Toshiba Networking Case Study
Toshiba: How Personal Networking Can Be Used to Avoid High-Turnover

Electronics giant Toshiba Corp.'s American business unit is facing a class-action lawsuit over how it pays and promotes women. (6), (7)

ecently, the law firm Sanford Wittels & Heisler brought a $100 million gender discrimination lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan on behalf of a potential class of 8,000 women working for Toshiba in the U.S. Ibid.

Sanford Wittels earlier represented the class of litigants in a long-standing case against Novartis's U.S. unit by women in its sales force. The lawsuit settled for $175 million in July, 2010, following a $253 million jury verdict. Supra.

The lawsuit alleges that Toshiba America Inc. with regularity regularly fails to pay women equal salaries and bonuses, intentional segregates women into lower pay-grade positions and shows favoritism to men for promotion. Elaine Cyhers, a human resources manager in the Toshiba's U.S. nuclear power business, is…...

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REFERENCES

1. Knowledge works: Managing intellectual capital at Toshiba, WM Fruin, 1997,

Japan Business and Economic Series

2. Apologies and public relations crises at Chrysler, Toshiba, and Volvo

KM Hearit - Public Relations Review, 1994 -- Elsevier

Once this takes place, it could mean that Toshiba may have a parts shortage (which is having an adverse effect on productivity). To address this issue, the line should be redesigned to ensure each station has its own extra supply of parts. This will help to prevent possible supply disruptions and can maintain the 300 units per day target. Where, the strategy will allow the line, to continuously function, without having any kind of slowdowns or disruptions. Once this takes place, it will increase productivity and maintain the current labor cost structure.
The efficiency of this new design is that it will eliminate the wasted amounts of time during the work week, by ensuring that there is no reason for the line to slowdown. The constant monitoring for employee exhaustion / productivity addresses the human factors of the production line. While the parts shortage will ensure that the there will…...

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Bibliography

Business Glossary. (2010). All Business. Retrieved from:  http://www.allbusiness.com/glossaries/maximum-capacity/4944497-1.html 

China Japan Dispute Shine Light on Rare Earth Materials. (2010). VOA News. Retrieved from:   -- 104541629.htmlhttp://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/China-Japan-Dispute-Shines-Light-on-Rare-Earth-Metals 

Designing Toshiba's Notebook Computer Assembly Line. (n.d.). (pp. 212 -- 214)

Efficiency. (2010). Dictionary.com. Retrieved from:  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/efficiency

Organizational Structure
According to Pugh (1990), the organizational structure is an instrument that appears from the need to fulfill the organizational aims and objectives with the tools and activities that are available. Following the way that this process is managed, several types of organizational structures can be identified, including pre-bureaucratic structures, bureaucratic and post-bureaucratic structures, functional structures, divisional structures and matrix structures.

Westinghouse organizational structure falls into several different categories. On one hand, it is a bureaucratic structure. Among the characteristics of such an organization, Weber (1948) identifies several: "precision, speed, unambiguity, & #8230; strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs- these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration."

The bureaucratic nature of the organizational structure at Westinghouse is motivated by at least two aspects: (1) the nature of the industry in which Westinghouse operates: the nuclear industry, highly regulated, which implies that the organization…...

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Bibliography

1. Handy, Charles, (2007). Understanding Organizations. Penguin Books.

2. Deal T.E. And Kennedy, A.A. (1982) Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1982

3. Weber, M. (1948). Essays in Sociology. London: Routledge

4. Pugh, D.S., ed. (1990).Organization Theory: Selected Readings. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Bluray Player
The Blu-Ray player is a media player that is produced and marketed by the Sony Corporation. It was first introduced in Japan in 2000. Over the course of the next several years, the Blu-Ray entered into competition with the DVD, in particular the HD DVD that was championed by rival Toshiba. In early 2008, Toshiba announced that it was going to discontinue the HD DVD, effectively ceding the market for movie playing formats to Sony (Toshiba, 2008). The two products were competing as digital video formats for playing movies and television shows in particular. The result of this move is that the Blu-Ray was expected to be the dominant format for this service offering. That has not come to pass, and this paper will seek to explain why, from a marketing perspective.

