Analysis of Sun Microsystems IncEssay Preview: Analysis of Sun Microsystems IncReport this essayANALYSIS OF SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC.Case AnalysisDebra TaylorBA210 – Principles of Business and BudgetingHarvey D. Rothenberg, Ph.D. – FacilitatorOctober 27th, 2001Analyze Suns competitive environment.Sun Corporation had been described as “the last standing, fully integrated computing company..”. They manufacture and develop from the chip thorough to the computers operating system, and more. In 1998, they expanded within the application development market to develop a cross-platform information sharing language called JAVA. Today, Sun is a global Fortune 500 enterprise network computing corporation.
Sun has 4 primarily competitors in the technical and scientific manufacturing markets. They have additional competitors in the delivery of services, manufacturing of desktops and software development. Having few competitors places Sun in an oligopoly market.
Sun has many strengths in the market place. One, is that no customer accounts for more than 10% of their revenue for 3 years running. Another, is the diversity of its competencies. They hold 20% of the market share in UNIX server revenues and 20% of the market share in disk storage. They also hold greater than 50% of the market in workstations, 25% of the market in server software, and now 60% of the email market with their America Online partnership.
Another strength of Sun lies in its leadership. Scott McNealy is admired even by his competitors. He has been described as having “rigorous financial management” skills. Couple that with his strong manufacturing background, it makes him a fierce competitor. Yet, strong leadership isnt enough and Scott recognized that by keeping smart leadership around him to carry his plans and enthusiasm down his functional management line.
For all of Suns strengths against their competitors there are also weaknesses. They have become more dependent in recent years on their suppliers. Timely delivery is crucial for their future competitiveness, and anything less than optimum performance from any of their suppliers could have a serious impact on their operations.
What are Suns distinctive competencies?Suns competencies in the 1990s had been primarily hardware and software. However, their website www.sun.com, displays they have moved beyond the hardware and software arenas and their current competencies are in architectures, solutions, services and documentation.
Architecture support is necessary when a company requires support in designing software that runs on multiple platforms. An example might be a customer service application that collects data from a hand held device, requires downloading to a midrange server, then moves up to a mainframe for processing do to huge amounts of data. This is an example of a solution to a hardware issue.
Solutions are generally packaged software solutions, though not always. Sometimes solutions may involve both software and hardware changes. Services and documentation may also be part of a solution that Sun offers to their customers. A Sun solution may encompass their providing a service in the form of a trained Project Manager, to a company buying documentation, to support software in a different language, to expand to an international market. Solutions generally involve providing whatever it takes to solve the customers request. Solutions like these gave Sun a competitive advantage over their competitors.
Suns manufacturing of hardware includes desktops and servers, chips, boards, peripherals and network storage servers. While their software includes operating systems, interfacing software like Java was a contributor to increased sales. In 1998, Sun began installing Java language on its servers. This was when Java propelled them as a breakthrough opportunity, and soon became a marketing strategy..
What strategic management decisions need to be made and how should the decision-making process proceed?Strategic management planning is the process of developing and maintaining a proper balance of organizational resources and the companies market opportunities. Sun faced the dramatic expansion of the Internets web”, when in 1994 Scott McNealy faced the challenge of resource and market balance by being “..the company that had been faster in making the transition compared with its UNIX rivals IBM and HP.” Marketing strategy decisions include one or more of four basic market opportunities. These opportunities include market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification.
Since strategic planning requires a marketing strategy, lets analyze Suns specific target market. Their vision statement “vision is for a networked computing future driven by the needs and choices of the customer..” specifies a clear marketing strategy. For their target market, they specified network computers. Thus, they have penetrated the market with their networks. However, because the IT industry is very competitive, the market for Suns networks, services, and products is competitive. Having only a few major competitors, Sun is oligopolistic. This forces Sun to continuously develop, introduce, and deliver new products to retain and grow their customer base. This strength in the market place is demonstrated by their continuous top 5 position in network development. Their weakness is that they fail to meet new product development and diversification of products.
The Strategic Plan
The key concept to understand the Suns brand is the strategic plan. By making strategic plans to achieve a goal, we are able to apply our strategy to develop and market our products for the people who are buying them. These people can then help the business achieve success for the customers.
It is important to take into account the value of our efforts in helping the customers realize these goals. This is a major feature of the Strategy in order to keep our customers satisfied, regardless of their budget. This can lead to a positive outcome with no losses, profit, or losses due to a company.
