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W.L. Gore

Satisfactory Essays

Case Study #1 – W.L. Gore and Associates

Introduction

W.L. Gore and Associates is a company started in 1958 by Bill and Vieve Gore. Bill Gore was a prior employee of Du Pont who saw innovative ways to work with a substance known as PTFE (Teflon). When Du Pont was not interested in exploring his ideas, he started his own business.

W.L. Gore and Associates has diverse, high-tech product lines that range from electronic products, to vascular grafts, to apparel, and also to dental floss. The range of products shown by the company can be credited in part to an unconventional management style, which they term "lattice" structure, under which the company is organized. In this structure, there is no hierarchy and little organized …show more content…

The substance has been found to be present in drinking water sources and its effect on humans appears to be negative. I think this is a potential threat to W.L. Gore since it is possible that additional regulations on substances such as PTFE could be implemented. New regulations often are very costly to comply with, and the price for non-compliance, even if accidental, could be equally as high.

Another threat to W.L. Gore related to this would be its medical equipment segment, which is not only highly competitive, but that also faces strict regulatory requirements. The FDA has stringent guidelines for medical equipment and the healthcare industry as a whole. The medical equipment arena is also one renown for costly lawsuits when errors or malfunctions occur.

Strategic Marketing Plan and Marketing Management

W.L. Gore is a perfect example of how once a company defines its overall goals in a strategic marketing plan, those principles flow down into other levels of the company, complementing and working seamlessly with the marketing management plan. The three key elements of the strategic market plan are (1) offering the best value of products in the market segments it competes; (2) getting customers to understand the quality and performance of Gore 's products; and (3) becoming a leader with unique products in each segment. Based on these three broad

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