Amd: a Customer-Centric Approach to Innovation – Case Analysis

Intel operates in an industry, which is comprised of products involving high research and development costs, continuous product improvement and new innovations. The companies in the industry are having high economies of scale and are knowledge based. It helps both the service and manufacturing sectors in the growth process. Intel is positioned as a leading company with its ability to adapt to technological changes and its strong relations with other businesses who are major buyers of integrated circuits. The industry in which it operates is very competitive and comes with high risks as

From pioneering in memory DRAM semicon to exiting the low-margin DRAM market – Intel was primarily a Memory semicon manufacturer before it entered microprocessors in 1980s. Its added value in the memory industry in 1970s was very high because of its advances in MOS process to produce DRAM. However, with increase in competition and the advancement of Japanese conglomerates in the memory industry Intel was forced to play a chasing game to improve performance and reduce costs. In the mid-1980s, Intel’s market share in the core memory business was <1%, however it was continuing to invest in this domain. They finally exited the DRAM market, which was more of a cash burner with low-margins.

In 2013, Intel spent more than 10.6 billion in Research and Development (R&amp;D), and became the third biggest spender in R&amp;D. Intel invests in R&amp;D to get on with Moore’s Law, an observation by company co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965 that computing power doubles every two years. As the company works to cram more transistors onto its circuits, development eats most of the company’s R&amp;D spending. “It’s getting more expensive to do the development piece of it

The Xeon line of processors from Intel are engineered for servers to outperform competitor CPUs. Intel included a full compliment of features that would go entirely unused in a desktop but vital to server performance. In a space with many options, Intel aims for Xeon to be best of type in both benchmark and practice.

we are wondering how the move of AMD can be effective, yield commercially viable and by

Company stood to lose reputation and its manufacturing license. There could be damaging legal notices and lawsuits which can harm the company for some time.

In one and half month the single word of one mathematician has turned into a worldwide campaign against us. AMD, Cyrix, and Nexgen are benefiting most from these events. They proved to have become quicker in manufacturing clones of our innovative products. Given this shorter time to market, they may jump on this opportunity to deliver Pentium clones any time. Our strategy to stop competitors copying our new products was heavy patent protection for the Pentium brand, however if our brand image is continually damaged to such extent, that protection would not give us the competitive advantage we expected. Although we have been the chips of choice for most of users, with the current negative publicity, the competitors may find their niche and expand their market share. Cost of switching from one type of processor to another (for example from Intel to AMD) is not significant for computer manufacturers due to the modular nature of this product. We know that this flaw would not affect any significant portion of the personal users (about 3.7 millions chips sold). The business users with heavy calculation needs such as engineering and specifically financial sectors would

In  the  next  section  we  will  analyze  the  level  of  competition  within  memory  industry  based  on  Porter’s   model, Samsung's competitive advantage and its sustainability considering the current market situation.  3. Analysis:  Considering  Porter’s  model  as  a  framework  to  analyze  the  level  of  competition  within  DRAM  memory  business,  the  threat  of   new   entrant  is  high  compared  to  the  threat  of  substitutes  and  established  rivals in horizontal competition.  If  we  look  at  rivalry within  the DRAM industry between established  players,  Samsung  has  a clear  advantage  over  its  competitors.  Samsung  is  the   market  leader  in  DRAM  memory  business. It  has  a wide  range of products and its products has a higher brand value.  Threat  of  new  entrants  is  high  as  Chinese  competitors  have  easier  access  to  large  pool  of  local  engineering talent and have a growing market  for these DRAM chips. The  government is also  providing all  sorts  of  assistance, like subsidized  land, for  the initial setup. Samsung has several options to  deter  the entry  of  new  Chinese  competitors.  One  option  Samsung  have  is  to  continue  to  explore  and  increase  market  shares  of  flash  memory  markets  which  is  a  new  and  growing  market.  Samsung  can  also  take  advantage  by  lowering  the  price  of  DRAM  chips.   This  would  force   a  price  war  and  drive new

AMD’s presence in Dresden has been a great success for the company as well as the free state of Saxony, Germany and the European Union. AMD’s Dresden fab is now the only production site for microprocessors. AMD’s investment in the region has created more than 7000 direct and indirect jobs in Saxony and the surrounding regions. In order to turn the Albany region into a new high tech valley, New York has invested heavily in it. With the generous subsidies offered from the state of New York, AMD is motivated to build a new fab in the area. However, replicating Dresden’s success is a challenging task for AMD.

With Intel have very few substitutes in the microprocessor industry, it is it is most certain that current customers will not want to switch and use another company’s products. High switching cost presents low bargaining power to the customers mainly because it would be very expensive to switch to a competitor, and since Intel is the leader in the market, switching

The large capital requirements to enter the computer industry combined with established brand identities of the current incumbents make barriers to entry high, not to mention the economies of scale and distribution channels that incumbents enjoy which make entry barriers even higher. The current PC incumbents enjoy demand-side benefit of scale in the business sector where PC buyers prefer to buy products from large trusted companies, raising the level of entry barriers.

Q1. How has 3M’s innovation process evolved since the company was founded? Why, if at all, does 3M, known as the “hothouse” of innovation, need to regain historic closeness to the customer?

As indicated in the table above, Dell and HP are the strongest players in the computer industry. These results are also supported by the market share statistics presented in case Exhibit 3. Conversely, the table above indicates Acer as the industry’s weakest rival in part because it focuses on producing low priced computers,

In the component market, integrated circuit technology is threat of new entrants. The growth of integrated circuit technology makes existing component market shrink. EPD has taken aggressive moves to protect its market share from competitors and new entrants. Therefore, in existing market, EPD needs a cost reduction effort more and change their business model into low-margin high-volume business. It means that they should change their evaluation system; the plant should maintain 40% of gross margin. Additionally, they need to introduce new products into market to acquire new source of revenue. EPD has not built the clear strategies and shared them with employees.

Intel, also known as Integrated Electronics, is a company that manufactures and sells various types of electronic equipment and hardware. It was founded by Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce in 1968 and has since grown to be a commonly used consumer brand. Intel must ensure that its products are consistently well-made, especially when its products affect the consumer’s experience with the technology he or she is using. Because Intel must implement quality in a wide variety of products, the best practice for the company is to have a physical separation between its departments and to focus on the quality of each individual aspect of its product creation; this will allow each department to specialize in their work functions and allow the company to separate each task effectively.