We have chosen Apple and Samsung as the subjects of our team project. We have chosen these two companies because they are the two most formidable competitors in the tech industry today; in the smartphone market alone they share the majority of all the sales globally. It is a true story of David and Goliath, as big as apple may be; it is dwarfed in comparison to the magnitude of Samsung. Apple Inc. was created by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak back in April of 1976; at the time both were college drop outs and were in their early 20’s. Apple Inc. started working to produce and market personal computers for everyday use.
This unfortunate choice of Toyota’s incurred a huge cost among taxpayers, whose tax dollars would be utilized to provide $2.3 billion to replace the thousands of lost jobs. “What was the reason behind NUMMI’s closure?” one may ask. Certainly it was not due to slow-selling products, financial troubles, or a deteriorating factory, for Toyota’s Corolla was the second best-selling car in the United States in 2009, and Toyota is the wealthiest automaker in the world. Toyota’s argument was that NUMMI was no longer feasible without General Motors as a partner, but the 15% of production formerly produced by GM could easily be compensated by an increase in production from NUMMI. For a plant that exuded solidarity and had the potential to revolutionize the way cars are created in this country, the closure of NUMMI was more than a mere shock.
Steven Paul Jobs (Steve Jobs), CEO and co-founder of Apple, is an excellent example, as one of the most effective and honored leaders in the world of business today. In 1984, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology from President Ronald Reagan and moreover, he was ranked as the 3rd top businessman by Fortune Magazine (Fortune, 2010) and the 4th most influential man by the public in 2010 (AskMen, 2010). Steven Jobs is courageous, open-minded, experimental and, most importantly, a big thinker. Although he did not have a pleasant early life and did not finish his studies in College, he attended lectures at the Hewlett-Packard company and took up his first job at the age of 19 as a technician at Atari, a manufacturer of popular video games (Wikipedia, 2011). He became a Buddhist after he visited India, searching for spiritual enlightenment.
Circuit City-case study part 1 Name: NING YE Introduction Circuit City Stores, which was an American multinational consumer electronics corporation, selling consumer electronics, home office products, entertainment software, appliances, and related services. From 1980s to 1990s,Circuit City had incredibly success in the area, however, with Home Depot and Best Buy developed quickly and boomed, Circuit City busted from 2000. The reason for it could be caused by bad economy, the reduction of sales and earnings and also the old-traditional business strategy operating management. Problems According to the case, the main strategy of the company development was expansion all the way from 1960 to 2000. The managers want to expand the national market shares through this way to increase profits.
As one compares the two individuals, you can see even though Microsoft is a more popular choice, because of Steve Jobs, Apple has made a greater impact on today and has created a bigger legacy. Something that gave Gates more publicity was his charity donations. Bill Gates has invested a third of his wealth in charities around the world including one he started himself, which he eventually made his full-time job in 2008. Although Steve Jobs did not make any public donations, he has admitted to submitting anonymous donations and in his early years tried to start a foundation, but it fell through after a year. Both are businessmen, and both are trying to “revolutionize their respective fields” (Anderson).
THE IMPACT OF APPLE – Outline 1. THE INTRODUCTION (4 - 5 sentences) Hook: “Apple’s shares rose 2.6%, making the company worth about $625 billion, the most valuable company of all time” (Lazarowitz, 2012, August 20). author, year Connecting Sentences: Thesis Statement: (topic + predictors/subtopics) Topic: the impact of Apple Subtopics/Predictors: 1. the computer 2. the telephone 3. the music industry Without a doubt, Apple has drastically impacted the computer, telephone, and music industry. 2. THE BODY A. Subtopic 1: the computer a) MacIntosh – first computer - lap tops – elegant, thin, light b) Software – graphics c) iPad – design - applications B. Subtopic 2: the telephone a) iPhone – Smart phone - design – elegant, touch screen b) impact on landlines – enormous drop in use; - change in lifestyle, and communication c) applications - camera, texting, the Internet, Google maps, video C. Subtopic 3: the music industry a) iPod – impact on CDs, tapes, etc; creation
He saw that more than half of Sainsbury’s 240 million pound (₤) annual marketing budget went to Nectar and said: “Nectar represents a significant investment for Sainsbury’s, and I can’t help but feel that if we put the investment into more staff in our stores we’d see a better return. I was part of the senior management team that turned around the ASDA supermarket chain before it was sold to Wal-Mart, and the changes we made at ASDA were all about price and value for money. ASDA didn’t have a loyalty program.” He continued: But I do understand the value of knowing more about what our customers are doing dayto-day and this is part of the value we get from Nectar. We use the Nectar data on our customers to help us determine which stock to carry in which stores. The Nectar data also allows us to do much better and more targeted marketing to our customers.
Revolutionary, Iconic and Transformative are only a few characteristics that describe one of America’s most prolific business minds and leaders, Steve Jobs. He epitomized the American dream by organically nurturing an idea into a cultural game-change in the way of movies, music and mobile communication via his mystic Apple Company. How does a person lead a company with more than 50,000 employees and an annual revenue exceeding $100 billion grow 60%...churning hit after hit (Lashinsky, 2011)? An introspective assessment of Steve Jobs’ leadership and management style is necessary, to best answer his influence on Apple’s culture and its dominating success. Revered as the “keeper…of the vision” (Baker, 2013), Steve Jobs exerted both legitimate and expert power as not only the CEO of his NeXT venture and the Apple company, but as a hands on technology leader; overseeing the minute details of a products design and the food to be served in the company’s cafeteria.
That’s when we’re at our very best” (2011, Wal-Mart Culture). Sam Walton opened his doors in 1962, Arkansas, with the promise of offering the highest quality merchandise for the lowest prices while maintaining the best customer service. The company then sprinted to the top becoming a Fortune 500 and one of the largest retail companies in only four decades. Wal-Mart soon took on public scrutiny for being too powerful and with that came the realization of how much power Wal-Mart used. It was in 2005 when CEO Scott decided to change Wal-Marts image to one that was ecofriendly, and would show Wal-Mart in a positive light.
Problem Statement: Bausch & Lomb Inc. have enjoyed 10 years of a successful industry advantage in the eyeglasses development division with in B&L Personal Health Sector. B&L chose not to aggressively diversify by moving into the disposable lens segment until they were forced by the expansion of the disposable lens market. Because of their delay and competition development, the market has experienced a shift in the total market gain giving the disposable contact lens market an increase in the market and now threatened B&L lucrative conventional lens brand. B&L is now playing catch-up to its biggest competitor Johnson & Johnson. B&L must improve their disposable lens market only by a 5% margin in order to regain the market share held by Johnson & Johnson.