Leadership Operational Plan, Part I : Asustek Computer Inc. Essay

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.

Another way of achieving the profit of the added value is investment in software development to leverage the advantage of the high performance processors. And that was achieved by development of complementors, although Intel had a relationship with Microsoft, but it was enough, since it required Microsoft years to develop the software, were Intel is moving faster, by adopting the strategy of complementors, Intel build its capital. Intel strategy was to invest in companies that fit strategically into Intel’s business strategy as well as offered a financial return.

This case traces the strategic decisions of Intel Corporation which defined its evolution from being a start-up developer of semiconductor memory chips in 1968 to being the industry leader of microprocessors in 1997 when it ranked amongst the top five American companies and had stock market valuation of USD 113 billion.

Intel is the preeminent supplier of semiconductor chips and platforms geared toward the global digital economy. Intel’s strategy involves competition in each relative market segment and the use of core competencies in the design and production of integrated circuits. Intel is also notable for their financial assets, global existence, and their significant brand recognition. Intel’s current principal component-level product line includes chipsets, flash memory, and microprocessors. Also, Intel Corporation retains, “A set of integrated and harmonized abilities that distinguish the firm in the marketplace” (Schilling 123). Furthermore, the three applicable tests used to determine a firm’s core competencies, according to Prahalad and Hamel, suggests that

This report discusses the case study ‘Intel Research: Exploring the Future [1], published in 2005 by the Harvard Business School. The discussion is divided into three different sections: overview, analysis and conclusion.

In the 1990s, one of the largest and most successful companies in the world was Intel. For PC business, Intel was a significant and beneficial hardware provider.

Within this assignment I will describe my understanding of the links between management and leadership, the skills and styles of management and leadership, the application of management and leadership theories in an organisational context and planning for the development of management and leadership skills.

For years, AMD held the place of a distant follower of the large microprocessor market leader, Intel. Up to there, the competitor Intel led the market (with a “push” strategy) by creating consumer needs thanks to technological innovations. Those were linked with strong marketing campaign in order to facilitate a quicker adoption process of their new product line. However, in 2003, AMD change its traditional strategy to use a widely different one by switching into a blue ocean strategy. Indeed, AMD has changed course to become a “starter” firm. AMD has decided to launch at first its own brand server microprocessor range, called “Opteron” before one of Intel. At this moment, the firm made the decision to initiate the moves of server segment and therefore take heavier risks in term of investments, sales, pushing partners

Integrity: The first and most important trait of a leader. Integrity gives a leader validity to always do the right thing. I have a deeper meaning stemming from my family that makes it crucial that I keep integrity first if I desire others to emulate my actions.

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

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 first and last task of the leader is to keep hope alive. (J. W. Gardner)

Intel changed marketing history by achieving to publicize an inner piece of a product that could not be seen from the outside. By placing tags on products, they could display their company logo and the model of the product inside the computer, thus making publicity to an ‘ingredient’ inside the whole. In those initial marketing campaigns Intel well-known themselves from the competition by labelling their products with names instead of only number; this helped them gain reputation surrounded by the customers.

The rapid pace of change in the technology industry also brought hyper- competitive pressures in Intel’s markets. They withdrew from the production of network servers when they had to compete with Cisco, a major client in the chip market. Moreover, other rival Advanced Micro devices had produced its Athlon processor chip, which turned out faster than Intel chip.