Overview of Toshiba’s product lines and innovations

Toshiba is one of the leading electronic companies of Japan, who deals with different  product line in international market. The reputation of the company and their business expansion came into news long before the new competitors had emerged (Salah 2015). The values their products and customers’ trust trembled in recent few years, where the international business arena was curtailed in a decreasing manner and business of Toshiba get huge threat from the market. In this scenario, strength and weakness of the company is the major concern  for evaluating the mistakes and determine the problem situation faced by the company in last few years.

• Toshiba is the leading power transmission and distribution company in the global market. They have supplied their power energies in a different technologies’ sector in all over the world. Good amount of revenue thus earned by that process and that help the companies’ infrastructure to grow.
• Toshiba spends most of their sales revenue in research and development sector so that qualities of the product will satisfy customers’ desire.
• Toshiba got patented a large number of their products in America, a huge profit can be earned through this nation. 300 billion dollars has been invested by the company in R&D to get 2500 patent  in the US (co.jp 2017). The company is considered as the technological leader at this time, however, in case of modern product innovation and marketing arena, the company is lagging behind.  
• The company has diversified range of  electronic products which enhances the revenue  level of the company. The product portfolio is huge for the company and electrical and computer accessories are the most important products among them.
• The brand value of the company is essential also for an extended stretch in the international market. In terms of the global brand standard published by Forbes, the company is ranked in 727 of all global products (co.jp 2017).
• Consistent marketing performance is the main USP for the company and that will help in case of promoting the company in large scale and delivering the quality products for customers.
• The company is re-branding their business opportunities and eliminating risks in the global nuclear power business. Toshiba Nuclear Energy Holding (UK) process deconsolidated 2016 full year results and that encouraged business options for Toshiba to formulate the process in a safe way.

• Toshiba energy concentration rate is very less and the company does not manufacture green machines. The concept of the green machines lies in the less consumption of energy and more productiveness from this energy, but Toshiba is not able to meet that prospect that the US wants from that (co.jp 2017). The management considers this fact as one of the major drawbacks for them but the infrastructure needed for changes this entire setup is not affordable for the management of Toshiba.
• The financial debt is a big concern for the company and that will downgrade the financial aspect as well as the market value of the company. In case of Japan and US, Toshiba is facing some debt issues so new strategic implementations will be needed for the development of the financial aspect of the company.
• The stagnant company growth since last few years is noticed in their revenue process and the sales growth aspect. The income flow is not constant also and that is the reason revenue is not generating in a right manner.
• Toshiba needs to perform as a whole, which is not attainable by them. There are some sections in Toshiba, which are doing their level best to achieve the target and other sectors are mere spectators in that case as they are not generating enough review for the company.
• Transformation of products innovation are not addressed in a relevant way and company like Toshiba, this is an unsatisfactory factor for the company to positioning themselves in the market.
• The company has a limited market share and shareholders are not investing their money in new projects and for that reason, Toshiba is facing problem in total equity and assets. Drop down in asset and equity continues in 2016 and 2017 also and these figures will be impacted by the company’s revenue and market involvement process (co.jp 2017).

Toshiba has different sections of products and services like semiconductor, social infrastructure, home appliances, computer hardware, lighting, office equipment, medical equipment, elevators and escalators, and electronics. All these sections are controlled by the parental company Toshiba. Some of the new products are also coming in the market like Fujitsu Toshiba IS12T smartphone, Toshiba Super Color Vision screen use and some ultrasound equipment and x-ray equipment’ all these are new innovations for Toshiba. They have invested their money for electricity turbines, nuclear reactors, and fuel cells (Toshiba.co.jp 2017). Power transmission process and distribution system are the prime aspects of the company and that is the reason they have concentrated their technological research and development as well.

However, the promotion and trust form the people are not quite effective towards the company and the products and services are lagging in downturn rate (Stark 2015). Cash flow and growth in revenue all are lagging behind and other companies are taking this advantage to promote their brand and provide quality service to people. Some of the digital products are coming from them are very good in quality but the market for their innovation has got a threat by other competitor companies (Trappolini 2014). The target market is not recognized by the company and that will set them back for another few years to come back on the track of success.