Historical Context

There is a brief note to be made about the historical context. Sony engaged in a similar…...

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Works Cited:

Chacksfield, M. (2010). Blu-Ray sales double in Europe, DVD still dominant. Tech Radar. Retrieved November 28, 2012 from  http://www.techradar.com/news/video/blu-ray/blu-ray-sales-double-in-europe-dvd-still-dominant-906434 

Corrigan, B. (2012). Tech at home: Winner is Blu-Ray, but not for long. Financial Review. Retrieved November 28, 2012 from  http://afr.com/p/technology/tech_long_home_winner_is_blu_ray_Kuo3YCOzhgJMbrxkIk5T5I 

Digital Digest. (2012). Blu-Ray: State of play -- May 2012. Digital Digest. Retrieved November 28, 2012 fromhttp://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2012/05/09/blu-ray-the-state-of-play-may-2012/

Fournier, S. (1998). Consumers and their brands: Developing relationship theory in consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research. Vol. 24 (1998) 343-373.

computers for the organization. All three are high-end ultra-slim laptops for the sales force. These are compared according to a number of key variables -- weight, size, performance, memory, communications, power, software, operating system and price. The three models are the MacBook Air, the Toshiba Portege R830 and the Samsung Series 9. A recommendation is made at the end of the paper.
This essay will compare three different computer models for the organization to meet its needs. It is assumed that the computer chosen will have a high need for portability and performance, so the focus is going to be on three high-end lightweight laptops. They are the MacBook Air, the Toshiba Portege R830 and the Samsung Series 9. They will be evaluated on a number of different metrics and considerations.

eight and Size

Each of the three computers has a 13.3" widescreen display. The material that is used is different for…...

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Works Cited:

Samsung Series 9:  http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/laptops/NP900X3A-A03US-specs 

Toshiba Portege R830:  http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/portege/R830/R830-S8332 

Apple MacBook Air:  http://www.apple.com/macbookair/

All products have to be returned in the original packaging and be in the same condition that they were in when the customer got them. The return may be rejected, or costs deducted for missing parts, non-original packaging, abuse, misuse or user negligence (Toshiba Laptops, 2010).
If I were to buy this computer and wish to return it not only would I be responsible for the shipping costs to send it back there is a chance that it would be rejected by the company. As long as the product is returned in the original packaging and in the same condition as I received it then I would be given a full refund minus any shipping costs that I had originally paid. This is basically saying that if I were to receive the computer in good working condition and would then decide that I did not like it or want it…...

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References

Toshiba Laptops. (2010). Retrieved May 19, 2010, from Toshiba Web site:

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/home.to?src=MAXG&cm_mmc=google_sem

direct-_-toshiba-_-best_toshiba&gclid=CKWS8OXr3qECFQ8hDQodXBZKJg

UCC: uniform commercial code. (2004). Retrieved May 19, 2010, from Cornell University Law

The approach Sony continues to take is one of concentrating on continual process improvement to become more agile and resilient in the face of environmental factors (Olenick, 2010) while at the same time seeking to comply with national requirements for sustainability and green initiatives including supply chain compliance (Svensson, 2009).
Legal Factors -- Sony has a culture that embraces learning as a virtue, and continually strives to gain insights from the experiences of other Japanese companies and their legal and regulatory lessons learned. The case mentioned earlier of Toshiba Machinery Company and their sales of unauthorized milling machines to the ussians decades ago still is a foundational element of Japanese ethical training for managers (Ohishi, Naoto, 1993). As the United States and other western nations have continually seen the level of compliance and reporting escalate up through government edict, Sony has continually had to increase its focus on contract management…...

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References

Marketing of Small and Medium Sized High Tech Companies. Journal of Euro - Marketing, 12(2), 5-27.

