Question 1
Read the attached HTC case: Peter Chou and Cher Wang want to make HTC into the leading smart phone company in the world. What kind of strategic actions are needed to achieve this goal?
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Introduction
HTC start up as a professional original engineering manufacture company (OEM) for PDA and other computer parts in 1999. While it changes its core business from PDA to smart phones, it discovered an opportunity of developing its own brand. In 2007, it brands itself into HTC while introducing the “TOUCH” series. This paper discusses the theory of global strategy for individual organizations and the necessary strategic actions for HTC in order to transfer itself into a leading smart phone company in the
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The chief product officer is responsible for global product development. These officers will be working closely with the marketing director of HTC.
Branding development should always go together with the vision of the company, it was pointed out by Chou; CEO of HTC that HTC will not blindly go for growth, and instead, it would rather deliberately focus on the “value”. A lot of time when a company is deliberately pursuing its’ growth, they lose its core values. Chou recognizes the importance of the economies of scale, but he would rather deliberately pursue the value that HTC can pursuit to its consumers. In other words, regardless of the business model, or brand of HTC; HTC focuses on creating their own core values. HTC is not entirely focusing on the value of technology or products; it also includes the value for innovation, brand, market, and management ability. HTC is no longer solely represented by a product, but to expand competitiveness in it’s over all capacities.
Achieve greater economies of scale.
The decision whether to take faster, more aggressive brand promotion approach to heighten brand awareness was closely tied to another issue; find ways to achieve greater economies of scale. In a HTC sponsored survey, it shows that 80% of the customers would like to buy phones for less than 200 dollars. HTC believe they don’t have the necessary scale to drive the cost reduction. This is because HTC lacked significant intellectual property right
HTC’s competitive position is not sustainable. In fact, the disappointing financial performance in Q1 2012 and the increasingly decreasing operating margin all points to a slower growth. Besides the statistics, HTC also face several imminent threats, such as the popularity of Samsung and Apple’s smartphone offering, the increase in competitors in the smartphone market, the shift in market, from operator push to brand pull, and the ongoing patent war with Apple. However there are also opportunities HTC can take advantage of to keep its competitive position. The opportunities are presented in the high growth rate of Smartphone Market, 61% in 2011, and the lack of well made Android Tablet.
* HTC has a diverse customer base (no one client held more than 10% of HTC’s business), which means that HTC is more risk resistant.
- The smartphone industry is very capital intensive due to high research and development (R&D) costs and expensive manufacturing facilities. This raises the barrier of entry and makes it difficult for small companies to enter. Many of the firms that compete in this industry have existing long-term contractual relationships with mobile carriers and benefit from their significant brand equity. These companies also have a great deal of knowledge and experience through economies of learning, which gives them a major cost advantage over smaller entrants. New entrants will have difficulty getting carriers to adopt their phones because many carriers are already in profitable deals with the large mobile phone manufacturers.
Microsoft is a multinational corporation of the United States; It specializes in developing, manufacturing, trading software licenses and supporting a wide range of computer related products and services.. In terms of revenue, Microsoft is the world's largest software maker. It is also called "one of the most valuable companies in the world".
Samsung is a South-Korean company and its headquarters is in Samsung Town, Seoul (Samsung, 2014). Samsung is made up of 80 companies together. At present Samsung branches exists in 61 countries. Samsung is one of the world 's leading manufacturer in the Android mobile (smart) phone industry. Samsung after releasing the smart phones in the name of Samsung galaxy series which started with Galaxy Y basic model. Later Samsung released S series which got overwhelmed response all around the world. On 24 February 2014 Samsung released Galaxy S5 which was an immediate and quick successor after Galaxy S4 the previous model. When designing the Galaxy S5 Samsung worked on the drawbacks of the previous models and improved camera quality, running speed, finger print reader, private mode, dust and water resistance (Andrew, 2014). In this analysis I have researched and proved that Samsung organization used Integrated marketing and communications on basis of their target audiences, message strategy and media choices.
2000-2006: HTC made first time profits when it engineered and developed PDA for Compaq computer. HTC made an alliance with top hardware companies and became best hardware maker which led to release of the XDA, the first Windows based smartphone by collaborating with Microsoft. HTC operated in ODM business and Mobile operator business. HTC designed customized phones for Mobile operators based on their specifications which led them to gain attractive contracts from different Mobile operators. HTC contracts with mobile operators was reason for HTC’s early success. HTC relationship with Handspring to develop Treo smartphone facilitated the opportunity to learn about software and User-Interface design. By 2006, HTC was shipping more than 70% of the world Windows Mobile smartphones.
