Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: In the pursuit of success, higher profit, gaining market share and dealing with the challenges of day to day business. The big national companies, wherever they may be, have dreams and aspirations. As a CEO or General Manager of a big company; there is several objectives to achieve and strive for. Among them, on the top of any list, these will be some of them. Get the most of the revenues and provide for the shareholders, it has in the recent years become more and more apparent, that the big companies seem to focus on shareholder value . This is often found in the US and is finding its way to the European continent. Another primary aim is to expand and become bigger or at least as big the main competitor. There is several reasons and valid objectives; one being the natural instinct of any CEO or General Manager; to achieve success and become an even bigger share of the global market. Other reasons may be the search for new markets, for whatever reason, the need for cutting the production costs, to be closer to the customers or even to have access to new technologies or raw materials. In this case study, we will deal with the issue of BMW AG s decision in the mid 90 s to go abroad. To settle on the US market, starting up a manufacturing facility. There is a wide range of reasons, concerns and objectives to be dealt with prior to make that certain move, settling on foreign shores and setting up business. In order to understand what we are dealing with, we need to define multinational: Companies operating in multiple countries, but responding to local product-markets through more customized approaches In order to deal and operate in that environment, that company is expected to have highly qualified resources and access to a wide range of information s; such as pricing, local laws and regulations, knowledge and understanding of the customer s need and preference s to name of few. The road that the company is about to embark upon, prior to going multinational, is full of risks in all sorts of different areas; such as political risks, financial risks, regulatory risks and risks dealing with competition. There must be a solid research team ready at hand, being able to provide the management team, with the necessary information s and background information. We will cast a light on the problems, benefits, motives and challenges regarding multinational business. Zusammenfassung: Die vorliegende englischsprachige [...]

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: The story of the automobile manufacturer production can not be told without the story of Henry Ford, who was one of the pioneers constructing his first horseless carriage in 1896. He incorporated the Ford Motor Company in 1903, proclaiming I will build a car for the great multitude . As predicted he did so in 1908 offering a Model T for $ 950. This model heralds the beginning of the motor age. The car evolved from a former luxury item for the well-to-do to essential transportation for the ordinary man. Ford also revolutionized automobile manufacturing, in 1914 the Ford plant used innovation production techniques and was able to turn out a complete chassis every 95 minutes. That was a revolution in the automobile manufacturing at the time, because the former production time took about 730 minutes to turn out a complete chassis! Ford achieved that fast production time by using a constantly moving assembly line, subdivision of labor, careful coordination of operations and he began to pay nearly double the wages offered by their competitors. His innovations made him an international celebrity in the industrial revolution and he was one of the first who thought about effective organization to achieve a higher productivity. Ford s methods that changed the automobile production were perhaps not mainly the introduction of the assembly line, his goal was also to constantly standardizing the use of craftsmen. That firstly resulted in a high product variety despite in fact that they had been made using the same drawing. Secondly a lot of time was spent in fitting the parts together. These facts influenced major loss in productivity and under such circumstances a real mass-production was not possible. But by standardizing components and developing work routines was the first scope for an assembly line approach. The target of our case study is to present and analyze the changes in companies organizations, applied to the example of BMW. The opening part will summarize the history of the working and organizing techniques in general. The middle part will focus on the changes in production organization in the automotive industry, followed by the last part analyzing new strategies in Sales & Marketing regarding the rebirth of MINI by the BMW Group. Zusammenfassung: Die vorliegende englischsprachige Projektarbeit behandelt das Thema effektive Reorganisation in Produktion, Vertrieb und Marketing in der Automobilindustrie am [...]

This book looks at the changing link between manufacturing and knowledge-based activities in urban regions drawing on insights from organization studies and regional economics and looking at case studies in Europe, South America and Asia.

How do companies such as BMW, Airbus Industrie, and Bayer leverage technology and learn to thrive where others fail? This book provides a one-stop resource on technology, innovation, and knowledge management. It gives you a tool for gaining short-term, case-specific insight and long-term, industry-wide understanding of the best technology management and learning policies and practices. The Strategic Management of Technological Learning explores a portfolio of case studies on technology-driven-but not exclusively high-tech-companies that have an overall long-term record of success and prosperity. Through in-depth interviews with industry practitioners, the author empirically identifies the presence of Strategic or Active Incrementalism. The following chart shows the studied firms, which operate at high risk and uncertainty, very dynamic, and technologically intensive business environments:

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: The word marketing is always appearing in most articles and books dealing with selling, the word has been watered down and in many cases lost its true value and sense. Most people mistakenly identify marketing with selling and promotion - but selling is only the tip of the marketing iceberg. It is simply one of several marketing functions, and often not the most important one. If the marketer does a good job of identifying consumer needs, developing appropriate products, and pricing, distributing, and promoting them effectively, these goods will sell very easily. Companies have to search for buyers, identify their needs, design appropriate products, promote them, store and transport them, negotiate, and so on. Such activities as product development, search, communication, distribution, pricing, and service constitute core marketing activities. We have defined the core marketing activities; supporting the sales force in their pursuit of revenues and profit. The marketing department have to focus multiple tasks ranging from product development to pricing. Often the marketing department is so intertwined in the sales processes that the marketing and sales division is one division, in order to maintain the direction required in order to achieve the objectives set up by the management. In the first part of this case we will look at the general term; strategic marketing and set up fictitious examples of how a company in the automotive industry would deal with strategic marketing and look at the tools available to the marketing department and how they are implemented. Being a multinational company like BMW you need a strategy for virtually prior to make a decision and this applies to marketing as well. The company has the past two decades developed from an international company to a global player, where the set of standards are different and the requirement for setting up a marketing strategy has changed. We have decided in this case to analyze the decisions behind launching certain products; such as the roadster; the Z Series and the X Series, which meant that BMW for the first time in its history ventured into new segments normally being dominated by other manufactures. The decision to leave the traditional segment where BMW had for years been successful and diversify the product line will be analysed and in the introduction we will try to cast a light on the tools and means behind such decisions. In the middle of the [...]