Competitive Pricing Pressure and Globalization
Intel's ability to execute the three platform strategy and gain market share as a result is highly dependent on growth into China and India, two nations the company faces entrenched, low-cost competitors. Specifically in China, Intel faces competitive threats from Lenovo, a household brand in that nation, and the compounded competitive challenge of AMD-based systems in these geographies (Einhorn 2006). One of Intel's strategic errors was relying purely on production efficiency to gain cost advantages to compete directly with low cost rivals. Now with a market-centered platform plan, Intel can be more selective in its responses to pricing pressure and the overall product introduction strategies. In 2006, Intel launched more products ever before in the company's history (Business Week 2007) and also specifically defined an entirely new organizational approach to responding to special pricing requests from dealers and distributors throughout their distribution channels. The result has been more design wins and use of Intel processors in each platform area, in addition to a higher level of cooperation and trust between Intel and key partners. The concentration on platforms and the creation of alliances to provide content, components and context of use has shown initial successes over the purely production- and engineering-centric view of the company under previous leadership.
Summary
In evaluating the more market-centered direction of Intel, it's clear that the platform-based approach to product design, management and execution is working. No longer are engineering and marketing separated from one another, there is extensive use of cross-functional teams and a clear focus on the customer and their needs first, over and above purely manufacturing efficiency. There is...
Accessed from the Internet on September 7, 2007 from location:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_02/b3966001.htm
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