"people's car"

The tale of the creation and design of the world's cheapest car is one of innovation and ingenuity, both inside and outside Ratan Tata's organization

That picture is The "Luxury" version of the car features fog lamps, power windows and A/C. (Tata Motors)

　

Tata Motors Chief Executive Ravi Kant says "Every day we invite people to come and examine the car and ask: 'How can we make more savings?'" That quest to build the world's cheapest car hasn't ended.

　

particularly as the price of raw materials like steel have more than doubled in the past four years, and the company has to follow new

　

　

Still, the story of the Nano is not confined to its impact on the auto industry. It's a tale that illuminates the India of today—an eager, ambitious nation with a combination of engineering talent, a desire for low costs and value, and the hunger of young managers looking to break from a hidebound corporate environment. Indeed, the team that worked on the Nano—on average aged between 25 and 30—has helped to flatten Tata Motors' stodgy, multilayered management structure, which has resulted in an unexpected side-benefit Wagh calls "organizational innovation". Ravi Kant says. "We are hungry for growth—and innovation is a by-product of that."

　

Author: Kripalani

Title: Inside the Tata Nano Factory
Date: May 9, 2008
page: 1-2
Refrences: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2008/id2008059_312111.htm

20700110 Entry 10

          Since its hot debut in the digital camcorder industry in May of 2007, Flip has been embraced by many people for its affordable price and outstanding quality. While others go as much "technology" as possible with their newly introduced models, Flip keeps it simple but high quality.

          Flip has gained its popularity among celebrities as well; especially Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O'Donnell. Unlike those major electronic producers such as Sony or Samsung, Flip has only 80 employees who have introduced a camcorder that costs around $120 to the average of $314. According to one research, Flip sold about 6 million camcorders in the U.S. market only in 2007.

          What has been the major customer demand driven factor? Flip simply transformed their customers into amateur film makers with its easy-to-use functions of the camcorder. It's the size of a bar of soap and does not require any cables to transfer the video file from the camcorder to computer; users simply connect the device to the computer with built-in USB connector. According to the CEO of Flip, their target was to "...strip away all control buttons and features from a typical camcorder and add back only the essentials" (BusinessWeek).

          Their new model which is slightly smaller in size is sold in 20,000 stores, including Wal-Mart, Costco, and Best Buy. The prices are comparably cheaper - as usual - and come with different colors: stark white, black, orange, and pink.

          It probably had been a tough journey for the firm to compete in one of the most competitive markets. The major brands such as Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, and more are already sharing the limited market, Flip has targeted the small segment where people don't want to spend much but like to own a camcorder that is affordable and well equipped for the price.

          Concentrating on such segment became the competitive advantage for Flip and therefore is able to meet the demand for the segment. This article opened my eyes that one does not always have to follow the trends, and those who know how to differentiate their products in the saturated market are more likely to be successful with their business.

Jana, Reena. "Pure Digital Flips the Script" BusinessWeek. April 17, 2008.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_17/b4081076893508.htm?chan=search

20601008 - 10th Entry

Mid-range hotel in China market.

Chinese business market is bigger and bigger nowaday. As China expand the market more and more, so many business people have to visit China oftenly. It means the demand of the business hotel will also be increase. The Chinese hotel boom continues. Hotel Jen as the newcomer is unlike any other brands that already have sprouted in China's fast-growing hospitality market. Hotel Jen has a ultramodern design; light, airy rooms are equipped with high-speed such as wall-mounted flat-panel TVs pulse with rapid-fire images. A rooftop pool overlooks the city's harbor.

Hotel Jen is an experiment and this is the first successful in a line of mid-range hotels based on a population of Chinese business travelers. Hotel Jen is born into a rapidly changing environment.

Hotel Jen's aim is the place which is affordable but attractive. Busnessman usually just stay for 3 or 7days and the expensive hotels are not attractive to the busnessman who often visit China. They do not feel any more valuable to stay in high quality hotel. Instead of that kinds of hotel for tourists, bussiness man find some practical and comfortable to work place.

