Matsushita Electric

This research analyzes Matsushita Electric Industrial Company, Ltd. from the perspective of strategic management. Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Ltd. is headquartered in Japan. The company manufactures and markets video and audio equipment, home appliances, communication and industrial equipment, and electronic components. Major subsidiary companies include (1) America Matsushita Electronics Corp., (2) Matsushita Avionics Development Corp., (3) Matsushita Electric Corporation of America, and (4) Matsushita Refrigeration Company of America. Matsushita Electric Corporation of America is a (1)wholesaler of electrical appliances and electronic parts and (2)a manufacturer of radio and television equipment. Matsushita Electric's major consumer brands are Panasonic and Quasar.

Matsushita's company vision, mission, and culture are reviewed in the following discussion. This review is followed by considerations of (1) the company's strategic dimensions, (2) a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, and (3) a strategic reassessment.

Company Vision, Mission, and Culture

For most of Matsushita's 75-year history, the company did not have an integrated business vision (Ghoshal & Mintzberg, 1994, p. 14). Rather, Matsushita's primary mission was growth, as "mandated in the 250-year plan that the then 37-year-old founder expressed in 1932 when the company was only 14 years old and 160 emp

. . .
g up dramatically. Whole industries may be about to disappear from Japanese soil. Following in their slipstream are component manufacturers, many of whom had hitherto stayed in Japan. For those who worry about such developments, exhibit one is the television industry. Last year, for the first time, Japanese manufacturers made more colour televisions overseas than in Japan. By 1998, reckons the Industrial Bank of Japan, almost 80% of televisions made by Japanese firms will be manufactured offshore" (Fade, 1995, p. 79). Such a turn of events would be unwelcome news for such Matsushita's Panasonic television factory in Utsunomiya, as the plant in 1994 "turned out 1.84m TVs·or just under 2% of the 98.9m televisions sold around the world and only slightly below the factory's 1991 production peak. But Yasuaki Konishi, the plant superintendent, who has been there since it opened in 1967, says he has never known business to be so tough. The competitors that worry Mr Konishi are not so much Japanese rivals such as Toshiba or Sony·or even Korea's Goldstar and Samsung, whose cheaper TVs sell well in Japan's discount stores. Rather, they are Matsushita's other Panasonic TV factories"·in Wales, in Tijuana, Mexico, and in Malaysia (Fad
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Approximate Word count = 3397
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)

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