...\ Case Analysis Coach Assignment 1. Komatsu was able to evolve from a company with low-quality products to a company that became a real challenge to Caterpillar in the early 1980’s by adopting Kawai’s strategy. Kawai’s strategy was simple it was to raise the quality of the product being made and to catch up with Caterpillar. The adopted slogan to “catch up and surpass Cat” becomes instrumental in the Kawai era (1964-1982). The only way to achieve this goal is to develop a product that is on par with or better than that of Caterpillar and is sold at a better price point so they developed “Project A.” Project A started with raising the quality of the mid-sized bulldozers to that of Caterpillars quality. With doing that Kawai noticed big changes in profits. The bulldozers did cost more to be made but the warranty time on the product was able to double and the claim rates were cut to two-thirds of what it was before. This showed a major improvement in quality of the product, which led to a 15% raise in market share by 1970. Kawai constantly adopted new ideas and never settled which led to a increase in profits during his span as president of the company, Kawai’s performance with Komatsu was very good. His approach to the company was strong and had set goals. With these goals he was able to increase sales and raise the market share of the company. 2. In the mid 1980’s under Nagawa’s term as CEO performance deteriorated quickly due to the rapid decrease in the economy...
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...What are Steinway’s resources and capabilities? Are they strong? Strengthening? Weakening? How do you know? Steinway and Sons has been recognized as the market leader for high-quality grand pianos. The firm had prospered due to its technical excellence and innovation (technology) in making these high quality pianos. The firm enjoyed valuable, rare and inimitable resources. It had two manufacturing facilities (infrastructure), one in Long Island City, NY and the other in Hamburg, Germany. The firm produced high-quality pianos using craft method rather than highly automated production lines (operations). This made the product inimitable producing legendary sound and a customizable piano to suit a musician. A musician always found the pianos that could be tuned to their personality and taste very valuable and even granted permission to use their names for publicity (sales & marketing). The labor force (human resource) was highly skilled and rare with each worker working at least 15 years. The manufacturing process (operations) for a grand piano took 2 years, which meant that the process was costly and difficult to imitate. The firm sourced (procurement/logistics) the best quality lumber from all over the world. Steinway had few focused dealers who were committed (service) to Steinway’s product line and leveraged the remaining dealers’ distribution network through partnership programs. (sales and marketing) However, Steinway was constrained by limited financial resources...
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...Issues: Strategic Problem – Nogawa Era focused more on cutting costs and aggressive sales. Management Problem – Nogawa was an autocratic micro-manager whose resistance to change affected the company. Tanaka seemed unsure of himself and needed to have the input of other managers to discuss the company’s future. Operational Problem – Under the Tanaka Era he responded to the competitive crisis before focusing on the larger strategic goal of product diversification and internationalization. Product Problem – Komatsu held a market share of 50% despite the low quality. Product diversification. Financial Problem – Net income dropped 55% in 1987 from 1985. Strategic Problem – Although, he didn’t want to change the policies of Kawai; Nogawa should have changed his strategy to shifting production overseas and reducing Komatsu dependence on the construction industry. Management Problem – Because of Nogawa’s autocratic style and Tanaka participatory style along with their strategies made them unpopular with the employees. I would have chosen a leader with a growth strategy and democratic...
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...Situasi nyaman berubah di tahun 1963 ketika, setelah pemerintah memutuskan untuk membuka industri ke investor luar negri, CAT mengumumkan akan memasuki pasar bekerjasama dengan Mitsubishi. Pada saat ini komatsu memilki penjualan sebesar $168 juta dan lini produk ini di bawah standar dunia. Analis local memprediksi tiga tahun perjuangan sebelum CAT mengalami kebangrutan, sehingga menjadi perusahaan lokal. Munculnya dan ekspansi: Era Kawai (1964-1982) Di dalam konteks ini Ryoichi Kawai diasumsikan sebagai presiden komatsu dari ayahnya pada tahun 1964. Ayahnya telah mempersiapkan perusahaan dengan memulai program Total Quality Control (TQC) di tahun 1961. Dengan dasar inilah strategi Ryoichi Kawai untuk perusahaan adalah lurus kedepan untuk memperoleh dan memngembangkan teknologi canggih , untuk meningkatkan kualitas, dan untuk meningkatkan tingkat efisiensi ke tingkat yang diperlukan “untuk mengejar ketinggalan dan melampaui CAT”. Menggembleng perusahaan masuk ke dalam tantangannya dan membuat manajemen fokus pada prioritas strateginya, Kawai memperkenalkan gaya manejemen yang mana ia sebut sebagai “pengelolaan kebijakan”....
