Staples-Nicole Damboise-Question #2

The organizational culture of the company has four parts, which are diversity, environment, community and ethics. Staples ensures that the workplace is diverse and accepts all races, age, and genders. They seek environmental excellence through providing products that are recyclable. Staples also helps the community by giving to charity. Lastly, Staples has a Code of Ethics that all employees need to follow, such as customer privacy and conflicts of interst.

Assignment #15- Apple/Napster Ques #3- Mike Dombrowski

I forgot to put my name in the title of the post below. I did the third question for the goup that is doing the Apple/Napster case. I just wanted to make sure it was clear since I forgot to put my name in the title of the post. Much apologies.

Assignment #15- Apple/Napster- Question #3

When looking at the case study, it can be seen that there are two main companies talked about and looked at. The first company mentioned was Napster. We all know about this company due to their prevelance in the news in the early part of the 2000s due to their legal woes. Well after some time, the company has risen again, this time in the legitamite nature and is running operational, abiding by all laws. The organizational structure that can be seen here in the new stages of Napster could be characterized as a "funcitonal structure". This is due to the fact that the first time around they were very small. Due to this they found themselves in many tight spots due to the fact that they did not have people to specialize in certain aspects of the company. This could have been a huge problem for why they got into such leagl trouble earlier in there inception because they did not have competent people looking out for the company in the legal area. Now that they are larger, they have specific individuals set aside for certain tasks so that the company runs well and has all of its bases covered. The second company that is talked about is Apple. We can see that Apple is a company that has the organizational structure that can best be summed up as a "product structure". This is so due to the fact that they offer an array of products. They focus their products, whether it be with the personal computer area or the ipod area, to the tastes of thier consumers and feedback they get from their target market. The production of different products makes them operate with different divisions of the larger company within its whole.

Pepsi and Coke- Eric Yoshikawa- #1

One of the ways both of these companies have been able to evaluate their performance is with the "pepsi/coke challenge". They ask people randomly to try both coke and pepsi, neither of which are labeled. One of the goals with this is to establish who has more consumers. Regardless of the outcome it helps because if pepsi isn't selling as well as cola but people prefer the taste over coke, it's something that they can hit on for their advertising. If it's already selling more then coke and people don't prefer it over coke, they can advertise that it's the best selling brand. From their the managers can compare the actual performannce against the established targets. If pepsi were to decide that they are spending more time making the product faster versus variation in quality they would start by making it flawless in production. This would change the difference in taste from each batch to making them all the same. This would make it so that testing would be more universal with little variations. Also it would make it so the consumer more willing to buying the product if religiously it would be the same. Finally they'd do more with research and development and diversification. One example you see with pepsi is advertising mountain dew to a younger generation versus pepsi. One example is snowboading events, you see mountain dew ads everywhere and almost never see pepsi ads. This is just one of a few examples how pepsi as well as coca cola market themselves

Daniel Wolski: Post 15 question 3

Toyota's Organizational structure by function is "product". Toyota as listened to to the customer and responded to their needs. Toyota's automotive products are one of the most expensive in the market, however the consumer is purchasing Toyota because they have focused on quality and listened to the costumer. In the 1950's Dr Edward Deming told U.S. automotive manufacturers they had to focus on quality, and he told them how to do it. they didn't listen, instead they relied on their laurels, and falled victim to a big ego. Deming went to Japan and taught Toyota and other Japanese manufactures about quality. they listened, and learned to listen to their costumers. while Ford and Chevy have continued to make gas guzzling eight cylinder trucks, Toyota was busy making fuel efficient cars like the Corolla and hybrids. Toyota's Cars last as well and offer features the costumer desire. Toyota Organizational structure by function is "product"

Senior Seminar- Assignment #15

This group blog must be completed by 7:00 AM on Thursday, December 6. Read chapter 9 and as a group answer all of the following questions about the company that you are doing your case study on. The first person in your group should do an original post, all subsequent entries from your group should be under COMMENTS to that person. Each person must answer a different question. You must identify the source you used in order to answer the question you selected. Label your post: The name of your company- your first and last name -and the number of the question you are answering.
(1) What strategic control systems are in place in your company?
(2) Describe your company's organizational culture.
(3) Is your company's organizational structure by function, geography, product, product-team, or multi-divisional?
(4) Is your company's structure tall or flat? How many levels exist in your company's structure?

Assignment #14- Ques 2- Mike Dombrowski

The most recent acquisition by Apple happened right before the original IPOD was introduced in October 2001. While developing the IPOD and licensing the software to run it, they learned that Toshiba was building a comparable hard drive that could hold over 1,000 songs. Apple quickly cut a deal with them allowing them exclusive rights to the drive for eighteen months.
The strategy was to prevent Toshiba from entering the market while being able to be the first to get their product out to the masses. This was a very intellligent move because they capitalized on the initial buyers and made large profits right from the beginning. This acquisition made a lot of sense and was a good idea for Apple in the long run.