Case study report Acer free essay sample

Besides the headquarters in Taiwan, the company also had been aggressive for entering the market in India, and in the year of 1999, the company opened the subsidiary as the Acer India Limited, it was an entire owned subsidiary for the Acer Computer. This case study is going to research the process of Acer’s restructures for global growth, especially for its development in the country of India (Acer, 2013). 2. Acer’s strategy of restructuring in seeking for its Global Growth As known to all that the Acer had ranked the third largest computer company all over the world in the aspect of personal computer shipment in the year of 2007 (Acer, 2013). According to the known numbers, 2. 43 million units sold in that year, the market share even achieve 7. 6%. The brand was so competitive that it beat the Hewlett-Packard (HP) as 1% more in the growth rate and 10% more for beating Lenovo Group Ltd (Acer, 2013). In the beginning of 2008, the advantage of the company was still being kept which ould make the growth rate more than Dell Inc. All the good achievements that the company made in global arena could be attributed to the restructuring efforts that the company did since the year 2000. 2. 1 Splitting the business as different new divisions The PC-system manufacturing unit had been separated and seen as a new company for the business. The new one had been known as Wistron Corporation in 2002 (Acer, 2012). The brand is an original design manufacturer, besides offering the normal notebook PC, the desktop PC. It also focuses on providing different kinds of technology services which involving the process of design, manufacturing, and customer service for interacting for meeting various requirements. The BenQ was also had been changed from the Acer Communications and Multimedia from the year of 2001. This independent brand mainly concentrated on the Acer-brand IT products for people’s daily life usage, as well as offering relevant products for enriching the digital life devices, the LCD and CRT monitors were included. The company got its own board without Acer involved, since the Acer would like to be conflicted with it (Acer, 2013). From these two examples, it could be seen that the restructuring behaviors made the company reduce the expenses and extra costs from operating process. Moreover, the pricing of PC could be aggressively for both the two brands, so the higher motivation and incentives could be offered to their channel distributors. As the result, the Acer may keep its advantages in the field more other brands who merely offer their products from the only one channel. 2. 2 Establishing the foreign subsidiary with good reputation The company had built its subsidiaries all over the world. They include the subsidiaries in North America, Australia, India and Russia. In the process of those restructuring operation, the company applied its strategy in an excellent way. Their strategic alliance worked well in the process of steadying their operation in the country, and building the reputation in an official way. The instance could be seen in the India. The Acer chose to partner with the Wipro Infotech Lite (Ball, 2012) a famous company in the country, to build the initial reputation. They made the purpose as selling the product to government, relevant organizations and big companies. While the relationship with government was established in India, Acer expanded the business to 15 large system integrators (Acer, 2013). The field also included the financial field, banking field, even the education, telecom, and most importantly the government. For building the reputation not only in cooperating famous local brand, building steady relationships with local governments for providing the products and expanding them to different fields, the Acer also established the image for the product through signed up a famous ambassador for its promotion. The activity made the products assessing to the potential customers who are common people. The Acer also had other activities, such as offering essential training to other channel partners, as the steps of the wholly process of restructuring of its operations. All these activities mentioned contribute to its growth in the global arena. It also could be seen that the company restructuring of its operations with detailed plan and settled purpose. It made the company achieve the third in its field in the year of 2007 (Acer, 2012). 3. Notes for Acer’s growth path adopted in India India could be defined as a market which had a huge potential to be explored. However, the market could be also seen as a very distinctive one which differs from the market in the Western world for its special geographic and cultural situation. The growth path for Acer in that country should be analyzed and measured by the company to achieve a further development. 3. 1 Maintaining the good relationship with local government and distributors As mentioned above, the Acer had built a relevant steady relationship with the local government. It is very important for the company to maintain it. Though Acer already had a lot of collaboration with government in different fields, it should target at one of them which still has a big potential to be explored. The segment which was chosen by Acer was the segment of education (Dan, 2010). Since the schools will always need the updated technology for keeping the knowledge updating for students. The demand there will always be high. Maintaining good relationship with governments may enable the company know the PC type that schools may need, and the latest information about demanding, especially in public school. Local distributors will also be helpful. More reputable retailers could open more channels for the company, and bring more positive motivations and incentives in local sales. 3. 2 Maintaining the good brand image It is not that difficult to build a good image for the brand, yet it will be easy for ruining it. The daily maintaining is very crucial in this part. In addition to the traditional one, which is establishing a high qualified system of customer service, the progressed promotions will another link to be noticed. Depend on the given geographic situation in India, the retailers in different area may develop themselves according to the local situation. The company may not have to set the uniformed information center for the company, since retails may know more about the type and common issues which had been reported in a high frequency, so they could give the feedback in the first time. The company may only collect these issues and focus on the solutions, furthermore, establishing the evaluation system for monitoring the retails for image maintaining. The advertisement which shows on TV, cinema, or appeared in stations, should be updated for certain period for keeping draw people’s attentions and promoting the newly coming products (Bart, 2010). . 