Sony Ericsson joint venture

One of the terms covered in the eighth chapter of the book “Collaboration Strategies” is Joint Venture. After reading some literature about this topic I was able to update myself with it and find that it is a very common business procedure that is being used for at least 30 years.
I good example of this type of alliance can be found on this article that talks about the situation between Sony and Ericsson who decided to Joint Venture creating Sony Ericsson to move into the Smartphone market. There were rumors that Sony may consider buying out Ericsson's stake in the joint venture, which has in recent years struggled with a sharp drop in market share and revenue.
This model differs from the Commercial Society, for the fact that both companies involved in a Joint Venture do not lose their legal status. These partnerships may well be dissolved soon after the completion of the project. Many companies use this tool, for example, market penetration, to join their quality or develop new technology.
It was interesting reading this article in the way it illustrate how big companies implements this business strategy and sometimes especially as a costumer it is hard for us to identify the benefits of it (cost, accessibility).

The link:
http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=458753

What is strategy?

Our chapter is Defining the Organization’s Strategic Direction, but before that step there is a very important point that many business owners fail to understand which is have a clearly vision of what strategy is. I found a video called “What is strategy?” on youtube where Michael Porter during a lecture in London explains what strategy is. The most important thing that caught my attention in this video is how companies confuse strategy with goals, objectives and other issues. It was great to find this video because it completes our book information’s and you start to look at some steps taken by organizations from a different perspective.

Continuing with defining organizations strategic direction, we can say that since the development of the five forces by Porter, it became a crucial framework for the industry analysis and business strategy development. In other words, it can help evaluate the behavior of organizations identifying their competitive position in the sector in which it operates.

The video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibrxIP0H84M

Timing of Entry

The fifth chapter talks about timing of entry and the author gives us a number of advantages and disadvantages of entering the market early, late or as a pioneer. While I was reading some articles around this subject, I was concern about what we should consider as a disadvantage or as a well elaborated business strategy created and adopted by innovative companies.
A great example to help describe this issue is Apple first mover Ipad. Despite the great success in sales and consumer acceptance for the new product, Apple received several critics about Ipad’s performance. Based on some of these critics I decided to research more about this product and try to understand what was happening to a company like Apple that we are used to see always a step over the competition. That’s when I found this article titled “Are iPad's Limitations Design Decisions?” where the author explains which decisions were strategic toward the future of personal computer and the ones that so far seems to be product limitations.
What I could learn from this article is that there are a few companies that have the ability to commit mistakes or delay some actions in order to take future advantages of it. They have the knowledge capable to use some errors as part of their business strategy.

The link:
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?994