...industry is ready for disruption. Not just from Nintendo, but from all game developers. It is what we all need to expand our audience. It is what we all need to expand our imaginations. - Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo Co. Ltd1 In the 2008 BusinessWeek–Boston Consulting Group ranking of the world’s most innovative companies, Nintendo Co. Ltd (“Nintendo”) was ranked seventh, up from 39th the previous year. 2 This recognised Nintendo’s significant transformation into an innovative design powerhouse that had challenged the prevailing business model of the video game industry. In 2000, when Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo (the “big three” of the video game console manufacturers) released their latest products, Sony's PlayStation 2 (“PS2”) emerged as the clear winner, outselling Microsoft’s Xbox and Nintendo’s GameCube. In 2006, a new generation of video game consoles was introduced by these players, precipitating a new competitive battle in the industry. Microsoft and Sony continued with their previous strategies of increasing the computing power of their newest products and adding more impressive graphical interfaces. However, Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, believed that the video game industry had been focusing far too much on existing gamers and completely neglecting non-gamers. Armed with this insight, the company repositioned itself by developing a radically different console, the Wii (pronounced “we”). The Wii was a nifty machine that used a wand-like remote...
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...BIS5101 Strategic IT-Management Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Rau WS 2013/14 Term Paper Topic: How Companies Could Achieve Sustainable Competitive Advantage Gahn, Philip MACFA, ID# 309601 gahnphil@hs-pforzheim.de Kominek, Lukas MACFA, ID# 300953 komluk@hs-pforzheim.de Wenz, Eugen MACFA, ID# 300636 weneug@hs-pforzheim.de th Submission date: November 2 2013 2 Table of Contents 1 Purpose and Structure ......................................................................................... 5 2 Definition and Origin of Competitive Advantage .............................................. 6 3 Approaches and Methods to Achieve Competitive Advantages......................... 8 3.1 The Traditional Approach According to Porter ........................................... 8 3.1.1 Cost Leadership ................................................................................. 10 3.1.2 Focusing on Priorities ........................................................................ 10 3.2 Modern Approaches .................................................................................. 10 3.2.1 The Strategy as a Compilation of Simple Rules ................................ 11 3.2.2 The Blue Ocean Strategy ................................................................... 12 4 Ways to achieve Sustainable Competitive Advantage...................................... 13 5 Conclusion .............................................................................
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...“Have you caught the wave?” For those who have not heard this quote before, it is associated with a strategic strategy known as Blue Ocean Strategy; Blue Ocean was coined by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. In this strategy, the authors use the term “blue ocean” to get people to envision creating their own “blue oceans” which is often thought of as untouched and deep. This is the exact opposite of the beliefs of other strategies like Porter, D’Aveni, and Moore who work within the current market to beat the competitors. In the past ten weeks, this class has tested me by having to read challenging articles that presented several different strategic theories to us. While all of the theories brought us interesting and valuable information, the one that resonated most with me and stuck out the most was the Blue Ocean Strategy. I have always been someone who enjoys a challenge and I feel that while this theory is a challenge, it has the most potential to bring organizations the greatest amount of success. To fully understand why I selected this theory opposed to one of the other ones, I feel that first I need to explain exactly what Blue Ocean Strategy is and who has used it and gained enormous amounts of success. While there are many people who believe taking down the competition is the best plan for their company and will result in huge success, Blue Ocean Strategy does not even factor it into their decision making process as a way to reach success. To discuss Blue Ocean Strategy...
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...Company: Activision Blizzard, INC. (ATVI) PESTLE 1. Political Pg. 10 – Our products are sold internationally on a direct-to-retail basis, through third-party distribution and licensing arrangements, and through our wholly-owned European distribution subsidiaries. We conduct our international publishing activities through offices in the United Kingdom ("U.K."), Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia and Ireland. • Activision Blizzard Inc. is an internationally traded company and most of its revenue is generated from foreign trade. Therefore it is subject to various foreign and domestic laws. Fluctuations in these laws such as increased tariffs, duties, transportation costs and instabilities in the currency exchange rates can adversely impact company’s operations in the foreign market. 2. Economic Pg. 13 – Our products involve discretionary spending on the part of consumers. Consumers are generally more willing to make discretionary purchases, including purchases of products like ours, during periods in which favorable economic conditions prevail. • Consumers purchasing trends have a direct relationship with economic condition. Therefore, current economic condition and global recession is likely to reduce consumer spending on the products which can have a negative impact on company’s operations and financial position. 3. Socio-cultural Pg. 10 –We often seek to maximize our worldwide revenues and profits by releasing high-quality...