Technology is a huge impact on society. It shapes the way people talk, work, and study. They can also change our perspective on life. However, the most influential change that came across the world is cell phones. They are one of the most valuable electronic devices that made it easier for people to communicate with another person. BlackBerry is the prime example of expanding the cellular universal. It changes the way people are using cell phones due to its high quality features. However, the BlackBerry company did not always have a perfect way of being managed and market internationally. They have had to deal with issues that affected them. Furthermore, there has been a case study about BlackBerry’s business aspects. It is called “BlackBerry
For any business to successfully add value they either do so through lower costs or superior benefits to the consumer by offering product differentiation (Singh 2012). Samsung was a late starter into the smart phone industry, while, this has not prevented them from successfully positioning their product at the forefront against those offered by their competition such as Apple. Gary Armstrong (2011) defines a product’s position as “the complex set of perceptions, impressions and feelings that consumers
The Chief Operations Officer (COO) and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) are the responsible individuals, which must make the appropriate decisions in order to protect the company’s wealth. As the COO, responsibilities include supervision of the three different product lines that
The rise of brand culture has targeted and influenced the consumer’s thoughts and behavior while purchasing any kind of product in today’s market. There have been numerous studies that clarify how culture does influence the consumption of brands towards consumers. It’s evident that consumers who classify themselves as cultural are likely to be ‘ brand loyal’. By saying this the iPhone plays a strategic role in manipulating consumers into buying the brand. Consumers who love the company behind the iPhone ‘Apple’ have a strong bond with it as the phone itself offers Icloud, IOS, style, design and reliability that no other brand can provide them. That’s one significant reason why consumers purchase and stick to Apple’s products. Not only does it provide trust to its consumers but it also includes upgrading the phones to new versions over years. Once a customer sticks with Apple in general they tend to stay with them for a long time.
Nokia’s aggressive strategy to dominate mobile communication cluster would be the main reason how Nokia could become a world leader in the sector among other reasons. Nokia’s passion for mobile communication industry was great enough to give up more than 40% of its revenue in is pre-owned communication industry to concentrate only in mobile communications. Nokia was also lucky enough to see the possibility of mobile communication early enough to predominate the industry and prevent any competition from
Creating a business environment that competes with the 21 century globalization has been among one of the main challenge of Motorola mobility. Motorola mobility faces an uphill battle against many competitors among which are counted: Apple, Blackberry, and Alcatel Lucent. What have been the Social, Legal, Economic, Political, and natural conditions that affect Motorola mobility’s Operational processes and procedures? Motorola Mobility have shown some positive return is the recent month, but because of the instability the Mobile electronic devices, people still wonder if: Motorola Mobility is a good and stable company that will grow our long-term wealth with a decent rate on the
HTC Corporation (HTC) is a Taiwanese operation founded in May 1997 in Taiwan, which is one of the most influential, creative and leading players in global telecommunications with an n increasing influence in the industry’s future (HTC quietly billion, 2012). HTC’s portfolio includes smartphones and tablets powered by the Android and HTC Sense™ operating systems (HTC Annual Report, 2010). Focusing on smartphone market; devoting to innovation and design in the mobile phone industry; and committing to develop exceptional technology and products to cater for the diverse and exceed needs of users are HTC’s current brand strategies. In addition, HTC response to market changes fast and provides
smartphones, first dual-mode GSM/ WiMAX phone, first 3G Android phone, and first 4G LTE Android phone. Also, HTC Sense, launched in 2009, was a momentous breakthrough that revolutionized the mobile phone experience. Consistent innovative product launches also enhance the visibility of the company 's brand. The company 's significant R&D capabilities gives it’s a competitive edge to reach the market first with many industry leading innovations and features. Strong relationships with industry leaders The company has strong relationships with many technology companies and telecom service providers. It maintains strong long-term partnerships with technology industry leaders, including Microsoft, Google and Qualcomm, which serve as active labs of research and development and product evolution. For instance, HTC 's launch of the world 's first Windows Mobile smartphone and first Android smartphone is an example. These partnerships ensure that the hardware, software, and content management and delivery systems are united in seamless and intuitive ways. HTC 's products are currently sold through major carriers and local retail channels in major markets in Europe, the Americas and Asia.
India was lucrative since the Indian handheld market is booming and slowly becoming one of the world’s biggest and fasted growing markets. There being a lack of certain technology, gives HTC the opportunities to fill new market gaps. The company’s products are standardized for the global market, while strategies are adapted to respected countries. HTC seems to be efficiency seeking when looking especially at the Indian market. HTC is selling phones globally and in India they are trying to succeed through International Specialization. The company was benefiting at first, from the lack of top of the line mobile phones in the Indian market. Its future strategy is to keep this trend going. The company is trying to take over the top and middle class mobile phone market in India by being the first to offer the latest and greatest technology available and ignoring the lower class mobile market. It managed to do so already by introducing the first fully touch phone and fully Android powered phone.