3 Understanding the special situation in India This field is quite competitive. Acer needs to know more about their rival, and research every new relevant product appeared in the market. Meanwhile, it should bear in mind that not everyone in the country could like to put so much money on the lasted products. The relevant survey for the this market will be required for certain perio d, such as every three month, which designed according to different situation in different regions in India. The designed questionnaires could be sent in certain place that people choose to buy their PC or other relevant products in the regions, separated as cities and villages. The activities may keep the company gain the direct feedback and primary data from customers; understand what should the reason why that local customers choose the product. For the next cycle, the DR department could get a purpose for the further destination to make the updated products fit in the need from Indian people. In this process, it should be noticed that the local culture and religion should be respected in different regions. Since the complex religious situation in India, the survey should be designed separately. 3. 4 Investing in product innovation in India The innovation is the core of this field. The technology develops in an unbelievable speed. It require Acer invest more on the part of innovation. Since India developed very well in cultivating the talents in the field of IT, the company should pay more salary in earning the most excellent talents who were born or educated in India, in other words, who are familiar with the local market meanwhile very skillful in this field. Consequently, the innovation will be efficient for developing the particular subsidiary. Moreover, studying and researching the new products from rivals and the lasted technology published by academic are also crucial, so the Acer could keep the its originality for earning more reputation. 4. The current situation analysis for Acer in India with SWOT analysis The SWOT method had always applied for evaluating the internal strengths, weaknesses, external opportunities and threats (Menon, 1999). The method will be appropriate to be applied here for analyzing and identifying the urrent situation for the company in India even the all over the world to see if Acer may achieve the objectives before it enter the Indian market and if the company could develop in the future in that country. 4. 1 Strength The Acer developed very well in India in recent years. It now takes a very high market share in India. The advantages are very obviously and steady now. In the year of 2010, Acer already achie ved a very high market share in India. According to the relevant data, the revenue of Acer in India did grow 25% in 2010, up to 25 billion rupees (which equal to $ 539 million). It could be seen that Acer achieved the previous goal it made (Acer, 2013). The revenue was mainly come from the small and medium-sized business and the segment of education, which showed the field it targeted, was very accurate, as the result from maintaining good relationship with local government. Currently, the subsidiary of Acer in India mainly research and develop on smart phones and tablet PCs in this year. Its personal computer market share in India has increased from 13% in last year increase to 15-16% of this year (Acer, 2013). Now Acer would like to become the second-largest personal computer production in India, which agreed for the coming target. 4. 2 Weakness The company faced many challenges in India, since the country is quite different from many other countries that Acer familiar with in many perspectives. Even now, the company needs to process a very clear research before entering a new area in India for its consuetude, religions, and consuming habits. For developing in India, the management will be totally different as developing in other Western countries. Many customers in smaller cities and towns had not involved in the market. The growth for Acer in India, thus far, had mainly come from the big cities and the low market penetration rate still came from the small towns. Moreover, the service in the small towns could be another event for the company to concern about, yet the undeveloped business environment and old culture which involved gender discrimination and racialism may not be solved in the short term (Ball, 2012). 4. 3 Opportunity Compared with other countries, such as China, due to reason of higher taxes and energy supply, the growth rate of the Indian market is still not appeared to be fast enough. However, the advantages of the workforce are now gradually shifting to India, which makes the cost of production in India become cheaper than other place. The government of India is also trying to reduce the taxes. The activity will stimulate the relevant growth in demand. Furthermore, more and more Indian parents now get high expectations for their childrens education, and would like to invest on that. It has also spawned more demand of the electric products in education industry. There is also another chance for Acer to be developed in India. The Smartphone market size is large enough in that country. The current number of smart phones is expected to be between 3. 9 to 4. 2 million, and is expected to grow at a speed of 30% to 40% (Acer, 2013). According to IDC data, the consumers’ confidence boosts the positive impact of the growth in the IT field. Depending on that, from January to March of 2012, the sales of personal computers in India grew by 26% over the same period last year (Acer, 2013). The Acer also developed much strategic cooperation globally. In China, the Founder Group announced that the cooperation between the two sides may increase the Acer to be the top three in mainland of China in the future for the part of PC market share (Acer, 2013). 4. 4 Threats More and more similar companies, such as Dell, HP and Lenovo will still from the threats for Acer these years. If the company could not realize the effective plan and strategies for occupying the market in small towns and villages in India, these brands may try to explore their own markets. The DR department in the Acer should always stare at the new products realized from these rivals, and research on the latest technology. . Conclusion This case study report which mainly addressed for the three parts of how Acer’s restructures worked for its growth, especially in India made a review of the process of the restructuring operations and how it works. As a successful case, the Acer and other similar companies may know the positive and negative parts form the whole pr ocess and try to learning from this experience. In addition to evaluating the process, and get experience from that, the special cultural factor in particular area should be studied and combined for making an integrated strategy for further development.