Running head improving marketing strategies 1 improving

Running head: IMPROVING MARKETING STRATEGIES 1
IMPROVING MARKETING STRATEGIES 27
Improving Marketing Strategies to Increase Microsoft’s Mobile
Sales
A Research Project
Submitted To
Asila Sayedi
Submitted By
Student Name: Karthik Chandra Peddi
Student ID: 515490
California University of Management and Sciences
Date: September 5, 2016
Table of Contents
I.Abstract4
II.Introduction5
III.Company Overview6
A.Mission6
B.Vision6
C.Products7
D.Revenue and Head Count7
IV.Analysis8

V.SWOT Analysis9
A.Strengths9
i.Market leader in desktop Operating System.9
ii.Productivity in cloud business.10
iii.Diversified portfolio.10
B.Weakness11
i.Lack of innovativeness.11
ii.Dependence on hardware manufacturers.11
C.Opportunities11
i.Focusing on Smartphone segment.11
ii.Mobile Advertisement.12
D.Threats12
i.Competition.12
ii.Losing out on new markets.12
VI.PESTEL Analysis12
A.Political13
B.Economic Factors13
C.Social Factors13
D.Technical14
E.Environmental14
F.Legal14
VII.Recommendations and implementations15
A.Adopt to rapidly changing mobile ecosystem16
i.Extracting insights from real time data to see patterns fast and
adopt plans.16
ii.Making unified applications that run on all windows
devices.17
iii.Working on high-end flag ship windows phones.18
B.Reviewing marketing strategy for brand establishment18
i.Strategic market planning to penetrate world market.19
ii.Marketing and creating hype to Microsoft products on social
media platforms.20
iii.Creating brand with positive consumer perception in
innovation.21
C.Partnering with third party technology and hardware
companies21

i.Partnering with hardware manufactures.22
ii.Preparing a platform for developers to migrate their
applications from Android and IOS to Windows.22
iii.Redesign and innovate their phone models.23
VIII.Projections and Benefits24
IX.Conclusion24
References26
I. Abstract
This paper discusses how Microsoft being a top performer in the
PC world, and once predicted company by Gartner to become a
force in mobile market was unable to capitalize the smartphone
revolution which was started in 2007 and fall behind Apple’s
iPhone and Googles Android and how Microsoft’s late entry to
mobile market, lack of innovation, inability to develop a
flagship phone, app-gap in Microsoft’s windows store and the
lack of partnerships with mobile manufacturers to launch
phones with windows operating system hurt Microsoft. A
thorough analysis of Microsoft Corporation was done using
SWOT and PESTEL tools to develop some methodologies and
strategies it needs to implement to capture the mobile market
which is leading by Apple and Google. This paper also
discusses some of the predictions and forecasts for smartphone
market share by the year 2018 and how Microsoft can increase
its windows mobile sales and market share by that year.
II. Introduction
In this age of technology and communication, we are seeing
drastic technological changes and advancements in the way in
which we communicate and the devices we use to connect with
people. Smartphones have become a basic norm nowadays to
stay connected, and become a billion-dollar industry.
Companies are always trying to bring out new features and to
stay up to date with their competitors to stay competitive, since
the start of smartphone revolution in the year 2007, smartphone
business has a two-digit growth rate every year and became a
multibillion-dollar industry. The companies like Samsung,

Google, and Apple who placed their bets on this trend gained
the most from this Smartphone revolution. Since then
smartphones have become an integral part of one’s day to day
life and the number of smartphone users has reached more than
two billion in the year 2016 this signifies the importance of the
mobile industry. Companies not only earn money by selling
their devices but they earn a significant amount of money from
their App Stores and mobile advertising. So smartphones have
become a real money garners in this generation with the amount
of money and users involved in this business.
It is true that Microsoft being a top software company with
billions of dollars in its pocket, and market leader in PC sector
was unable to cash-in in smartphone sector when the revolution
started. By the time they entered the market it was too late for
them to make a significant mark in the industry which was
already leading by Google, Apple, and Samsung. Microsoft’s
lack of manufacturing partner for windows phones, a large gap
in apps in Windows compared to IOS and Android, and lack of
innovation in designing hardware models are the main problems
that held Microsoft back in toppling the market players like
Apple and Samsung.III. Company Overview
Microsoft was founded in 1975, and went public in the year
1986. Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in
software, services, devices and solutions that help people and
businesses realize their full potential. Microsoft is best known
for its windows line of operating systems and Xbox game
consoles and Microsoft surface tablets. As of June 30, 2016
Microsoft has subsidiaries in 122 countries with a net r evenue
of $85.32 billion U.S dollars and head count of 114,074.Mission
The mission of Microsoft is
“At Microsoft, our mission is to enable people and businesses
throughout the world to realize their full potential. We consider
our mission statement a commitment to our customers. We
deliver on that commitment by striving to create technology that
is accessible to everyone—of all ages and abilities. Microsoft is
one of the industry leaders in accessibility innovation and in

building products that are safer and easier to use.” (Microsoft,
n.d.)Vision
The vision of Microsoft is
"Our vision is to create innovative technology that is accessible
to everyone and that adapts to each person's needs. Accessible
technology eliminates barriers for people with disabilities and it
enables individuals to take full advantage of their capabilities."
(Microsoft, n.d.)
Products
Microsoft has different products that range from software &
services to hardware devices, some of the popular Microsoft
products from each category are
i. Software & Services:
Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, Skype, Bing OneDrive,
OneNote etc.
ii. Devices & Xbox:
Microsoft Surface, Microsoft Lumia, Microsoft band, All
Windows Phones, Windows PC’s & tablets etc.
iii. For Business:
Cloud platform, Microsoft Azure, Skype for Business,
Enterprise
Solution
s, Microsoft Dynamics etc.
iv. For Developers & IT Pros:
Visual Studio, MSDN, TechNet etc.Revenue and Head Count
Microsoft’s revenue and headcount from June 30, 2007 to June
30, 2016 has increased from year to year, where headcount in
2007 was increased from 78,567 to 114,074 and their revenue

has showed great growth over the years and increased from
$51.12 billion in 2007 to $85.32 billion in 2016, a detailed
increase in revenue and headcount increase from 2007 to 2016
yearly is as shown below
Microsoft’s revenue and head count from June 30, 2007 to June
30, 2016.IV. Analysis
Any company before proceeding with their strategic planning,
they need to do some internal and external analysis to know
who are they and what do they want to do, and where are they in
terms of their business, revenue, and competitors and where do
they want to go from there.
To do an internal and external analysis of Microsoft use SWOT
analysis to know their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,
and Threats. Which will give the organization a competitive
analysis of itself and to know the external factors affecting the
company use PESTEL (Political, Economic, Social,
Technological, Environmental, and Legal) analysis to know the
different conditions in which the company is operating, which
can be taken into account for further analysis of the company
and planning process (Microsoft, 2006).V. SWOT Analysis
To identify and categorize internal and external analysis of any
company SWOT analysis can be used, which can help them in
their strategic planning. SWOT analysis entails the information
of a company’s weakness and strengths which are the internal

factors that impact an organization. External factors like threats
and opportunities can be derived using SWOT analysis that can
impact the organization (Pestleanalysis, 2014).1. Strengths
i. Market leader in desktop Operating System.
Over the years Microsoft is leading the market share of desktop
Operating
System, Microsoft has a share of more than 85% in desktop
Operating System, they
reached this position through their brand loyalty (Dudovskiy,
2015a).
Here you can see the desktop Operating System market share in
the below image which was leading by Microsoft.
Desktop Operating System Market Share (Netmarketshare,
2016).
ii. Productivity in the cloud business.
Cloud-based services like Bing, Skype, Microsoft Dynamics
Online CRM,
Yammer, OneDrive, Xbox Live, Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft
Office 365 were offered by Microsoft and is expected to earn
more than $20 billion from these cloud-based services by the
year 2018. Because of Microsoft’s financial position, it is more
protected from a crisis and external shocks compared to its