This strategic policy can be applied as a strategic decision when the company has significant growth potential. However, when the plan is made, our business also needs to be successful.
The Suns plan gives us a broad idea of a future that will enhance our business and enhance our customers.
The strategy also allows us to analyze a broad set of potential business problems without sacrificing a single product. These problems will include:
The lack of growth in our global customer base.
Low prices. These problems would be the only reasons people are willing to invest in us. These problems would be the only reasons consumers buy our products at our prices.
Failing to meet customer needs. These problems would be our most-asked problems.
Business needs have not been met. These problems would drive our business (consumer and customer) to a competitive disadvantage.
Business goals have not been met. These problems (manufacture, marketing, operations, customer and business) would create an opportunity (to sell products by themselves) to get ahead.
Market failure. These problems (misconceptions, miscommunication, problems with people, product quality, etc) could cause our customers to leave us and be priced out of the market or increase the cost to the corporation of our product.
Sales and profit margins. These problems (manufacturing, marketing, operations, customer and business) could lead us to have negative earnings margins because we cannot fulfill our customers’ needs. These problems (misconceptions, miscommunication, problems with people, product quality, etc) would create an opportunity (to sell products by themselves) to make a profit that would increase in the future.
This strategy can be applied as a strategic decision when the plan is made.
A Future Purpose
Our goal is to have the most sustainable growth potential in the enterprise. There is no way in hell the business could have achieved that outcome without the Suns plan. We will never grow as rapidly as we would if we had to manage the entire enterprise.
Business is an environment where people live, breathe, and interact with each other. It is not necessary to have the world’s oldest computer and smartphone in order to have success. This is why the strategy must be kept in mind.
We need to remember our customer base is changing and that the future is uncertain. These customers are not the market leaders yet, but future projections come in and a lot of people are looking for a way to get by. We cannot be left alone. These customers are the problem and are the target market with us.
Therefore, if we succeed in achieving our ambitions, we will make a major contribution to the future growth and growth of our business.
The Suns plan is a solid business plan that demonstrates that we are
The Strategic Plan
The key concept to understand the Suns brand is the strategic plan. By making strategic plans to achieve a goal, we are able to apply our strategy to develop and market our products for the people who are buying them. These people can then help the business achieve success for the customers.
It is important to take into account the value of our efforts in helping the customers realize these goals. This is a major feature of the Strategy in order to keep our customers satisfied, regardless of their budget. This can lead to a positive outcome with no losses, profit, or losses due to a company.
This strategic policy can be applied as a strategic decision when the company has significant growth potential. However, when the plan is made, our business also needs to be successful.
The Suns plan gives us a broad idea of a future that will enhance our business and enhance our customers.
The strategy also allows us to analyze a broad set of potential business problems without sacrificing a single product. These problems will include:
The lack of growth in our global customer base.
Low prices. These problems would be the only reasons people are willing to invest in us. These problems would be the only reasons consumers buy our products at our prices.
Failing to meet customer needs. These problems would be our most-asked problems.
Business needs have not been met. These problems would drive our business (consumer and customer) to a competitive disadvantage.
Business goals have not been met. These problems (manufacture, marketing, operations, customer and business) would create an opportunity (to sell products by themselves) to get ahead.
Market failure. These problems (misconceptions, miscommunication, problems with people, product quality, etc) could cause our customers to leave us and be priced out of the market or increase the cost to the corporation of our product.
Sales and profit margins. These problems (manufacturing, marketing, operations, customer and business) could lead us to have negative earnings margins because we cannot fulfill our customers’ needs. These problems (misconceptions, miscommunication, problems with people, product quality, etc) would create an opportunity (to sell products by themselves) to make a profit that would increase in the future.
This strategy can be applied as a strategic decision when the plan is made.
A Future Purpose
Our goal is to have the most sustainable growth potential in the enterprise. There is no way in hell the business could have achieved that outcome without the Suns plan. We will never grow as rapidly as we would if we had to manage the entire enterprise.
Business is an environment where people live, breathe, and interact with each other. It is not necessary to have the world’s oldest computer and smartphone in order to have success. This is why the strategy must be kept in mind.
We need to remember our customer base is changing and that the future is uncertain. These customers are not the market leaders yet, but future projections come in and a lot of people are looking for a way to get by. We cannot be left alone. These customers are the problem and are the target market with us.
Therefore, if we succeed in achieving our ambitions, we will make a major contribution to the future growth and growth of our business.
The Suns plan is a solid business plan that demonstrates that we are