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...AMD as a Company History Customers should come first, at every stage of a company’s activities. This customer driven approach to doing business was at the core of AMD’s founding in 1969 and remains the central focus of the company’s policy today. Advanced Micro Devices was founded in 1969 by a group of former executives from Fairchild Semiconductor. The company began by exclusively designing and producing microprocessors and slowly building on their core competencies to foray into other computer hardware. In 1975, AMD introduced a reverse-engineered clone of the Intel 8080 microprocessor. Even then Intel chip architecture was considered the industry standard. AMD’s laggard position in the industry can be traced all the way back to the beginning. Throughout the seventies AMD diversified its product portfolio into graphics, audio devices, and computer memory. AMD achieved minor success in the 1980s by briefly competing in the modem industry. At the time, AMD manufactured the only modem compatible with the various idiosyncrasies of the different telephone companies. In the late eighties AMD decided to devote its focus mainly to designing and manufacturing microchips. The company chose to compete directly with Intel and their established chip architecture. AMD acquired ATI Technologies in 2006, marking the company’s serious entry into the graphics industry. AMD’s jump into graphics got off to a rocky start. Later that year, AMD and its main rival in the graphics industry, NVIDIA...
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...Ultimate Gaming Technology (UGT) Marketing Plan MKT 500 UGT Marking Plan Executive Summary The video game console market is a fast growing market. The UGT Mega B0x competes together with Sony’s PlayStation 3, Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 for the market leader position. Compared with these competitors, the Mega B0x includes the newest technologies and provides the highest variety of functionalities. Therefore, our strategy is to target customers who focus on high technologies and multimedia-entertainment. This involves that the Mega B0x competes not only with console manufacturers, but also with other multimedia producers such as PC manufacturers. Rather than reduce the retail price, UGT seek to maximize the value of the Mega B0x and to aggressively market it as not only a powerful video game console but also an affordable home entertainment hub. The most important marketing tool is the Internet for promoting the Mega B0x. Blogs, MySpace, YouTube and other kind of websites enable an area-wide promotion of the game console and especially, it is done by consumers. Finally UGT financing objectives are to sell over 20 million consoles in the first year and to achieve total sales revenue of $10 million dollars. ...
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...Marketing Plan July 2, 2012 MKT 421 Ronald Bonlender Marketing Plan Apple Inc. became incorporated in 1977 and has since generated many innovations giving Apple Inc. a valuable reputation as well as immense revenue. Apple Inc. designs, manufactures and markets a variety of products sold nationwide through retail stores, online sites, and direct sale. Apple Inc. is recognized for product differentiation and will continue to do so with the introduction of Apple Inc.’s I-Magine (video game console). In creating a marketing plan, Apple Inc. intends to consider various factors, such as geographic availability, product mix, and transmission of product description. In addition, phase I of Apple Inc.’s marketing plan will consider an effective SWOT analysis to determine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, or trends to creating this latest product. Furthermore, marketing research and analyzing consumer factors, such as demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and geographic considerations will ensure I-Magine’s success. The function in Phase I of Team B’s marketing plan is to consider industrial analysis in relation to competition and differentiation from other competitors in the video gaming industry. To pursue this strategy in Phase II, Team B undertook data-based synopsis from different online resources to gather information on the organizational strategy of Apple Inc. Findings from research information pertaining to the video game industry’s products and services...
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...P A R T I Discovering Momentum 1 1 The Power of Momentum Where’s the Impetus? Momentum. Most businesses get it at some point: the impression that everything they undertake succeeds effortlessly, as if they’re being carried along by a tailwind that increases their efficiency and propels them on to exceptional growth.1 Some hold on to it. Most don’t. Slowly, imperceptibly, the tailwind turns around and the momentum disappears, without anyone quite realizing what has happened. The company is still growing, but not as strongly as before, not as efficiently. Everyone’s maxing out, but it seems like there’s molasses in the works. Sound familiar? Sooner or later, it hits you in the face. Imagine you are meeting up with a senior analyst whose opinion counts with some of your company’s biggest investors. You think you’re on safe ground—after all, your company is doing better than the competition. But the analyst is in full gimlet-eyed, illusion-killing mode. “That’s nothing to crow about,” she says. “Yeah, you’ve got reasonable growth, but it’s nothing exceptional. You’re a safe bet, nothing more. Okay, I might tell my mom to buy, but 3 The Momentum Effect then she’s happy with inflation plus one. The way we see it, you’re really grinding it out. We reckon the strain’s getting harder, too. There’s no impetus—no momentum.” Words like that can really take the gloss off a day. The next time you gather your team, you don’t congratulate them on beating their targets—you...