competitors (Dudovskiy, 2015a).
iii. Diversified portfolio.
Compared to Microsoft competitors like Apple and Samsung,
Microsoft was
placed in a better position in terms of product portfolio and
services. Where its services in Operating Systems, Mobile
Phones, Gaming consoles, Servers, Management tools,
advertising, Tablets, Laptops and cloud services protect
Microsoft when there is a slump in one of their other services
(Dudovskiy, 2015a).Weakness
1. Lack of innovativeness.
Compared to Microsoft’s rivals like Apple, and Samsung
Microsoft always falls behind in innovation and bringing
imaginative products to the market and innovative features to its
products, while Samsung and Apple are busy with introducing
the next gen products like Apple smart watch, and Samsung
Smart TV. Microsoft’s lack of innovation is visible when we
look a few years back, where we don’t find any such products
from Microsoft (Dudovskiy, 2015a).
v. Dependence on hardware manufacturers.
Microsoft is very much dependent on hardware manufacturers to
run its windows OS, even it is dependent on hardware

manufacturers for its mobile platform. If there is any alternate
OS which is cheaply appears in the market, then there is a
chance that manufacturers choose other alternatives which
would place Microsoft in a very difficult situation (Jurevicius,
2013).Opportunities
1. Focusing on Smartphone segment.
Smartphone and tablet industry is growing steadily for the next
few years which have a lot of opportunities, Microsoft could
simply exploit these opportunities by launching few innovative
products in this segment which can compete with industry
leaders like Google and Apple (Dudovskiy, 2015a).
vii. Mobile Advertisement.
It is expected that mobile advertising growth will be in double
digits over the coming years, it is the right time for Microsoft to
tap this market with their OS if they can convert their customer
base into their smartphone users (Dudovskiy, 2015a).Threats
1. Competition.
There is a lot of competition for Microsoft products at this
moment of time, companies like Google and Apple are
launching alternatives to Microsoft and focusing on advertising
revenues, Google already launched chrome OS and Google Docs
which are constantly gaining traction, this kind of competition

is a great threat to Microsoft in the coming years (Sun, 2015).
ix. Losing out on new markets.
When companies like Apple and Google saw opportunities in
mobile revolution Microsoft was the very last company to enter
the market by then the market was captured by Google and
Apple and capitalized on it. If Microsoft was not staying up to
date with the current changes in technology, they will be pushed
aside (Bush, 2016).VI. PESTEL Analysis
PESTEL analysis is used to gauge the external factors that
affect a company, these are the situations where a company is
not able to influence but this analysis helps a company
understand how a business is operating and helps to have a
better strategic planning (Microsoft, 2006).1. Political
Governmental, regional and International level political factors
affect Microsoft apart from the impact of lobbying groups,
stability in the market and the government policies towards a
corporation. Anti-trust related issues led government and
political parties to pay attention to Microsoft. A recent example
of China’s involvement in the way Microsoft distributes its
software can be taken as an example of this political factor
(Dudovskiy, 2015b).Economic Factors
Economic factors such as economic growth or recession,
changes in interest rates and currency exchange rates, inflation
rates, changes in taxation rates and policies, changes in labor

costs and costs of other resources and others can affect
Microsoft revenues directly or indirectly, the global financial
crisis in the year 2008 have a high impact on Microsoft which
led to layoff around 5000 employees shows the effect of global
economic factors on the company. The exchange rate also plays
an important rate in determining the profits because of the
company’s international presence and its revenues from those
markets (Dudovskiy, 2015b).Social Factors
The impact of social factors such as consumer attitude towards
Microsoft’s products and their services and the positivity
carried around Microsoft products in the media have an effect
on Microsoft,]. It can be said that most of the social factors
relating to Microsoft products are positive. For example, taking
into consideration of recent increase in social media and debates
in social media which uses a browser, or other medium
increases the use of Microsoft products like internet explorer,
skype, or its Windows mobile (Dudovskiy, 2015b).Technical
The competition gets stronger as technology moves and
innovation of updated technologies. As a result, technology has
a short span. So Microsoft needs to very agile in updating the
technologies often to reduce competition. In this aspect,
Microsoft needs to invest a lot of amount to the Research and
Product Development process. One of the advantage with is,
Microsoft installs its own brand operating system, which
increases its production costEnvironmental

Factors include all those that are influenced or determined by
the surrounding climatic conditions created by global warming,
could disrupt transoceanic shipping and Microsoft’s supply
chain. Energy use and other effects from data centers may lead
to increased regulation and costs. Microsoft is highly vulnerable
to increases in electricity costs because of its dependence on
data centers and other Internet infrastructure.Legal
Legal factors are very important for Microsoft corporation,
because of the standards and policies that need to be followed
and respected by the company when it comes to marketing. This
accounts for the regulations, audit and legal limitations of the
firm as legal factors are barriers to entry plus firms are
answerable to regulatory bodies if laws are not followed.
Legal policies regarding marketing rules and laws of safety and
quality as well as consumer laws are barriers to firms when
marketing products and services. Labor laws are important
because they ensure the safety and rights of the employees.VII.
Recommendations and implementations
Microsoft is one of the world’s most valuable company and
largest software maker but failed to grab the opportunities in
mobile industry and always played a catch up with Apple’s IOS
and Google’s Android, and the main reasons for this catch up
are lack of manufacturing partner for windows phones, a large
gap in apps in Windows compared to IOS and Android, and lack
of innovation in designing hardware models.

The recommendations and Implementations that will help
Microsoft to become a force in mobile industry are listed below
A. Adopt to rapidly changing mobile ecosystem
i. Extracting insights from real-time data to see patterns fast
and adopt plans.
ii. Making unified applications that run on all windows devices.
iii. Working on high-end flag ship windows phones.
B. Reviewing marketing strategy for brand establishment
i. Strategic market planning to penetrate world market.
ii. Marketing and creating hype to Microsoft products on social
media platforms.
iii. Creating brand with positive consumer perception in
innovation.
C. Partnering with third party technology and hardware
companies
i. Partnering with hardware manufacturers.
ii. Preparing a platform for developers to migrate their
applications from Android and IOS to Windows.
iii. Redesign and innovate their phone models
The detailed discussion of each recommendation and its
implementations are done below
A. Adapt to rapidly changing mobile ecosystem
Microsoft’s one of the biggest problem is its market disconnect,
for example it took more than 3 years for Microsoft to launch

its first Smartphone after the release of Apple’s iPhone, and it
took another 2 years to launch a Tablet after the release of iPad,
and overpricing of its key products led to the fall of Microsoft
in mobile computing (Rettinger, 2014). This shows how
Microsoft always lagged behind its competitors in adapting to
changing trends, so there is a definite need for Microsoft to
adapt to the new marketing trends to stay competitive and this
can be done by implementing the following strategies:i.
Extracting insights from real time data to see patterns fast and
adapt plans.
These are the days where data is gold to companies who can
mine it and use it accordingly, and cell phones have become a
navigator, camera and one’s personal shopping device to shop,
and the geolocation feature is enabling companies to find their
target markets, and trends in their field of business, these data
help companies to zero on its customers, to know what people
are liking these days, to find the emerging trends, what a person
is searching for when he wants to buy something, companies
like Verizon with customers around 100 million and IBM are
using these data to improve its services (Rieland, 2013). A
company like Microsoft can use this data to know what people
are looking for, and can see patterns, adopt their plans
accordingly to innovate its mobile design and windows
software, it will also help them to know what range devices
customers are interested in a particular area or geographical

location and market their phones accordingly to increase its
market share. This can be followed by providing a platform for
developers to make unified applications that can run on all
Windows devices.ii. Making unified applications that run on all
windows devices.
When compared to Android and IOS windows ecosystem faces a
deficit of apps, which held back Microsoft in making a mark in
the mobile ecosystem. Windows only boost about one-third of
apps compared to play store and app store which makes it an
issue to be addressed as soon as possible. For years many
developers abandoned Windows platform citing the investment
of creating and maintaining applications on windows is too
much for little Return On Investment (ROI) (Ward, 2016a).
Creating Microsoft Universal Windows Platform(UWP) which
allows users to develop applications for this UWP, which can be
downloaded and used on all the windows devices alike, which
will give Microsoft an edge in decreasing its app gap, it’s a
right move towards a convergence platform, where the
developers cannot ignore Microsoft as it has more than a billion
devices that run on UWP. Microsoft’s purchase of Xamarin is
the correct move in becoming a platform for mobile developers,
which will help them to change the perception of developers
treating windows as a secondary option after IOS and Android
(Ward, 2016a). This will help Microsoft in decreasing the app
gap situation for its Windows mobile. And to meet the present