I think that mid-range hotel demand will be more and more high and it might be a big market. And also Korea need a mid-range hotel for foregin bussinessman.

Businessweek.
May 2, 2008, 3:08PM EST
Written by Matt Vella
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2008/id2008052_319492.htm

20600171 - 10th entry

Microsoft's strategy to improve their influence

I read an article about OLPC( One Laptop per Child). OLPC is a nonprofit organization that try to provide low cost's laptop pc to the poor countries' children. And they allied with Intel and Microsoft. Originally, the lap top PC used Linux OS, but there were many complains and they allied with MS to use Window XP as an OS. Even though the organization has nonprofit objectives, maybe the two big companies have some intentions. Microsoft can expand their influences to the third world's children. Through these marketing, they can occupy sustainable advantage in OS market.

I think there are many companies to expand their presence to the world. Microsoft performs this task through free service. When a company's scale is worldwide grade, the management must improve their brand power rather than profits. Of course, profit is very important factor to companies, but I think brand power is more important. With brand power, companies can have advantage in competence with other companies. Microsoft may want to include the image of public sevice in their brand. Actually, Microsoft do many charity businesses and it contributes to the image of Microsoft. You know there is a survey about brand power. In the survey, Microsoft got 2nd rank follwing Coca-cola. The value of Microsoft calculated about $58 billion. It's a great value and maybe the implicit value more bigger than the index.

The value-based marketing is very critical in our period. You know Nike's shoes produced in south-east asia. But many people pay high price to buy Nike's shoes. It's the power of brand. People feel if we wear Nike's shoes, we can jump and run as the sports stars. In Korea, there are many franchise branches. If you get a Mcdonald's branch, you have to pay about 1 million dollars and have to pay royalty that is 20% of all sales. But many people want to buy the rights and pay huge money willingly. Actually, if you open franchise like that, you will not lose your money. In other words, the brand insure your success.

In korea, there are only small size franchises. In fact, worldwide franchises don't exist in Korea. I think that if we try to make our brand globally and invest in the advertisement constantly, we also can have our own worldwide franchises. It's time to invest in the intangible values.

Author: Steve Hamm

Title: Microsoft Joins One Laptop per Child

Date: May 15, 2008, 8:57PM EST

Page: 1

reference: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2008/tc20080515_605667.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories

entry # 10 20700067

"RFID: On Track for a Rapid Rise"

RFID is in use all around us. If you have ever chipped your pet with an ID tag, used EZ-Pass through a toll booth, or paid for gas using Speed-Pass, you've used RFID. In addition, RFID is increasingly used with biometric technologies for security.Unlike ubiquitous UPC bar-code technology, RFID technology does not require contact or line of sight for communication. RFID data can be read through the human body, clothing and non-metallic materials.

A basic RFID system consists of three components:
1. An antenna or coil
2. A transceiver (with decoder)
3. A transponder (RF tag) electronically programmed with unique information

The antenna emits radio signals to activate the tag and to read and write data to it. Antennas are the conduits between the tag and the transceiver, which controls the system's data acquisition and communication. Antennas are available in a variety of shapes and sizes; they can be built into a door frame to receive tag data from persons or things passing through the door, or mounted on an interstate toll booth to monitor traffic passing by on a freeway. The electromagnetic field produced by an antenna can be constantly present when multiple tags are expected continually. If constant interrogation is not required, the field can be activated by a sensor device.

Often the antenna is packaged with the transceiver and decoder to become a reader which can be configured either as a handheld or a fixed-mount device. The reader emits radio waves in ranges of anywhere from one inch to 100 feet or more, depending upon its power output and the radio frequency used. When an RFID tag passes through the electromagnetic zone, it detects the reader's activation signal. The reader decodes the data encoded in the tag's integrated circuit (silicon chip) and the data is passed to the host computer for processing.

Author: Olga Kharif

Title: "RFID: On Track for a Rapid Rise"

Date: Feburary 4, 2004

page: 1-2

Refrences: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2004/tc2004024_8389_tc165.htm?chan=search

20300780 Entry 10