal performance, and becoming number one has magnified this issue. No longer can they just sneak into small towns where the only competition is the local merchant’s shop. No longer can they copy larger companies like Sears and J.C. Penny’s because of their size and scope. The fact is, Wal*Mart is bigger than these companies and their direct competitors Kmart and Target are doing everything in their power to close that gap. They are lurking not so quietly in the shadows, benefiting from Wal*Mart’s past choices, successes, and failures. They are there to blow the whistle if Wal*Mart steps outside the lines. Wal*Mart may be growing, but at a rate under 10% for the first time in years. Shareholders are concerned, the press is relentless, and many obstacles lie in their path if they hope to continue the trends Sam Walton set so ambitiously in 1962.
Wal-Mart’s philosophy has always been to provide everyday low prices and superior customer service. But this philosophy might have stared potential customers away from Wal-Mart. Many people, including myself, have the misconception that Wal-Mart only sells necessities that the average working class family can afford. An extreme eye opener for me was a recent television commercial by Wal-Mart. I saw that they also sold flat panel televisions, which is considered a luxury item for any social class. After going to their website to see what other luxury items Wal-Mart sold I was amazed at the number of items I found that were not the necessities which I stereotyped them selling. Wal-Mart has to change the public’s opinion of the items that they sell and the types of people that it has in mind of serving.
Illnesses are not something that a child wants to have, nor is it something that a parent wants to deal with. Vaccinating your child will prevent him/her from either developing an illness or obtaining the illness
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.
In 1945, Sam Walton opened his first variety store and in 1962, he opened his first Wal-Mart Discount City in Rogers, Arkansas. Now, Wal-Mart is expected to exceed “$200 billion a year in sales by 2002 (with current figures of) more than 100 million shoppers a week…(and as of 1999) it became the first (private-sector) company in the world to have more than one million employees.” Why? One reason is that Wal-Mart has continued “to lead the way in adopting cutting-edge technology to track how people shop, and to buy and deliver goods more efficiently and cheaply than any other rival.” Many examples exist throughout Wal-Mart’s history including its use of networks, satellite communication, UPC/barcode adoption and more. Much of the technology that was utilized helped Sam Walton more efficiently track what he originally noted on yellow legal pads. From the very beginning, he wanted to know what the customers purchased, what inventory was selling and what stock was not selling. Wal-Mart now “tracks on an almost instantaneous basis the ordering, shipment, and delivery of literally every item it sells, and that it requires its suppliers to hook into the system, enabling it to track most goods every step of the way from the time they’re made and packaged in the factories to when they’re carried out store doors by shoppers.” “Wal-Mart operates the world’s most powerful corporate computing system, with a capacity (as of late 1999) of more than 100 terabytes of data (A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes, or roughly the equivalent of 250 million pages of text.).
It is the tutor’s role within the Life Long Learning sector to support, inspire and guide the learner during their journey - from the beginning through a robust assessment, through the middle while they learn and use the topic, to the end when they are ready to move on to the next stage of their learning – whether this be into a employment, or into further education/training.
What does penicillin treat? There are several different kinds of penicillins, and they treat infections caused by bacteria. Each is used to treat different kinds of infections, and one kind of penicillin usually cannot be used to replace another. In addition, bacterial infections in many different parts of the body are treated with penicillins that work by killing the bacteria or preventing their growth. They are sometimes given with other antibacterial medicines.
1. How did Philips become the most successful company in its business during an era when scores of electrical engineering companies were being formed? What impediments and disabilities did Philips' strategic and organizational capabilities bring with them?
What competitive pressures must Oliver’s Market be prepared to deal with? What do we learn about the nature and strength of the competitive pressures Oliver’s faces from doing five-forces analysis of competition? Which of the five competitive forces is the strongest?
Today, the technology sector has been dominated by various companies all competing to gain the huge market share that has created great rivalry amongst many organizations even leading to the acquisition and rebranding of some like Nokia and Motorola. Under the defensive strategy, most companies employ this technique to discourage new
Alexander Fleming started the history of antibiotics in the 1920's with his discovery of penicillin.When penicillin was first discovered and used widely, it was touted as a wonder drug, and consequently was used as one.Though not necessarily harmful to the patient penicillin was used for much more infections than it was able to combat.Today the same practice is observed in the medical profession, however at this point it is due more to the detriment of an uneducated public.Studies have been carried out that show the huge over usage of antibiotics.In the seventies Soyka et al, concluded, "60% of physicians surveyed gave antibiotics for the treatment of the common cold."[3], and by common knowledge the common cold is a virus, something that cannot be treated by an antibiotic.Nyquist
Two new managers have been appointed at Sony in the last 15 years due to a number of developing problems, including the innovation ‘cogs’ within Sony slowing down, being forced into an aggressive pricing strategy, increased competition, losing the battle of VHS and Betamax, profit and sales remaining flat and the ongoing poor performance of Sony films (Mintzberg et al, 2003). Both managers initiated major strategic changes with varying degrees of success; firstly Nobuyuki Idei was appointed and initiated a major shift from analogue to digital technology, as there was a belief that Sony was falling behind the market in this respect. Idei also targeted the top position in the audio and visual industry, a universal standard in home computer devices and a new distribution infrastructure. He believed his job was the ‘regeneration of the entrepreneurial spirit’ (Mintzberg et al, 2003), believing it had been lost.
Vaccinations, or vaccines for short, are injections that deliver a living attenuated organism into a person’s body. Children are very important to the continued welfare of humankind, and thusly, their well-being is of heightened importance. Vaccinations have a significant impact on an individual’s health, and children are not excluded from the benefits of vacations. It is of utmost importance that children are provided with the chance to a healthy future. Due to underdeveloped immunosuppressant systems, children are vulnerable to diseases that adults are typically resistant to, as their immune systems have had many years to evolve and grow in strength. Vaccines help children gain considerable resistances to diseases that would otherwise cause serious health problems. When used throughout the entirely of a population, vaccines have the potential to eliminate the possibility of contracting specific diseases.