day demands of consumers of developed nations Microsoft need
to work on building high-end smartphones which are discussed
in next implementation.iii. Working on high-end flag ship
windows phones.
According to (Burnham, 2015) Microsoft has been focusing on
low-end and mid-range devices over the years, which resulted in
shipping only 4.2 percent compared to the main OSes who had a
market average of 27.7%, despite having these miserable
numbers Microsoft continued to focus on low-end devices and
launched a $70 Lumia 430 in 2014. Focusing on growing high-
end market will help Microsoft to focus and compete with the
likes of Apple and Samsung, this helps Microsoft to cover all
the bases of the spectrum by having mobile that ranges from
low-end to high-end, this strategy will bring attention to all the
Microsoft’s products, which will also help fill the gaps.
Implementing this strategy not only increase Microsoft’s sales
in developed countries but also increase its market in
developing countries.
B. Reviewing marketing strategy for brand establishment
Apple is always ahead of Microsoft in portable computing with
their iPhone, iPad, and MacBook but people always wanted
Microsoft to come up with their own devices to challenge the
dominance of Apple in portable computing, they responded with
much better options with Surface pro and Surface book which

are entirely different from iPad and MacBook and ahead of
time, even when people wanted Microsoft to launch their own
smart watch they responded with band series which beats
Apple’s and Android’s, but when coming to mobile Microsoft
was unable to find their foothold in this area, Microsoft
launches their Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL which are good
phones but nowhere near the flagship phones of Android and
iPhone, people don’t want Microsoft to create another hardware,
they want something different like Apple did in 2007 with their
iPhones (Rubino, 2015). So there is a need for Microsoft to
develop new devices and a better strategic planning to establish
its mobile brand and to penetrate the global market.i. Strategic
market planning to penetrate world market.
One of the privileged insights of Apple's marketing strategy is
based on learning that individuals buy what they consider well
known. It is simpler, for example, to buy what other individuals
own as opposed to offering the item's uniqueness. The
showcasing of the iPod on TV ads has less fixation on its
outline and concentrates more on the headphones and the way of
life experience connected with the gadget. As such, the
marketing is somewhat open welcome to join the individuals
who are getting a charge out of the products features. The
second marketing technique by Apple is enhancing existing
items instead of thinking of new creations. Apple has thus
strived not to convey new items but rather to bring new

experience on the items as of now in the business sector.
Another perception is that early adopters of the items are
helpful with promoting the item further.
Advertising at Apple has concentrated on making the message
significant. It is simpler to go on a short, precise marketing
message for the individuals who will be seeing it for the first
time. At last, the advertising should concentrate on delighting
and surprising the customers. Pleasure ought to be made right
from the packing of the items that makes the customers
anticipate the product. Apple's promoting henceforth has more
to do with the items request as opposed to the item itself
(Chazin, 2007).
Samsung gained significant market in U.S to overtake Apple in
the smartphone market. They are one of the top most company
who has a keen eye on its competitors and learn from them.
Samsung always follow the products and features that’re
gaining traction and innovates that in their own version, they
are good at producing a large variety of products that covers the
whole band of consumer spectrum, they spend around 5.7% of
their revenue on research and development compared to 2.4% of
Apple, which resulted in bringing new features to Samsung
which are not adopted by then market leader Apple and spent a
whooping amount of money on advertisements which is more
than Apple, and gained a significant points ahead of apple.
Samsung is one of the largest chip maker and manufacturer

which produces almost all the components of its mobile which
gives Samsung cost advantage and flexibility in terms of its
production, this kind of supply chain management and
distribution allowed Samsung to bring a wide variety of
designs, and products at the pace at which they wanted them
(Nisen, 2013)
Microsoft is already a household name in the PC arena around
the globe, but it is important for them to reach consumers
around the world using the marketing and advertising strategies
implemented by Apple and the strategies implemented by
Samsung to penetrate US market by launching wide variety of
designs and products at a greater pace to reach consumers in the
mobile sector, these strategies will help Microsoft in
penetrating the world market in the Mobile arena.ii. Marketing
and creating hype to Microsoft products on social media
platforms.
Apple was always the front runner in creating hype for its
products before launching them compared to its competitors,
Apple strategy for creating buzz is phenomenal for its consumer
products. Their strategy for creating buzz around its products is
based on creating an air of secrecy around its products, which
gives rise to speculations and buzz around its products, then
weeks after this free advertisement they hire paid media to
continue the momentum. Apple also creates an illusion of
scarcity around its products to increase demand and desirability

among consumers, they made sure that all the small details
matters from designing its products to designing and packing
the products which created their brand visibility among
customers. All these strategies made Apple a market leader in
smart phone business (Kaputa, 2012). Microsoft should take a
cue from these strategies in building hype and buzz around its
products using social media platforms and implement them in
promoting their windows devices to be successful.iii. Creating
brand with positive consumer perception in innovation.
Microsoft has perception issues in the eyes of consumer from
the day Apple, the main rival of Microsoft launched its original
iPod, Apple became a favorite and considered forward-looking
organization in tech industry, whether this argument is right or
not, consumer always backed Apple as an innovative company
which provides excitement and better offerings from its
products, which made Apple an instant success in youth with
their iPhones and computers, in a survey conducted in 2010
47% of the students surveyed are planning to buy Mac, which is
a staggering percent when the PC world is dominated by
windows at that time (Tosie, 2012).
People are watching out for Microsoft to make a cool product
again from years, but they are focused mainly on software and
services while Apple is innovating in music players, tablets and
mobiles. Microsoft also has a problem of overpromising or not
being able to entertain people with its products because of

which it lacked interest in consumers. So, Microsoft needs to
start innovating new devices and create a brand out of it which
will change this age old perception of consumers to become a
market leader in the mobile platform.
C. Partnering with third party technology and hardware
companies
Microsoft ruled PC market is mainly to its partnership with
third party manufacturers like Dell, Lenovo, Asus, HP,
Samsung, Acer etc. but by buying Nokia to have control over
mobile phones design, style and pricing Microsoft alienated its
manufactures which proved a vital mistake in capturing mobile
market (Rettinger, 2014). So there is a need for Microsoft to
start partnering with manufacturers to develop new models and
software allies to introduce new features.i. Partnering with
hardware manufacturers.
PC space was dominated by Microsoft for years with more than
90% share, this is possible for Microsoft because of its
partnerships. Microsoft needs to understand its old and proven
formula of having partnerships with mobile hardware
manufacturers to succeed in the smartphone industry. When
Microsoft entered the smartphone space in 2010 it partnered
with HTC, Samsung, and LG but a majority of its windows
phones were manufactured by Nokia which is around 90% of the
markets share, but way to deal with working with partners is

client centered. Microsoft understands that the whole Windows
ecosystem system flourishes when customers adore the item
(Ward, 2016b). So this to happen they need to work with more
partners who can regularly release their phones on Windows
platform and provide with regular updates, If Microsoft want to
have a strong Windows mobile presence they need to realize the
important of partnerships, and they can’t do it alone. In the next
implementation, we study about the need to have a platform for
developers to migrate their applications from Android and IOS
to Windows.ii. Preparing a platform for developers to migrate
their applications from Android and IOS to Windows.
Microsoft has always struggled to get developers onboard
because of their small market share compared to Apple and
Samsung but with the introduction of Windows 10 things have
changed for Microsoft, with the increased interest in
entrepreneurs, developers, and businesses. So, there is a need
for Microsoft to help developers to migrate to Windows with
minimal effort, from the web, .net, Win32 and IOS platform to
its windows by changing only a little or no code (Shead, 2015).
This strategy will help Microsoft to attract more developers into
building more applications in Windows which in turn attracts
consumers to use Windows mobile. In the next implementation,
we are going to study the need to redesign and innovation
required for windows phones.iii. Redesign and innovate their
phone models.

