Comparative Product Analysis: Tablets and Phones

We evaluated our company’s position in the industry, and found ourselves in an excellent starting position to further develop our products and match them to the industry’s needs. Our market share is adequate and we can advance further with our strategy improve and reposition our products in the coming years. We have underutilized capacity, which we intend to improve, while increasing automation to reduce costs. We have plans to improve our promotion to improve product awareness and with the appropriate product lines we will increase price to improve margins and better align our high-end product image. Our current financial position is optimistic, showing our leverage (Assets/Equity) at 2.0, when our goal is to maintain 1.5-2.0 overall. By utilizing the analysis tools we are learning what elements are driving demand, how to effectively tailor our products through R&D, how best to adjust our marketing and pricing, while lowering input costs, in order to improve margins and to ensure our stakeholders are all satisfied.

During the second half of our trading period we focussed massively on the private label market and found our niche there. We had realized that the minimum cost of the product wins the market share so we started experimenting with S/Q Ratings and percentage of superior materials to come up with the best product with the least cost price. Adding minimum profit margin to the cost price we were able to seize a massive chunk of the private label market. Attached are a few snapshot highlighting our success in that market.

Apple's iPad has revolutionized tablet computers in many ways. Ipad3 is the latest version released by Apple on March 16, 2012 and is sleek and faster than its predecessors. While other manufacturers are struggling with innovation in the tablet computer section, Apple seems to handle it with relative ease and this is one of the main reasons for its presence as a market leader in this segment.

The three main competitive strategies are cost leadership, differentiation, and price strategy. Cost leadership focuses on acquiring raw material of the highest quality at the lowest price. In return this company can lower production cost with the goal of being the company with the lowest production cost in the industry. Differentiation strategies allow companies to make their products stand out from the others. Differentiation can be actual or perceived. Actual differentiation occurs when the company creates products that are not available elsewhere. Perceived differentiation takes a lot of marketing and advertisement to convince the consumer that this company’s product is superior. Price strategy includes a variety of strategies that cause a particular product to be marketed at the lowest price possible. Price strategy includes skimming where companies set a high initial price only to turn around and lower it. Bundle pricing occurs when several products are offered for one price. Promotional pricing allows other incentives to buy such as buy one get one half off. Using the pricing strategies causes many consumers to actually purchase more believing that they are receiving a “deal” while the company is still profiting. Competitive strategies are always used by companies and are often used together. Companies that understand how to combine competitive strategies fare much

In the real competition, we will still use the broad differentiation strategy in the first round. We will make our products better than the market with an affordable price. By using this method, we create a brand image and customer loyalty. Over time, brand recognition will lead to greater company profitability. In the second round, we will still improve all of the products’ performance and size, in which it has to be better than the market. For the price, we will keep it same

Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, and Strickland (2012) found that competitive strategy depend on whether a company’s target market is narrow or broad, and whether a company is seeking competitive advantage through low-cost or product differentiation. These two factors reveal five generic competitive strategies. The five strategies are Overall Low-Cost Provider Strategy, Focused Low-Cost Strategy, Broad Differentiation Strategy, Focused Differentiation Strategy, and Best Cost

My strategy seemed to work well for the first two years but then it became evident that I was losing market share in the NiMH business. I decided to cut down R&D in that division too early and that caused me to miss my sales targets. As I lost market share in my core business, the volume effect from my decision to lower NiMH prices did not compensate enough to allow that division to remain profitable. Suddenly, I had a very tight R&D budget to work with (as it was based on sales projections) and limited cash could be allocated to the improvement of the ultracapacitors business. I also reacted too late to the shift in customers’ demand for Power Packs products from Power Tools products, which caused late and lower-than-needed investments in other products’ features such as self-discharge (high priority for both NiMH and ultracapacitors).

Product Innovation – Innovation of new products had failed many times and MTI has lost reputation with Wall Street. This process had been placed on the backburner and when the CEO came on board there were only six products in the pipeline. Therefore, to be successful in the future, MTI needs to invest more in R&D and focus on delivering new products.

In determining our initial strategy, we knew that we wanted to focus on the product that would be most profitable and key in on features that are important to the customer. Looking at product sales in 2008, the NiMH sold 28.0 M units and the Ultracapacitor sold only 4.3 M units. Based on these sales, the NiMH generated $280.3 M and the Ultracapacitor generated $86.2 M. In addition, when reviewing the Income Statement, the NiMH produced a profitable contribution in the years 2006 through 2008. The Ultracapacitor, on the otherhand, produced an unprofitable contribution during the same timeframe. Based on these figures, we decided to focus on the NiMH.

price point than the big 3, the company saw this as the perfect strategy to penetrate the saturated

We at ALMS Consulting Co. have been hired to analyze the way product lines and product managers are being evaluated at the Thomas J. Lipton, Incorporated (“Lipton” or the “Company”) entity. We will review the performance metrics utilized at the corporate level of Lipton, explain the current methodology utilized to evaluate the individual product lines, and then detail the benefits and potential downfalls of the methodology proposed by Don Logan. Finally, we will provide our own recommendations and opinions as to how

A company needs to create a series of programs to differentiate their product from those from its competitors and to appropriately price the product to achieve the maximum demand, in order to set up the dynamics of its competitive strategy (David, 2007). The competitive strategy of a company is also expected to offer better products or services to its customers, at a reasonable cost. Due to the mass influence of the external environmental on the customers’ preference, it is vital for the company to develop an available competitive strategy to be able to solve a series of problems, and ultimately to improve the company’s performance. Those problems include: how to differentiate its products or service from competitors, how to create market segments to maximize demands, and how to offer a wider range of products or services to better meet the customers’ needs at more acceptable costs (David, 2007).

New Product Development : the aggressive investment strategy into R&D division led to speed in releasing new products in the market. This gave the company higher ROI returns projections. The faster cycle of innovation led to multiple product availability in the market which led to further increasing the gap between them and the competitions and also the company indulged in manufacturing self brand products rather than Co-branded or Partnerships.

After analyzing the results from the previous quarter, it was determined that the prices set for each segment were not sufficient. Product sales priority were also not properly adjusted. With the R&D investments, sales priorities needed to be changed for the main focus to become the most profitable market segments. Prices were not competitive which in turned decreased revenue, market share, and profitability. To become more competitive we altered the prices in each market segment. The Workhorse product was the first to change, the price was lowered to $2500 in an attempt to increase sales; at this price Team 4 was still making a profit on this product, as well as making the price much more competitive. The Workhorse sales priority was also lowered to 3rd in Americas and 4th in APAC and EMEA. This product was not selling as well as we had hoped, and was no longer as profitable as it once was which led to this decision. Next, the Innovator product’s price was adjusted; this involved a price increase to $4100. This price was adjusted to include the new

Effectiveness of R&D Strategy. R&D can be a little tricky to setup. In my simulation, I am trying to keep my product development and upgrades within the same year allowing me to maximize considerably on sales. The most important figure in the Mean Time Before Fails (MTBF). This number gives us an estimated time the product may last before breaking or expiring. This number is determined by what the current demand is. This number needs to be fair to the product or the product may not sell. The higher this number is the higher the cost of the product. The remaining steps are a balancing act with the R&D cost, Material cost, and Age of revision. The product must be able to be made for less than it is sold for to maintain profitability. Awareness and Accessibility were critical in my efforts since they have such a big impact on product appeal and sales. As a broad differentiator, our minimum objective was 80% awareness and 80% accessibility by the end of the 4 practice rounds. Andrews spent a total of $38 million on awareness and $35 million on accessibility. At the end of 4 rounds, I had,