Bernoff, J., & Li, C.. (2008). Harnessing the Power of the Oh-So-Social Web. MIT Sloan Management Review, 49(3), 36-42.

Business Line: MARKETING: TV, laptop to lead Sony sales. (2010, December). Businessline.

Luis J. Callarisa Fiol, Miguel a. Moliner Tena, & Javier Sanchez Garcia. (2011). Multidimensional perspective of perceived value in industrial clusters. The Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 26(2), 132-145.

For IBM, it took Louis Gerstner getting angry about unfulfilled opportunities for new businesses to create the EBO structure. For Nokia, the similarities with IBM are at a very high structural level, yet Nokia relies on a completely different set of processes for fostering innovation and corporate entrepreneurship. The rapidly changing world of laptop computers needed a corporate nonconformist to accomplish what carefully defined processes in Toshiba could not. In the case of Trilogy the need for creating a steady stream of significant new innovation forced the creation of a proving ground where PhDs in software and mathematics could quickly define entirely new product and business concepts.
eferences

Abetti, P (2004) - Informal corporate entrepreneurship: implications from the failure of the Concorde alloy foundry and the success of the Toshiba laptop;. J. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Vol. 4, No. 6, 2004, pp. 529-545

Arthur D. Little (2002) - Developments in the area…...

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References

Abetti, P (2004) - Informal corporate entrepreneurship: implications from the failure of the Concorde alloy foundry and the success of the Toshiba laptop;. J. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Vol. 4, No. 6, 2004, pp. 529-545

Arthur D. Little (2002) - Developments in the area of Corporate Venturing based on a global Arthur D. Little Study. December, 2002. Page 11 quoted with the Nokia graphic. Accessed from the Internet on March 30, 2007:  http://www.adlittle.com/insights/studies/pdf/corporate_venturing_study_report.pdf 

Garvin, D.A., & Levesque, L.C. (2006). Meeting the Challenge of Corporate Entrepreneurship Harvard Business Review, Business School Publishing. Pages 102-112.

Nunes, S. (2004). IBM research: Ultimate source for new business. Research Technology Management, 47(2), pages 20-23.

This conclusion is based on the high degree of commonality of its components, the length of time it has been in the market and potential for very low TCO over the life of the laptop,
eferences

Venkatesha Babu. (2007, April). "Lenovo Is At A Tipping Point." Business Today,96. etrieved April 10, 2009, from ABI/INFOM Global database. (Document ID: 1267755651).

Britt, P. (2009, April). Securing the Mobile Landscape. Information Today, 26(4), 1-11. etrieved April 12, 2009, from Business Source Premier database.

Cisco Cheng. (2006, August). Ultraportable Notebooks; Whether you're flying first-class around the country or backpacking through rush hour, you want a laptop that's petite and portable, yet powerful and feature-rich. PC Magazine, 25(13), Fl05. etrieved April 10, 2009, from ABI/INFOM Trade & Industry database. (Document ID: 1105509881).

Steven Cherry. (2008). Wi-Fi Takes On Bluetooth. IEEE Spectrum, 45(8), 14. etrieved April 11, 2009, from ABI/INFOM Global database. (Document ID: 1537186951).

Gladstone, D. (2009, April). The Wide…...

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References

Venkatesha Babu. (2007, April). "Lenovo Is At A Tipping Point." Business Today,96. Retrieved April 10, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1267755651).

Britt, P. (2009, April). Securing the Mobile Landscape. Information Today, 26(4), 1-11. Retrieved April 12, 2009, from Business Source Premier database.

Cisco Cheng. (2006, August). Ultraportable Notebooks; Whether you're flying first-class around the country or backpacking through rush hour, you want a laptop that's petite and portable, yet powerful and feature-rich. PC Magazine, 25(13), Fl05. Retrieved April 10, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry database. (Document ID: 1105509881).

Steven Cherry. (2008). Wi-Fi Takes On Bluetooth. IEEE Spectrum, 45(8), 14. Retrieved April 11, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1537186951).