Android leads the world like a boss in cell phone business, by
selling the same number of cell phones in five days as Nokia
sold Lumia cell phones in the most recent three months.
Android has near one million applications accessible in its
Google Play store while the Windows Phone Store still trying to
work its way up, and the speed at which Microsoft innovates its
windows Operating system for mobile held Microsoft back from
the time it launched its first windows OS into Nokia in 2010.
After that the inability of Microsoft to innovate widened the
software between windows, IOS, and Android which posed a
large challenge for both Microsoft and Nokia at that time.
People and manufacturers have not seen windows as a viable
platform from the beginning, which resulted in manufacturers
reluctant to manufacture windows mobile, which led then Nokia
the only partner to manufacture windows phones and now
Microsoft itself after acquiring Nokia (Gilbert, 2013).
Being a software company everyone expected windows to
innovate and develop windows phones but it failed to do it right
when it comes to phones so the final and most important step
for Microsoft is to start innovating.VIII. Projections and
Benefits
According to (Statista, n.d.) smartphone users in 2015 is 190.5
million and reach 229.2 million by 2018. And Microsoft’s share
as of Feb, 2016 is only 2.5% of total smartphone subscribers
which is far less than Android and IOS. Implementing the

recommendations and findings mentioned above will help
Microsoft in realizing the effectiveness of different marketing
strategies and gives an insight of future operations regarding
the sales and the brand establishment of the organization which
in turn will help Microsoft to capture a market share of 15% by
2018.IX. Conclusion
This Research project mainly focuses on the marketing
strategies of Microsoft that helps the company to improve their
smartphone sales and brand establishment in the mobile
segment. Microsoft being a top software company with billions
of dollars in its pocket, and market leader in PC sector was
unable to cash-in in smartphone sector because they entered the
market when it was too late for them to make a significant mark
in the industry which was already leading by Google, Apple and
Samsung and their lack of vision and out of synch market
strategies are also a reason for their failure in the smartphone
business adding to that Microsoft’s lack of innovation, inability
to develop a flagship phone, app-gap in Microsoft’s windows
store and the lack of partnerships with mobile manufacturers to
launch phones with windows operating system hurt Microsoft.
Two different analyses such as SWOT analysis (which focuses
on strengths, weakness, opportunities, threats of the company)
and PESTEL analysis are used which estimates a clear idea of
the internal and external factors that affect Microsoft globally
and the recommendations were made. It is recommended that

Microsoft should adopt to the rapidly changing mobile
ecosystem, by reviewing its business strategies and partnering
with potential manufacturers to adopt windows OS in their
smartphones which in turn helps them in capturing a market
share of 15% by the end of 2018.
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analyses/microsoft-swot-analysis.html
Kaputa, C. (2012, September 28). 5 Marketing Tools Apple
Exploits To Build The Hype. FastCompany. Retrieved from
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exploits-build-hype
Microsoft. (2006). A Guide to Writing a Marketing Plan.
Retrieved from
www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/sales_and_marketing
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Netmarketshare. (2016, January). Desktop Operating System
Market Share. Retrieved from
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share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0
Nisen, M. (2013, March 15). Samsung Has a Totally Different
Strategy from Apple, And It's Working Great. Retrieved from
BusinessInsider: http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-
corporate-strategy-2013-3
Pestleanalysis. (2014, August 13). The SWOT Analysis
Definition your Organization Needs. Retrieved from
pestleanalysis.com: http://pestleanalysis.com/swot-analysis-
definition/
Rettinger, J. (2014, August 01). Microsoft’s 4 Biggest
Problems. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-rettinger/microsofts-
four-biggest-problems_b_5641212.html
Rieland, R. (2013, May 08). What Phone Companies Are Doing
With All That Data From Your Phone. Smithsonian. Retrieved
from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/what-phone-
companies-are-doing-with-all-that-data-from-your-phone-
54401174/?no-ist

Rubino, D. (2015, October 23). The Future of Windows Mobile-
Does Microsoft Want to Reboot the Concept of a Phone.
Retrieved from http://www.windowscentral.com/future-
windows-mobile-reboot-concept-phone
Shead, S. (2015, July 29). Windows 10 for developers: How to
migrate apps to Windows 10. Retrieved from
http://www.techworld.com/tutorial/apps/how-migrate-apps-
windows-10-3621117/
Statista. (n.d.). Number of smartphone users in the United
States from 2010 to 2019 (in millions)*. Retrieved from
http://www.statista.com/statistics/201182/forecast-of-
smartphone-users-in-the-us/
Sun, L. (2015, June 28). SWOT Analysis of Microsoft
Corporation. Retrieved from
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/06/28/swot-
analysis-of-microsoft-corporation.aspx
Tosie, A. (2012, June 23). Did Microsoft solve its perception
issue this week? Retrieved from Neowin:
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issue-this-week

Ward, J. (2016a, March 27). Windows Phone isn't dead, Part VI:
App Gap? Microsoft has a platform for that. Retrieved from
http://www.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-isnt-dead-part-
vi-app-gap
Ward, J. (2016b, March 17). Windows 'phone' isn't dead, Part
IV: A future of partnerships and a possible Surface Phone.
Retrieved from http://www.windowscentral.com/windows-
phone-isnt-dead-part-iv-microsoft-and-alcatels-vp-
communication
Food Quality And Legislation 1
Food Quality And Legislation 6
FOOD QUALITY AND LEGISLATION
Name:

Institution:
Instructor:
Department:
Course:
Date:
Food Quality and Legislation
Introduction
It is universally accepted under the labeling legality in UK that,
if your organization specializes in supplying products to
customers, then it is important to ensure that the products are
safe. In this case, the sole responsibility falls on the shoulders
of the producers of goods and providers of services.
Wholesalers, distributors, and retail shops also have legal
responsibility. In this case, by failing to meet responsibilities to
your business can result into several adverse implications. For
instance, your business could face legal penalties with possibl e

imprisonment or legal fines (Allee, Mayer, and Patryk 2005).
Any individuals who believe their adverse condition is because
of your irresponsiveness because of using the business product
could also sue the business. One of the biggest responsibility of
producers revolved around date labeling or rather date marking
since it ensures that consumers are able to make optimal and
safe employment of food products. Apparently, the date label is
an indication that signals the period in which a product can be
kept under the storage conditions that are specified on the label.
However, in this report, the label; that will be explored will be
the Canadian maple Syrup Cream Cookies label.
Requirements of the Label in the Contexts of Legislation
According to the legality of labeling, four universally accepted
areas need to be taken into consideration especially when
labeling food products (Adams and Browning, 2015 web). The
four principle areas that need to be taken into consideration
include the country of origin, the food product content, and care
or rather storage information (Shepherd, 2013). Additionally, as
much as the regulations across Europe are similar, it is accepted
that most of them are not similar. In other words, the United
States of America and japan possess different requirements.

Food product content is necessary in the United Kingdom as
postulated in the 2012 food products regulations. The basis of
this requirement revolves around the fact that the Canadian
maple Syrup Cream Cookies label must encompass information
of the main type of ingredients employed as well as their
proportional percentages. In this case, the Canadian maple
Syrup Cream Cookies label has complied with the legality
governing the food product industry since it has indicated the
percentage of the ingredients involved in the processing of the
biscuit cream. For instance, Sodium that was used in the
processing of the Canadian Maple Syrup cream cookies was 75g
and it encompassed 1% of the overall ingredients whereas the
level of carbohydrate involved is approximately 8% of the
overall nutrition values embedded in the biscuit cream cookies.
In fact, the information given must be postulated in such a way
that it is understandable by the consumer in the targeted product
market (Shepherd, 2013). Apparently, it is not just sufficient to
use English as a communication language while selling your
products in the European Union since there are other individuals
in UK and Europe that do not necessarily understand English
very well. In this case, the Canadian Maple Syrup Cream
Cookies label has indicated the ingredients used in the
processing of the product using two languages hence making it
to comply with the food processing requirements of the UK.