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...Professor Roger Palmer, Head of the School of Management, Henley Business School, UK The globalization of companies is the involvement of customers, producers, suppliers, and other stakeholders in the global marketing process. Global marketing therefore reflects the trend of firms selling products and services across many countries. Drawing on an incomparable breadth of international examples, Svend Hollensen not only demonstrates how global marketing works, but also how it relates to real decisions around the world. This book offers a truly global approach with cases and exhibits from all parts of the world, including Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Far East, North and South America. It provides a complete and concentrated overview of the total international marketing planning process, along with many new, up-to-date exhibits and cases, which illustrate the theory by showing practical applications. • Extensive coverage of hot topics such as glocalization, born globals, value creation, value net, celebrity branding, brand piracy, and viral marketing, as well as a comprehensive new section on integrated marketing communication through social networking. • Brand new case studies focus on globally recognized brands and companies operating in a number of countries, including Build-A-Bear Workshop, Hello Kitty, Ralph Lauren and Sony Music Entertainment. • Global Marketing ‘Svend Hollensen writes with real authority and insight having been...
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...Lar03342_ch01_002-021.indd Page 2 C H A P T E R 1/27/10 2:04:01 PM f-500 /Users/f-500/Desktop/28-12-09/MHBR120:ARENS:PRINTER CRX O N E Modern Project Management Estimate 5 Schedule resources & costs 8 Project networks 6 l iona rnat Inte ojects pr 15 Reducing duration 9 Define project 4 ht Oversig Introduction 1 Strategy 2 Managing risk 7 Organization 3 Leadership 10 Teams 11 Monitoring progress 13 Project closure 14 Outsourcing 12 Modern Project Management What Is a Project? The Importance of Project Management Project Management Today—An Integrative Approach Summary Text Overview 2 16 17 Agile PM 18 Career p aths Lar03342_ch01_002-021.indd Page 3 1/27/10 2:04:02 PM f-500 /Users/f-500/Desktop/28-12-09/MHBR120:ARENS:PRINTER CRX All of mankind’s greatest accomplishments—from building the great pyramids to discovering a cure for polio to putting a man on the moon—began as a project. This is a good time to be reading a book about project management. Business leaders and experts have proclaimed that project management is a strategic imperative. Project management provides people with a powerful set of tools that improves their ability to plan, implement, and manage activities to accomplish specific organizational objectives. But project management is more than just a set of tools; it is a results-oriented management style that places a premium...
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...An Integrated Approach to Strategy Running Case Featuring Wal-Mart Wal-Mart’s Competitive Advantage (Chapter 1) ● Working Conditions at Wal-Mart (Chapter 2) ● Wal-Mart’s Bargaining Power over Suppliers (Chapter 3) ● Human Resource Strategy and Productivity at Wal-Mart (Chapter 4) ● How Wal-Mart Became a Cost Leader (Chapter 5) ● Wal-Mart’s Global Expansion (Chapter 6) ● WalMart Internally Ventures a New Kind of Retail Store (Chapter 8) ● Sam Walton’s Approach to Implementing Wal-Mart’s Strategy (Chapter 9) Strategy in Action Features A Strategic Shift at Microsoft (Chapter 1) ● The Agency Problem at Tyco (Chapter 2) ● Circumventing Entry Barriers into the Soft Drink Industry (Chapter 3) ● Learning Effects in Cardiac Surgery (Chapter 4) ● How to Make Money in the Vacuum Tube Business (Chapter 5) ● The Evolution of Strategy at Procter & Gamble (Chapter 6) ● Diversification at 3M: Leveraging Technology (Chapter 7) ● News Corp’s Successful Acquisition Strategy (Chapter 8) ● How to Flatten and Decentralize Structure (Chapter 9) Practicing Strategic Management Application-based activities intended to get your students thinking beyond the book. Small-Group Exercises Short experiential exercises that ask students to coordinate and collaborate on group work focused on an aspect of strategic management. Exploring the Web Internet exercises that require students to explore company websites and answer chapter-related questions. Designing a Planning System (Chapter 1) Evaluating...
