Good Year Case Study

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Good Year Case Study – IDECIDE approach Aku5299@gmail.com INTRODUCTION OF THE COMPANY Looking back, the founding of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in 1898 seems especially remarkable, for the beginning was anything but auspicious. The 38-year-old founder, Frank A. Seiberling, purchased the company’s first plant with a $3,500 down payment -- using money he borrowed from a brother-in-law Lucius C. Miles. The rubber and cotton that were the lifeblood of the industry had to be transported from halfway around the world, to a landlocked town that had only limited rail transportation. Even the man the company’s name memorialized, Charles Goodyear, had died penniless 30 years earlier despite his discovery of vulcanization after a long and courageous search. Yet the timing couldn't have been better. The bicycle craze of the 1890s was booming. The horseless carriage, some ventured to call it the automobile, was a wide-open challenge. Even the depression of 1893 was beginning to fade. So on August 29, 1898, Goodyear was incorporated with a capital stock of $100,000. David E. Hill, who purchased $30,000 of stock, became the first president. But it was the dynamic and visionary founder, hard-driving Seiberling, who chose the name and determined the distinctive trademark. The winged-foot trademark, inspired by a newel-post statuette of Mercury in the Seiberling home, has been altered over the years. Yet, it remains an integral part of the Goodyear signature, a symbolic link with the company’s historic past. Something else about these legendary early years lingers on through Goodyear’s history. Something elusive and intangible, yet very real.Something about the people. People like Seiberling, actually trying to liquidate family-owned property in 1898 when he ended up taking that oncein-a-lifetime chance to buy -- at a bargain

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