Dude Electronics is a major producer of computers, defence electronics and consumer electronics. Several years ago, Dude’s management retrenched nearly two thousand employees and decided to drop its line of digital watches. At the time, company spokesperson states that these moves were part of Dude’s plans to restructure its business priorities. Industry analysis viewed the moves as a sign that Dude’s management systems had fallen apart, and competitors claimed that the company past marketing and technological improprieties were finally catching up with it.
Company insiders and former employers saw the moves as adjustments to a precision machine. In reality, the truth was somewhere in between. Dude was not changing its business priorities, for its goal remained to sell $15 billion of computers and defence and consumer electronics.
Technology is the key to Dude’s strategy, but management realised that it had to deal with costly failures. The failure to listen to the marketplace was the reason for Dude’s defeat in the digital watch business. In an aggressive selling campaign, Dude kept pushing the utility and low prices of its watches when consumer wanted more fashion and more features, Dude did not adapt its products to meet consumers’ demands.
As a company founded in technology, Dude tends to have an engineering orientation. Most managers have engineering, not business degrees. Management energies are often focused on the design and manufacturing processes rather than on consumers’ needs, Moreover, management has been unable to develop a long-term strategy that integrates the resources to design, make and bring a product to market. Executives frequently neglect to consider how much money it costs to market a new product until after I have been developed and produced.
1. Is Dude practising the marketing concept? Explain using examples from the case study
2. Describe Dude’s business philosophy. Is this appropriate in attracting more customers to the company
3. What changes might be necessary when Dude adopts the marketing concept? Justify using theory and examples from the case study? Please explain at least three changes and justify.