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...Naomi Summary Summary (Literary Essentials: World Fiction) Naomi is an ironic account of a seemingly proper gentleman in his mid-twenties who meets a young girl named Naomi, who is working as a waitress in a cafe. The story is told by its protagonist, Joji Kawai. Fascinated by her Western-sounding name and her sensuous beauty, which reminds him of American silent film star Mary Pickford (highly popular in Japan in the 1920’s), Joji decides that he intends to marry Naomi; soon he falls into a Pygmalion-like relationship as he attempts to tame this selfish and willful creature. Joji gives Naomi money for English and voice lessons, only to learn that she is less talented than he had first supposed. She refuses to do any work in the house, buys extravagant clothes, and manipulates Joji into borrowing money under false pretenses from his doting mother, who lives in the country. Naomi next takes up Western dancing and forces Joji to accompany her to her lessons and to Tokyo dance halls. There he realizes that she has developed a whole coterie of younger male friends unknown to him. The young student Kumagai in particular speaks with Naomi in a fashion which suggests that they have been intimate. Joji’s illusions shatter; his work suffers, and he begins to lose control of himself. At Naomi’s suggestion, Joji decides to rent a cottage for the summer in the resort town of Kamakura, south of Tokyo. He commutes from there to his job in Tokyo. Naomi seems happy with this arrangement,...
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...$169 million company with low-quality products to become a real challenge to Caterpillar by the early 1980s? How would you evaluate Mr. Kawai's performance? When Ryoichi Kawai assumed the presidency of Komatsu from his father in 1964, he built on the Total Quality Control (TQC) program that his father had started in 1961. Ryoichi Kawai’s strategy was straight to the point when he became President and that was to acquire and develop advanced technology, to raise quality and to increase efficiency to the level necessary to catch up and surpass Cat its main competitor. He decided to galvanize the company around this challenge and to focus management on his strategic priorities. He introduced a style of management called “management by policy” which he said was to clarify to all his staff members that there are value and policy target he wants to achieve and the company was aiming for a specific time period. Komatsu focused his priorities on raising the quality of Komatsu's middle size bulldozers to Cats level. He instituted a new system of control called the “Plan, Do, Check, Act” (PDCA) cycle to ensure that constant progress was made toward those objectives of awareness and many different dimensions of quality and that constant progress was made that Kawai established at all levels of the organization. Once Kawai announced the projects and priorities at the beginning of the year, the continues PDCA cycle concentrated efforts and made sure it was fully implemented. 2. Why did performance...
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...Steinway and Sons Presenters Team 02 MKTG 445-02 Ashley Sides Derek Moss Andrew Wyatt Lindsey Brooks Jason Bryant Lindsey Brooks Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 History 4 Industry Trends 5 Industry Competition 6 Target Market 7 Marketing Strategies 8 SWOT Analysis 10 Conclusion 11 Executive Summary Problem: As a result of the declination of sales in the piano industry, Steinway and Sons needs to find a way to uphold its historical brand reputation while gaining market share world wide and using innovative technology; particularly in the Asian Market Background: In late 1994, Steinway and Sons was yet again a company on the market to be sold. For their own personal reasoning, the Birmingham brothers decided to sell the piano manufacturer. On April 18, 1995 Kyle Kirkland and Dana Messina, already controlling multiple firms, decided to make the purchase. The investment bankers purchased the New York piano manufacturer for an incredible $100 million. Discussion: The piano industry has been in rapid decline over the past 2 decades and in particular, Steinway and Sons has taken a hard financial hit. Global sales of the industry have dropped 40% over the past 24 years and with the introduction of major industry competitors, Steinway and Sons have continued to struggle. In addition to the negative impact of these industry trends, Steinway and...
