Marketing Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Marketing - Research Paper Example Lenovo has manufacturing facilities in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, and Huiyang in China and at Pondicherry, India and a center at Whitsitt, North Carolina. It will not be out of place to note that Compaq and Hewlett Packard got merged in 2002. It was in 2004 that IBM sold off their PC business to a state Chinese company called Lenovo. The Compaq and IBM were two dominating brands in the market in the mid-1990s. Dell and HP emerged as two strong players in the PC market during late ‘90s while share of IBM went on reducing year after year. With that state of affairs and highly competitive market coupled with aggressive pricing strategies by many other manufacturers, IBM became a minority share holder in Lenovo. IBM held 18.4% share holding in Lenovo and Lenovo was granted rights to use IBM brand for 5 years as per the agreement; however, Lenovo got the product brand ‘ThinkPad’ from the IBM on a permanent basis. (IBM sells PC†¦2004) Lenovo is a state-owned compa ny having most of its operations in China barring a few installations in India and Mexico. India and Mexico operations are mostly for the local needs of that country. Before we embark upon the marketing plan for Lenovo, it would be worthwhile to do SWOT analysis. SWOT Analysis of Lenovo It will be appropriate to identify the Strengths, and Weaknesses of the company along with the opportunities that company can readily harness and issues that may pose threat to the company. Strengths: a. The company is well guided and supported by qualified and talented managerial pool of IBM. b. Lenovo PCs are endorsed by IBM brand ‘ThinkPad’ providing a confidence to the consumers in the market place. c. Manufacturing facilities being in China, the company enjoys not only the low cost of manufacturing but additional skilled manpower for its expansion project. d. Being a state-owned company, the company is well taken care of at the time of any change in local rules and regulations durin g normal and adverse market conditions. Weaknesses: a. The company may have trouble during natural disasters or calamities within the country to maintain normal production programs as most of its manufacturing facilities are in China. b. Being a state-owned company, decision making process may not be quick enough to thwart competition when it is need of an hour. Opportunities: a. The Personal computer market is at fast pace of growth; there is large untapped market locally and globally. Lenovo is well placed to take advantage of this burgeoning market. b. The new technologies are making deep inroads in the personal computer field, making it more user-friendly and thus expanding the market with new applications. Lenovo, being backed by IBM is positioned appropriately to exploit new developments in the field of hardware. c. IBM’s long known history of R&D in the field of mainframes, servers, and personal computers is likely to benefit Lenovo immensely in the coming days. The lo w-cost manufacturing facilities coupled with technological back up from technology giant forms a good synergy in the quality conscious and price sensitive markets. Threats: a. Lenovo is pitted against some of the well known brands of the companies such as Hewlett Packard, Dell, and Acer. Any mergers among them may certainly pose a big threat to Lenovo. b. Dell and HP are expanding their manufacturing operations in China. In the event of this, the cost advantage to Lenovo will get nullified in the future. Marketing Plan Product Strategy

This is for Human Growth and Development class (Socw) Essay

This is for Human Growth and Development class (Socw) - Essay Example It proposes that environmental experience shapes personal character. It is not the genetic makeup that controls the biological fate. Two forms of control are, therefore, proposed to influence development; the internal control (genes) in nature and the external control (environment) as per nurture. Nature assumes that the development of characters that deviate from the norm is indication of the expression of defective genes. This causes the concept of victimization and irresponsibility. In the nurture, the gene activity is linked to changes in the conditions that may enhance the potential of inducing dysfunction or disease. The regulation and control of the environment shape an individual’s biological expression. The environment directly controls the behavior and gene activity (Lipton, 2002). The failure to account failure to account for genetically controlled human when there are not enough genes to code proteins is cited as a drawback to gene determinism (Lipton, 2002). The proficiency of cells to maintain successful and integrated life in the absence of genes reveals that genes are not predominant in cell function. Therefore, genes cannot control biology since they are no self-emergent (Lipton, 2002). Genes cannot self-actualize and are chemically unable to turn on or off at will. Gene expression is under the regulatory control of environmental signals that act through epigenetic mechanisms. In conclusion, genes can be regarded as expressing life but not control. Nurture seems to play a most principal role in human development compared to nature. The change in environment generates need for new