At the end of twentieth century, Kirin Brewery Co. began a strategic move to break out of the saturated domestic market by adopting an international orientation and diversification effort to become a leading company in the Asia and Oceania markets. Following consolidation of its distribution...

Biopharmaceutical companies are under constant pressure to deliver double-digit growth. In traditional markets such as the U.S., Japan, and the European Union growth is stagnant, and profit margins are falling due to increased price pressure from governments. As a result companies are looking to...

Since its establishment in 1992, NTT DoCoMo had accomplished rapid growth by developing innovative strategies and meeting consumer demands. However, the population-based penetration rate of Japanese wireless phones now exceeds 70%, and the market is approaching saturation. Tariff reduction...

As consumer products companies like P&G strive to achieve a consumer driven supply network, the value of forecast accuracy comes into question. Many companies push for faster cycle times and shorter supply chains, driving towards make-to-order production. These trends may appear to reduce the...

The semiconductor industry is characterized by a high cost of capital equipment and fast change in process technology. Therefore Intel ® Corporation as the world's largest semiconductor company has a significant advantage over its competitors in reusing its semiconductor equipments. Not only...

One of the biggest opportunities for this consumer goods company today is reducing retail stockouts at its Direct Store Delivery (DSD) customers via pre-selling, which represents approximately 70% of the company's total sales volume. But reducing retail stock-outs is becoming constantly more...

This dissertation is focused on the topic of service innovation and explores economies of scale and strategic differentiation in services via an inductive field-based case study of the world's largest casino gaming company, Harrah's Entertainment. It includes comparisons to services firms in...

Sikorsky Aircraft Co. currently finds itself in a critical growth period, in terms of both sales contracts and supplier agreements. Popular supply chain strategies preach reduction and simplification of the supply base, but Sikorsky encounters "must-grow" situations with their supply base, due...

Many successful companies have difficulty implementing large-scale change initiatives such as Lean, Six Sigma, outsourcing or Advanced Process Control. This can often be due to the fact that they treat large-scale improvement efforts in the same way that they handle smaller improvement efforts....

This thesis derives a seven-stage methodology and presents a case study for developing an actionable innovation strategy for manufacturing firms. The methodology is based around a careful examination of their firm's circumstances, or external context and internal praxis. How a firm should...