Parker Pen Company Essay

BackgroundGeorge Safford Parker founded Parker publish Company in 1892 in Janesville, Wisconsin. It began with the produceion of his premier fountain frame. Afterwards in 1894, Parker had its beginning major innovation the easy curve which consisted on reducing the leak caused in fountain pens. Parkers first merchandiseing approach was to produce high quality pens and amaze them render status symbols Parker pens were signers favorite, giving the companionship the first or second lay out humanitywidely.The confederation obtained this successful position due(p) to investigations and development by constantly innovating for the production of newfound products for instance with the basis of Quink quick drying ink, they produced the Parker 51 which became a bestseller and was catalogued as the most perfect pen ever produced. It gave the ships lodge $ cd million within 30 years. By the end of 1980 the parker pens were sold in over 150 countries. In 1987 the companys headq uarters was moved to Newhaven, East Sussex, England. Then in 1993 Parker was aquired by Gillette Company, which already give birthed the PaperMate spot. Then in 2000 Gillette sold the company to Newell Rubbermaid, and became the largest in the world owning composition products with brand names such as, Sharpie, Parker, PaperMate, Waterman and liquid Paper, among others.People involvedGeorge Parker the founderJames R. Peterson the president and chief operating officer of Parker PenPeterson has to deal with the compays problems, for instance instead of having over 40 publish firms he hired matchless that could do the job of all. Jack mark the head of writing instruments advertisingRichard Swart the foodstuffing vice president ahead entering Pen Parker, he worked for 3MCarlos Del Nero is Parkers manager of global marketing planning.Business involvedPen Parker CompanyGillette CompanyNewell RubbermaidThe U.K. appurtenantOgilvy & MatherMain problemParker Pen Company faced some herculean years where they were not obtaining as much revenues as expected. Therefore the company hired a new board of marketing directors seeking the instruction execution of new strategies for the company. The new board, which consisted of highly qualified wad, began their campaign by standardizing the products in a centralized system. This centralized system consists of abolishing plurality in the decision-making. The new system they adopted which was a world wide strategy caused the company more than $20 million in looses. Marketers didnt investigate therefrom gave the company a negative image in the market.Solution collect to the fact that the company was having some issues that was preventing the company to rise up, in 1985 the CEO was fired, moving the companys new system to a decentralised star. The company is now able to adapt to changes, it is able to adapt to the many cultural barriers existing around the world, creating different marketing plans for each earth with this, Parker regain their image in order to be able to position themselves in the market.Questions1.The globalization operation in the Parker pen company was a failure until major structural changes were implemented by James R. Peterson. Before thischange the company had misdirected its efforts to globalize its operations, many key maneuvers were ignored and this take to a close to bankruptcy status which was neer in the companys plans. Basic rules of globalization for any company state that an all-inclusive interrogation of the potential market has to be done, and genuinely thoroughly. investigating the market conditions in not enough, political, legal, social and cultural aspect have to be at the top of the list to ensure that the strategies will b potent and that consumers will respond positively to the strategies implemented. This was one of the subjects that Parker pens failed to do, they just relied on a weak currency that allowed impertinent markets to purchase Amer ican-made products, this would only last until the U.S. buck lost its acquisitive value.Another reason why their globalization process failed was because they broke another fundamental rule, they didnt centralize their operation and gave creative and operational autonomy to all of their branches. This caused a great loss of corporate identity and became a big problem at the most overcritical time since a different solution was to be presented for each one of the subsidiaries.2.The problem that Parker pen had in its globalization process was spawned form miscalculations or lack of vision in very key areas. The first thing which globalization promoters at the Parker Company underestimated was the strength and shock of the changing market. They never considered that economic and political conditions would vary in such a mode that their overseas operations would collapse in such a way. They relied on a very strong dollar which made it easy for foreign costumers to purchase their p roducts, making this their most heavy income source. By overlooking this important event they drove themselves into an awkward position where they had low sales internally and over autonomous subsidiaries with a large stock and no market share at all.The other factor that they failed to consider seriously beforehand engaging in such a risky entrepreneurship was the fact that they were existent in a time when Chinese massive production was starting to flood the markets with cheaper and more convenient products, at a point where people demandedcheaper product due to a volatile economy and political fictitious charactericular. Their product line depth and width were very impressive with over 400 different product, they had a solid portfolio but nothing to compete nowadays with the mass produced pens coming from China. They relied on their traditional products and their traditional distribution channels, in which they were losing their entire market share as well.3.The Parker pen company is one on thousands of models that can be quoted as being merged with a bigger company this is an inherent condition of globalization as an economic phenomenon. Like everything else that is involved in globalization, this specific case of being acquired by a bigger company has its upside and its downside. For a company alike parker that had a considerably large operation worldwide, the negative things are lesser important than the positive things. The main negative factors that this could have are for example a possible loss of the companys issue how. By having to accommodate to another companys rules and methods, Parker could have lost its own knowledge of the business, this is a very precious commodity in the world today and its hard to maintain it when a company has to become an active part of another one.Uniting Parker pens to Gillette and Rubbermaid could also trigger a dangerous situation amongst the employees, changing cities and managers has a very large impact of the moral of the employees since they begin to lose their company identity which is another valuable commodity that companies cannot afford to lose since it is one of the main incentives that the workers have. Identity wrong the company is just as important as identity immaterial it, if a merger like this means that there will be changes implemented in the companys image it could trigger a loss of costumers or even a major shift in the place that the company has in terms of top of mind.The benefits that this situation could bring upon a company are several and of great importance. In the case of Parker pens, a company with a very important level of recognition worldwide, joining a larger enterprise would imply turnout its market share globally, by having better, bigger and more distribution channels, allowing them to transcend new costumers which is a very difficult thing to do in the world today. A big name behind a brandmeans more resources, this in turn means more explore for product development, more advertisement, more promotional strategies, better market research with a finer degree of segmentation and every other application that would help a company to better its self. Another very important thing is the support that Parker pens would have by being part of the Rubbermaid holding, this makes it easier to innovate and take risks, it also transmits a sense of safety to the costumer, they know that being part of the worlds leader in writing instruments does not come easy, so trusting Parker pens is something they can and should do.