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...An Integrated Approach to Strategy Running Case Featuring Wal-Mart Wal-Mart’s Competitive Advantage (Chapter 1) ● Working Conditions at Wal-Mart (Chapter 2) ● Wal-Mart’s Bargaining Power over Suppliers (Chapter 3) ● Human Resource Strategy and Productivity at Wal-Mart (Chapter 4) ● How Wal-Mart Became a Cost Leader (Chapter 5) ● Wal-Mart’s Global Expansion (Chapter 6) ● WalMart Internally Ventures a New Kind of Retail Store (Chapter 8) ● Sam Walton’s Approach to Implementing Wal-Mart’s Strategy (Chapter 9) Strategy in Action Features A Strategic Shift at Microsoft (Chapter 1) ● The Agency Problem at Tyco (Chapter 2) ● Circumventing Entry Barriers into the Soft Drink Industry (Chapter 3) ● Learning Effects in Cardiac Surgery (Chapter 4) ● How to Make Money in the Vacuum Tube Business (Chapter 5) ● The Evolution of Strategy at Procter & Gamble (Chapter 6) ● Diversification at 3M: Leveraging Technology (Chapter 7) ● News Corp’s Successful Acquisition Strategy (Chapter 8) ● How to Flatten and Decentralize Structure (Chapter 9) Practicing Strategic Management Application-based activities intended to get your students thinking beyond the book. Small-Group Exercises Short experiential exercises that ask students to coordinate and collaborate on group work focused on an aspect of strategic management. Exploring the Web Internet exercises that require students to explore company websites and answer chapter-related questions. Designing a Planning System (Chapter 1) Evaluating...
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...Journal of Behavioral Studies in Business Marketing to the Generations, Page 1 Marketing to the Generations Kaylene C. Williams California State University, Stanislaus Robert A. Page Southern Connecticut State University ABSTRACT Each generation has unique expectations, experiences, generational history, lifestyles, values, and demographics that influence their buying behaviors. Accordingly, many companies are reaching out to multi-generational consumers and trying to understand and gain the attention of these diverse buyers. Multi-generational marketing is the practice of appealing to the unique needs and behaviors of individuals within more than one specific generational group, with a generation being a group of individuals born and living about the same time [1]. This means that marketers need to understand the six U.S. generations: Pre-Depression Generation, Depression Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Z. When a marketer factors in the different characteristics and behaviors of the generations, it should be easier to build relationships, gain trust, and close business. [2, 3] As such, an understanding of multigenerational marketing is very important to the marketer. The purpose of this paper is to describe briefly the U.S. generations in terms of the times in which they grew up as well as the characteristics, lifestyles, and attitudes of the group. However, the primary focus of the paper is to describe various marketing...
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...Best Global Brands 2013 Table of Contents JEZ Leadership is evolving. It must now be shared. CEOs, CMOs, and consumers all have the power to drive brand value. Brands are where business strategy meets reality. GINNI The New Rules of Brand Leadership 2 From Information to Intelligence 82 Best Global Brands 2013 Sector Leadership 86 BISH 10 Creative Leadership 70 Methodology 120 China’s New Brand Leaders 74 Contributors 126 Corporate Citizenship 2.0 78 MARK CHIEKO The New Rules of Brand Leadership By Jez Frampton In our globalized, hyperconnected age, one question persists in boardrooms, corner offices, business schools, and conferences all over the world: What is leadership and how has it changed in the 21st century? Driven by rapid technological advancement, the digitization of nearly everything, and the ever more intricate interdependencies of the global market, the business landscape has transformed over the past two decades. Operating in a bewildering new environment in which little is certain, the pace is quicker and the dynamics more complex. Those who lead today’s brands can no longer rely on once immutable truths or principles of leadership honored in times past. It is a new world. And as purchasing increasingly shifts from a physical experience to a virtual one and transaction-based interactions between brands and consumers shift to relationship-based interactions, new skills and sensibilities are needed. Leadership...
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...Best Global Brands 2013 Table of Contents JEZ Leadership is evolving. It must now be shared. CEOs, CMOs, and consumers all have the power to drive brand value. Brands are where business strategy meets reality. GINNI The New Rules of Brand Leadership 2 From Information to Intelligence 82 Sector Leadership Best Global Brands 2013 10 86 BISH Methodology Creative Leadership 70 120 Contributors China’s New Brand Leaders 74 126 Corporate Citizenship 2.0 78 MARK CHIEKO The New Rules of Brand Leadership By Jez Frampton In our globalized, hyperconnected age, one question persists in boardrooms, corner offices, business schools, and conferences all over the world: What is leadership and how has it changed in the 21st century? Driven by rapid technological advancement, the digitization of nearly everything, and the ever more intricate interdependencies of the global market, the business landscape has transformed over the past two decades. Operating in a bewildering new environment in which little is certain, the pace is quicker and the dynamics more complex. Those who lead today’s brands can no longer rely on once immutable truths or principles of leadership honored in times past. It is a new world. And as purchasing increasingly shifts from a physical experience to a virtual one and transaction-based interactions between brands and consumers shift to relationship-based interactions, new skills and sensibilities are needed. Leadership roles...
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