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...Steinway and Sons Presenters Team 02 MKTG 445-02 Ashley Sides Derek Moss Andrew Wyatt Lindsey Brooks Jason Bryant Lindsey Brooks Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 History 4 Industry Trends 5 Industry Competition 6 Target Market 7 Marketing Strategies 8 SWOT Analysis 10 Conclusion 11 Executive Summary Problem: As a result of the declination of sales in the piano industry, Steinway and Sons needs to find a way to uphold its historical brand reputation while gaining market share world wide and using innovative technology; particularly in the Asian Market Background: In late 1994, Steinway and Sons was yet again a company on the market to be sold. For their own personal reasoning, the Birmingham brothers decided to sell the piano manufacturer. On April 18, 1995 Kyle Kirkland and Dana Messina, already controlling multiple firms, decided to make the purchase. The investment bankers purchased the New York piano manufacturer for an incredible $100 million. Discussion: The piano industry has been in rapid decline over the past 2 decades and in particular, Steinway and Sons has taken a hard financial hit. Global sales of the industry have dropped 40% over the past 24 years and with the introduction of major industry competitors, Steinway and Sons have continued to struggle. In addition to the negative impact of these industry trends, Steinway and Sons introduced...
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... The East Asia’ Regional Economic Integration In the past twenty years, the East Asian economies realized the freedom of foreign trade and direct investment (FDI) because of the influence of GATT/WTO and APEC and as a result, it further promotes the economic growth of East Asia. The mutual economic dependence of each countries has increased a lot and therefore, close economic cooperation among Asian countries is necessary for healthy economic development. Many countries try to deepen their cooperation by establishing agreement and carrying out negotiation or discussion (Kawai 2004). Besides, the East Asian countries want to have their own institutions where they have vital voice in decision making after the financial crisis. As a consequence, the regional economic integration become an inevitable trend. The structure of this essay is organized as follows. The first part of this essay will discuss the driving forces of East Asia’s regional economic integration, including the failure of the WTO and APEC, and the financial crisis. The second part will illustrate how regional organizations of East Asia are developed in aspect of trade cooperation and financial cooperation and then followed by the difficulties in creating a regional economic union, such as the resistance from the United States and the great...
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...Australia and New Zealand: Doing business with Indonesia John Edma Keiser University Australia and New Zealand: Doing business with Indonesia The cultures of New Zealand and Australia, to a great extent, differ from the cultures of the rest of the Asian countries. Focusing specifically on the relationship between the two countries with Indonesia, there is a great cultural diversity. Indonesia, just as the rest of the Asian countries, believes in creating long term relationships so as to gain profits in business. Australian business cultures, on the other hand, aim at making fast profits before creating a long term relationship. Indonesian company managers care about the people they deal business with to keep them motivated and happy (Kearney, 2006). The Indonesian companies tend to believe in mutual respect to achieve effective and productivity. The managers believe western companies should adjust to the culture, the taboos and languages of all the Asian companies. Indonesia is unique in its diversity and extent among the clusters of islands in Asia. Over 60% of the country’s population resides in Java Island. Through the diversity in culture, the national ties remain strong. Despite the difference between the cultures of the countries, they still have to reach a consensus in dealing businesses. The countries have to adapt to the cultures of the fellow business partners. In dealing in Business for a long with Asian countries, Australia and...
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...The recently planted tea bushes above the road created a very pleasing sight. Kaghan is another place worth spending a day in. Little restaurants line the road and tracks meander down to the silvery Kunhar River rushing past the town. We had piping hot Pakoras and tea on our way back, here. The light drizzle made them even more enjoyable. The huge walnut trees looked majestic and their fruit was in the middle of its growth cycle. My son had to pick one or two just to see how they looked when quite raw. The ride after Kaghan was utterly amazing! Every turn of the serpentine road unfolded new vistas dazzling in their pristine beauty! A bonus was the clean, fresh, invigorating pine scented air. A few miles after Kaghan we came to Kawai. |Kawai is a small...
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...Japan's lost decade and the present financial crisis As world and consumer prices continue to drop, there is renewed fear of deflation. The nightmare scenario is Japan's 'lost decade'. Michael Lim Mah Hui explains what happened in Japan and considers the prospect of a similar fate. IN the last 37 years (1970-2007), there have been 124 banking crises, an average of 3.4 every year (Laeven and Valencia, 2008). Some have been minor, others very serious and long-lasting, like the one in Japan from 1991 to 2002. The most recent is the financial crisis that started in the US in July 2007 and is playing out in front of us today. It is also the most serious, systemic, and global since the Great Depression of 1932. A banking or financial crisis can be defined as a dislocation of the banking system where a significant number of banks and other financial institutions become illiquid and insolvent due to massive defaults on bank loans and other assets. An escalation of non-performing assets of banks will result in heavy losses depleting banks' capital. Banks become insolvent when their debt obligations (liabilities) exceed the value of their assets, i.e., the sale proceeds from their assets are inadequate to pay for their debts. Conditions preceding a banking crisis - financial deregulation Unbridled deregulation of the financial industry is at the heart of financial instability and crises. What began as a trickle became a wave and today it has broken loose as a financial tsunami...
