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Electrolux Case Answers To Questions

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CHAPTER 1-------Introducing strategy

Case example------Electrolux
This is an introductory case example to illustrate the various elements of strategy – as presented
in Chapter 1. It shows how these apply to a particular industry and competitors within the
industry. These are some of the issues to highlight:

Are these issues strategic?


Section 1.1 of the chapter lists various characteristics of strategic decisions. You can ‘apply’
this list to the case example. For example, they do affect:
Long-term direction
Competitive advantage
Scope of activities
Exploitation of core competences
Stakeholder expectations.

Levels of strategy
There are several levels of strategy at Electrolux:
Corporate (company as a whole)
Business Line (e.g. ‘Consumer Durables’)
Business Units (e.g. ‘White Goods Europe’)
Operational (departments within business units).

The Strategic position


Some of the main issues are as follows:
Environment
Globalised industry
Competitive mature markets
Power of major retailers
Market entry of Asian producers (LG, Samsung) via contracts with major retailers
Also, developing markets (Eastern Europe, China)
Changing consumer needs (polarisation in the market)
Consolidation of retail outlets.
Capability
Originally, industrial design
Cost efficiency
Geographical coverage
Consumer insights
Brands
Talent management.
Expectations
The need to maintain profitability – which has not proved easy in a very competitive
industry
Environmental issues (e.g. CFCs and recycling).
Strategic choices
We can think about the various ‘strands’ that make up a strategic choice as
outlined in section 1.3.2 (and, of course, more fully in Chapters 6–9):

The market is polarising, so there are two possible bases to gain competitive advantage.
Either position 1 on the strategy clock (the low price ‘commodity’ positioning) or
differentiated (‘value-added’ product/service features) positions 4 and 5 on the clock. It is
not easy to run these two different positioning in parallel – without clever use of brands.

There are several choices of development direction for Electrolux. Decisions on product
development usually concern new features built on the current ‘platform’. Otherwise costs
are difficult to contain. Market development opportunities exist in developing countries
alongside the ‘trading-up’ of consumer requirements as economies become more prosperous.

The method of development is also important. Electrolux’s recent history has been dominated
by acquisitions.

Strategy into action


These aspects of strategy into action are illustrated in Electrolux:

The company has had to restructure regularly as it grew. Acquisitions also required pruning
and disposals to prevent the company from losing focus. The most recent decision to demerge
the ‘outdoor products’ division as a separate company (Husqvarna) reflects a feeling
in many sectors that re-focusing on a core business and core markets is likely to be more
successful than a wider portfolio of activities. Point out to students that this is absolutely the
opposite as to what happened at Electrolux in the 1970s and 1980s where, amongst other
things, they had extended into metal manufacture.

There is not much information about detailed processes, except reference to better product
renewal and improvements in logistics, purchasing and production

Managing change would be a particularly important issue given the possibility of cultural
clash in such a geographically spread organisation. Also, development by acquisitions
increases the cultural difficulties.

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