Sony, Olympus, and Hitachi are from the same industry; still, they are doing their business in an effective way. Market economy and targeting the right people with the innovation is the correct way of transforming the business. The sense of competition examined by the management also and Toshiba also get neglected by people for this reason (Tukker and Tischner 2017). Localize companies and international companies both segregate Toshiba’s market and as the company is not doing enough business in last few years people are not involving with the company in that manner. Some of the electronic goods with high specifications are sold at reasonable prices. In this modernize culture, people love to see innovation from the company and continuo lack and affecting arenas are persisted in this sector of Toshiba (Miyazaki and Nishida 2015).  Fujitsu Limited, NEC Corporation, Texas Instruments, Accenture, Dell, Samsung, Apple, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, and Smart Global Holding are the extensive competitors of Toshiba.

Reputation and revenue generation challenges faced by Toshiba

These companies are doing business as they are genuinely leading towards the innovation. Toshiba has the tagline associated with the innovation but the company is lagging behind in terms of fulfilling the tagline vision (Prasetyo and Purwantini 2017). Less revenue generation is the outcome of this process and that will highlight the market position of the company in terms of revenue.  

4P’s of marketing strategy needs to be implemented by Toshiba so that they can gain a better position in this competitive market. Product, Place, Price, and Promotion are the four important strategies need to be followed by Toshiba.

At first, product strategy needs to be changed for Toshiba so that customers’ can re-gain their attraction towards those products (Kew and Stredwick 2016). Innovative storage system and device solution of Toshiba are the key factors that will enhance the market position of the company. Infrastructure system and energy consumption strategy need to take by the company so that product will be high on quality and that encourage the production growth rate as well.

Headquarter of Toshiba is in Tokyo, Japan and they have a good field in the US as well. However, the company has to cover the entire Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East and Africa for their enhancement of production (Toshiba.co.jp 2017). R&D process needs to be strong so that company can enhance their productive policy as well. E-commerce facility and retail outlet process are the main placing strategy that they need to formulate.

Pricing strategy is another important strategy that focuses on the quality of product and attaining customer s’ trust from that product. As for the situation of Toshiba, they need to implement low pricing strategy at the time of the re-starting their business (Fossum 2013). After the initial time has gone then they have to move in favor of price skimming strategy, where some of the products that launched by them will be more efficient in terms of innovation, must contain high price. The pricing strategy is important for company’s growth, thus it needs to be executed in a proper manner.

Promotional strategy is the last strategic change that needs to be introduced by Toshiba. A brand campaign like “Bring Life Forward” is a business to a business promotional strategy where e-marketing promotional activities are done by Facebook, Twitter, snapdeal, Flipkart, amazons and other online portals. Rugby world cup 2015 was organized by Toshiba and these promotional activities are important for Toshiba to bring them back on track where the company can make a suitable balance in growth and revenue generation (Toshiba.co.jp 2017).

References

Fossum, E.R., 2013. Camera-on-A-chip: Technology transfer from saturn to your cell phone. Technology & Innovation, 15(3), pp.197-209.

Kew, J. and Stredwick, J., 2016. Human resource management in a business context. Kogan Page Publishers.

Miyazaki, K. and Nishida, K., 2015. Technology strategies of the main actors and the strategies towards standards: the case of the diffusion of smart houses in Japan.

Prasetyo, E.T. and Purwantini, S., 2017. An influence analysis of product quality, brand image, and price on the decision to buy toshiba laptop (A Study on Students of Economics Faculty of Semarang University). Economics and Business Solutions Journal, 1(2), pp.11-18.

Salah, K., 2015, December. A SWOT analysis of TSV: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. In Microelectronics (ICM), 2015 27th International Conference on(pp. 214-217). IEEE.

Stark, J., 2015. Product lifecycle management. In Product Lifecycle Management (Volume 1) (pp. 1-29). Springer, Cham.

Toshiba.co.jp 2017 Annual Report retrieved from:  https://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/ir/en/finance/ar/ar2017/tar2017e_or.pdf [Accessed on 12th March, 2018]

Trappolini, D., 2014. A Tale of Three Companies: The Survival Strategies of Sony, Hitachi, and Canon. In Case Studies in Asian Management (pp. 119-145).

Tukker, A. and Tischner, U. eds., 2017. New business for old Europe: product-service development, competitiveness and sustainability. Routledge.