Case Study Doing Business In China Marketing Essay

Case Study Doing Business In China Marketing Essay Although the times have changed, the citizens of the United States cannot help but recollect on the history of an unstable political system, corruption, environmental degradation, the lack of intellectual property protection and last, but not least, a variety of different cultures in the far East; so with that said, why would any American business organization want to pursue business in China? What was once a small-town audio store called Sounds of Music had an epiphany back in 1966 that has currently yielded pay dirt. Nearly twenty years later, Sounds of Music transformed into an electronic conglomerate known as Best Buy Inc, Co. This S & P Fortune 500 company is currently known as the largest consumer electronics retailer in the United States. Best Buy chose to pursue this â€Å"uphill battle† due to the fact that it was near impossible for them to ignore their ever growing free market economy and the urbanization that is taking place within it. Best Buy is sophisticated en ough to distinguish between what makes them profitable within the United States and what will make them unsuccessful in other parts of the world, in particular to this study, China. In order to truly understand China and the complexities of expanding there, one must know how to do business in China. It may sound implausible to the average domestic business man/woman to think there is much of a difference in doing business in China, than what it is here in the United States, but it is indeed a credible fact. Developing a SWOT analysis could aid in the many challenges of trying to conduct business in China, but this evaluative method doesn’t change intangible circumstances such as time and return on investment. Best Buy had both of these conditions present during their feasibility study. Realizing the opportunistic possibilities and competitive advantage of the situation, Best Buy didn’t hesitate to conduct thorough due diligence before doing business in China. This pape r will discuss some of the important aspects of their research as it covers the basic understanding of doing business in China and how Best Buy emerged from being just a face in the crowd to achieving commendable status in Shanghai, China. This report will elaborate on Best Buy’s experience as they try to tap into a foreign market for the first time ever knowing that the potential risk could be irreversibly negative. Best Buy Inc, plans to prove that it is indeed possible to enter into the Chinese Market for consumer electronics. Best Buy announced on April 1, 2006 that they would be opening their first branded store in China. Best Buy did not just enter the market but they were wise about it as well. They wanted to hedge the risks involved in any possible way. On May 12, 2006, the company made a purchase of a majority stake in Jiangsu Five Star, which is the fourth biggest Chinese appliance and electronics retailer. By purchasing this majority stake, Best Buy saved a tremend ous amount of time that is necessarily needed to create a comparable sized organization through grown. They now had their presence in China in 136 stores, as well as the close to 1,000 stores that they have successfully opened in both the United States and Canada. The purchase of this stake also helped Best Buy get a feel of what Chinese customer’s needs and wants were.

Management of Change - OPEN24 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Management of Change - OPEN24 - Essay Example Increasing competition in the marketplace combined with rather draconian cultural internal problems such as bureaucracy, poor communication, and perceived lack of personal job advancement possibilities has led our group to a reassessing process of the market demands and a reshuffling within the organization. OPEN 24 has two main aims: a- Increase the number of financial advisors to 300 and thus, even more aggressively gain a higher share of the Attica market, and b- expand to the provinces within the current year, establish itself to the major cities, i.e. Patras, Heraklio and Volos, and get a fare share of the local markets before the competition moves in. Change management is the process of developing a planned approach to change in an organization. The main objective is to maximize the collective benefits for all people involved in the change and minimize the risk of failure of implementing the change. Change management can be approached from a number of angles and applied to numerous organizational processes. (Worren, Ruddle and Moore, 1999) One The main problems that the department faces and can prevent from the above mentioned plans are the following: Strict Management that creates employee dissatisfaction thus, high employee turnover ratio. Bureaucracy which slows down procedures. Poor communication. Perceived lack of personal job advancement possibilities. Structuring the Department One of the first attempts to avoid conflicts among FAs was the creation of a Customer Database. It was a customized software that the operators could input all potential and existing customers. Then the following procedures were applied: Phone Calling Management- FAs were making phone calls for two hours every day, 9-11. Lists that were to be reached were inputted in the Data base. By logging into the system, the managers could get a report any time they wanted of how many phone calls each of the FAs have done, how many prospects have been contacted and how many appointments were fixed. Rendezvous Management- A call center team of 4 people was created to back up this procedure. Before an FA visits a prospect, the call center confirms the appointment with the customer and then calls and informs the FA to go to the appointment. After the appointment has been completed, FAs should call the call center and report back. The final stage is when the call center calls the visited customer and does a quality check of the visit. After that, a report with all above information is created and emailed to the Sales Manager. All the above procedures are taking place with the help of the above mentioned Data base. The idea of creating such software and the procedures

Supporting Activity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Supporting Activity - Essay Example Mobile computing has resulted in a marked increase in productivity of employees because of their easy access to data which they need. Web 2.0 is another development whose impact in the information technology of companies cannot be undermined. â€Å"Web 2.0 is the popular term for advanced Internet technology and applications including blogs, wikis, RSS and social bookmarking† (Rouse, 2011). With Web 2.0 employees gain an easy access to various business applications which the IT department can benefit from. Web 2.0 allows for people to create, work together, edit and share user generated content online; thus, making it easier for the IT department to disseminate information. Aside from mobile computing and Web 2.0, social media networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn are used by some organizations to reach out to their customers. Inter-office memos are sometimes broadcasted through social media networks because of its accessibility to everyone. As more advances in technology are developed, the information systems of corporations are also enhanced leading to a more efficient and accurate transfer of information. These new trends are reshaping the manner of doing business today and in the