Motorola,_Inc.

Motorola, Inc. 1. Describe the salient opportunities and threats that exist in Motorola's external environment. In 1928 the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation known as Motorola started in Chicago, Illinois with its first product. Over the years, Motorola has produced many successful products! One of their first known opportunities is when Joseph and Paul Galvin incorporated Galvin Manufacturing after acquiring battery eliminator operations. Motorola has many opportunities as well as threats that exist in their external environment. In 1930 the company introduced and expanded its business by introducing the first successful car radios, which were sold to car distributors and dealers. Galvin Manufacturing later named the company Motorola. The founder of Galvin Manufacturing Company, Paul V. Galvin formed the brand name Motorola for the car radio linking "motor" (for motorcar) with "ola" (which implied sound) (Hitt, 2011). In 1940 the company introduced the two-way communication devices the handie-talkie and the hand held SCR536 am radio making it the first in the world. They also produced defense electronics, cellular infrastructure equipment and mobile phone manufacturing. In the same year, the company built its research and development program with Dan Noble, a pioneer in FM radio and semiconductor technologies joined the company as director of research (Wikipedia, 2011). 2. Describe the company's most prominent strengths and weaknesses. Motorola strengths is in the brand name in the telecommunication market, mobile communication technology, a leader in making cellular telephones, paging devices, automotive semi-conductors, and microchips used to operate other devices. Although the company has experienced several frays, Motorola seize the opportunity to expand in the Japanese market. In 1980 Motorola was seen as an emerging U.S. Telecommunications Company for cellular phones and pagers. The Japanese offered products at below cost forcing Motorola to re-evaluate their marketing strategy. They decided to perform a SWOT – Analysis to identify the weaknesses of Motorola and found that a number of their products were not user-friendly, and faulty products affecting the company’s image. Motorola decided to learn Japan’s marketing strategy o regain competitive market. Another strategy adapted by Motorola executives involved setting a number of broad based goals that essentially committed the firm to lowering costs, improving quality, and regaining lost market share. Executives were required to examine the Japan operations to gain a better understanding how it fully functioned; while others focused more on how other successful Japanese firms operated. Motorola designed an effective employee training program. A new commitment was established by the company the commitment to quality and achieving a perfection rate of 99.9997% (Six Sigma), and when they actually achieved this level of quality they received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. With a total of 20 offices and more than 3,000 employees in Japan, the firm ranks three in market share there both in pagers and cellular telephones but is steadily approaching number two. Worldwide, Motorola controls 45% of the total market for these products, and they have regained its number two position in semiconductor sales, and are furiously launching as many new productions that seem to baffle its competitors. Today Motorola generates more than 56% of its revenues abroad. Major new initiatives are underway in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe and the firm has currently made headway in Western Europe against rivals Philips and Thomsom. Motorola’s goal is to earn over 75% of its revenues from foreign markets. Motorola like many other successful companies have their strengths and weakness. However, sales, innovation, software, a wide range of products, and a strong customer base are a proven strength of the firm. The operations and faulty products are some of the weaknesses of Motorola. Over all many customers express unhappiness with customer services and their supply chain management. Lack of employee education and training seems to affect the company’s ability to be competitive. 3. Describe the advantages and disadvantages associated with each of Motorola's strategic options. A major problem for Motorola is customer friendly, which affects sales. The firm has put together a strategy to work on understanding their customer base. Motorola made every effort to research their customer’s need and wish in a telecommunication company. As another way to increase its customer base the RAZR was introduced, which “was a huge success as indicated by the facts the firm sold more than 750,000 units in the first 90 days and held a 16 percent share of the cell phone market until 2007 (Hitt, 2011. Pg. 225).” One disadvantage associated with Motorola’s original strategy was their reluctance to consider an innovation approach, instead they tried to introduce predecessor, invested money in one product, introduce the MING, merged with Symbol technologies resulting in low returns in 2007. Poor performance, less penetration and less resale value was another disadvantage to the company. Carl Icahin, a shareholder “demand changes in the organization and the board of directors (Hitt, 2011. Pg. 225).” In order to remain competitive, much needed changes were made to boost the company’s profit margin. As requested a new CEO was appointed to help the firm to create a more effective products, processes, technologies, or greater ideas will need to be a constant in the market, therefore creating a profitable change for the company. 4. A corporation’s strategy and organizational structure are huge in a company’s efforts to solve company’s strategic issues. As stated in Case 17: Motorola, Inc., “sales to customers generate 19 percent of the division’s net sales (Hitt, 2011. Pg. 228)” In view of that, the firm’s customer base and its satisfaction is a huge issue. For that reason, they will need to design a budget to fund the resources and show a readiness to correct this immediate problem. Companies must assess and realign its current planning and marketing strategy than use their available resources to resolve the underlining issues to be successful. 5. Explain how Motorola should proceed. In my opinion Motorola should proceed with the strategies they now have in place. Motorola should continue to focus its global resources or create devices, networks, and application series and develop standards required to bring their vision into full reality. With a new leadership, the company will be able to bring new ideas to the table that will outshine their competitors. In addition, the company will do their best to know their target, collaborate with cellular service providers, capture a mass market, while widening their product portfolio. References Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E. (2011). Strategic management: Competitiveness and globalization, concepts and cases: 2011 custom edition (9th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Wikipedia, the Free Dictionary (2011). Retrieved November 8, 2011 from http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/strategic-management.htm.