Unilever’s Butter-Beater: Innovation for Global Diversity

CASE : Unilever’s Butter-Beater: Innovation for Global Diversity
This case illustrates product development in a major multinational.

Discussion Questions:
1. How effective are the Category Boards and Innovation Centers?

2. Is Brodewijk correct in thinking that Unilever operations are subscale and inefficient?

3. Why did Krona succeed in Germany?

4. Can Krona succeed in the Netherlands? In the United Kingdom?

5. What are the organizational issues in rolling out the product across Europe?

6. Is the strategy of a Europe-wide alternative spread not feasible?


March 25 Unilever’s butter-beater

What is your assessment of the current status of Krona product?
What is your understanding of the exhibits 4, 5 and 6?
What are the fundamental reasons why other country organizations did not embrace the Krona concept with enthusiasm? Go beyond the obvious differences of customer taste.
What changes in the product development process and organization structure would you recommend to avoid similar difficulties in the development and introduction of future new global products? What motivation tools would you put in place? What is the role of top management in such a transformation?

科技王國日本，手機市場慘遭滑鐵盧

作者：Economist.com 　出處：天下雜誌 392期 2008/03

相關關鍵字：經濟學人/科技/NTT/iMode
http://www.cw.com.tw/article/index.jsp?page=2&id=34157


日本是手機社會的先趨，2000年，在日本的NTT DoCoMo以iMode服務創造了無線數據的商業模式時，美國人還在使用如磚塊般笨重的手機。

連日本本土市場也不樂觀，手機去年的銷售量下跌了15％左右，2008年預期將再下滑20％。(陳智菁譯)

經濟學人英文原文

Nokia

company brochure
http://www.nokia.com/A4126316

Listen to Nokia's analyst conference call on April 17, 2008 at 3pm

關於諾基亞的20件事

在1992年從製造膠鞋和尿布，毅然轉型為手機製造業的 Nokia，所擁有的供應鏈管理可能是全世界首屈一指。而因為沒有任何債務負擔，坐擁95億美元龐大規模資金的 Nokia才能大舉投資新興手機市場如中國、印度，並專心致力於新產品開發。這些優勢讓 Nokia全球市佔率達 37%，企業人士更預估今年可能將攀升至 40%。

「我們將隆重對待我們的第10億個用戶，因此我們絕不容許犯下錯誤。」一名 Nokia多媒體手機業務工作人員表示。

然而這個近十年內迅速竄起的當紅手機品牌，也有遇到危機的時候。在1995年時，由於市場需求速度過快， Nokia手機製造鏈一度近乎癱瘓。而在2003年也因為未趕上當紅潮流－折疊式和彩色手機，因此市佔率從34.6% 一路下滑到 28.4%。

The fall of Moto

偉大科技公司的殞落令人不勝唏噓

Motorola insider tells all about the fall of a technology icon

Motorola 1Q loss widens as phone sales fall


Motorola 殞落之真相？
由 Casper Kao 於 Mar 30th 2008 @ 12:00PM 發表

疯狂的新大陆——Motorola的信仰危机