Additionally, it is acknowledged that any of the allergens
employed in the processing of a food product be enlisted either
in italics or in bold to emphasize its importance on the label
most especially if they are employed on a pre-packaged food
Shepherd, 2013). In this case, the Canadian maple Syrup Cream
Cookies label can be argued to have complied with the UK food
legality regulations since most of the nutrients employed in
their processing are listed in bold together with their percentage
ratios. However, one thing that may be difficult to comprehend
is how to identify the allergens from the pack of flavors used
since all of them are written in bold and none of them is
underlined or italicized to differentiate them from the other
listed flavors.
In the UK, any data revolving around allergenic ingredients is
supposed to be located in a single place on an ingredients list
separate from the other food labels (Shepherd, 2013). In this
case, this implies that some of the previous strategy of using
allergy boxes that offer a short cut to ingredients that are
deemed allergens is no longer permitted. In fact, the
employment of voluntary precautionary strategy towards
allergens indication such ‘May Contain’ that signal the potential
existence of allergens is still allowed. In this case, however,
there is no such indication on the Canadian Maple Syrup Cream

Cookies label hence this can be said to be one of the
shortcomings of this label (Adams and Browning, 2015).
Country of origin also plays a very crucial role in the labeling
of food products but it is not compulsory in some European
countries when it comes to food processing. However, it is
important for the Canadian Maple Syrup Cream Cookies label to
have an origin label that will direct its consumers since they
may be misled as to the Canadian maple Syrup Cream Cookies
label true origin. Apparently, if a food product carried a flag of
Britain on it but its country of origin is Hong Kong China, then
it is important for that food product to include a label indicating
a country of origin to that effect because fraudulent labeling is
illegal (Stark, 2015). In this case, the Canadian maple Syrup
Cream Cookies label has complied with the UK food processing
legality since it has indicated a country of origin on its label
that is Canada.
The name of the food product must as well be indicated clearly
on the packaging. Additionally, some food products possess
made up names that do not give a clue of the ingredients in
them or what the food tastes like. When such a scenario occurs,
it is accepted that a brief explanation of the product be
indicated so that the product description ids not ambiguous or

misleading. Moreover, the name of the product should help its
customers to note the difference that exists between the product
and other similar related products (Allee, Mayer, and Patryk,
2015). The Canadian Maple Syrup Cream Cookies label can be
said to have complied to this legality since its title clearly
indicates that the product is a crunchy biscuits that is very tasty.
The product’s actual weight must as well be shown on the
product label. In this case, the weight does not necessarily need
to be exact but it must be stated in such a way that it indicates
some similarities. For those food products that are in liquid
form, the drained weight of the ingredients employed in the
food processing need to be displayed. Therefore, in this case,
the Canadian Maple Syrup Cream has clearly indicates the
weight of the flavors and nutrients present in the cream cookies
hence making it to comply with the UK legality requirements.
Liability Consequences
Liability refers to the situation of being held responsible for an
action or something, especially by the law (Food Standards
Agency, 2011, web). Additionally, Product liability is used to
refer to the legal liability that a manufacturer or a seller bears
for trading a product that has faults or is harmful. In this case,

product liability holds a number of consequences that a firm can
face for being responsible for the existence of a faulty product.
If a business is liable for the harm that is caused by a faulty
product, any individual who is harmed, even in cases where they
did not personally buy the product can sue it (Stark, 2015).
In the context of the Canadian Maple Syrup Cream Cookies,
consequences of liability are those implications that the
company will incur if it fails to comply with the regulations
governing the textile industry. In this context, a business entity
can be held responsibility for damages to property, death, or
injury. In this case, for failing to indicate any form of allergens
on their products of rather the warning signal of “May Contain”,
the company may end up being sued if the consequences of their
actions might harm any person. Damage on private property can
result in a legal claim of at least 275 pounds in the UK and the
amount varies depending on the extent of loss or damage caused
to the consumer. In essence, by having the amount of claim
subject to the amount of damage caused means that there is no
upper limit on the amount of claims that can be made. Insurance
against liabilities because of court awards is appropriate to
insulate Canadian Maple Syrup Cream Cookies profitability
(Allee, Mayer and Patryk, Stark, 2015). Product liability
insurance offers compensation in cases of a legal claim against

faulty products.
Conclusion
Observance of safety standards is a continuous process that
should be undertaken at every stage of the production process;
right from product designing until the product reaches the
consumers. Proper mechanisms should be put in place to ensure
that safety standards are adhered to prevent any faults after the
products are in the public domain. In businesses that deal solely
with supply, the customers must be informed of the safety
measures for safe use of the product. Investigati ng any
complaints about product safety and passing the information to
the manufacturer could enable to prevent product safety
problems
References
Adams, R.J. and Browning, J.M., 2015. Product Liability: An
Important Dimension of Marketing. Retrieved from:
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-17052-
7_65#page-1
Allee, J.S., Mayer, T.V. and Patryk, R.W., 2015. Product
liability. Retrieved from:
https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=Kc4-BlWh_BoC&pg=SA1-
PA3&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

British Nutrition Foundation,(2016).Food labeling>Retrieved
from:
https://www.nutrition.org.uk/nutritionscience/foodfacts/labellin
g.html?limit=1&start=1
Fish and Richardson 2016. Product Liability and mass Torts.
Journal of European Tort Law, 7(2), pp.113-142. Retrieved
from: http://www.fr.com/services/litigation/product-liability-
and-mass-
torts/?gclid=CjwKEAjw1qHABRDU9qaXs4rtiS0SJADNzJisNG
QHLhP3yC8tm74B3-
eYFpPV5Oa_lVdYkamonM3_nhoCgebw_wcB
Food Standards Agency, (2011).Guidance on the application of
date labels to food. Retrieved from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attach
ment_data/file/69316/pb132629-food-date-labelling-110915.pdf
Gov.Uk, (2015). Food labeling: Giving food information to
consumers. Retrieved from: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/food-
labelling-giving-food-information-to-consumers
Shepherd, J.M., 2013. Products liability and economic activity:
an empirical analysis of tort reform's impact on businesses,
employment, and production. Vand. L. Rev., 66,

p.255.Retrieved from:
https://www.vanderbiltlawreview.org/2013/01/products-
liability-and-economic-activity-an-empirical-analysis-of-tort-
reform%E2%80%99s-impact-on-businesses-employment-and-
production/
Stark, J., 2015. Product lifecycle management. In Product
Lifecycle Management (pp. 1-29). Springer International
Publishing. Retrieved from: http://www.product-lifecycle-
management.info/
Cyient Innovative Enhancements
Submitted to
Dr. Asila Sayedi
Submitted By
Name of Student
Student ID
California University of Management and Science
Date: July 4, 2016
I. Research Topic

My research topic is “Cyient Innovative Enhancements” for
Cyient Ltd., which is an Indian Multinational corporation
(MNC), focused on engineering and networks. This research
proposal proposes a study of improvisations in the departments
of recognition, project delivery and human resource
management in the company.
II. Overall purpose of the project
Though Cyient is a fast growing MNC in industry it has some
difficulties in different aspects. Few problems found with
Cyient are with the following departments.
· Lack of Recognition: No proper recognition is given to
employee which may cause a negative impact
· Project Delivery: Lack of awareness in the employees about
the importance of the project delivery
· Human Resource Management: Poor in bringing the amenities
to the employee according to employee satisfaction.
In order to overcome these difficulties it needs some innovative
enhancements which will help in the company’s growth.
III. An overview of the company