This RIS includes Toshiba digital desktop telephones, plus 24 SpectraLink wireless telephones; these wireless phones were programmed to extend the features and capabilities of the users' desktop telephones to anywhere they roam at the 22-bed hospital; however, other wireless technologies such as cellular, could not be used due to the interference with sensitive medical equipment (Just the right prescription 24). The hospital's chief operating officer, Darryl Thornton, reported, "Being able to be mobile, yet still receive all our telephone calls, has greatly improved our efficiency and productivity. Toshiba's SpectraLink solution was the only one we found that would extend our desktop telephones to the palms of our hands" (Just the right prescription 24). The RIS also accommodated the needs of the hospital's remote users: "The system is so flexible that we were able to connect our remote users and still have it look like they are located at our…...

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Works Cited

Abelha, Antonio, Jose Machado, Victor Alves, and Jose Neves. (2004). "Health Data Management in the Medical Arena." Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal. [Online]. Available: https://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/bitstream/1822/886/1/473-245.pdf.

Adelhard, K., S. Nissen-Meyer, C. Pistitsch, U. Fink and M. Reiser. (1999). "Functional requirements for a HIS-RIS-PACS-interface design, including integration of 'old' modalities." Method. Inf. Med. 38(1):1-8.

Albensi, B.C., E.V. Ilkanich, G. Dini and D. Janigro. (2004, December). "Elements of Scientific Visualization in Basic Neuroscience Research. Bioscience, 54(12): 1127-38.

Arenson, R.L., K.P. Andriole, D.E. Avrin and R.G. Gould. (2000). "Computers in imaging and health care: now and in the future." Journal of Digital Imaging 13(4):145-56.

Blu-ay Technology
"It [technology] has surely reduced the world to a global village, greatly reducing distances between people and nations" (How Does Technology . . ., 2009, ¶ 1).

Blu-ray

During June 2006, even though only total of 24 Blu-ray movies were available at that time, stores advertised and sold the first Blu-ray DVD player, Samsung's BD-P1000, for $1,000. In the article, "Blu-ay or HD-DVD? A format battle rages for supremacy over the new generation of high-definition DVD Players," Johnson (2006) explains that "Blu-ray was jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, a group of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer, and media manufacturers" (Johnson, 2006, p. 82). Its future, albeit, as well as the future of HD DVD, the contemporary contender for next generation digital video players appeared unclear, Consequently, electronics manufacturers waged fierce battles in their war to determine whether the Blu-ray or HD-DVD format would the win dominate the…...

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References

Ahlawat, A.B. (2011). Blu-Ray Disc. Seminar Presentation 2K7-MRCE-ECE-70. Retrieved June 29, 2011, from  http://www.scribd.com/doc/51583297/blu-ray 

Andrews, D. (2008). Communications & multimedia technology. Burlington, Ontario Canada: Digital Overdrive.

Dean, R., & Cage, C. (2010, June). Should I re-buy classic movies when they come out on blu-ray?. Popular Science, 276, 82. Retrieved June 29, 2011, from Questia database:  http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5043150652 

Fulton, R. (2010, April 2). Blu-Ray to the future; format makes the most of new releases. Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland), p. 44. Retrieved June 29, 2011, from Questia database:  http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5042107542

Buyer Power:

etailers are the primary tier of buyers in the television segment of the global consumer electronics market. There are a variety of retailing channels used in this industry. The primary channel of distribution is through electronics retailers, like Best Buy, which comprises 65% of the total market value. Hyper and supermarkets, such as WalMart and Target, make up only 14.4% of the market. Sales via department stores, like Sears, only contributes 3.7% of the market's value. Although they typically don't sell televisions, music, video, books, and stationery retailers do contribute 3.1% of sales for the overall consumer electronics market. Lastly, a variety of other retailers make up 13.8% of the sales in this industry ("Global consumer," 2010) (See Figure 3).

