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

Marketing - Research Paper ExampleLenovo 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 onward their PC business to a state Chinese club called Lenovo. The Compaq and IBM were two dominating brands in the trade 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 free-enterprise(a) 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 PC2004) Lenovo is a st ate-owned party 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 get in 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 head 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 still 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 d uring normal and adverse market conditions. Weaknesses a. The company may have trouble during natural disasters or calamities within the country to maintain normal mathematical product 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 despoil 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 payoff 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. IBMs 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. Th e low-cost manufacturing facilities coupled with technological back up from technology colossus 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. whatever 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