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...ECIPE OCCasIOnal PaPEr • no. 2/2010 REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION IN ASIA: THE TRACK RECORD AND PROSPECTS By Razeen Sally Razeen Sally (razeen.sally@ecipe.org) is Director of ECIPE and on the faculty of the London School of Economics www.ecipe.org info@ecipe.org Rue Belliard 4-6, 1040 Brussels, Belgium Phone +32 (0)2 289 1350 ECIPE OCCASIONAL PAPER ExECuTIvE SuMMARy This is the season for regional-integration initiatives in Asia. There is talk of region-wide FTAs, and there are east-Asian initiatives on financial and monetary cooperation. But grand visions for Asian regional blocs are not achievable. Regional economic integration is most developed in east Asia, but only because of manufacturing supply chains linked to global markets. South Asia is the most malintegrated region in the world. And east and south Asia are much less integrated in finance than they are in trade and FDI – due to highly restrictive national policies governing financial markets. Asia’s existing FTAs are “trade light”. They are largely limited to tariff cuts, but have barely tackled non-tariff regulatory barriers in goods, services and investment, and are bedevilled by complex rules of origin requirements. An APEC FTA initiative has gone nowhere – entirely predictable given such a large, heterogeneous grouping. An east-Asian or a pan-Asian FTA, by discriminating against third countries, would compromise regional production networks linked to global supply chains. Moreover, huge economic...
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...theory: change is inevitable and is rarely controlled List relevant qualitative data: * Change in leadership styles * autocratic, diplomatic, and participatory * Change in slogan * “growth, global, groupwide” to “total technology enterprise” * Strategy changes * Project A, restoring domestic marketplaces, Project G * Attempts at internationalization * Regionalizing in Europe and USA * Demand fluctuation in market * Have electronics, robotics, and plastics account for 50% sales (Tanaka) * % of sales outside of Japan reflects List relevant quantitative data: * Currency fluctuation (value of Yen) * Market share values * Increase from 50% to 65% market share under Kawai * Cost reduction * Company sales * 1975:1,508 * 1983: 3,235 * 1991: 6,915 * Construction sales * See Exhibit 2 (steady increase) * 1988: mark up in US prices by 7% Describe the results of your analysis: * The unstable management styles lead to a blurry future and ever changing policies. * They had a poor...
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...PRODUCT : Analyzing your products 1. The product concept Picard propose a large range of products for all the population. We will show you wich products of Picard we would like to bring in a list with the price per kilos. Fruits surgeles : €/kg Red fruit salad 7.86 Citrus salad 7.33 Mango slices, import 11.55 Melon balls , France 8.88 Rhubarb pieces , import 2.40 Pink grapefruit juice Florida 5.40 2 tians fruit , cherry, apple, raspberry 23.68 3 red fruit coulis 12.50 Exotic fruit salad 7.33 Jar exotic fruits 18,57 Mirabelle of Lorraine mumps , France 7.91 Raspberry Whole, import 7.95 Raspberry coulis 12.50 Mango-passion fruit coulis 12.50 Cocktail of red fruits 7.33 Papillote orchard fruit 20.00 Raspberries broken, Chile 5.95 Jar fruit orchard 18.57 Questches of mumps in Lorraine , France 5.66 Pitted cherries , Poland 7.66 Fig into quarters, import 6.25 Florida orange juice 5.40 Pineapple chunks , Cote d' Ivoire 6.25 Apple, plum , fig and raisin 8.00 Exotic fruit smoothie 8.00 Papillote exotic fruit 20.00 Mangoes and peaches gingerbread and honey 8.00 Cocktail of red fruits bio, import 11.77 Bowl of exotic fruits 13.00 Multifruits salad 7.33 Bowl of red fruits 13.00 Vegetables: / kg Spinach axes 2.44 Miniature cultivated mushrooms 4.66 Artichoke hearts, Egypt 5.50 Peas soft extra-fine and young carrots 2.00 Roasted potatoes in slices 2.15 Vegetables...
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