MARKETING & COMMUNICATION ESSAY HELP ON: CORPORATE ANALYSIS: TOSHIBA

Toshiba was born in 1939 after the merger of two big names. These big names were Shibaura Engineering works and Tokyo Electric. Shibaura Engineering works was formed by Hisashige Tanaka. He was a well known person in Japan for his intelligence. He invented so many things like mechanical dolls, chronometers, gas lamp and steam engines. The company Shibaura was manufacturer of telegraph equipment and electrical devices.

Another company named Tokyo electric formed other half of Toshiba. This company was also made by a genius mind of Japan named Ichisuke Fujiyoka. Ichisuke Fujiyoka was also known as Thomas Edition of Japan because he contributed many things to the development of Japan. He made the first arc lamp of Japan as well as constructed the electric railways in Japan. He formed the company named Tokyo Electric in 1890 (Toshiba, n.d.).

Both the above companies merged together in 1939 and formed Toshiba. After merger the company was named Tokyo Shibaura Electric Company and it changed its name officially in 1984 as Toshiba. From the beginning Toshiba always tried to give something new to the world and it has got success in its effort. For example: Incandescent Lamp, X – Ray tubes, Radio transmission tubes, the double – coil light bulb, cathode – ray tubes, Radar etc.

Operations of Toshiba are mainly divided into four categories. These categories include Digital products group, Electronic component and devices group, Infrastructure systems group, and Toshiba consumer electronics holding corporations. Product range of Toshiba is very long. It mainly includes consumer electronics, air conditioners, control systems for air traffic and railways, home appliances like washing machines and refrigerators, personal computers, office equipments, semiconductors etc. We can say that Toshiba is a well diversified company ranging from semiconductors and laptops to railways and nuclear energy (Toshiba, n.d.).

Since last 130 years Toshiba is continuously investing in research and development and trying to give new products to the world. Recently Toshiba produced 8- gigabit flash memory chip and also the first HD DVD player of the world. By giving best products and services to the world Toshiba is successfully honoring the spirits of its great founders (Toshiba, n.d.).

Toshiba has been always trying to implement new marketing strategies to compete with its competitors. Well, competitors of Toshiba are also from different kinds of businesses. For example if we discuss the personal computers segment of Toshiba we find the competitors of Toshiba are Dell, Sony, HP, IBM etc. And when we take consumer durable segment we see that the competitors are L.G. Samsung etc. Similarly in other businesses Toshiba has big competitors today. To win the game with these competitors Toshiba needs to have proper marketing plans as well as proper implementation of those plans at the required time. Some of the segmentation, targeting, and value proposition strategies are discussed below in this assignment (IT Web, 2011).

Objective of segmentation is grouping of consumers on the basis of their demographic characteristics. These characteristics include nature, habit, behavior, income, age, gender etc. By grouping it becomes easy for a company to identify the preferences of the consumers and then planning for those preferences. Since Toshiba is a well diversified company in consumer market as well as in industrial market, it has adopted the segmentation strategy accordingly.

Gender is the most important factor in Toshiba’s segmentation strategy. If we talk about electronic consumer goods we see that Toshiba’s personal computers business is male oriented. Although the products of Toshiba can be used by both male and female but when we watch the television commercial of Toshiba we find that the people in commercial are male and commercial is also male oriented (Blackuni, 2009). Unlike Toshiba Sony is not mail oriented but it also takes care of female consumers as we can see many colors of laptops in Sony’s basket which are preferred by ladies. Toshiba also generally focuses on the business class and middle class consumers. In the television commercial of Toshiba we see that people are working and businessmen who use the Toshiba laptops. Toshiba also hired some female celebrities in its advertising to attract men consumers.

Similarly in its consumer durable segment target of Toshiba is established families not the single bachelors. Toshiba focuses on established families because a family possesses more number of consumers and products of Toshiba are well diversified for families ranging from family size refrigerators and washing machines to rice cookers (Blackuni, 2009).

Talking about targeting strategy of Toshiba we find that main focus of Toshiba is currently on its environmental management group. Reason for this is to make environmental management group stronger and also focusing on the products which are environmentally conscious. Another reason is that Toshiba wants to develop manufacturing processes which are environment friendly (Hayagriva, 2010).

In an event Toshiba’s Europe president Alan Thompson said that main problems of the consumers today is their inability to use content across devices. They are not able to enjoy their digital media on more than just one screen. Mr. Thomson wanted to say that the company is having three screen visions which will include pocket devices, laptops, and TVs. Since other electronic devices are also included in this vision therefore this strategy is called multi screen vision instead of three screen vision.

Toshiba’s laptops will be the main focus of multi screen vision. Toshiba is going to add several new features to its laptops. These additions will include USB, WLAN, and Bluetooth, Mobile broadband, HDMI and SD card slots. According to a senior official of Toshiba, users do not bother about the technology used in making the devices but they just want to use it easily. While transferring the content from one device to another they want an easy set – up. So, the company will be focusing on the user friendliness of its products. For this company is going to use Intel’s wireless display so that they can make easy – to – use products (CLN, 2010).