Cyient (formerly InfoTech Enterprises) is an Indian
Multinational corporation (MNC) which was founded by B.V.R
Mohan Reddy in 1991. The company stands among the top 30
outsourcing companies in the world. It has more than 12000
employees across 38 worldwide locations.
Cyient provides the rail, aerospace, oil & gas engineering
solutions across the globe. Cyient has a global presence. It has
its offices in Australia, Canada, Germany, India, UAE, UK,
USA etc., with revenue of US $430 million.
IV. Recommendations
Therecommendations which would help in enhancing the Cyient
Ltd, are in the following aspects
· Providing Proper Recognition to an employee
Proper recognition to an employee can give him/her personal
satisfaction which in turn helps the employee to work with the
new thoughts
· Importance of On-time Project delivery
Creating awareness in the employee about the importance of

delivering the project on time will create a positive impact on
the growth of the company.
· Human Resource Management services
Management should maintain transparency. Transparency can
avoid unnecessary risk taking.
V. Importance of the project to the company with step by step
implementation
The project indicates the weakness and the difficulties, thereby
providing step by step implementation. The company can use
the recommendations to improve their services and customer
satisfaction
· Assuring the employee recognition:
· Awarding the best employee with different recognition
schemes
· Planning a surprise achievement celebration for an employee
· Passing on the praise
· Creating awareness of On time project deliver:

· Conducting status meetings and scheduling the tasks within
the deadline
· Gathering the proper requirements on time
· Meetings with the client and associates.
· Human Resource Management:
· Maintaining the transparency
· Healthy communication between Superior - Subordinate
communication
· Add one more implemenation
VI. Projection and benefits for the company based on the
recommendations
Benefits for the company based on the 3 recommendations:
Following the recommendations will help the company to
deliver the projects on time, giving proper recognition to the
employee creates the positive impact and HR services towards
employee in turn increase the company’s growth. Based on the
above implementations the revenue will increase by 25% by
2016.

For this assignment is to find out a company that has problems
that you
1) What is your research topic or the title of your project?
(You might want to focus on issue/ problem aspects of
marketing, information system, finance, or human resource of
a company that you did your internship). If have not completed
internship or have experience you can use a fortune 500
company that has problem and you are interested to fix. The
title of your paper should be based on your problem statement
or recommendations.
2) What is the overall purpose, objective, goal of your
project? These sections cover the problem statement or
statements (most important part of your paper). This should be
one complete sentence with 3 problems that you want to focus
on your entire project.
3) An overview of the company. (Keep this section short, no
more than 5 sentences)
4) What are your recommendations: You should have at least
3recommendations to your problem statement (Most of your
paper will cover the three recommendations and

implementations)
5) What are the 3 step by step implementation plans for your
recommendation? (Make sure each of your recommendation has
3 step by step implementations).
6) What is the importance of the project to the company;
provide projections and benefits for the company based on your
recommendation. Why should the company implement your
recommendations?
SEARS COMPANY1
Final Draft
Functional Requirements and Implementations on Employee
Productivity and Investment Plans of Sears Company
A Business Research Project
Professor: Dr. Asila Sayedi
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
MS611
Project

By
Name: Akhil Reddy Palreddy
Student Id: 515368
California University of Management and Science
September 7th , 2016
Table of Contents
I. Abstract
…………………………………………………………………………
………5
II. Introduction
…………………………………………………………………………
…. 6
A. Overview of the company
……………………………………………………... 6
B. History and Management of the company
…………………………………….. 6
C. Mergers and Acquisitions of the company
……………………………………. 6
D. Current company status

……………………………………………………….. 7
III. Problem Statement
…………………………………………………………………….. 8
IV. Vision
…………………………………………………………………………
……….. 8
V. Analysis
…………………………………………………………………………
……... 8
A. Why SWOT and PESTEL analysis is used?
…………………………………... 8
B. PESTEL analysis
……………………………………………………………... 9
i. Political
……………………………………………………………….. 9
ii. Economical
…………………………………………………………… 9
iii. Social
…………………………………………………………………. 10
iv. Technological
………………………………………………………… 10
v. Environmental
………………………………………………………… 11
vi. Legal
………………………………………………………………….. 11

C. SWOT analysis
……………………………………………………………….. 11
i. Strength
………………………………………………………………. 11
ii. Weakness
…………………………………………………………….. 12
iii. Opportunity
…………………………………………………………... 12
iv. Threat
………………………………………………………………… 13
VI. Recommendations and Implementations
……………………………………………. 13
A. Lack of proper knowledge on better investment plans
…………………… 14
i. Develop an understanding over the existing
Performance of the company for a better investing plan.
…………. 14
ii. There are many reasons for merger failures
But ergonomics plays a vital role in it.
Establishing healthy cooperative approach,
Understanding both sides perceptions,
Avoiding hostile behaviors and
Making early agreements plans
Lay grounds for a successful merger.
………………………………..14

iii. Save a room for regular expenses so
They do not go out of control.
……………………………………….15
B. Insufficient experienced work team on retailing
And unsystematic departments.
……………………………………………..15
i. Assess your existing team and talent for
The requirements for cutting costs on unnecessary man power.
……15
ii. Hiring experienced work team for
Boosting crucial divisions is
Important also maintaining articulated
Departments make work easy and effective.
……………………… 16
iii. Assigning supportive teams for department
Head is a beneficial backup to any organizatio n
At any point of time. ……………………………………………....
16
C. Poor strategic communication among employees
……………………….. 16
i. Having a proper preparation over selling
Strategy by the employees is important for better sales.
………... 17
ii. Motivating the staff and making them analyze
The trends will help bring back the lost

Commitment also sharing ideas from
The ground level workers at times help
In upliftment of the company. …………………………………....
17
iii. Appreciation, recognition and credit
Reward serve in maintain a healthy
Employee-employee and owner-employee relations. …………....
18
VII. Importance of the project to the company
……………………………………………. 18
VIII. Projections and Benefits
……………………………………………………………… 18
IX. Conclusion
…………………………………………………………………………
… 19
X. References
…………………………………………………………………………
…. 20
Abstract
Sears Company is a world renowned retail giant. First, the paper

discusses about the overall economic impact on the company
due to poor investment plans, lack of proper internal
communications and weak employer-to-employee relationships.
Later, a detailed SWOT and PESTEL analysis has been
performed, and further paper presents recommendations for the
individual problems. The paper concludes with the benefits
ensured with the level of economic security granted for the
company based on the recommendations. These recommended
suggestions will give a deeper insight into individual
departments for a better functioning and development.

Introduction
A. Overview of the Company
Sears officially known as Sears, Roebuck & Co. is a giant in
retailing industry. It is an American based holding a chain of
department stores. It mainly deals with hardware, appliances
and clothing. The company was co-founded by Richard Warren
Sears and Alva Curtis Roebuck in 1886. Its headquarters is
located in Hoffman towers in Illinois. In terms of domestic
revenue, Sears was the largest retailer in United States until
October 1989 when it was overcome by its greatest competitors
Walmart and Target.
B. History and Management of the company Sears
There were times in American retail history when people had no
idea about Walmart or online sales in amazon.com, be it
clothing or hardware or groceries or just about anything people
turned to just one store, Sears. Sears was reputed retail mart
running successfully since 1886. It had very successful history
which made few of the renowned companies merge their ways in
building growth. Its stock traded more than $100 which
attracted many tenants’ from trendy and vibrant malls. Having
started selling goods in malls for the first time in 1893 founded
by Roebuck. In 1896 it started featuring a wide variety of items
from apparel to automobile. The increasing importance of the
company invited many brand launches through the years like
Kenmore appliances in1913 and Craftsman tool brand in 1927.