The primary manufacturers in this market segment, like Sony, are often highly valued by retailers, as they provide branded products that retailers' buyers, the end consumers, have come to know…...

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References

"Global consumer electronics." (May 2010). Datamonitor. Retrieved November 30, 2010, from  http://360.datamonitor.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com .

Gonsalves, a. (28 Jan 2010). "Samsung 3D TV mass production begins." InformationWeek. Retrieved November 30, 2010, from  http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/TV_theater/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=222600258 ,

"History." (2010). Datamonitor. Retrieved November 30, 2010, from

Undoubtedly, the main beneficiary of such fierce competition is the customer who will be able to choose among several reliable products (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/iPod).
Thirdly, iPod has proved to be an excellent consumer-oriented item as it has made available revolutionary features (like modern design, lighter weight, high capacity) to the masses due to the average price established. Thus, in return for a moderate sum of money, people can take with them their favorite songs.

Fourthly, iPod has had a considerable social impact as it has succeeded in warming up human relationships. Steven Levy (2006) suggested that: "Music hits people's emotions and the purchase of something that opens up one's entire music collection...makes for an intense relationship." This idea was also reiterated by professor Katch from the University of Michigan who said that when students saw him with his iPod, "a sort of bounding" occurred (Levy, 2006).

Consequently, the generation gap is overcome and many…...

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Bibliography

Kahney, L.(2006). Straight dope on the iPod's birth. On the Internet at   May 2, 2007.http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2006/10/71956?currentPage=3.Retrieved 

Levy, S. (2006). iPod Nation. On the Internet at   May 2, 2007.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5457432/site/newsweek/.Retrieved 

Apple wins 5 'World class' Awards (2006). On the Internet at May 2, 2007.http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/05/31/top.100.products.announced/.Retrieved

The 25 most innovative products of the year (2006). On the Internet at: www.pcworld.com/article/id,123942-page,2-c, electronics/article.html. Retrieved May 2.

This helps to provide a higher level of value to charitable organizations and encourages volunteerism on an ongoing basis. But One Dell: One Community is more than just volunteering.
Dell have been introduce some special edition laptop in Malaysia like studio 14 and 15 which comes with some artistic style designed by Mike Ming, Derek Welch, Andrea Rosenberger and (PRODUCT) RED. All this laptop offers 10+ original designs for customers to choose from. It is an extension of one's personality which include restrained, expressive, wild and sublime. Furthermore, when customers buy the (PRODUCT) RED laptop, part of the proceeds will go to the Global Fund to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.

Competitors

The Dell Company faces major competition from other companies, this include Apple, Sun Microsystems, Gateway, Sony, Asus, Toshiba and Hewlett Packard which is also mentioned to as HP. All of these companies are its competitors but HP is its major…...

In its Pavilion dm1-3101ea laptop, Hp has used the latest technology to make this product the most innovative, fastest, and the most liked electronic gadget in the market (Dixons 2011). To stay competitive, HP has to keep on introducing the latest models of its Pavilion laptops so that no other competitor can snatch its market share.
Social factors:

Social factors such as education, income levels, preferences, and other cultural factors influence demand patterns in the different regions and therefore affect how a company operates in different regions. The education and income level of consumers affect the perception of brand of different laptop manufacturers (Oliver 1999). The prices of laptop must be ascertained considering the income levels and other social factors affecting the purchase decisions of the consumers. HP has to keep in mind all these factors in order to attract the most potential customers from the target market (Farley 1964). The…...

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REFERENCES

Clemons, E., 2000, the decoupling of value creation from revenue: A strategic analysis of the markets for pure information goods. Information Technology & Management, 4(2), 259-287.

Conolly, A., 2010, winning health promotion strategies, Leeds: Human Kinetics

Dean, J., & Tam, P., 2005, the laptop trial. U.S.: The Wall Street Journal.

Dixons, 2011, HP Pavilion dm1-3101ea Refurbished 11.6" Laptop -- Silver, Available from [Accessed November 27th, 2011]