Another important factor in the multi screen vision of Toshiba is TVs. Toshiba has added many new features of connectivity in its television sets. These features are based on DLNA and windows 7 capabilities. With these kind of features consumers will be able to display their content on larger screens and make it visible to others (CLN, 2010).

In this manner of technological improvements Toshiba is targeting the modern requirements of consumers. These kinds of requirements generally come from the young modern group of consumers. We can say that the target customers of Toshiba are people who are either working in organizations or entrepreneurs as well as the young modern generation which requires more features and facilities in their devices. Values which Toshiba is providing to its consumers are its new technological improvements which make its products different from others and also its products are cheaper as compared to the products of its competitors.

Toshiba is able to satisfy the demand of its consumers with its big range of products. Product portfolio of Toshiba is well diversified including electronic goods, consumer durable goods, home appliances as well as services related to railways and energy sector. A detailed product review of Toshiba’s products is discussed below in this assignment:

(Source: Toshiba, 2012)

From the above table we can see that products of Toshiba are from different categories. These categories include mainly Digital products, Electronic devices, Social infrastructure, and Home appliances. This diversification makes a wide range of product portfolio of Toshiba. The wide range of products includes air conditioners, DVD players, Blu – Ray players, and televisions. Other important products of Toshiba are control systems which are railways system, traffic control system, air traffic control systems and security systems (Toshiba, n.d.).

Except these Toshiba also makes home appliances which include washing machines, refrigerators etc. Medical equipments, Office equipments are also manufactured by Toshiba. In these categories main products are CT and MRI scanners, Ultra sound and X – ray equipments. Other products are personal computers and semiconductors as well as power systems and TFT displays.

In 2010 Toshiba launched 3D television set which enhanced its product portfolio. The technology used in this system makes it able to support 3D capability without using glasses. It’s not that Toshiba only focused itself in new product development but also it focused on the competitiveness of its products. For example when company found its HD DVD uncompetitive in comparison with Blu – Ray it stopped manufacturing it in 2008. HD DVD storage failed because many studios in US started using Blu – Ray which was developed by Sony, Phillips and other competitors of Toshiba. After discounting HD DVD Toshiba took care of the consumers who had already bought it and continued to provide services to them. To compete with its competitors Toshiba announced to manufacture Blu – Ray players. It also started producing drivers for PC’s and laptops (Toshiba, n.d.).

All the above efforts required proper investment in research and development as well as good marketing plan to get success in that. And Toshiba successfully made the required marketing plans and implemented. These marketing plans include marketing mix and marketing communication. Integrated marketing communication is the key factor in making marketing strategy of a company. Integrated marketing communication (IMC) is focused to enhance the brand value and its awareness. In an IMC all the techniques of marketing communication work together to enhance brand communication. These techniques may include advertising, public relations, sales promotion, social networking websites, online advertising, direct mailing, and direct marketing.

Toshiba can use an integrated digital marketing strategy to enhance its brand value. It will give new opportunities to reach larger target customers. It will also bring the company in a two way communication with its consumers. In this manner company will be able to communicate about its new products easily as well as will get feedbacks from the customers.

Objectives of Toshiba in integrated digital marketing strategy should be making its brand present in digital and social media space. With the help of this strategy it will be able to create awareness about its wide range of products among its target audience. Since Toshiba is a leading company in innovation, it can demonstrate about its innovation on these web places as the tagline of the company “leading innovation” rightly suggests that the company made many innovative products like 3D PC Technology, Ultra book, sleep & music etc. Target audience should know about these innovations and it can be done by the use of digital media (Nilavar, 2012).

Main focus of the company should be on its innovation parts. It should try to explain the features and innovations which it has brought in its products on these social networking websites. Advertising campaigns of Toshiba should create interests among the target audience. Toshiba should try to bring customers in conversations through the use of social media (Nilavar, 2012). If the engagement of consumers will increase then the company will be able to get feedbacks from the end of consumers. Also the interaction between the company and its customers and consumers will increase the possibility of understanding the consumer’s preference.

The channels which are useful in implementing this digital media strategy can be websites. These websites could be educational, online shopping, e- commerce, and others where the target audience will be able to see these campaigns. Other useful places are social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and blogs. Apart from this, e – mail marketing will be very effective in integrated marketing communication strategy for Toshiba (Nilavar, 2012).

On the websites company should design its campaigns in such a manner so that the target audience can spend some time on it. It should be attractive as well so that it can attract young audience easily. It can be done by presenting its products in a unique manner which competitors are not doing, like presenting unique features of the products. On social networking websites Toshiba should try to create engaging content, it can also build interactive applications for Facebook. Similarly, Toshiba can use Blogs and e – mail marketing techniques in its integrated marketing communication strategy.

By making and implementing a proper integrated marketing communication strategy Toshiba will be able to make it position stronger among its target audience. Since it is a well established and well diversified company, it can easily implement the strategy made for its brand awareness. Toshiba has been developing and implementing strategies since its inception. It is growing and will continue to grow with its leadership in innovation.

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