Adding a feather in its cap, it launched its first retail store in a
Chicago mail-order plant. Later in the coming years, sears had a
flourishing history with Allstate insurance offices inside sears
store and by 1945 it has seen a tremendous rise in its annual
sales. In 1973 it opened the world’s tallest building Sears’s
tower holding 110 floors. (Lochner, 2016)
C. Mergers and Acquisitions of the Company
In an $11 billion dollar deal merging Kmart which will give rise
to the third largest retailer in America, Sears’s holdings.
Chairman of Kmart also sears holdings Edward Lampert is
going to run both the retail houses, under his watch over the two
companies gave competition to each other reaching for the best.
He was successful in reaching his target in achieving better
efficiency, marginal scale and distribution, as the merger of the
companies were expected to bring around $500 billion annually.
Kmart made a tragic decision to cut costs close to Walmart’s
famous “everyday low price”, but by doing so, took on huge
losses and sold items well below cost. This resulted in a lack of
liquidity and the ending resulting in bankruptcy. Hedge funds
started studying the value of Kmart’s distressed assets, but none
had the capital nor the confidence to amass bonds. Lampert saw
synergistic opportunities with the M&A of Sears and Kmart. By
so doing, Sears would reach its target audience, while Kmart
would be expanding their business through Sears and attain a
more favorable cost structure. (Sandra, 2002)

D. Current Company Status
Recent reports made says that, acting head of sears automotive
Joe Finney is all set to make changes in the section, trying to
restructure the company to bring back its lost image and glory.
Over the last 5 years, Holdings’ net income has generally
declined due to falling gross margins and inability to reduce
selling, general, and administrative as quickly as revenues have
fallen. Gross margin has generally trended downward, fall ing
from 27.7% in 2007 to 25.5% in 2011, adjusted to exclude
onetime charges and non-operating income, has also trended
downward from 4.8% in 2007 to 0.7% in 2011. Accounting to
previous marginal scales and administration, considering what
suits best for customers and applying strategies in developing
with the customer needs is going to be the missions’ statement
to start the race. (Zielasko, 2012)
Problem Statement
The inefficiency of the organization in handling the issues like,
lack of proper knowledge on better investment plans,
insufficient experienced work team on retailing and
unsystematic departments and poor strategic communication
among employees brought about a significant financial burden
on the company. The analysis followed by the recommendatio ns
are a hope to bring about a positive impact on the economic
standards of the company.
Vision

The vision of the company is to overcome the drawbacks noted
and regain the lost recognition in retailing, as the nation’s
fourth largest American chain of departmental stores in
providing quality products and services with a blend of
technology and experience.
Analysis
The term analysis is defined as the process of breaking up a
concept, proposition, linguistic complex, or fact into its simple
or ultimate constituents (Robert Audi).
Philosophical analysis is a method of inquiry in which one
seeks to assess complex systems of thought by ‘analyzing’ them
into simpler elements whose relationships are thereby brought
into focus (Thomas Baldwin).
This paper is a report on SWOT and PESTEL analysis of
SEARS Company.
A. Why SWOT and PESTEL analysis is used?
SWOT analysis is important for knowing a company’s internal
strengths and weaknesses which help understand the internal
strategic framework, also it analyses the external factors like
opportunities and threats it has from the outside market.
PESTEL analysis is another important tool to analyze and
monitor the external market environment and categorize the
threats and opportunities that will have an impact on the
company’s performance. PESTEL analysis lays a groundwork
for assessing SWOT analysis.

B. PESTEL Analysis
Understanding the environment of a business requires
knowledge over key factors and trends in the current society.
This analysis gives classified informatio n of Political,
Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal
environments of a country effecting a company. The PESTEL
analysis of Sears Company is as follows:
Political:
In 2010, the United States Supreme Court announced several
long outstanding decisions restricting the political spending
activities. The Court’s decision made on Tillman Act of 1907
that first limited political spending in corporate section.
Establishment of the new rule where companies are allowed to
spend unlimited funds on individual expenditure to support or
not a candidate.
Sears Corporation’s spending policy on politics, allows the
company to support in political campaigns to help a candidate
get elected, also, The Company makes contribution to state
level candidates as well as state retailing communities. Sears
has contributed nearly $900,000 at state level and $237,000 to
527 associations since 2002 election cycle.
Economic:
Sears company has been and will have an effect by the
worldwide economic conditions; economic crisis leading to
failure of the economy, sustaining the market for recovery,

decline in consumer-economy levels and other prevailing
market conditions, including inflation, can lead to loss in
revenues and gross margins. Other external economic factors
include consumer and commercial credit availability, consumer
spending levels, inflation, employment, consumer debt,
fluctuating fuel costs and many more economical conditions.
These economic conditions have a huge negative affect on the
income levels, credit availability to customers, which leads to
decrease in demand for merchandise.
Social:
Sears Company employs majority population in United States
after its competitor Wal-Mart. According to survey in 2011,
Sears hold around 280,000 employees n United States and in
related territories. The company received a 100 percent rating
by Human Rights Campaign for maintain Corporate Equality
Index, in the year 2009 for the fourth time in a row, adding to
the success, it renounced for one of the Best Places to Work for
LGBT Equality, that was published by the Human Rights
Campaign, in 2009.
Technological:
Significant advancement in technology is a necessity in today’s
market, Nevertheless, to sustain the markets profitability and
competition keeping ahead with the technology is important in
this competitive environment. Sears Holdings in the beginning
of the e-commerce era failed to mark its brand due to lack of

online market strategy and poor website designing. New
interactive web sites provide driving tools giving customers a
voice to share ideas, interests and personal experiences in
making smarter purchasing decisions (Reuters, 2009). It has
started technology leadership development program (TLDP) for
the professionals. Corporation should focus on hiring the best
and brightest talent, and rapidly developing the staff for future
business leaders.
Environmental:
Sears Corporation has always been an active member in
environmental saving to reduce its impact on the society by
limiting the resources like the usage of water, recycling wastes
through recyclable products and bags, consuming solar energy
to reduce its usage on traditional energy sources. Company won
the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
National Building Competition in 2010 (EPA, 2010). The Sears
Full-line store located in Maryland is placed second in the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Legal:
Keeping track on the legal aspect of the external factors will
allow Sears and Kmart to focus on its company strategy without
unnecessary deviations. In the past records the company dealt
with jurisdiction liabilities with the acquisition companies.
Sears has to take better steps in extending their term goals and
clear acquisition records.

C. SWOT Analysis
It is a widely used technique, especially by managers to sort the
strengths and weaknesses persisting in a company, strength and
weakness of a company are calculated as internal factors, while
the threats and opportunities prevailing from the outside market
are considered external constraints. SWOT analysis for the
SEARS Company is as follows:
Strength:
Sears hold a strong retail market in the industry and made a
mark on its brand. It is the leading market in departmental
stores. Sears Corporation is the leading home appliance retailer
along with a huge share in tools, lawn and garden equipment,
consumer-demand electronics and automotive repair and
maintenance all over United States. The company’s key brands
include Kenmore, Craftsman and DieHard, also a broad apparel
share, extending its brands such as well- Lands' End, Jaclyn
Smith and Joe Boxer, also the Apostrophe and Covington
brands. It stands ninth in retailing in United States, enjoying
highest annual revenue leaving behind its greatest competitors
trailing Wal-Mart, The Home Depot, Costco, Target, CVS
Caremark, Walgreens, Kroger, and Lowe's. It is listed number
48 in the Fortune 1000 companies list. It extends its business
network in United States and Canada.
Weakness:
Lack of knowledge in investment plans has set a great drawback

for the duo after the merger of Kmart and the Sears, Roebuck
and Co. The Corporation has faced consistent declines in its
revenues. The year after its merger, the income plunged to 84%
from $858 million (Daniels, 2011). The cost cutting structure in
order to save the extra penny brought about a huge variation
that resulted for a net loss of $170 million at the end of the
April quarter. The haphazard department distribution and the
less skilled staff in retailing add to the drawback.
Opportunities:
Sears Corporation has its outlets spread over US, Canada and
Puerto Rico. There is a huge development in the yet to be
developed countries like China, Japan and India, where there
are numerous advantages in investing he business. These
markets show a great potential in the market growth and render
success to the companies operating at their places. Sears always
had an extending hand in improving its market, so business
operations carried at these markets, is likely to bring success to
the company. Present American market is booming in health
care related brands, Sears can think of extending the business in
health sector too, which will increase the company’s market
share. Sears almost have its share in all brands and labels, the
fact that, reorganizing the present assets and assess them for a
better monitoring and maintenance.
Threats:
In this fast growing technology, new companies are burgeoning

