Case Study: Analysis of IBM’s Strategic Acquisition of Red Hat

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is an American multinational corporation that operates in 170 countries globally and significantly impacts the market of technologies. Its central office is located in Armonk, New York; however, there are many departments in other strategically important regions. The corporation manufactures, designs, and sells hardware, middleware, software and provides diverse consulting services in the area of innovation and nanotechnologies. At the moment, it is one of the leaders in this market segment with annual revenue of about $62.753 B. The company is managed by the Board of Directors who accept all critical strategic decisions and are responsible for substantial growth. At the moment, Arvind Krishna is the chair and president of IBM who correctly realizes the peculiarities of the company and contributes to its further evolution. IBM’s strategic acquisition of Red Hat company with a total value of about $34 billion is taken as the background for Continue reading

Case Study: The Lego Group and Its Sacred Cows

The ability to adapt to the changing environment, customer demands, and market forces is vital to the success of a business. The mindset and practices that have propelled a company to success are not necessarily the ones that would help stay successful in the future. It is often advisable to discard the elements that drag the company down, even if they have been a part of it for half a century. These elements can be regarded as metaphorical sacred cows, which are expected to be exempt from any form of metaphorical animal cruelty. This irrational reverence can make a business go bankrupt before giving up on the familiar but obsolete practices. That exact fate almost befell LEGO, one of the most recognizable toy manufacturers in the world. Only through cutting the unnecessary ideas and changing the litigious mindset could the company save itself from the brink of ruin. Case Background Continue reading

Assessing Different Types of Innovation

The majority of businesses need help with innovation. Only 6% of executives are truly happy with their performance in terms of innovation, according to McKinsey. Due to this, it is challenging how few corporate leaders have the confidence or expertise to address the issue before it is too late. Generally speaking, disruptive, incremental, bincremental, and radical innovations differ significantly from what businesses are used to doing most of the time. 1. Disruptive Innovation Since no system, method, or industry is immune to disruption, many find it beneficial to seek new disruptive discoveries. Reusing resources like technology can help generate new ideas that appeal to consumers. To illustrate, consider the rise of the iPhone from Apple Inc., which popularized touch displays over conventional button phones. Disruptive innovations, like everyday commercial ventures, are unmanageable because they are riskier than incremental improvements. Standardization is used to improve quality and create new goods and Continue reading

Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning (STP) as an Integral Part of Marketing

Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning (STP): Exploring the Concepts and Locating the Connections between Them Although often underrated by general audiences, the subject of marketing is very complex, and the strategies used by companies to promote their brand are quite intricate. Understanding the reasons for these approaches to have the tremendous positive effect by which they can currently be characterised is critical to the overall promotion of progress within the specified area. By deconstructing the essential elements of marketing in the contemporary economic environment, one will be able to delineate a common trend and suggest options for enhancing the existing marketing process. As a result, opportunities for improving the framework for catering to customers’ needs will be provided. The STP framework itself is rather basic and, therefore, quite simple to follow. As the title suggests, it consists of three key elements, specifically, Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning. The decision to combine the Continue reading

Employee Reward Management – Meaning, Components, Process, and Issues

Reward management entails the formulation, maintenance, communication and evaluation of reward processes that assist an organization in enhancing its performance as well as achieve its objectives. Successful organizations manage their reward practices in such a way that enables them to come up with accurate predictions with regards to what innovations are best suited for the organization as well as ensuring that whatever activities that they engaged in currently will assist them in delivering the expected results. Such organizations strive to avoid ‘folly of rewarding A while hoping for B’. These organizations opt for the evidence based management approach. Evidence-based reward management refers to the kind of management approach that is justified by improvement in the organization’s performance. In other words, it implies that the effectiveness of the reward management approach can be measured against a certain set of indicators to ascertain whether they have impacted the performance of the organization in Continue reading

Managing Procurement and Supply in Modern Organizations

In the current competitive business environment, the success of a firm is partly determined by the strategies it uses in managing procurement and supply chains. One of the ways of ensuring that a firm gets the best value in its procurement and supply chain is to use effective negotiation strategies. Negotiation is defined as a process in which two or more people with differing views, reach agreement by the use of different methods of persuasion. A negotiation process can only be considered a success if the two parties reach an agreement. Not all negotiations often end up in an agreement. However, if the parties can agree on the contentious issues involved, then the process is considered completed. Acquiring raw materials from suppliers is a process that requires negotiation. While the supplier may try to get as much profit from the supplies as possible, the buyer would want to purchase the Continue reading