every now and there making the market flood with brands. For
obvious reasons globalization of the companies is bringing
competition in the markets. Local companies take a great deal in
setting their brand yet there are always threats from
international companies to take them over. The biggest threat
faced by Sears Corporation is the competition among the local,
national and international retail companies. Moreover, the
mergers and acquisitions are an internal threat to a company at
any given situation. Recession faced by the economy is another
threat to the market. Having a better understanding over the
company and the market strategy, will help sustain the threats.
Recommendations and Implementations
The recommendations suggested for the organization has been
identified after an effective research over the departments that
are being dragged down due to few problems in the respective
areas. Referring to the study on its downfall this paper lists out
the problems and recommended implementations for better
functioning of the store. The paper came up with three
sustaining problems that are list below, the recommended
problems are:
A. Lack of proper knowledge on better investment plans
B. Insufficient experienced work team on retailing and
unsystematic departments
C. Poor strategic communication among employees
The problems have three suggested implementations each for

every problem. Following these implementations will bring
about a positive change in the development of the organization.
Implementations for the Recommended Problems
A. Lack of proper knowledge on better investment plans:
Develop an understanding over the existing performance of the
company for a better investing plan. (Sandra, 2002)
i. Having Lack of industry knowledge and poor market strategy
stand important in making your future investments. First, one
has to know their own business standards as to where they stand
in the market, know your administration and marketing value. It
is very difficult for a single person to handle all the
departments, so list out the departments one can work better and
identify the sections in which help is needed , so that can assist
help in the respected areas. Second, maintaining your financial
record is important so that a person will have a better
knowledge as to how much one can invest and what should be
the return benefits for successful running of a company. Third,
investing all your money in a single place is trouble. Fourth,
Try reducing costs, invest in funds with low costs. Tiny
investments with a proper knowledge will make a big difference
overall. Finally, knowing your competitors adds to your
research on investment, gaining edge over them by knowing
your market value as a whole and with fragmented sections is
important. (Noreen, 2012)

ii. Along with knowledge of the present status of the
organization it is equally important to know the ergonomics of
the organization too. Ergonomics play a vital role in any
organization, besides that, due to the number of mergers and
acquisitions, ergonomics had its impact due to unstable
management. Establishing healthy cooperative approach,
understanding both sides’ perceptions, avoiding hostile
behaviors and making early agreements plans lay grounds for a
successful merger. (Kester, 2016)
iii. Above all, saving a room for regular expenses should be
monitored so they do not go out of control, eventually, having a
proper knowledge of the current status and better management
of the departments will give rise to accurate management in
savings department. Proper records over each and every
department, further, appointing heads to the individual
departments will make work more accessible and easy for
reviewing. This way, the faults in a department are known at the
very beginning stage of the product cycle which will reduce
cost in designing the whole product again. Also, the staff
movement within the departments and different stores (due to
mergers) give rise to unnecessary charges. (Beals, 2006)
B. Insufficient experienced work team on retailing and
unsystematic departments: Without knowing where the
company stands in the race for market place, there is little scope
that the organization hire employees with the required standards

needed. (Wallace, 2013)
i. Therefore, assessing the existing team and talent for the
requirements for cutting costs on unnecessary man power. The
already present staff will have a benefit over the ones that get
recruited, as they know the company better, it takes days to
know a work place, and so that waste of time can be calculated
along with the expenditure on hiring man force. Therefore,
assessing the present staff as to where they stand and getting to
know their needs so that they can serve better towards the
company. Appointing a head to each department and making
him know his staff’s problems or any technical skills that they
want to incorporate will have a better result. This way it makes
employees to know about his peer’s problem and will plan for
themselves in sorting the issue. Cutting costs on new
employment will reduce with minor expenditures like training
the present staff, replacing default machines and staff meetings.
(Ledimo, 2013)
ii. Now that the existing staff has been scrutinized, it makes it
easy to identify which department is lagging, so hiring
experienced work team for boosting crucial divisions is easier,
also maintaining articulated departments make work easy and
effective. Recruiting just the needed will reduce unnecessary
costs too. The overall staff management can now give a better
scope to the newly employed, in a way that they can assist with
little waste of time and can identify the faults quickly giving

way for better development in a better and faster way. (Young,
1964)
iii. Furthermore, assigning supportive teams for department
head is a beneficial backup to any organization at any point of
time. It makes the organization to reflect on the issues as fast as
possible, also, looking at an issue in different perspectives is
important in picking the right decision. Head of the department
must carry the qualities like assigning positions to relevant
staff, make the staff work towards a goal, reaching the goal
within the specified time constraint and most importantly, have
a good interaction with coworkers so they will not fall back and
motivating them to attain new enthusiasm towards work area.
(Danielsen, Valle & Stene, 2014)
C. Poor strategic communication among employees: Once the
required staff is elected and assigning heads to every
department, equally important is establishing friendly
atmosphere for the employees, and to attain this communication
strategies among employees have to be established.
(ANDERSON, 2013)
i. Motivating the staff and making them analyze the trends will
help bring back the lost commitment also sharing ideas from the
ground level workers at times help in upliftment of the
company. As described earlier, the head of the department has
to conduct group meeting where employees get to know each
other and share their experiences. Learning new advancements

will increase the enthusiasm, therefore, educating the employee
towards the latest trends in the economy which helps the
organization will bolster them in making work easy, as wel l as,
increase enthusiasm toward new technology. (Temminck,
Mearns & Fruhen, 2015)
ii. Work Groups and Teams in Organizations: It identifies key
issues needed among the work groups. A better understanding
towards team composition can serve as an effective tool in
selecting and forming effective teams. Procedures could be
designed to produce the optimal blend of employee
characteristics including hiring new staff or firing older ones,
training current workers. Although past work data provides us
with valuable information as to managing team composition and
working approach, a better solution can be adopted like, the
most skilled employee should be selected for the team. Focusing
on different levels is important in identifying combined team
responses that represent a broad range of disparate and complex
patterns of individual action, and are not simply the sum of the
responses of team members. Similarly, it is important to
determine when the responses of individuals are part of
combined team response, and when they are simply individual
responses. Finally, a key issue concerns how to represent
interactions of individual team members over time for higher
levels of analysis. (Zalesny et al., 1995)
iii. Furthermore, appreciation, recognition and credit reward

serve in maintaining a healthy employee-employee and owner-
employee relations. At the end of the day, any employee works
towards any of the three reasons, and these three are the driving
forces for an employee. Appreciation over good work and
rewarding them for their hard work is important in an employee
life cycle. (Hart, 2012)
Importance of the project to the company
This project gives an understanding over the issues and the
possible solutions recommended helps find faults in the
respective departments and articulates the need for
improvisations in their respective working structure. For
example, to overcome the problem in work force organization,
suggestions are given on communication between the decision
maker and all stages of the company. The recommendations are
significantly essential to an organization in today’s rapidly
changing, extremely competitive and global environment. The
managers in the organization should be in the front line in
implementing the recommendations so as it ensure their success
in the company
Projections and Benefits
i. Provide improved productivity and efficiency in the delivery
of services in the company.
ii. Effective communication allows for well-informed decision
making as well as employee motivation as they can air their

issues with the managers.
iii. Training of personnel increases their capability to handle
issues in the business as well as enhances their productivity and
efficiency.
Conclusion
The project gives a brief explanation of the problems faced by
the organization in different departments. The project also
offers recommendations and implementations steps through the
discussion. This study will also be helpful in understanding the
drawbacks in their company such as, where they are lagging
behind and how they can rectify thus scaling themselves for a
better performance position. Among the things discussed are
also analysis over the decision making factors which have an
influence on the success of the company, the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and threats through the SWOT
analysis and other global impacts through PESTEL analysis.
The paper also explains the challenges which helps with the
recommendations made and how they need to be implemented.
Eventually, companies could encourage improvement in
variation thus becoming more proficiency and profitable.
Based on the research, the future benefits of will be based on
the recommendations made. However, the recommendations
should be followed by implementations and use of the right
steps to implement. They are expected to bring enhancements of

its operational. This will create a good will in the long run and
employees will also feel motivated to work for the company. By
enhancing operational and technical services at the company,
the employees will feel motivated thus contributing to the
growth of the company. By following the above
recommendations and implementations, the company's
management efficiency will be strengthened, and revenue will
increase up to 2 million dollars, which is 30% within a span of
25 months.
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